Banks Prefer to Make Commercial Loans Close to Home

If you need a commercial real estate loan, and the deal is slightly flawed, you should take it to a bank located close to the property.  Most commercial real estate lenders greatly prefer to lend close to one of their offices.

Let's suppose that the commercial property that you are trying to finance is a very successful restaurant in the very best location in town.  Now banks normally do not like to make loans on restaurants because of the high failure rate.  If a local banker, however, dines regularly at the restaurant and appreciates the fact that this particular restaurant business is thriving, there is an excellent chance that he'll still make this commercial real estate loan.

Here's another example.  Suppose your borrower has credit that is slightly dinged, and most of the big banks have already turned down his commercial real estate loan request.  This is another example of where you should take his commercial real estate loan to the small bank located just down the street.

This small, local bank will probably demand a higher interest rate than Wells Fargo Bank or PNC Bank, but their rate will, almost certainly, be a whole lot better than even the cheapest commercial hard money lender, like Blackburne & Sons.

Banks will ocassionally make a near-hard-money quality commercial real estate loan simply because the commercial property is located close to their bank, and they are very comfortable with its value.

Using maps.yahoo.com you can easily pinpoint nearby banks to any property in America.  Simply type in the address of the commercial property that you are trying to finance, and then ask the software to plot all of the nearby banks.  (Use the "Find a Business" field and type in "bank".)  Or you can simply go to C-Loans.com and choose six banks located close to the property.