Working in Mortgages EDI Group: Mortgages: the next generation – shaping the future

The mortgage industry spends a great deal of time talking about the next generation: how to attract younger people into the sector, how to retain them once they arrive and, of course, how to help more of them become homeowners.

But perhaps we don’t spend enough time actually talking to them.

That was the starting point for the latest Working in Mortgages Lunch & Learn session, hosted by Beth Foryszewski, national account manager at Landbay, and Matt Kingston, sales director at Nottingham Building Society for Intermediaries. The discussion brought together two Nottingham Trent University students, Laurianne Peter and Raziel Abiels-Zuriel, with Niamh Downey, head of internal sales for short-term finance at West One Loans, before turning to the practical steps the industry can take to engage and support young people.

Beth, who started her own mortgage career at 17, said the industry has a huge amount to offer young people, but acknowledged that those outside it may see financial services as hierarchical, male-dominated and requiring high-level qualifications. Mortgages themselves can seem equally impenetrable: those of us who work in the industry take our knowledge and terminology for granted, while for someone approaching homeownership for the first time, it can feel like “a complete minefield”.

 

Listening to the next generation

Matt Kingston (MK): “This was really about us learning from young people and getting their view of the world. There is a sense that perhaps the odds are stacked against them: graduates can leave university with £60,000 or £70,000 of debt, they’re entering an uncertain job market and there can be a feeling that opportunities have reduced compared with previous generations.

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“We wanted to listen and learn rather than make assumptions about what the next generation wants from work, from the mortgage industry and from homeownership.”

Laurianne Peter (LP1), final-year business management with accounting and finance student at Nottingham Trent University: “When I’m choosing an employer, I want to know there are opportunities to progress, not just to build skills but to evolve within the company. Work/life balance matters, as does a realistic salary that reflects the cost of living.

“Company culture is also important. What values is the company advocating and, importantly, does it actually uphold those values in the way it operates?

“The recruitment process itself tells you a lot about a potential employer. Are they communicating with you consistently? Do they give you notice about interviews or changes? How you are treated during recruitment can be an indication of how you will be treated as an employee.”

Raziel Abiels-Zuriel (RAZ), business management, accounting and finance student at Nottingham Trent University: “I’d like accessible contact with managers, so if there is an issue, you have somebody you can speak to without being scared about your position in the company. I’d also want to see a clear career path and understand what progression could look like if I hit certain milestones.

“One thing I find frustrating when applying for graduate jobs is the long, drawn-out recruitment process, with lots of tests that don’t seem relevant to the job. If you’re applying for several roles, spending hours doing tests for each one takes a huge amount of time. I’d much rather have a face-to-face interview and talk about the industry so an employer can understand my personality and what I could actually bring to the role.”

Both students also challenged assumptions that younger people want recruitment to be entirely digital. Laurianne said graduate job platforms could feel like a “CV black hole”, and had found greater success approaching people directly through LinkedIn. Raziel similarly preferred calling, emailing or even visiting businesses to make a personal connection.

Niamh Downey (ND): “I started my career in specialist finance when I was 17 and certainly didn’t grow up thinking what I’d really love to do is work in financial services. My advice to younger people would be not to worry about having your whole career figured out at the beginning. Be curious, ask questions, work hard and be open to opportunities when they come your way.

“There is such a vast array of jobs within the mortgage industry that nobody would know about unless they already worked in it. We need to do a better job of showing young people what careers actually exist and what they look like.

“Visibility is really important. We talk a lot about getting young people into the industry, but we need more people to take the initiative and go into schools, universities and careers fairs and show real examples of people who have joined the sector, whether or not they went to university, and how their careers have progressed.

“Then, once young people join, we need to back that up with genuine development, genuine opportunities and a clear idea of where their career could go.”

 

Homeownership: aspiration vs perceived reality

When the conversation moved to homeownership, the gap between aspiration and perceived reality became particularly apparent.

LP1: “From an emotional, aspirational angle, yes, I would like to own a home. But realistically, I don’t see it happening for me anytime soon. There are so many questions: what if I need to change jobs? Can I afford it? Our generation also has student loan repayments, which reduces the opportunity to save for a deposit.

“I also think we talk about homeownership in a very two-dimensional way: you’re either ready to buy or you’re not. We don’t really talk about the bit in between, when you’re simply trying to build your financial foundations.”

She also highlighted the very different messages young people encounter online, showing examples of highly viewed content warning people not to buy property or presenting mortgages as a ‘trap’.

“If you’re a young person looking for affordable information, you’re going to go online because it’s free. If that’s what you’re seeing when you search for information about mortgages, it doesn’t give you confidence to engage with the industry,” she added.

Abiels-Zuriel said his first step towards buying would probably be talking to people he knew who already had a mortgage, followed by Google, Reddit or YouTube research, before contacting a mortgage broker or adviser. Laurianne would similarly turn first to parents and her personal network, alongside online sources.

However, both students identified trust as an issue.

LP1: “There is a perception around the word ‘broker’ that their motive is to sell you something and get you committed. They’re not necessarily positioning themselves as partners who are on your side and genuinely want to help you achieve realistic homeownership. If brokers positioned themselves more as partners, that would make it more inviting for me to approach them rather than looking to the internet for free.”

Downey said this underlined the need for the industry to engage much earlier.

ND: “We shouldn’t wait until somebody is sitting down with a broker ready to buy a house before we explain how mortgages work. If we want to help more young people become homeowners, we need to make the market feel less intimidating long before they reach that point.”

 

Turning conversation into action

The final part of the session looked at how mortgage professionals can put some of these ideas into practice, with Lucy Pryce, head of business development at social mobility charity Making the Leap, and Dom Scott, managing director of Lifetime Connect and a trustee of Making the Leap.

Dom Scott (DS): “There are three areas that intersect here: making the mortgage sector attractive to young people, providing financial education to help them navigate their financial journeys and harnessing the experience we already have within the mortgage industry to upskill the next generation, irrespective of whether their eventual career is in mortgages.

“I speak to lots of people in our industry who are passionate about getting involved, but they don’t quite know how.”

Through Making the Leap, Scott has volunteered in schools conducting mock interviews and giving young people feedback, as well as running sessions covering subjects including public speaking, imposter syndrome, career development and financial education.

One home buying session particularly demonstrated the potential impact. A young attendee arrived believing they would never be able to buy a property, only to discover during the session that there were routes to homeownership they had never considered.

DS: “People sometimes treat buying a property like going to the gym. They think they should get fit and then go to the gym, when actually you go to the gym to get fit. It’s the same with buying a property. If you don’t know whether you can buy, that’s exactly when you should be speaking to a mortgage adviser.

“If you think you need to collect all the answers first and then speak to an adviser, you could be excluding yourself from options and solutions that might be suitable for you.”

Lucy Pryce (LP2): “Making the Leap exists to support young people from less advantaged backgrounds by developing their confidence, skills and outlook to succeed in the career of their choosing. We work with more than 5,000 young people across London each year, from the ages of 11-25.

“A core part of that is giving young people exposure to different careers and the professionals behind them, and helping businesses connect with young people they might otherwise never reach.

“We have more than 500 volunteers who give their time each year and you don’t need previous volunteering experience. You could take part in a mock interview day, help young people with presentation skills and commercial awareness or host a group at your offices.

“We can all remember the people who believed in us when we were starting out, encouraged us, gave us an insight or opened a door. By volunteering, you can be that person for somebody else.”

The message from the session is simple: if the mortgage industry wants to attract the next generation, retain its future talent and help more young people understand their route to homeownership, we cannot wait for them to find us, we need to go out and meet them.

If you are interested in volunteering with Making the Leap, email Lucy Pryce at Lucy.Pryce@MTL.org.uk to learn more.