The CEO of free online mortgage broker Habito says he created the business off the back of nearly losing his first home.
Daniel Hegarty was inspired to launch Habito in 2015 after accusing his mortgage broker of repeatedly sending his application with errors in, causing him to almost miss out on his dream buy.
Habito is an online mortgage broker servicing the UK, which created the world’s first robo-adviser for regulated mortgage advice, meaning consumers could find and apply for a mortgage entirely through the internet.
Now with 160 employees in London鈥檚 Whitechapel, they plan to continue to grow as it has tripled in size each year and wants to improve their customer experience further to 鈥榬emove the pain of getting a mortgage鈥�.
Recalling his own mortgage nightmare he said: 鈥淎t the time it was this incredibly stressful experience, I felt pretty dis-empowered and confused by the process of getting a mortgage and was struck that there had to be a better way to do it.
鈥淭he mortgage industry as a whole has very little interest in the customers – as you look across the landscape of mortgage products and hear all of the ridiculous jargon, you realise quite quickly that the customers are not at the forefront of everyone’s minds.
鈥淏uilding the company with the customer at the very core of everything we think about and do – that’s part of our DNA.鈥�
Habito aims to demystify mortgages and created advertising unlike other financial marketing called 鈥楬ell or Habito鈥�, showing animated characters being relieved by the help of Habito from the 鈥榟ell鈥� of mortgages.
When asked about their inspiration, Hegarty said: 鈥淭he honest truth is we find financial services marketing incredibly boring.
鈥淸Other companies] are desperately trying to earn trust and will show you the happy family sitting at the kitchen table paying their bills, I understand where it comes from but we felt like the reality of getting a mortgage is a much more intense and emotional experience, and none of that advertising reflects that.
鈥淚nstead of telling everyone why they should trust us, we tried to empathise more directly with them and understood their experience of getting a mortgage rather than what we wanted to project about ourselves.鈥�
He said the core of the company is to help people get mortgages as it is 鈥榦ne of the most stressful and painful things you鈥檙e going to do in your life鈥�.
鈥淭he Brits are obsessed with owning property, it’s very fundamental to how we think about the world and how we’re going to secure our finances,鈥� explained Hegarty.
鈥淕iven that everyone wants to buy houses and they鈥檒l need a mortgage to do it, there hasn’t really been that much pressure on the banks or the mortgage lenders to innovate because if you’ve got a line of customers at the door, then why do something different to something that already works?鈥�