Commercial Mortgage Brokers on Crack

I just received a call from a commercial mortgage broker.  He was obviously a rookie, and he wanted to tell me all about the $54 million loan and the $21 million loan that he was working on. I kept thinking to myself, "This guy must be smokin' crack."

C'mon, folks, the only commercial loans that are closing today are SBA loans, USDA Business and Industry Loans (B&I loans), and small (less than $3 million) commercial loans on standing commercial properties. 

Unless you have an entire pipeline full of small, bread-and-butter deals like this, you are going to starve as a commercial mortgage broker.  Remember, a reasonable closing rate on commercial loans these days is about 1/15. 

To make matters worse, you will probably have to submit the one commercial loan that eventually closes to at least 40 or more different commercial lenders.  In recent conversations with old veterans of the business, they are telling me they have had to submit their commercial loan to over 100 different commercial lenders before finding a home for the deal.  This is a tough-tough market.

Here are the kinds of deals that have a virtually zero chance of closing:

1. Construction loans (unless it's an SBA or USDA deal).
2. Land loans
3. Land development loans
4. Commercial loans larger than $3 million (unless it's an SBA or USDA loan)

C-Loans.com is the largest of the commercial mortgage portals, and it's free.  You can quickly submit your four-minute mini-app to 750 different commercial lenders.