Broker of the month: Tom O’Brien

November’s broker of the month is Tom O’Brien, who works across Enness Commercial, Enness Development and Enness Bridging. This week marks Tom’s one year anniversary since joining Enness—we sat down with him to find out more about the last twelve months.

Congratulations, Tom! It’s been a successful year for you since joining Enness—but how did you decide to become a broker?

I studied economics at University, as I’ve always had a flair for figures and an interest in finance. My other interest was property, particularly property development. As such, this seemed like a natural route for me.

Did your interest in property development sway you towards becoming a commercial broker, instead of working on the residential side?

I think so, yes. In the future, I’d like to have a property portfolio in addition to working as a broker, so being constantly exposed to property professionals is a good learning curve.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

The clients I work with are a fascinating aspect of my role, as they come from such a large variety of backgrounds. During the last year at Enness, I’ve worked on some hugely interesting cases.

The variety of my work is a large part of what keeps me so interested in it—I work with developers and businesspeople requiring finance for a full spectrum of projects, from those taking out a refurbishment mortgage to developers working on multi-million pound, large-scale projects.

Have you been working on anything interesting recently?

I’ve been working on quite a lot of bridging recently, helping to find solutions for clients who need unconventional solutions for their situations—for example, I recently used bridging finance to help a client port a mortgage. I enjoy arranging bridging finance, as by its nature, it can be done very quickly.

Unsecured business loans are another interesting area, because we find many commercial business owners don’t even know they can apply for this type of finance—when actually, they can be incredibly useful, used in a wide variety of circumstances, and can be arranged in less than a week.

If you could buy a house anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I wouldn’t say no to a private island in the middle of the Caribbean. I’d like to have a bolthole somewhere relaxing, with great scenery. But I was born and raised in London, so ultimately, I’m a city boy and would always want to have a home in the capital.