Ex-Irish international soccer star Michael Dowling is now a big player in the mortgage advice league and his outspoken ways have not endeared him to lenders, writes Ella Shanahan.
He marked Ruud Gullit in his first international for Holland - it was at youth level in 1978 at Dalymount Park, and on the day Ireland beat Holland 3-2. Gullit went on to . . . well, it's history and breaking news, and Michael Dowling became a mortgage adviser and currently is president of the Independent Mortgage Advisers' Federation (IMAF).
"The difference between Ruud and me is he still has his hair and has gained two expensive wives and is now on his third," Michael Dowling quips.
He married Gina Andreucetti, whose father owned Angelo's in Aungier Street in Dublin - the family opened the restaurant in 1913 - and in the process, he gained an extended Italian family who holiday together in idyllic little seaside resorts in Tuscany most years, although he still has to learn the language.
"I leave that to the other members of the family," he says.
Working as he does "from Monday to Sunday" with his company Sullivan Dowling, with three offices in the north-east - Balbriggan, Navan and Drogheda - leaves little time for language classes, and the IMAF, of which he has been president for three years, takes up quite a bit of his time.
He is regarded as an outspoken president; his recent criticism of of lending institutions for failing to pass on a European Central Bank interest rate cut sparked off angry calls to him from some banks' chief executives. But he shrugs it off, saying that it's a small country and everybody knows everybody else.
The IMAF is the umbrella body for independent advisers and regularly meets the 13 institutions involved in lending, the insurance companies, the Central Bank and the Director of Consumer Affairs on issues affecting its 58 members. These 58 brokers, together with two or three other dedicated mortgage brokers who are not members of the federation, would have transacted the bulk of the £1.75 billion (€2.2 billion) mortgage business last year. This includes individual residential borrowers and customers in the commercial property sector.
Mortgage brokers, he explains, offer customers choice and have access to and influence with the institutions. However, in the Republic only 30 to 35 per cent of residential borrowers use an independent mortgage adviser, compared with more than 65 per cent in Britain - but then, mortgage brokers really only arrived here in the mid-1980s.
"It's an emotional business buying a house, even for those involved on a day-to-day basis. If you're not used to banks or used to their language, you're afraid to tell the bank certain things. It's an intimidating experience. A broker has the ability to package an application and present it in the form that will get the loan approved. If we're processing the amount of business we do with retailers, they get a broad idea of our portfolio and they know our experience and reputation.
"You have to be really careful when you're dealing with an institution that what you're getting is best value for money. Cheapest is not always the best value," he cautions.
He replies an immediate "yes" when asked if he thinks borrowers are being ripped off on occasions and says that unless customers apply pressure and complain, "the banks will do what they want to do. It's through groups like ourselves highlighting the inadequacies that change will come, and we will continue to apply that pressure."
Brokers' services cost the customer nothing, as they get their commission from the lending institutions. At present, the fee is not disclosed to the customer but he and the federation fully support disclosure.
"It wouldn't be any cheaper if we weren't paid a fee - banks don't reduce the rate because they are paying us a fee," he says.
And their businesses are growing. "All the banks invested millions in internet mortgage applications and they have been a complete failure. No matter how sophisticated people are, they want to talk to somebody about mortgages, life insurance, car insurance, anything that requires human intervention. It's impossible to do that on the internet. The obvious route is to talk to somebody who's independent, open and upfront about how they are paid and who provides the choice the customer wants."
As a lobbying group, the IMAF wants to get legal and government costs in mortgages and house-buying reduced and streamlined.
Specifically, they believe that instead of having to pay a solicitor and the government each time a house is sold, a log-book system should be introduced for houses, similar to that for cars. After the first legal transaction, the log-book details are accepted, accompanied by an insurance policy that covers any defects in the title.
Legal fees usually are 1 per cent of the purchase price, plus VAT; government costs include Land Registry fees and stamp duty.
"It seems crazy every time a house is sold, you have to go through the same process, in a situation where we're trying to speed up the process. It works in other economies. Just because we inherited our legal system from the UK, we don't have to take every aspect of the process into our system," he points out.
Another beef is the refusal of lending institutions to allow brokers to make applications online for their clients, even though an individual can process an application online in a bank.
"It would mean we would have, in principle and theory, the opportunity to deal with foreign lenders who may be cheaper but who don't want to come into the Irish market because we're too small. If technology allows brokers deal with customers outside our market, it must have an impact on the rates of Irish lenders," he says.
The federation also wants to see valuation fees abolished. "They cost a customer on average €130. The valuation report goes to the bank and the customer has no claim on the report if it's inaccurate. If the bank thinks it's necessary, why doesn't it pay for it?"
Looking at the broader mortgage landscape, Mr Dowling does not believe that different area restrictions will be introduced here. "I have seen no evidence lenders are saying they don't want to lend in location X or location Y. Where AIB, Bank or Ireland, Irish Permanent are covering all categories of people, competition will ensure it doesn't become an issue," he says.
However, he points to the success of Bank of Scotland in cherry-picking customers at the top end of the market in major urban areas.
He sees scope for raising the 92 per cent threshold for loans to perhaps 95 per cent for certain types of customers but does not advocate a scenario like Britain, where loans of up to 110 per cent of the value of a property are advanced. And he certainly does not think we are over-mortgaged as a State, when the average loan-to-value is between 65 and 70 per cent.
Michael Dowling is a northside Dubliner who was educated at Scoil Mhuire and Árd Scoil Rís in Marino. He studied chartered accountancy for a year but says he didn't relish the prospect of earning £40 a week as an articled clerk and took off to the ICS Building Society, which was later taken over by the Bank of Ireland. He worked in the first dedicated mortgage broker unit and was instrumental in setting up the first Mortgage Store in Grafton Street in Dublin.
He later joined Eagle Star, became managing director of Gunne Financial Services where "I learned about people management and treating all customers as equals", before setting up his own business last year.
But back to the Ruud Gullit business: having played soccer for Home Farm since he was six, he represented Ireland at schoolboy and youth level, but listened to his mother when she told him to stick to his books instead of trying for an English club. He also played Gaelic football for Dublin at minor and under-21 levels and won an All-Ireland colleges medal in 1979.
Now, his football involvement is as a member of the management committee of Home Farm and he plays golf in Seapoint, near Termonfeckin in Co Louth - he was a founder member and is a former chairman. "Sometime, I would like to see my son up at Home Farm," he says but Mikey is only two and even Juliana, at six, may still be too young.
