'Sometimes you have to go back to go forwards', says broker who retrained
From selling tickets for events in the party capital of Ayia Napa, to selling properties for one of London’s leading estate agencies, to now securing mortgage business, broker James Blackler (pictured) understands good business.
Blackler knows, too, that you have to take a risk sometimes – and he understands the value of stepping back to ultimately go forwards. That’s what he did when he switched from being an estate agent, 15 years into his career, to become a mortgage broker. His fledgling experience in sales, after university, selling admission to party boats in the Cypriot hotspot, showed him how much he enjoyed the process – and, at the time, he wanted to put off establishing a full-time career.
“I studied marketing and I probably chose the wrong degree,” Blackler told Mortgage Introducer. “I think I was just trying to run away from getting a nine-to-five job in a business for which I didn’t have any real enthusiasm. The advantage of spending some of my summers abroad was the freedom to be in the sun and also because I enjoyed sales. That experience taught me how to rock up and pitch to people face-to-face and try to close sales there and then, which is useful in any sort of sales role. It taught me to be comfortable talking to people, and I think that transitions well into other sales-based roles. If you enjoy sales and you enjoy dealing with people, it doesn't matter what you happen to be selling - that's either an integral part of what you enjoy or it's not.”
Blackler’s move into the property market came after some soul searching. “I got to a crossroads where I just thought this isn't sustainable and I don't want to be that 30-year-old that has nothing,” he said. “I really wanted to make some sort of progress in terms of buying a property, paying off my student loan, just actually have something to show for it rather than living month-to-month.” When he returned to the UK, Blackler was appointed by Foxtons, where he rose from senior sales negotiator to operations director over a 15-year period.
He and his wife – whom he met while working for the estate agency – both eventually decided to retrain as brokers. “Being mortgage brokers made sense,” Blackler said. “We have a five-year-old child and it gives a bit of flexibility, rather than going to do a nine-to-six or nine-to-seven job. As estate agents we both had the ability to build rapport with clients and actually give good advice. Whenever you change career and you start at the bottom, you're going to take a hit on your income and that's something that keeps a lot of people doing the same thing - they're scared of change, and they don't want to compromise on their lifestyle. I was always taught if you want to go forwards, you've got to go back. I think it's important that whatever career path you ultimately choose, you're not necessarily doing it for the money. You've got to do something that you actually enjoy doing, first and foremost, and then money will come as a result of that over time, and actually doing the right thing.”
Read more: Do older women have a place in the mortgage industry?
How was it becoming a broker post the mini-budget?
Having qualified, he took up a position with LDN Finance in the spring of 2022, just months after the Liz Truss mini-budget set the cat among the pigeons. “It would be fair to say that when we changed over to mortgages, our timing couldn't have been any worse,” acknowledged Blackler. “Therefore I'd say the earning potential during that year of the mini-budget was fairly low. New purchases dropped off the face of a cliff, and unless you had a remortgage book, for anybody entering the market or the industry at that particular time, it was a terrible year and subsequently the year after wasn’t much better either. So, it's been challenging, but longer term, if you're competent, and you're good at your job, and you actually invest in your clients, you’ll succeed.”
Blacker launched his own source of market information, The Mortgage Blog, in the summer of 2023 and in the same year joined Trinity Financial, from where he is building his client base today. “I've been fortunate that I'm coming into the industry at a point where there's amazing tech, that allows us to run the affordability checks and provide clients with a solution to their mortgage requirements,” he said. “If you've got a case with complex or overseas income, perhaps some additional criteria, such as you've got an annex and you've been letting out some of the rooms, or there's something that simply wouldn't fit a high street lender, being able to utilise the various platforms that we've got allows us to be able to provide a solution to a client that would normally get rejected. One advantage in coming from an estate agency background is that you can really show your experience and guide and assist first-time buyers.”
What, then, has been the best business lesson that Blackler has learned in his career so far? “I think if you give people your time, they will give you their money,” he reflected, “and what I mean by that is if you actually deal with clients properly, have a really good conversation, don’t cut them short, they'll want to do business with you. The more you give, the more you’ll get back in return.”
