Brokerage MD shares a career path in which he’s seen all aspects of the business
While some kids want to be a fireman, an astronaut or even a soccer player when they grow up, Saam Lowni (pictured) wanted to be an estate agent. The course of his professional life was set as a small boy, growing up in the North East. With parents who were dedicated property developers, and having a best friend whose father was the affluent owner of a chain of estate agencies, Lowni’s interest in the industry was sparked early on.
“It was like worlds colliding - it just seems so obvious that I had to do something in property,” he told Mortgage Introducer. “My parents were buying up little two-up-two -downs and selling them on at a profit, and they were buying them from a chap, whose son was my friend at school. We had so much fun with this guy – he would take us to Newcastle United football matches, on bike rides in the Lake District, he had the biggest house, and I thought, ‘If I'm going to be like anyone, I'm going to be like this guy, it's obvious he makes the most money.’ I always wanted to be an estate agent, growing up.”
Today, Lowni is founder and managing director of Merryoaks Finance, a brokerage that finds property finance solutions for investors and developers, and is named after the estate in Durham where he enjoyed a happy childhood. At 18, he moved to London to embark on a business degree and was urged by his savvy parents – an Iranian father and an Indian mother with a strong work ethic - to get some experience to back it up. His mother’s advice to him to offer to work for free, got him through the doors of an estate agent and within three months he had a proper job there. “I ended up studying part-time and working full-time, and I made a bunch of cash,” Lowni said. “I was about to blow it, going to Ibiza, but I bought a one-bedroom flat, and flipped it within six months - happy days, on to the next one. Between me and my parents, we grew a portfolio in North East London, of which some of those properties have gone up five or six times in value. Something that’s been ingrained in me from day one is that if I work hard in this country, I will reap the rewards, and I'd like to think that actually, so far, that has been true.”
With the global financial crisis of 2008, demand for rental property increased, rents escalated and Lowni was able to clear his property loans. He took some time out abroad, including five years in Hong Kong, and when the market bounced back he returned to the UK, refinanced his portfolio and bought up more properties which would yield high incomes. Helping to set up a development finance lender with a business contact was a natural next step. “I saw a poor level of loan applications, there was no information and I was having to do all the digging myself,” Lowni said. “I saw some better ones as well from some decent brokers and I thought I can do even better than those guys, I know this process inside out - I've been a developer, I’ve been an estate agent and I’m now a lender.” He set up as a property specialist and also launched Property People, a platform for sharing ideas, stories and solutions from industry professionals. In 2021, his brokerage Merryoaks Finance was born, to support SME property investors and developers with funding for schemes including HMOs and social housing. “It’s bloody stressful sometimes,” admitted Lowni, “but I do love it.”
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The key attributes of a good broker
Having seen the business from all angles, Lowni is clear about what’s required of a good broker. “Know your product, know your client,” he said. “There's a lot of products out there - we've got over 200 funders available to us. It's all about criteria matching, so the better relationship that you've got with your client, knowing them inside out, knowing absolutely everything about them, then you can make a really good match. You'll have that human connection and that relationship for the long term, which will give you that repeat business, which is the sign of any good business - and then you'll get the referrals off the back of it.”
Indeed, in the age of AI and robots involved in criteria matching, Lowni believes that human contact is more important than ever, along with professionalism, integrity, trust and communication. “Whenever a message is left, I get back to clients by the end of the day,” he said. “Don't leave people hanging, give them that little bit of extra communication. It goes such a long way. We did just shy of £40m last year In terms of loan sizes, so for a two man band, it's all right - we want to do more.” But surprisingly, perhaps, for a man who was captivated as a child by the wealth of a property professional he admired, Lowni believes that money isn’t everything. “In my opinion, the best things in life truly are free,” he reflected, “but the second best things are expensive. So, if you want to have those second best things, then you just have to be willing to work for them.”
