It can be challenging to get a mortgage when settling in Britain
With a Spanish heritage and a strong appreciation of the benefits which foreign nationals bring to British life, broker Ripley Salgueiro (pictured) has found a purpose like nothing that has ever focused him before. Salgueiro has successfully established First Time Finance, helping overseas arrivals to secure their own homes here. He’s emboldened by the story of his Spanish grandfather, who came to the UK as a migrant.
“All of our clients are visa holders – such as Nigerians, Zimbabweans, South Africans and clients from Eastern Europe, such as Ukraine, as well as the USA,” Salgueiro explained. “I'm a product of migration and I've got very strong, positive opinions on it.”
His family history aside, did the business potential of responding to higher numbers of migrants coming into the UK, or a strong social need, drive the direction of Salgueiro’s venture? “It's a bit of both, I think,” he said. “I am an opportunist. I have always been an entrepreneur - and as a small boy I used to sell my parents tea and coffee for a few pence a cup - but when we started First Time Finance, we actually started out being a first-time buyer specialist. We very quickly pivoted to the niche of people who have moved over to the UK. I realised that the clients I enjoyed working with most tended to be people who had moved over here. A lot of them have risked a lot, and spent a lot of money coming here. It's very tough and they do such an incredible job in this country working, keeping up our welfare and healthcare systems. I think that's incredibly important.
“I'm only here because my granddad had a chance to migrate to the UK, and he was able to buy his own home here as well. It really meant something to me - and then the more I looked into it, the more I realised how much of a problem it was that people weren't getting the right advice. They were hit with obstacles rather than solutions.”
Salgueiro acknowledges, though, that there are challenges facing foreign nationals in their homebuying quest. “If you take all of the lenders in the market there is a very small percentage who are willing to lend to a visa holder with less than a 25% deposit,” he said. “So it is quite restricted in that sense. But there are more lenders than maybe a lot of brokers either work with or understand the criteria. I think sometimes brokers can see it as more of an admin burden - more paperwork, more stuff to do, a higher risk. But I do think we have a duty to people, as mortgage advisers, to do what's best for them.”
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Finding his purpose
Still only 25, the passion Salgueiro feels for the business he founded in 2023, is evident - and it’s even more impressive given his candid admission that he struggled as a teenager to find his path in life. Disruptive at school, he left at 16, with barely any GCSEs, and drifted between pursuits such as working in a call centre and learning bricklaying. Feeling despondent about his future in his late teens, a friend wisely suggested he start running. This, along with gym visits and weightlifting, channelled his focus on a sports-based venture, that ultimately proved unsuccessful, but there was undoubtedly a winning entrepreneurial spirit that would come to the fore in time. Clearly very bright, Salgueiro found his way into financial services after connecting with a mortgage broker to whom he offered some personal training sessions. He studied for his CeMAP qualification during Lockdown and joined London-based Capricorn Financial Consultancy, where he was self-employed for more than three years. He became its youngest senior adviser, before ultimately deciding that his strong independent streak and a need to do things his own way made him a natural fit with running his own business.
First Time Finance is now well established as a mortgage and protection brokerage, and wrote approaching 70 mortgages in Q1. Salgueiro’s team will number seven people by August, including several advisers, all working remotely. Why, then, does Salgueiro think this enterprise has fully captured his imagination and, importantly, his focus more than anything else? “I think the first thing is, of course, that I've got full ownership of it - I don't mean a shareholding interest,” he said. “When I get stuck into something, I can get quite obsessed about it. If I'm sitting on the sofa watching TV with my partner, my mind is shooting around ideas and I'm thinking through the strategy of how to implement them.
“I guess it's having that full ownership of being able to say, ’I'm in full control of this ship and I can choose the direction that I take it in.’ I know that I can use this for good. It's not all about money - for me, it's about having a positive impact in the world and being able to solve problems. Buying a house can have a huge effect generationally for families. So, if a family moves over to the UK and buys their own home, they build up the equity, and that can make a massive difference to their kids.”
Does Salgueiro worry that government efforts to reduce migration could adversely impact his business long-term? “There are a lot of things that go on politically in the world,” he replied. “It's been seen time and time again in history that migration is used as a contentious topic to speak about, and to gain votes essentially. We've just come through a period over the last five years where migration's been at an extreme high - it will reduce, I'm not naive to that. Do I think it will negatively affect our business? No, because there will still be a large influx of people each year and a huge need for people coming over to the UK, to do these vital jobs.”
