Young gun wants to pay your mortgage
Marty Murchison, 29, bought his first house at 20, and now wants to offer a helping hand to a first-home buyer. Colleen Hawkes reports.
Forget university. Young Christchurch entrepreneur Marty Murchison left Christ’s College at the end of Year 13 and just wanted to get stuck into ‘‘real work’’. And what he has achieved by the age of 29 is nothing short of remarkable – all the more so having been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome four years ago.
Murchison, who now owns a fast-growing homebuilding company, saved for his first home from day one, and bought it at the age of 20 while earning a mere $30,000 a year.
Now, he is in a position to build a $479,000 threebedroom house in Ravenswood for a young couple or individual, and he’s prepared to pay their mortgage for a year in return for the owner(s) opening the house to the public for a few hours, for three weekends every month. But more on that later.
So, how does an 18-year-old save for a house and why would someone so young have that focus?
‘‘It didn’t seem unusual to me to be saving for a house,’’ Murchison says. ‘‘I have always thought it one of the basic fundamentals of life. You go out and earn money to get a home so you have a base from which you can create your life.
‘‘But, yeah, I had a couple of cars and a motorbike at an early age and I had to sell everything. I lived on mashed potato and rice for a few years.
‘‘Now, I am lucky enough to be able to buy a coffee every day, but back then a visit to a cafe was not in the budget.’’
While he saved, Murchison flatted with a mate in an uninsulated cottage where he paid $70 a week. ‘‘It was the cheapest, most affordable place I could find.’’
And he worked at a variety of agriculture-based jobs. ‘‘One of the worst jobs I had was cleaning out manure from under the woolshed. One day my dad asked my why I had a big smile on my face and I said, ‘Because I’m happy.’ And I was, even though I was literally doing the most s... job ever.’’
First home at 20
Murchison’s first house cost him a mere $160,000 in 2010, because no-one else wanted it. ‘‘It leaked through the roof and there were holes in the walls.
‘‘It didn’t smell all that good and was on the main road. But it was a 1960s house with the right structure. I had watched my mother renovate old farmhouses and make them beautiful, and I set out to do that, too.’’
He secured two flatmates for the two spare rooms to provide a tax-free income that contributed to his mortgage.
But this entrepreneur is never one to stand still. Having renovated his first home, he sold it and went on to do the same with two more houses.
‘‘I just did them one at a time. I would rather see every Kiwi in one house, than one Kiwi own 10 of them,’’ he says.
And that altruism characterises Murchison’s attitude to life and the work culture he has cultivated at his company, Murchison Homes, which he set up in 2016, aged 26.
Knocked by illness
A diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome in 2015 stopped him in his tracks. ‘‘I became unwell while I was working as a technical field officer for Farmlands, and it was a dream job,’’ he says.
‘‘But I had a terrible balance in my life and had to leave the job and spend a year focusing on recovery. I am now a big ambassador for meditation, and have learnt how to have a good diet, and the importance of friends and family.’’
Murchison re-evaluated his life and decided what he really enjoyed was residential building. ‘‘It was getting harder to find properties to renovate, and I thought building a new house was a good way to create a better end product.’’
To acquire the right skills, he offered his labour free to several companies in return for ‘‘learning on the job’’.
These included a roofing company, a painting company and builder.
‘‘That’s how I learnt to build a deck,’’ he says. He also learnt a lot from a job as territory manager for Eurosteel, which supplies reinforcing steel to the residential sector. ‘‘It was a great way to build up knowledge of the industry. I got to learn so much from so many people.’’
Initially, Murchison’s company built one spec home at a time, but now all the builds are for clients, and he has six houses on the go at any one time. ‘‘We complete 12 homes a year, and next year we will complete 25.’’
Free mortgage for a year
One of those houses will be offered to a young couple or individual looking to buy their first home. Murchison is inviting people to apply for a free mortgage for a year, an initiative called The Great Build Up.
‘‘There are no restrictions or exclusions, except the people need to be energetic, excited and good communicators,’’ he says.
‘‘I want them to be able to share their experience with open homes in the weekends. There will be no salespeople, just the owner(s) letting people come through and see their home.’’
The successful applicants will have one
‘‘I had a couple of cars and a motorbike at an early age and I had to sell everything. I lived on mashed potato and rice for a few years.’’
Marty Murchison, above
weekend ‘‘off’’ every four weeks for a year. In return, Murchison will pay their mortgage to the value of $25,000. ‘‘That is based on a 10 per cent deposit on the $479,000 house, some of which will probably be acquired through KiwiSaver and other first-home buyer grants available.’’
Murchison says he got the idea from opening his own home as a show home. ‘‘It works really well to be the owner showing people through.
‘‘When I was setting up my business, I visited lots of show homes and was always pounced on by pushy salespeople. I didn’t like that environment.
‘‘The young couple or person buying this house won’t have to sign anyone up. They just need to talk about their own experience.’’
The house will be in Ravenswood, north of Christchurch, and will be finished to a high standard of specification.
Work culture
Murchison acknowledges that one of the most challenging aspects of his growing business has been finding the right workers, but he has succeeded. ‘‘They all know our culture – everyone supports one another. It’s about the fundamentals. We all say good morning to each other and we keep things clean and tidy.
‘‘I encourage good communication and have regular meetings where people can talk about anything that is bothering them, including mental health issues. They know I am vulnerable myself, and that helps people open up.’’
And it’s not surprising to hear Murchison say he mentors two young boys who wandered up the driveway five years ago while he was building. They were aged 5 and 3 and they wanted to help.
‘‘I said ‘sure, but I’d better go and talk to your mum first’. And I did, and we spent the afternoon building things. The next day they were back.’’
Murchison has since helped out at a school camp and become a rugby coach for one of the boy’s teams, and he loves it.
And for this entrepreneur, there is a (brief) time to reflect. ‘‘I do feel like I’ve packed a hell of a lot in,’’ he says. ‘‘But I believe it is how you grow forward from those knocks in life that’s important.’’