When I was diagnosed with two types of malignant cancer in 2024 it pretty well stopped me in my tracks.

There were tests, scans, biopsies, more scans, and finally surgery followed by radiation treatment, not to mention a two year course of drugs which caused most of the symptoms of menopause.

Long story short: I am still here but I was off work for while.

Of course, during that time I did a lot of thinking and I came to a few important conclusions:

  • There is no point staying in a situation you don't want to be in - if you have a choice.
  • I don't have time to deal with idiots.
  • I don't have time to faff around trying to make a point by stealth.
  • Most real estate companies charge too much

So it was while having thoughts like these that I decided to complete my Real Estate Agent's ticket : Most 'agents' are, in fact, salespersons (Level 4 qualification). Then there are 'Branch Managers' (Level 5). Then there are 'Agents' (Level 6). Every real estate agency has to have an 'agent' at the helm.

In amongst all the medical drama the course work took 18 months to complete.

Then about 10 months ago my son, who is a concept artist living in Berlin, said I should try using an AI coding assistant - I am a self-taught coder and have been active at that for around 15 years.

Up to that point I hadn't really thought about using AI. My viewpoint was that I have a perfectly good brain and there was no need for me to add to global warming by running my own thoughts past a computer in a data centre. I tried it though and, like, I suspect, most others who try it, was astonished.

My first creation was a simple game called 'Dog' - this is a game my family plays on long car journeys. I'd like to take the credit for its invention but the truth is nobody can remember who came up with it.

I wrote a detailed description of the game and its rules and fed that into an AI programming assistant (Open AI) and within minutes I was playing it.

Amazing.

Then I thought, "If I can do that in a morning, what could I do in a month?"

At that time I was looking at content created by a guy called Daniel Priestly, of course he is pushing his own products (aren't we all?) but I think he makes a lot of sense. His point about AI coding assistants was something like "If you could have a team of the best and fastest coders in the world who would work 24 hours a day for the same price as your phone bill - why wouldn't you?"


So - 10 months later - mynzhome.com is up and running. I completed my first sale six weeks ago, I've got 3 listings, and am actively looking for more


Sure, I could have written all the code myself but it would have taken me 20 years and there are several reasons why that's not feasible. And, to be honest, I probably couldn't write the code myself; Clive (my assistant) is a MUCH better coder than I ever was and he writes error catching code and test suites which I always found very boring and usually skimmed over.

I should add that very early on in the piece some things I learned about Open AI prompted me to changed to Anthropic - where I have been more than happy ever since.


mynzhome.com - fully licensed NZ real estate agency charging a flat fee of $10,000 including GST & marketing.