“I’m only here because my granddad had a chance to migrate to the UK, and he was able to buy his own home here as well. It really meant something to me – and then the more I looked into it, the more I realised how much of a problem it was that people weren’t getting the right advice. They were hit with obstacles rather than solutions.”
Salgueiro acknowledges, though, that there are challenges facing foreign nationals in their homebuying quest. “If you take all of the lenders in the market there is a very small percentage who are willing to lend to a visa holder with less than a 25% deposit,” he said. “So it is quite restricted in that sense. But there are more lenders than maybe a lot of brokers either work with or understand the criteria. I think sometimes brokers can see it as more of an admin burden – more paperwork, more stuff to do, a higher risk. But I do think we have a duty to people, as mortgage advisers, to do what’s best for them.”
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Finding his purpose
Still only 25, the passion Salgueiro feels for the business he founded in 2023, is evident – and it’s even more impressive given his candid admission that he struggled as a teenager to find his path in life. Disruptive at school, he left at 16, with barely any GCSEs, and drifted between pursuits such as working in a call centre and learning bricklaying. Feeling despondent about his future in his late teens, a friend wisely suggested he start running. This, along with gym visits and weightlifting, channelled his focus on a sports-based venture, that ultimately proved unsuccessful, but there was undoubtedly a winning entrepreneurial spirit that would come to the fore in time. Clearly very bright, Salgueiro found his way into financial services after connecting with a mortgage broker to whom he offered some personal training sessions. He studied for his CeMAP qualification during Lockdown and joined London-based Capricorn Financial Consultancy, where he was self-employed for more than three years. He became its youngest senior adviser, before ultimately deciding that his strong independent streak and a need to do things his own way made him a natural fit with running his own business.
First Time Finance is now well established as a mortgage and protection brokerage, and wrote approaching 700 mortgages in Q1. Salgueiro’s team will number seven people by August, including several advisers, all working remotely. Why, then, does Salgueiro think this enterprise has fully captured his imagination and, importantly, his focus more than anything else? “I think the first thing is, of course, that I’ve got full ownership of it – I don’t mean a shareholding interest,” he said. “When I get stuck into something, I can get quite obsessed about it. If I’m sitting on the sofa watching TV with my partner, my mind is shooting around ideas and I’m thinking through the strategy of how to implement them.
