Sports enthusiast channels his winning approach into his broker role
With a passion for sport, Lee Scroggie (pictured) started out coaching primary school children, but when he decided to switch careers to potentially earn more, he found a profession in the mortgage industry that aligned with his competitive sporting nature.
“I loved every sport there is under the sun really,” said Scroggie, reflecting on his early years. “My big two at the time, which not only did I enjoy, but I was good at, were football and athletics. So, naturally, that’s where I went from school, to become a sports coach. I did that for a year, working in a primary school – I loved it. But, I had an epiphany in terms of looking down the road a little bit with my career, and where I wanted to go, financially, and what I wanted to earn. Being a sports coach wasn't quite matching up with my long term goals and where I want to be. So, then I started looking at different sectors - and one which was always of interest was finance. One of my strong points throughout school was maths. It was the one of my subjects other than sport in which I really flourished - that was always a big plus for me.”
Scroggie’s mother mentioned to him that one of her friends was doing very well as a mortgage broker. “I thought that could be a good career for me,” he recalled, explaining how he started doing his research, and secured a role as a trainee mortgage adviser. “I didn't even know much about what a mortgage was, so I really learned on the job,” he explained. “Once I started getting into it, I just, loved the job to be honest with you. It gave me what I like to do, which is helping people in a big moment in their life, whether it comes to first-time buyers buying their first property, or a remortgage where someone might be looking to save money or raise money to try to make a home improvement. It’s having the flexibility to work with different stakeholders, realise what they're looking for, and what they want – and it's giving them the advice they need to get to that next stage of their lives. It's really fulfilling when they thank you for the service you have given them, because it means you're doing your job well and you've made someone's life less stressful.” He added: "I believe that as a mortgage broker, the two things that you're really offering is taking away stress from people and trying to make sure that you're giving them the right solution.”
Now aged 27, Scroggie’s eight year career in the mortgage profession has involved working with a diverse clientele, ranging from first-time buyers to high-net-worth individuals, including working for Knight Frank Finance. His longest service has been with Richmond-based Holbrook Property Finance, over two stints – he returned there in 2024 after a few years away. “Throughout my career so far, I have very much tried to incorporate a competitive edge,” he said. “I'm constantly trying to make sure that I'm getting more five star Google reviews.”
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Overcoming career challenges – and learning lessons
What, then, have been the biggest challenges Scroggie has faced so far? “The two biggest challenges are probably external, and that was COVID and the mini-budget,” he said. “They hit at two times where my career was starting to really get going and it took a bit of a hit and slowed it down. It was a case of knuckling down and making sure that I was doing my job to a high standard. I believe that as long as you do that, you'll come out of it at the other end, and be reciprocated.
“The biggest business lesson I’ve learned one is to be resilient, and the easiest way to be resilient in any type of market is to make sure that you're doing the correct things all of the time, because that's what will separate you from the rest when things do get tough. Make sure you're giving that top quality service. It’s a case of looking forward and making sure that anything that you maybe feel you could have done slightly better, that you just implement it into whatever you're doing now, rather than looking back and regretting anything.”
The market currently is ‘stickier’, to use Scroggie’s term. “What I mean by that is there's a lot of vendors who are maybe putting their properties onto the market higher than they should be, realistically, because they might potentially need those extra funds to help with that onwards purchase. We're also seeing buyers trying to get the best deal physically possible. One of them needs to give - so it is creating a very sticky market in terms of getting things moving at the moment.”
Scroggie is about to complete on the purchase of his first property, with his girlfriend, which is a good learning exercise for him, getting firsthand experience of the first-time buyer journey. “It's probably opened my eyes up a little bit,” he said. “It's highlighted how slow the home buying process is at the moment. It's quite painfully slow - it needs to speed up somehow. So, it gives me even more empathy - it’s like anything in life, once you've lived it yourself, you can properly relate to it.”
