Peter Pays Paul

Inside commercial hard money lending.

3 Reasons to Interview Your Commercial Lender

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

Very few independent commercial mortgage brokers take the time to interview the lenders on their lenders list. Here are three reasons you should interview your commercial lending sources.

1) It Saves Time.

Commercial brokers will see a variety of deals come across their desk. Instead of calling 100 lenders to find out if they finance retail properties when the deal arrives, a broker can call the 10 lenders that are looking for retail properties to finance. It also allows you to collect the necessary information to accurately present the deal to the commercial lender.

It also saves the lender’s time. You do not end up calling them every five days with a deal that cannot be financed by their institution.

2) It Increases Perceived Professionalism.

We all want to be taken seriously and perceived as professionals in our field. You can appear more professional by consistently calling a lender with deals that are appealing to that lending institution.

A husband knows that his wife likes daisies, is going to score more points for bringing home daisies than petunias. Showing apartment loans to a lender that likes apartment loans, demonstrates that you listened to the lender and are serious about getting deals done with them.

3) It Increases Successful Closes.

Fewer wasted phone calls and a focused plan of attack allow you to devote more time to deal producing activities.

As lenders begin to trust you with the deals that you bring to them, they look forward to working with a person they know and trust. Marginal deals are more likely to get funded if the lender has a relationship with you.

This process also allows you to filter out the deals that you can’t readily place with any lender. This will save you from wasting precious days chasing a deal that is not able to be financed.

I hope you enjoyed my two cents on why you should develop a relationship with your commercial lender. Can you think of other reasons to develop a relationship of this type?