Broker with a passion for music, art and food, shares how his working role gives him a creative outlet
Think of a creative and you might easily imagine an artist or a musician - well, Dan Gracie (pictured) has shown flair in both areas, starting out in his adult life by doing a degree in fine art, but also developing an interest in singer-songwriting, that still endures. Yet now, day to day, Gracie feels creatively fulfilled as a mortgage broker, specialising in complex cases.
“I wanted to be an illustrator,” he said, reflecting on his early years. “I didn't have any plans at all, and I stumbled through. I went to a grammar school that told you to follow your best subject to the nth degree, which I did, and that was art and design. I went to art school, tried to focus on illustration, but I ended up hating it.
“I cooked my way through university for a living. I came out of education working in a kitchen, with a role that had a fancy title - a head chef in posh city bars - and almost no income. I went to a recruitment agent who put me into an estate agency, which went well for a little while and then I moved into the finance side, quite naturally.”
He continued: “I think there are personality traits which you can choose to use in whatever you're doing. I have creative outlets and I'm very creative in my work. So, quite a few years ago now, I moved away from mainstream mortgages. I still do them, but I come about them accidentally sometimes. I'm not a sizest mortgage broker in the slightest, but I do aim at complexity that allows me to be very, very creative with solutions.”
Gracie like to secure finance for those borrowers who have been discouraged elsewhere. “I generally find solutions for people who have been told there isn't one,” he said, “normally for good reasons, not bad – i.e., their income's good, but it's too complex for someone to understand without an extra layer of decent presentation in there, and lots of foreign issues, such as foreign currency, foreign self-employment, and a lot of foreign assets. The more complex it gets, the more interesting I find it - and the more creative I can be in finding a solution.” He added: “I absolutely love my job. Every day is different, every client is different and that's largely why I've moved further and further into complexity. I never feel like I'm just repeating what I did yesterday, or in the last case.”
With 18 years in financial services under his belt, working for a high street lender, a private bank, a panel of lenders, and within whole of market brokering, Gracie is now established as specialist lending director at Panthera Finance LLP, focused on creating bespoke solutions for clients, and building a long-term relationship with them. “I get to know these clients,” Gracie explained. “I remember them, they remember me and I see them again and again over the years. At Panthera, we’re a collection of experience individuals. We work together and we work individually, so whenever anybody needs a steer on something, you've got me on complexity, you've got various colleagues on high net worth, on commercial, on bridging. We each specialise in something slightly different and steer each other whenever needed.”
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Moving from mainstream to complex mortgages
Gracie believes the biggest challenge of his career was moving from mainstream to complex mortgages. “It's a very, very difficult shift,” he observed. “It's a totally different mindset. You move away from trying to find the easiest, simplest solution for all involved, yourself included, into embracing any manner of complexity. And presenting the answers back to complex clients with confidence takes time; speaking to clients who have been burned or let down or told they couldn't have a mortgage, to confidently assure them that it's worth paying me to take this forward for them. It's not easy unless you know you can. I present to clients with absolute confidence, but it's taken time. Each firm I've worked with have taught me something very, very significant and built my confidence.”
What, then, has been the best business lesson he had ever learned? “I hear the voice of a former colleague, and boss and mentor, in my head every single day, saying ‘Get it right first time’. A complex mortgage comes with a complex process. It's very, very time consuming. If you get it wrong, you've just wasted, at best, hours of your own and your client's time - at worst, months of your own and your client's time. Once the client commits, I go into full research at the outset, putting hours and hours into research for clients who have now said they'll go ahead with me, and then I present back a solution.”
After what Gracie views as a very quiet first quarter, he sums up the market, currently as ‘exciting and busy’, but acknowledges a client mindset. “In the first quarter with everything that was going on, there was still constant talk about rates plummeting, which they haven't done,” he said. “I think lots of people waited throughout the first quarter, and now they're either fed up with waiting, or they're happy enough that no major change is about to hit. I've had four people confirm today that they want to move forward with solutions I've presented them - that's as many cases as I need to work on in a week. I think it's an exciting market, with people finding opportunity, looking at opportunity, and looking for creative solutions to improve what they have.”
Does he every regret not pursuing the more conventionally creative interests from his youth? “I sold a piece of guitar equipment to a professional musician recently and he said he envied me,” Gracie shared. “He couldn't remember the last time he had picked up a guitar, out of pleasure rather than obligation. Every time I pick up one of my guitars, it's for pleasure. Every time I cook a meal, it's to relax, and to do something for someone I love. I'm very lucky I have hobbies I'm invested in.”
Gracie still explores his musical side as a folk-based singer-songwriter. You can hear his folk rock-influenced album, About Time, here – it’s worth checking out.
