Meet Gary Das of Active Mortgage
Tell us about your business?
Active Mortgage specialise in making it easy for self-employed business owners to finance buying or investing in property. We’re currently a team of 10 are expert advisers, based all over the UK and 10 marketing and operations to really deliver the best customer experience we can.
We’re also developing Active Network to offer autonomy, choice and transparency to like-minded Appointed Representatives tired of the constraints of normal networks, with the added option of accredited business coaching to support, generate leads, increase sales and ultimately build a profitable, sellable business.
As part of our larger plans, we’re going to rebrand from Active Mortgage to Active Financial as we expand the areas we can advise on in our self-employed niche, as well as expanding into equity release and wills and estate planning.
Where are you based and where do you operate geographically?
Active HQ is in Chelmsford, where our team supports our growing number of self-employed advisers who work from home and are all over the UK.
What are the main issues impacting your market?
We operate nationally and don’t have a geographic ‘local’ market. If we focus on our niche of self-employed clients then through our ‘Active’ method we focus on their finances and their goals, or the dream they’re trying to achieve.
This Active method has raised more than £1bn in lending through working with clients 12-24 months in advance of their home move or investment purchase, to help them set financial goals with their accountant and build a business / income which helps them achieve their life goals.
The key to all of this, as I explain in my Amazon best seller “The Self-Employed Mortgage Guide”, is in the preparation.
What challenges are you facing as a broker?
I think our challenges are representative of the wider mortgage intermediary market; the lingering impact of Covid on self-employed clients’ documented income for the past two years or rationalising their use of Covid financial support.
When we add rapidly fluctuating service levels from certain lenders and some conveyancers struggling with their caseloads, it becomes harder to deliver the high level of accurate service we’re used to offering. Thankfully our advisers are very used to dealing with cases and situations other advisers say no to.
What are the main opportunities for brokers in your area and nationally?
Self-employed cases always present more challenges than vanilla employed clients, though with an estimated 5.5m people now self-employed in the UK the opportunity is huge for those willing to take the time to learn it.
Our team is expanding rapidly due to the increase in leads we’re experiencing thanks to our creative social media coaching for our advisers. We enjoy working with advisers who want to learn, develop, improve and grow with us.
What could lenders do to help further your business?
Certainly, apply a more common-sense approach to underwriting and be willing to take more information from accountants about clients’ businesses. Many do have a sensible approach though there is still room for improvement – though our industry has been saying that for 20 years! It would be fantastic to work with a lender which really, truly specialises in self-employed, rather than just having a slightly better policy than their competitors.
Communication has always been something lenders struggle with and unfortunately Covid has only made this worse, access to underwriters and the ability to have a human conversation about a case is of huge benefit.
What sets you apart from the competition?
Personally, I have written a two-times Amazon best seller “The Self-Employed Mortgage Guide”. In 2019 Active was also named “Winner of Mortgage Strategy Best Broker” and we’ve specialised in self-employed business owner mortgages since 2016.
Active advisers are some of the best in the UK, they go above and beyond for our clients where others say it’s not possible, they are the real experts working on a range of cases from residential, buy to let, bridging, development and commercial. We know our niche and deliver.
How should potential borrowers contact you?
www.active-financial.co.uk
[email protected]
01245 850165
