“I grew up around property. My mother was one of the first female presidents of a chapter of the New Zealand Property Investors Association. At 18, my bookshelf was full of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Bob Jones on property.”
After qualifying as an electrician, Darren launched his own electrical business before pivoting to retail with a sports store, then scaling to a car dealership. When COVID hit, forcing the closure of his automotive business, Darren and his wife relocated to Australia, where he transformed his property expertise into a specialised agency.
Rather than competing in the crowded investment property space, Darren identified an underserved market: New Zealanders relocating to Australia. He created content addressing relocation challenges, building a following across multiple platforms, including a podcast and TikTok channel with over 12,000 followers.
“I had all these people ask me about moving to Australia. It dawned on me, well, they all have to live somewhere. Why don’t I just focus on them?”
Darren maintains a lean operation with minimal overheads, focusing on exceptional service rather than rapid expansion. He’s built strong relationships with key referral partners, particularly mortgage brokers who now exclusively refer clients to him.
“BAI gave me the advantage of taking accelerated education. It’s such an acceleration you can have if you can learn properly from someone.”
Looking ahead, Darren plans to carefully scale his business while developing digital products to generate passive income through educational content for relocators.
“You can do anything like this on your own, but do you want it to take years, or do you just want to have the ability to go bang, bang, bang, done?”
