Commercial Loans and Fun Blog

Naming a Commercial Loan For Success

Posted by George Blackburne on Thu, Apr 28, 2016


row_commercial_building.jpgBlackburne & Sons
recently increased its loan-to-value ratios across the board.  Because we are in a recovery, Blackburne & Sons will now regularly make private money (hard money) commercial loans up to 70% LTV.  If the deal is a purchase money loan; i.e., the borrower is buying the property, and the buyer is putting 25% down in cash, we will even consider 75% LTV!

One of my loan officers complained, "But it seems like all of my loans are restaurants, and (because the failure rate of restaurants is enormous) we cut our loan-to-value ratios back to 60% to 65%.  I'll never get a restaurant loan approved at 70% loan-to-value."

That got me to thinking.  Hmmm, would I ever approve a 70% LTV loan on a restaurant?.  The answer is, "Yes, if the restaurant was not really a restaurant."  Huh?  In prime downtown locations, many row commercial buildings are leased out and improved as restaurants; but in reality that are just big empty boxes.

Free List of 3,159 Commercial Lenders  Sort By Your Own Criteria

 

A row commercial building is just a general purpose commercial building where there is a zero lot line on both sides with the neighboring commercial buildings.  There is no side yard.  The buildings are squished together against each other, just like a townhouse is squished against the homes on either side of it.

So back to our restaurant.  If I was being asked to finance a row commercial building that was just currently leased to a restaurant, I would expect my loan officer to argue in Loan Committee, "Hey, this isn't really a restaurant building.  It's a garden variety row commercial building.  It's just a box.  Prior to the restaurant, it was leased out as an office supply store and then later as a dress store."

 

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And now - finally - we get to the point of today's lesson.  Let's suppose the restaurant is called, The Sicilian Noodle.  Now remember, every commercial loan must have a name.  It might be Pine Haven Apartments, Tire City Building, or Charlotte Strip Center; but every commercial loan must have a name.  The reason why is because a great many commercial properties are owned by two or more couples or by an LLC.  You can't call the deal the Smith loan because the Jones and the Carpenters might also be on title.

Now back to my row commercial building.  Should my loan officer label this deal as, "Sicilian Noodle Restaurant Building"?  No-no-no!!!  My loan officer wants to make clear to Loan Committee that this is not a restaurant building but rather just an empty box.  He should call the deal, "Main Street Row Commercial Building."  Give your commercial loan a good name!

Let's look at a different scenario.  Suppose that Rosewood Boulevard is a long commercial strip that runs west to east through the entire city.  By the way, a commercial strip is a busy commercial thoroughfare whose sides are lined with businesses.  It is not a gentlemen's club.

 

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Now the eastern stretch of Rosewood Boulevard runs through a middle-class, bustling neighborhood called the Triangle District.  Unfortunately the western stretch of Rosewood Boulevard runs through the Porkloin District, and the Porkloin District houses the lowest-income section of town.  Many commercial buildings are boarded up, and most of the commercial buildings in the area are protected by bars on the windows and they are covered in gang grafitti.  Drug sales are one of the single largest sources of income for the residents.  Gun battles are waged nightly, and the Nightly News often starts out their broadcasts with, "Another seven people were gunned down on Rosewood Boulevard last night in the infamous Porkloin District."

Okay, now a test of your understanding.  Are you going to name your next commercial loan, "Rosewood Boulevard Liquor Store?"  If you answered, "No," then you understood today's training lesson.  Does "Triangle District Strip Commercial Building" sound more appealing to a Loan Committee?  I think so.

Earlier in today's article I mentioned private money loans from Blackburne & Sons.  When does it make sense to use Blackburne & Sons as your commercial lender?

Do you need a commercial loan with no prepayment penalty?  Is your client's commercial property partially vacant? Do all of your commercial leases run out in the next 18 months?  Do you need a lender who will allow a negative cash flow?  Do you need a lender who will look at the borrower's global income - income from salaries, other investments, etc.?  Do you need a lender who will allow the seller to carry back a second mortgage? Does your client have a balloon payment coming due on his commercial property? Has your bank offered him a discounted pay-off? Does your borrower have less-than-stellar credit? Is your client's company losing money? Is your borrower a foreign national? Do you need a non-recourse loan?

These are all good reasons to apply to Blackburne & Sons.

 

Apply For a Commercial Loan to Blackburne & Sons

 

"George, my commercial loan is a slam-dunk.  I just need a great rate.  I'm competing on the deal." In that case, you should submit your deal using C-Loans.com.  Our hungry life companies, conduits, and commercial banks will eat that A-quality deal right up.  You should also use C-Loans.com if the loan is larger than $3 million (too large for Blackburne & Sons) or if it is a construction loan, regardless of the credit.  The banks will quickly scarf up that construction loan, and our 150 hard money lenders will dine on that large hard money deal.

 

Submit Your Loan to 750 Commercial   Lenders Using C-Loans.com.  It's Free!

 

Many high-school-educated commercial mortgage brokers make more money than many college- educated professionals because they have the natural ability to sell, great English skills, and some great training in commercial real estate finance.  Our 9-hour commercial mortgage brokerage video training course - now coupled at no additional charge with our 6-hour audio training course in Intermediate Commercial Finance - is a cheap way ($549) to change your life.

 

Nine-Hour Video Training Course  How to Broker Commercial Loans

 

Don't forget to snag the business card of any banker you meet who makes commercial real estate loans.  We'll trade you the contents of that one business card for a free directory of 2,000 commercial real estate lenders.  We solicit these guys to refer us their commercial mortgage turndowns.

 

Free Directory of 750+  Commercial Real Estate Lenders

 

Many mortgage brokers find C-Loans.com while browsing at night.  We want these guys pre-registered so that when they run across their next commercial loan, they can immediately enter it into C-Loans.  Registering is just a fancy way of filling out your name and contact information.  If you register on C-Loans.com, I'll send you a free Commercial Mortgage Underwriting Manual that I sell separately on C-Loans.com for $199.

 

Free $199 Commercial  Underwriting Manual

 

Got a friend or co-worker who would benefit from my free training in commercial real estate finance?

 

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Topics: commercial loan names

Commercial Loans and Referral Fees From Out of the Blue

Posted by George Blackburne on Mon, Apr 25, 2016

Secret_Police.jpgThis week C-Loans, Inc. paid a referral fee of $1,131.25 to a lady who had merely mentioned C-Loans.com in one of her blog posts.  This lady had wisely made the mention of C-Loans.com be an active hyperlink, so we were able to trace this closing back to her blog article.

Our programmers have added automatic software to C-Loans.com whereby we automatically capture the URL of the web site from which the visitor jumped.  That URL is printed at the bottom of the C-Loans loan application.  When the deal closes, we go back to see who owns that website and send them money.

While this week's referral fee of $1,131 is a nice gift from out of the blue, we once paid a referral fee of $21,250 (!!) to a lucky guy named Alan Dunn of Spydercube.com.  Can you imagine being Alan and getting a wonderful phone call like this, "Hey, Alan, we need a W-9 from you.  We have a check here for $21,250 for you."  Alan's deal was on a $17 million closing.

 

Free List of 3,159 Commercial Lenders  Sort By Your Own Criteria

 

All you have to do start earning huge referral fees from C-Loans is to create a hyperlink on your real estate or mortgage web site that says, "Commercial Real Estate Loans", "Commercial Financing",  "Apply For a Commercial Loan", or "Finance This Property."  Then point this link to C-Loans.com.  Your link needs to point to our home page and not any other page because only our home page is programmed to capture the referring URL.

 

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Beware of the Link Police (see the two photos above).  If you put more than one link to C-Loans.com on your web site, the Link Police are likely to break down your door in the middle of the night and haul you away to Guantanamo Bay, where you will never be seen by your family again.  Not!  There is no such thing as the Link Police!  I'm just being a smarty-pants here to make an important point.  You can absolutely put a link to C-Loans.com on every one of your website pages.  The more links you add to your website, the better your chances of getting a wonderful phone call.

Now if it was me, I would put a "Commercial Loans" link at the top of each page, a "Commercial Financing" link in the middle of each page, and an "Apply for a Commercial Loan" link at the bottom of each of my web pages.  When you or your internet guru creates a new page of content, you guys don't start from scratch each time.  Instead you copy an existing page, maybe even from a master, and then you make your changes.  Be sure that your master page contains these links so that every time you create a new web page in the future, links to C-Loans.com will be automatically added.

Now let me speak to you commercial real estate brokers (commercial realtors).  On your company website are your active listings.  I strongly urge you to create a "Finance This Property" link at the bottom of each commercial property listing.  Give yourself a chance to make some serious dough from out of the blue.

 

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How can you be sure that we won't cheat you?  In reality, you don't; however, Alan Dunn (the lucky $21,250 recipient) would never have known that we closed that deal.  Nevertheless, we paid him immediately.  Remember guys, I own Blackburne & Sons, the hard money commercial lender.  As part of our duties, we service $50 million in hard money loans for 900 elderly investors.  At any given time, there is usually over $1 million in our trust accounts.  If I was going to break bad (pun intended), I'd loot our trust account long before I'd steal your $1,131 referral fee.  Please also remember that this is our 36th year in the commercial mortgage business.

Still suspicious?  For just $95 we will create a special partner link for you that will allow you to -

  1. Embed a "Commercial Loans" hyperlink in your email newsletters and even in the signature block of your daily emails. Without this special link, we can only track referrals from websites, not email newsletters or even everyday emails. If you pay for one of these special partner links, be sure to insert it right into the signature block of your emails. Hey, you never know when one of your wealthy borrowers or real estate brokers might happen to need a commercial loan.

  2. Receive a copy of every commercial loan application generated by your website or emails. This way, if you happen to see a commercial loan that you want to broker out yourself, you can jump on the lead and call the borrower.  You can also use these copies to audit us.

If it is worth $95 to you to get a copy of every lead generated by your website, please call Mick Carlson at 574-855-6292 or email him at mcarlson@blackburne.com.  In my opinion, this is NOT necessary, unless you publish an email newsletter and want to embed a hyperlink or two in your newsletters.

Now let's talk plagiarism.  The nice lady who wrote the blog article mentioned above, and who earned a nice referral fee, probably got a lot of her material from my blog and my website.  Good for her!  I'm happy to let anyone use my material (you don't want to copy my articles or web pages word-for-word because Google will punish you for duplicate content), as long as you include an active hyperlink back to C-Loans.com.

Are referral fees legal?  Absolutely, as long as you don't try to quote material terms.  I wrote an excellent whitepaper on the subject of referral fees for commercial loans.

Please continue to be on the look-out for bankers who make commercial real estate loans.  We'll trade you the contents of just one banker business card for a free directory of 2,000 commercial real estate lenders.  We solict these guys to refer their turndowns to C-Loans.com.

 

Free Directory of 750+  Commercial Real Estate Lenders

 

Have you registered on C-Loans.com?  Registration is merely the process of inputting your name and contact information (Step One of Six) into C-Loans.  Entering your contact information into one of the blue buttons on our site is NOT the registration process.  We realize that you are more likely to enter your next commercial loan into C-Loans.com if you have pre-registered, so we are offering a free $199 Commercial Mortgage Underwriting Manual to anyone who pre-registers.

 

Input Your Commercial Referral Here

 

Got an "A" quality commercial loan request sitting on your desk?

 

Submit Your Loan to 750 Commercial   Lenders Using C-Loans.com.  It's Free! 

 

Need a nonprime or subprime commercial loan?

 

Apply For a Commercial Loan to Blackburne & Sons

 

Ready to finally learn commercial real estate finance?  Commercial real estate brokers (commercial realtors) can add a whole new profit center to their brokerage businesses by learning how to broker commercial loans.

 

Nine-Hour Video Training Course  How to Broker Commercial Loans

 

Bankers, get 200 free SBA loan leads.

 

Banks and Credit Unions:  Get 200 Free SBA Loan Leads

 

Got an employee, co-worker, or a friend who could use this free training in commercial real estate finance?

 

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Topics: referral fees

Upcoming Commercial Loan Conference

Posted by George Blackburne on Thu, Apr 21, 2016

Pitbull.jpgMy old friend, Leonard Rosen, is hosting another one of his enjoyable Pitbull Private Lending Conferences on June 2nd at the The M Resort in Las Vegas.  I have been to a number of these conferences, and I always get a lot out of them.

Leonard Rosen is an interesting guy.  In addition to helping mortgage brokers to become hard money lenders, Leonard is also a judo ground fighter.  He competes regularly, even though he is well over 50 years old.  His son is the apple of his eye, and the 13-year-old (?) boy is also a highly-ranked competitor in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  Huh.  I think I just figured out why Leonard still rolls at age 53 (?).  If he doesn't stay ahead of his talented son... Ha-ha!

 

Free List of 3,159 Commercial Lenders  Sort By Your Own Criteria

 

I have been telling you for years that the real money in the mortgage business is in loan servicing fees.  Mortgage company owners need that steady residual income to keep their doors open during the regular real estate crashes that seem to hit every 14 years or so.  There is no easier way to build a loan servicing portfolio than to become a private money lender.  

Blackburne & Sons, my hard money commercial mortgage company, services a $50 million portfolio at any average loan servicing fee of 2% annually.  That's $83,333 that I know I will have coming in the door every month, even if every one of my new commercial loan originations falls out.

 

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At Leonard's Private Lending Conference, not only will you learn the fastest and cheapest way to become a hard money lender yourself, you will also make scores of great contacts.  Only the brightest and most ambitious mortgage brokers attend this conference.  Lenders troll the lobby looking to snare these new brokers to bring them deals.  Be sure to bring your latest packages.  A lot of deals get done with these hungry lenders at Pitbull Conferences.

Click here for more information.

 

Free Directory of 750+  Commercial Real Estate Lenders

Topics: National Hard Money Conference

Free SBA Commercial Loan Applications

Posted by George Blackburne on Thu, Apr 7, 2016

SBA.jpgC-Loans has just introduced a new program where we will give bankers, hungry to make more SBA loans, 200 free SBA commercial loan applications so that they can sample our deals.  I want to stress to bank loan officers that these leads are free.

Commercial real estate loan officers working for banks will able to search our Lender Vault for commercial loan applications - either SBA loans, conventional commercial mortgage loans, or a combination of the two - that are the pefect size for the bank.  They will be able to choose commercial loan applications that are located in the bank's preferred lending area, and they will be able to select deals secured by the right type of property.  For example, if the bank has had a bad experience with hotels, none of these 200 free SBA loan applications will be on hotels.

 

Free List of 3,159 Commercial Lenders  Sort By Your Own Criteria

 

I'm sorry guys, but this offer is made only to FDIC-insured commercial banks and NCUSIF-insured credit unions.  If you actually have a desk at the bank and you go to work there every day, please click on the red button below:

 

Banks and Credit Unions:  Get 200 Free SBA Loan Leads

 

"Gee, George, how can I get my hands on some of these SBA applications from C-Loans.com?"

Commercial mortgage companies and commercial mortgage brokers can still buy commercial loan applications from C-Loans.  Our commercial loan leads are really-really cheap up-front, typically just $1 to $9 apiece; however, if you do close the loan, you owe C-Loans a software licensing fee of 37.5 basis points (slightly more than one-third of a point).

 

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If you do buy our leads, you will want to keep careful track of the fact that the leads came from C-Loans.  While its never fun to share your loan fee, once a mortgage broker has closed five loans for C-Loans, we will add you to C-Loans as a Proven Broker.  From then on leads will automatically arrive in your email box without the need to pay anything upfront.  If you cheat us by closing a loan without paying us (and you somehow don't get caught), you are really hurting yourself because you will never be able to earn your way onto C-Loans.com.

Earning a listing on C-Loans as a Proven Broker could easily prove to be the most significant event of your business life.  We have a number of commercial mortgage brokers who have now closed more than 40 loans for us each.  (After their first five closings, they were listed on C-Loans as Proven Brokers.)

Are these commercial loan applications any good?  C-Loans, Inc. has closed over 1,000 commercial loans totaling over $1 billion.  For more information about buying cheap commercial leads from C-Loans:

 

Commercial Mortgage Brokers:  Buy Cheap Commercial Leads

 

Please be on the look out for the business card of a banker who makes commercial real estate loans.  You can parlay the contents of that one business card for a free directory of 2,000 commercial real estate lenders.

 

Free Directory of 750+  Commercial Real Estate Lenders

 

The mean-and-potatoes of our $545 nine-hour training course in commercial mortgage brokerage is our Commercial Mortgage Underwriting Manual.  We'll give you a free copy of this manual, just for registering on C-Loans.  Registering is just a fancy name for filling out your name and contact information.

 

Free $199 Commercial  Underwriting Manual

 

Now a depressing subject.  There is no such thing as an experienced commercial mortgage loan broker who has not been repeatedly shafted out of a commercial loan brokerage commission in excess of $15,000.  Personally I got so outraged that I went to law school, became an attorney, bu then never practcied, other than to collect my own companies' loan fees.  When you have had enough of this kind of financial abuse, order my fee agreement and fee collection course.  It shows you how a layman can collect $100,000 loan fees without hiring an attorney.  This training is the most important subject that I will ever teach you.

 

Fee Agreement and Fee Collection Course. Just $199.

 

If you are not already a regular recipient of my training articles, sign up to receive free training in commercial real estate finance.

 

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Topics: Free SBA Leads