BDM questions whether a degree is so beneficial in the current market
He’s been to university himself and has achieved success within the financial services industry, but property finance specialist Simon Michael (pictured) doesn’t believe that pursuing a degree is necessarily the best route into the profession today.
Michael, who has 23 years in the industry - 13 of them in mortgages, two years in commercial banking, and, most recently, eight years in bridging and short-term finance - considers that a key business lesson he has learned is that you don’t need a university education to do well.
“Experience counts for a lot more than what you've got written on paper,” said Michael, a senior business development manager at Momenta Finance. “I've got two boys - one's nearly six and the other one's three-and-a-half, so they're still a long way off from working, but looking back over the career that I've had, I would be saying to them to not go to university, and to get into something like what I'm doing in property finance, from a young age.
“There are BDMs I know who are in their 20s - 23 or 24-years-old - and they're successful. At that age, they've got a lot of drive. If someone doesn't go to university and starts at 18 or 19 in this business, by the age of 25, they'll be really established and then maybe by the age of 30 or 35 be in the position of running their own company. Who knows?”
He continued: “I started this particular journey – in bridging - only eight years ago. I'm 48 years old. i went to university, and was in one of the last years where they gave grants, so I didn't have to pay at all, and it was only in the following years where they had to pay. So now the cost of it all is the reason for my thinking. Most of the jobs I've done haven't required a degree for me to do them - they've been sales jobs effectively. You're still going to have to do things like your CeMAP and whatever financial qualifications you need. But unless you’re going to work in an economics position within the Bank of England, going to university isn't the be all and end all of what we thought it was when we were growing up.”
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An education in business and marketing
Michael majored in business and marketing at university before taking a graduate apprenticeship at a motor dealership. Frustrated by a lack of a structured career plan there - and encouraged by family members who had worked in the mortgage profession - he trained as a broker, and advised for almost a decade and a half before a stint in commercial banking. “I was starting to get a bit fed up with the level of regulation and felt a bit jaded, he explained. “BDMs were coming to see me all the time, and I thought, ‘I want your job, that's what I want to do.’ ”
Eventually, Michael established himself in a sector for which he is truly passionate. So, what is it about bridging that has so captured his imagination? “It's the variety and the quirkiness of the deals that come through,” he said. “you always need to engage your brain - how can we structure this, how can we solve this problem? I'm quite a problem solver. It's always a different type of property, it's always a different loan request. There's only a finite number of things you can borrow money for, but each client's different.”
Michael has worked for four different bridging firms.” Once you're well established in a business, it’s an almost constant buzz through the day, because you're getting deal after deal coming in, and you have to knuckle down and concentrate because each one needs your attention,” he shared. “That's something I've always enjoyed, and that's why I've wanted to stay in the bridging world, because there's far more variety from deal to deal than there ever was doing mortgages and people buying their homes.”
Working for Momenta Finance – a rapidly-growing provider of flexible funding to SME businesses across the UK, including commercial mortgages and bridging loans – Michael handles applications for anything from £200,000 to £5m. “Some people are now going to a short-term property finance proposition as their first option when looking at some kind of property deal,” he said. “In terms of my business, it's 100% broker-led. Building relationships with brokers is the most important aspect of my job, apart from closing deals and getting completions done – and you won't ever get that if you haven't got a relationship with the brokers who want to pass a deal over to you. You need to be visible and be in touch with them on a regular basis, letting them know that you're there and you're available. It's about answering their calls and replying to their emails quickly.”
What, then, would be Michael’s advice for brokers seeking to work more effectively with bridging lenders? “Choose to work closely with five or six lenders,” he said, “You get to know their criteria inside and out, and you build relationships with them. When presenting an inquiry to a lender, the broker should put in as much detail as possible. The BDM who is receiving the deal and reviewing it can then understand exactly what's going on and exactly what's required.
“What you want to avoid is the scattergun approach to enquiries, where you put an inquiry together and just blind copy every single lender. You get a much better response if you've thought about what the deal is and which lender it would suit, and then approach that lender on a on a one-to-one basis, while having five or six lenders in your back pocket. If one doesn't do it, the other one will do it, and if they don't do it, the other one will do it. So, between the six you've chosen, you'll always place your deals.”
