Mortgage adviser warns that the industry needs to think ahead and be prepared…
If there’s one thing that you need to be successful in mortgages it is, perhaps, adaptability – being able to identify trends as they emerge, to see the way the tide is turning, and to respond accordingly.
Just ask broker Mike Yau. Leaving university with a music degree and plans to become a professional musician, Yau (pictured) realised that he needed to be pragmatic, get a day job, and earn - so he took up a job selling life insurance.
Then, having spent a decade in protection, he wanted to go self-employed and set up his own insurance business, but having explored that option, he deduced that buying in leads would make the enterprise unviable. So, he switched to mortgages instead.
Now, three years into his mortgage career, Yau is thriving as a mortgage and protection adviser at a London brokerage. But, with the entrepreneurial antennae that’s served him well so far in his career, he’s keeping a close eye on what’s ahead, and particularly the emergence of AI.
“The times are changing now,” Yau told Mortgage Introducer. “I'm looking at stuff very pragmatically and - I don't think a lot of people are aware of this - AI is, I think, going to play a huge part within the brokering industry, maybe in 10, 15 years. Where are the brokers going to go?
“Whether people in this industry understand that or not… they say, ‘No, people always want to speak to a broker. People always want to interact with people, it's the human advisers that people want to speak to, so this job's always going to be safe’, and I'm just thinking, ‘I don't think you're right’.”
He continued: “The kids born nowadays, they're born with iPads, smart phones. They're born on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, they are used to doing everything on their phone. The people saying, ‘No, people always want to speak to an adviser’, these are generally older people who haven't quite grasped what the younger generation is going through. So, I think when the AI stuff kicks in, that can remove brokering… to an extent.
“I think there's a shelf life to this. AI is only moving in one direction. It's almost like Pandora's box. It doesn't go backwards. There's more and more breakthrough, so I think it will come to a point where the AI systems can do most of the underwriting. I don't think it scares me, but I'm aware that it could go that way. You just have to have a plan, because AI could take over anything.”
So, who knows, Yau – who is still only in his mid-30s – may yet return to his first love of music as a career option. Certainly he keeps his hand in, creating what he describes as melodic base music at home most days, when he finishes work, or at weekends, playing his guitars and his piano in his studio set-up, and doing his own production. But, he concedes that AI may even swallow up that.
Read more: How one broker quit a bank and doubled his salary
Be shrewd enough to make your next move
Speaking to Yau over the course of our interview, one gets a sense of a broker with a very good business head, who knows how to shrewdly make his next move. For example, moving into mortgages, he gravitated towards London, on the basis that that’s where property was more expensive, and mortgages of a greater value, his cut would be greater too. He is also clear about what defines a good broker, and good business.
“I think the secret is that actually there's no secret to it,” Yau said. “Create a culture of identity within a company and try to make sure that that culture is about actually helping each other. I think that's really key.
“A lot of brokers, if they don't do well, they're not putting in enough hours. You've got to put the hours in, full stop. Sales is really just doing what you say you're going to do. So, if you say you're going to email a client something, actually email the client and get back to them. If you said you're going to look into something, actually do it.”
He continued: “You see it so many times where brokers don't do that. So, if you actually just do those simple things, and, as long as you put the graft in, you will actually do all right. You have really just got to stick to the basics. It's really about giving the customer service, and providing clients with genuine advice. It’s also about knowing the job – good brokers should really be up to date with criteria.”
Yau summed up: “Always put the best interest of the client at the heart of everything because, at the end of the day, the more you do this, the more money you will end up making as well. They’ll come back to you.”
