COLUMNS • MY BUSINESS
From London to Raglan Loan Market Raglan's Brett Wood talks about his journey from the London tourism sector to life in laid-back Raglan. BY MATTHEW MARTIN
What was your motivation to get into the mortgage broking/lending business? I did a business degree then worked in tourism for five years but wanted a career change to put my degree to good use. I landed in London on my OE in October 2001, a month after the Sept 11 twin tower attacks. There was zero tourism so that fast-tracked the initial move into the industry. Years later, back in NZ, the GFC fast-tracked my move to starting my advice business. After two redundancies in a row I had ended up in a finance role that I hated, so decided to take control of my life and start as a mortgage adviser – in the middle of the GFC with a new baby!
How long have you been in the business and where did you learn your trade? I’ve been in the mortgage industry 20 years – with 12 years as a mortgage adviser. My first mortgage industry role was in London as a BDM for a "mortgage packager". I knew nothing about mortgages and my role was to visit mortgage advisers, convince them to use our services and find lenders for their clients – I had to learn a lot quickly. Then I came back to NZ and worked as a BDM for Bluestone for three years. This role showed me how the good advisers did things … and the not so good advisers showed me how not to do it.
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TMM 03 • 2021
Why did you decide to base yourself in Raglan and what have been the challenges/advantages in setting up your business there? After living in Sydney and London, I was desperate to live by the beach. I knew once kids arrived the surfing would suffer so Auckland wasn’t an option. Peter Wood and Ali Toumadj at Bluestone supported the move and so my wife Megan and I gave Raglan a try for six months. We’re still here 16 years later. Raglan was a challenging place to start a mortgage advice business for sure and particularly so in the GFC conditions. The population is about 3,000 and back then nothing was selling. I had to look further afield and did a lot of driving in the first five years. What that’s led to is a diverse range of referrers and clients around the country.
