Having previously worked for Countrywide, an estate agency which houses the UK’s largest mortgage brokerage, Oguntonade will be co-founding his own mortgage brokerage this year.
Oguntonade took the decision to stop advising at the end of 2019 and focus on his social media content which went which saw him being poached by Channel 4.
He will be returning to TV screens later this year with a third series of his Bafta-winning Channel 4 programme Great House Giveaway and he will be taking part in a new show on the same channel called Key to a Fortune later in 2023.
Now, he is ready to return to the world of advice. With his friend, Emmanuel Asuquo, he intends to co-found his own mortgage brokerage this year and incorporate all he’s learnt from his experience of content creation.
“We moved with the times. The mortgage broking industry is very old school and the people that dominate it right now will be the people that have old firms,” said Oguntonade.
“But things are changing so drastically. We were in a position where we wanted to serve young people. Young people don’t read a book to understand what it takes to get a mortgage.
The mortgage broking industry is very old school and the people that dominate it right now will be the people that have old firms. But things are changing so drastically.Tayo Oguntonade“When we’re making our content, the biggest struggle is - we need to take these four pages of content and cut it down into 60 seconds, but it needs to be entertaining first. I mean the entertainment element is just as important as the educational element.”
Oguntonade often describes his content, which is distributed across Twitter, Youtube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram, as a ‘Trojan Horse’. He wants first-time buyers to enjoy his videos first, and realise afterwards that they’ve learnt something new.
The teaching element is going to be the backbone of the whole firm.Tayo OguntonadeHe originally took to social media to debunk myths around home ownership, explain government schemes, and show young adults how to save effectively.
It was his wife, Antoinette's, idea to set up the channel. After seeing him help friends and family buy their first homes when he wasn’t advising clients, the couple realised that people don’t just need money to buy a home.
“Education is a huge part of it,” said Oguntonade, who has grown his social media channel BrickzwithTipz to nearly 17,000 followers on Twitter.
Antoinette, who is an accountant by trade, has been running the channel with her husband. A year into their content-creating career, Oguntonade was scouted by Channel 4 to present The Great House Giveaway.
The programme, which won a Bafta for best daytime programme in 2021, sees members of the public tasked with flipping a property from auction. Any profit they make, they get to keep.
“Off the back of our social media content, I became a full-time TV presenter,” Oguntonade explained. He has also worked with non-profit brands more recently to help consumers save on their energy bills.
“Now it’s all coming full circle,” said Oguntonade. “I’m going back and creating my own advisory firm. It will implement all the values we’ve learnt through our success in the social media space, which has seen us help so many people.”
‘Social media puts you in the shop window’
His soon-to-be business partner, Asuquo, is a financial adviser who also hosts Money on my Mind - a digital series launched by Channel 4 and Barclays which takes a look at "real people's relationship with money". The two have been friends since they were children.
Oguntonade grew up in southeast London, and Asuquo in east London. At the age of 22, Oguntonade bought his first house in Sittingbourne, on the outskirts of London.
He became a mortgage broker shortly afterwards. “All of a sudden, I had familiarity and proximity to the housing market, something daunting suddenly became my everyday.”
Now returning to his roots, Tayo said “it’s scary” much of the mortgage brokerage industry still isn’t changing.
Emmanuel Asuquo on mini-series Money on my Mind
“We’re even seeing changes in behaviour of older generations,” he explained.
“Social media puts you in the shop window. You get to showcase your ability to teach and achieve results. It does build trust.
“Both myself and Emmanuel have had incredible opportunities through social media. That can be helping a teacher who hasn’t been able to get a mortgage for years and turning that around, to a football player who has just signed for a new club and they want it broken down to them how they can buy their first home.
“The teaching element is going to be the backbone of the whole firm.”
More recently, Oguntonade has been producing longer videos in Stratford interviewing young people to test their maths, geography and literacy skills.
“Once upon a time, I could have gone to Stratford with an iPhone. Now I hire a team, a sound person, a videographer and an editor. These things have changed so much.”
A brokerage which truly represents its clientele
Oguntonade is also hoping this new brokerage will allow him and Asuquo to work with under-represented groups.
He used the example of the Black community, where a common savings practice - often referred to as ‘pardners’ - sees people save in groups of 12.
The goal might be, for example, to save £1,000 each month. Each of the 12 would then receive everyone else's savings every month - so £11,000 in this case.
“To a lender, this looks like extraneous expenditure. But we can explain that,” Oguntonade explained.
In Asian communities, he said borrowers can run into similar issues. Those living with 10 or so family members at, say, the age of 35 will often put down no or very low food bills in an application.
“A lot of the time, the lender says they might decline the application because they don’t think the borrower is being truthful,” said Tayo. “You need a mortgage broker that understands it.”
As for his content, Tayo has already been trying to relate to young people on smaller salaries.
Having found a lot of outlets staring on unrelatable, far-from-the-average salaries such as £60,000, he has since given examples based on a £20,000 income to add more balance to the discussion.
“We’ll make sure we address the average salary. I used to watch videos where people bought a house with £300,000 cash and you just switch off.”
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
