Commercial Loans and Fun Blog

The second half of 2013 should be an extremely busy time for the commercial mortgage industry.  In fact, the commercial loan business may be poised to enjoy one of its busiest spurts in history.

1. U.S. commercial banks are sitting on over $2 trillion in excess reserves.  In plain English, they have lots of money to lend.
2. Part of my job as the owner of C-Loans.com, the largest of the commercial mortgage portals, is to call bankers on a daily basis and solicit them to join C-Loans.  Every bank with whom I have spoken for the past three weeks had an appetite to make more commercial real estate loans.
3. It takes two to tango.  Even if our commercial banks are in fact hungry to make more commercial mortgages, they cannot force business owners and investors to borrow.  The limiting factor today is a lack of demand for new commercial mortgages by borrowers.  Few borrowers are applying for commercial loans.
4. By mid-2013 it should become clear that the U.S. economy is roaring back, and business owners and commercial real estate investors should start dusting off their borrowing plans.
5. Why has the automotive manufacturing business been so robust for the past two years?  The answer is that the auto industry produced relatively few new cars between 2007 and 2011.  Demand for replacement automobiles built up.  I believe that the same thing is happening is commercial real estate finance.  Commercial real estate investors have almost fully-depreciated many of their commercial properties.  If they don't trade-up soon, they will face painful taxes.  Business owners have put off expansion plans for six years.  If they don't expand and innovate pretty soon, many of them no doubt sense that they will fall fatally behind their competition.  It's innovate-or-die time.  To do this they will need cash.

For the reasons outlined above, I predict they the second half of 2013 will be just about the best time in history to be in the commercial mortgage business.

Are you a commercial mortgage broker?  Are you struggling financially?  Please join me in Denver as I teach one single live class, The Practice of Commercial Mortgage Brokerage - How To Fix Your Commercial Mortgage Business If You're Not Making Any Money.

This wonderful new commercial loan brokerage training course took me 14 months to write; but it is my best work ever.  If you enjoyed my earlier training courses, you will simply love this course.

This Practice Course consists of 63 separate lessons on how to actually succeed as a commercial mortgage broker.  For years I have watched innumerable commercial mortgage brokers working on absolutely goofy loans in a wasteful, foolish manner.  This was a commercial mortgage brokerage training course that desperately needed to be taught.

This is NOT a training course about how to underwrite commercial real estate loans.  This is NOT a course about debt yield ratios and debt service coverage ratio formulas.  No.

This is a course about how to spot goofy and hopeless commercial loan requests.  It's a course that will help you spot the one deal in twenty that will actually close.  This is a training course that will teach you how to market for do-able commercial loans.  This is a training course that will teach you how to make the sale and how to keep the fish on the hook. 

This commercial loan brokerage training course - the actual practice of commercial loan brokerage - will teach you all of the fatal mistakes that most commercial mortgage brokers make that end up scaring off the borrower.  In fact, after taking this course, you will wonder how you ever closed a commercial loan.

Packaging a commercial loan is super-easy.  You just need to understand how to present it, how to deliver it, and how to get your lender to actually read it.

Finding the right lender for your commercial mortgage loan is easy - if you know these six techniques and tricks.  This commercial loan brokerage training is immensely practical.  Insert part A into hole B.  I take you through the steps in a simple, easy-to-remember manner.

How do you get a squirrelly borrower to sign your fee agreement?  We'll cover this.

Perhaps most important of all, I will get you 500% more efficient.  You will field five-times more lead calls.  You'll find five-times more do-able deals.  You'll close twenty-times more commercial loans.  How is this even possible?  You will no longer waste time on goofy commercial loans that have a zero chance of closing.

But I am teaching this course live (where you can ask me question after question) ONLY ONE TIME.  Please therefore join me in Denver on Tuesday, December 11th, at 10:00 a.m. at the Crowne Plaza (Downtown), 1450 Glenarm Place, Denver, CO 80202l, (303) 573-1450.  Rooms are around $120 per night and a shuttle from the airport is available.

The tuition for the course is $399 if you pre-register (sorry, no refunds), and $499 at the door.  To pre-register, please call Tom Blackburne at (916) 338-3232 or email him at tommy@blackburne.com.

Here is my personal promise to you:  If you are struggling as a commercial mortgage broker, I will fix your commercial loan brokerage business.

Those of you who are regular readers of this commercial loans blog know that I have been pounding on you to use every available free minute to expand your snail mail list and email list of referral sources.  Every day you should be adding bankers, commercial real estate brokers, property managers, residential mortgage brokers, residential real estate agents, other lenders, accountants, attorneys, and financial planners to your lists.  You want referrals, not shoppers.

But that general rule being said, there is a time to put down your mailing lists and simply do deals.  You should drop everything when the fish are schooling. 

Commercial mortgage borrowers apply for commercial loans in spurts, much like having a school of fish wander underneath your fishing boat.  Your phone will be dead for three to five weeks, and then suddenly everybody and their brother will want a commercial real estate loan.  Your phones will light up like a Christmas tree.  Your email box will be flooded with leads.

When commercial mortgage borrowers are schooling, drop everything, and devote 100% of your time to fielding lead calls.  Forget about processing the new deals that you land.  Forget about trying to place some of the older loan applications in your pipeline.  I want you to do nothing but field lead calls.  Sell-sell-sell.  Get those new commercial loan packages headed your way.

Just as suddenly, the school of fish will soon (about six days later) wander away.  Your phones will stop ringing.  New referrals will stop coming in by email.  That is the time to go back to processing all of your loans.

Remember, commercial mortgage borrowers tend to move about the same time, much like the movement of a school of fish.  These investors all tend to apply at the same time.  When that happens, drop everything, and work your lead calls.  Sell-sell-sell!

The other day I received a marketing email from a commercial mortgage broker trying to drum up business.  The email was a PERFECT example of what NOT to do.  As one of my trainees put it, "This guy is doing everything back-ass-wards!"

1. A commercial loan broker must only work on do-able commercial loans.  What is a do-able commercial loan today?  A do-able deal is a small commercial loan (less than $5MM) secured by a standing commercial property.
   
   
2. Goofy loans are the opposite of do-able loans.  Goofy loans include international loans, construction loans, loans on mines, large loans (loans over $5MM), acquistion and development loans (A&D loans), land loans, joint ventures, daisy chains, and any other commercial loans that are not your standard, garden variety, bread-and-butter fare.
   
   
3. If a commercial mortgage broker is not working on a do-able loan, he simply must be working on his marketing.  Commercial mortgage brokers should devote 60% or more of their time to marketing.
   
   
4. The successful commercial mortgage broker knows how to say, "No."  The most valuable asset possessed by a commercial mortgage broker is his time.  He doesn't waste it by working on goofy loans.  Instead, he uses that precious time to call on bankers, commercial realtors, and property managers - either in person, over the phone, by snail mail, or by email - and adds them religiously to his growing email/snail mail list of referral contacts.

Okay, so now let me tell you about this advertising email I received from this commercial mortgage broker.  This guy was actually soliciting for the very same goofy loans that I have trained you to avoid like the plague!  He advertised for -

1. International loans
   
   
2. Construction loans
   
   
3. Land loans
   
   
4. Acquistion and development loans
   
   
5. Venture capital
   
   
6. Loan on mines!
   
   
7. Loans on special use property, like energy projects.
   
   
8. And his advertisement was directed at other mortgage brokers asking them to bring their commercial loans to him to place.  In other words, this foolish broker was intentionally setting himself up to be a commercial mortgage wholesaler. You never-ever-ever want to work as a commercial mortgage wholesaler.
   
   
9. By tailoring his advertisements to mortgage brokers, he is intentionally creating a daisy chain.  Daisy chains don't close!

Oh, my goodness!  Talk about being on a path to disappointment and poverty.  Folks, you could work on 10,000 commercial loans from the above list and never close a single one.  This broker was the perfect example of what NOT to do as a commercial mortgage broker.

You should only be working on permanent loans and bridge loans on standing commercial properties in this market.  If you waste your precious time working on any other kind of commercial loan, mark my words.  You.  Will.  Starve.

If this broker's advertisement was not funny enough, the headline of his advertisement was the pièce de résistance.  The headline read, WE ARE IN BUSINESS!  COMCAST MISTAKENLY TURNED OFF OUR PHONE.  I am shocked - shocked I tell you - that this commercial mortgage broker may be having trouble paying his bills.

C'mon, guys.  Don't work on goofy loans.  If you're not working on a loan on a standing commercial property, be working on your marketing.

If your commercial mortgage borrower owns a successful business, you can often use his normal business bank deposits as a lever to obtain for him a new commercial loan.  Let me explain how and why this works.

Good borrowers mean very little to most bankers.  Borrowers are like trolley cars.  There is always another trolley car coming down the track.

Large depositors, on the other hand, are very important to bankers.  Keep in mind that most commercial banks rarely sell off their loans.  They are portfolio lenders.  In other words, banks keep (almost) all of the loans that they make.

As a result, banks can only make so many loans.  The limiting factor is the size of their deposit base.  The more deposits that a bank enjoys, the more loans it can make, the more loan fees it can earn, and the more interest income it can earn.  When the banks has loaned out all of its deposits, however, the bank has to stop making new loans.  It cannot earn more loan fees and more interest.   

The name of the game in banking is therefore to provide excellent banking service to high-net-worth individuals so they will move their deposits to your bank.  Banking is all about growing the bank's deposit base.  The deal is that the bank trades a short-term commercial real estate loan in return for a long-term deposit relationship.

Now let's suppose your borrower owns a successful widget company, and he needs a commercial real estate loan.  Let's further suppose that he banks with a large money center bank, like Bank of America, and Bank of America has turned him down.  Here is how you may still be able to get him a bank loan:

Go to http://www.maps.yahoo.com and type in the address of his his widget business.  The location of his widget factory will apear on the map.  Then ask Yahoo Maps to plot all of the nearby banks.

Select a nearby small bank.  Its VERY important that the bank be a small one.  The large, money center banks - like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Bank - accept deposits from all over the country, and they don't appreciate new, local depositors nearly as much as small banks.

Call the small bank and ask to speak the branch manager.  Don't allow yourself to be redirected to some loan officer.  Insist on speaking directly with the branch manager.

When he comes on the line, explain to the branch manager that you represent the owner of a successful business nearby and that you would like to bring your owner down to the bank to talk about moving his deposits to a new bank in return for a short term commercial real estate loan.  Most branch managers of small banks will practically jump through the phone line in their enthusiasm.

This is how you will finance your successful restaurants and your successful bowling alleys.  The operative word here is successful.  Successful business owners maintain large average daily balances in their business accounts, and their personal savings accounts as often impressive as well.  Bankers want those deposits, so they will trade a short-term business loan for a long-term deposit relationship.

If you’re not making any money as a commercial mortgage broker, this lesson should tell you what you’re doing wrong.

First of all, you are probably working on goofy loans.  By “goofy loans” I mean international loans, loans larger than $10 million, land loans and land development loans, residential subdivision construction loans, commercial construction loans without an SBA takeout, loans on mines, joint ventures, loans involving certificates of deposit, credit-enhanced loans, and loans involved in a daisy chain.  Folks, you could have a pipeline of 10,000 such loans and never close a single one.

I urge you to take a look at your current pipeline of deals and mentally kick out any of the above types of loans.  The few (if any) remaining loans are your only commercial loans that have a snowball’s chance of closing.

In fact, each of the above loans is worse than having no commercial loans at all in your pipeline.  All they will do is waste time that should be spent finding permanent loans on standing commercial properties.

The most valuable asset you own as a commercial mortgage broker is your time.  You must learn how to say “no” twenty times per day.

What kinds of commercial loans should you be working on?  Small loans on standing commercial properties, ideally less than $2 million, multifamily loans, SBA loans, USDA Business and Industry loans, loans to refinance balloon payments, refinances of under-leveraged commercial buildings to cash-needy borrowers, discounted payoff’s (DPO’s), loans to purchase REO’s, and possibly commercial construction loans with an SBA or USDA takeout loan.

If you remember nothing else from this lesson, just remember that small commercial loans close.  I would rather have just one $600,000 commercial loan than ten commercial loans of over $6 million each.  It has been my experience that large commercial loans only close when you don’t need the commission.  Remember also that the larger the loan, the more bank executives who have to review it before it gets approved.  Any one of them could have a pet peeve.

The bank loan officers who handle the really large commercial loans are very cliquish.  They will usually just kiss off your first half-dozen deals because they want you to go away.   You’re not one of the good ‘ole boys.  Sometimes it feels like a new broker has to sacrifice five good loans on the altar of a new lender before the lender will even start to pay attention to him.

The most important lesson I have ever learned after 32 years in commercial real estate finance is this – commercial lenders close loans for their friends.  You need to become good friends with a bank loan officer before he will close a large commercial loan for you.

Instead of working on goofy loans, you should be spending 60% of your time on marketing for do-able commercial loans.

The way to market for commercial loans is build a huge snail-mail list and email list of wealthy real estate investors and referral sources.  The best referral sources are bankers, commercial real estate brokers, property managers, residential mortgage brokers, other commercial lenders (hard money brokers, credit unions, etc.), attorneys, CPA’s, and insurance agents.

You should focus your marketing on local referral sources, so you get local deals on local properties that you can personally inspect.  It’s easy to pinpoint nearby banks, realtors, property managers and such by plotting your office on Yahoo Maps and then asking the map program to plot the nearest banks, etc.  You should then solicit these same guys using funny and interesting newsletters.

When quoting a commercial real estate loan, be sure to quote a very specific rate and term, even if you don’t know which bank will eventually fund your deal.  Borrowers want to hear specificity.  The good news is that most banks offer similar programs.  If you’re slightly off, simply correct yourself as soon as you discover it.

Try to never bring up the subject of appraisals and toxic reports.  You’ll lose the borrowers to sticker shock.

The wise commercial mortgage broker will personally inspect every property he tries to finance.  If the property is too far away to personally inspect, learn how to use demographic websites and neighborhood crime websites to identify low- income, high-drug-use, and high-crime neighborhoods.

Always include a picture with your commercial loan package.  Much depends on a handsome picture taken on sunny day.  You should also learn how to use Google Earth to take a bird’s eye picture of the neighborhood surrounding your property.

It’s no longer necessary to send loan packages by Fed Ex or snail mail.  Instead, learn how to turn a short Executive Loan Summary into a PDF that you can send by email.

Finding commercial lenders is easy and straight forward using C-Loans.com, Yahoo Maps, and the FDIC’s own website.  Just be sure to match the size of your loan to the size of the bank.  And don’t forget about credit unions.  They often have the lowest rates.

After submitting your commercial loan to a banker, be sure to call the banker to “confirm receipt of the loan package.”  The call will serve as a gentle kick in the tush to actually read the package.

When you approach a lender of the phone, the first words out of your mouth should be, “Hey Bill, I’d like to run a commercial loan by you.  Did I catch you at a good time?  If not, I’ll be happy to call back later.”

A lot depends on your loan officer.  Commercial real estate lending is an advocacy process, where your loan officer has to fight for your deal before Loan Committee.  If your loan officer is a wimp, find a different one.

How do you spot a hot commercial loan officer?  Often the receptionist or the loan department secretary will share with you the name of their hottest commercial loan officer.  Look for younger males on commission or at least one on a salary-plus-bonus compensation plan.  The older guys on straight commission often couldn’t give a flip.  If one commercial loan officer blows you off, try another one at the same bank the following day.

Be careful of advance fee scammers posing as commercial lenders.  Distrust immediately any “lender” who claims he makes international loans, that he represents hedge funds, or is a merchant banker.  I promise you that they are either rookies or frauds.

Learn to spot hot commercial loan leads – properties with balloon payments coming due, deals where the lender has offered a discounted pay off, low LTV deals to companies that are losing money and need to pull dough out of their properties, free-and-clear commercial properties that have just been inherited by the heirs, or purchase-money deals where the buyer is doing an exchange.

Never talk about a debt service coverage ratio with a lender without sharing what loan constant you used to compute the ratio.

Always get a signed fee agreement with your borrower, but don’t ask for it too soon.  Work him nearly to death fetching you documents first so that he has a stake in the process.

When requesting the documents for your loan package, never ask for a complete package.  No-no-no!  The magnitude of the work in front of him will send him running for the hills.  Instead, bleed the documents out of him slowly, giving him lots of positive encouragement after receiving each batch.

The wise commercial mortgage broker will work out of his house.  Your borrowers won’t mind.  And fire all of your staff.  You don’t need them.  Keep your day job as you build up your pipeline – be it originating home loans or driving cab.  This business takes a while to build.

Whatever you do, never try to be a commercial mortgage wholesaler.  Your brokers will only bring you their crumby deals that they couldn’t place elsewhere.  You’ll waste countless hours and never close a deal.

There are lots of ways to close commercial loans.  The seller could carry back a second mortgage on another property owned by your buyer.  Perhaps the holder of a ballooning loan could subordinate part of his loan for a partial pay-down.  Your lender could blanket other collateral.  You could bring in a strong personal guarantor.  Your borrower could sell off assets and bring cash to the closing.  You can also very often convince a bank to take a discounted pay-off.

Why even bother becoming a commercial mortgage broker?  Because commercial properties are owned by rich folks!  There is no better way to meet high-net-worth investors than to be a commercial mortgage broker.

Once you meet these rich folks, you can finance their other properties, sell them other properties, syndicate them into groups to buy larger properties, or even someday sell them first trust deeds.  For example, I own a $50 million hard money shop, and almost every one of my early investors was a former borrower.

Be smart.  Read this summary over and over again until these lessons truly sink in.  Good luck.  I hope this helps.

George Blackburne III
Plymouth, Indiana
October 12, 2012

Let me set the stage here.  You’re a commercial mortgage broker.  A potential borrower calls his own bank asking for a commercial real estate loan, but the bank is forced to turn him down.  Fortunately, the kindly banker recommends your commercial mortgage company and suggests to the borrower that he call you.

So your phone rings, and the borrower tells you that he needs a commercial real estate loan.  You ask for the details, and he share them with you.  He says, “I need a $700,000 refinance of my industrial building in Chicago, Illinois.”

Now your commercial loan office (if you are smart, a bedroom in your home) is located 200 miles away in Minneapolis, Minnesota; however, you are confident that you can find a lender to make his loan.

Question:  How do you quote the loan?

Now you have several commercial banks that have closed commercial real estate loans for you in Minnesota, and they usually quote you between 4.5% to 4.75%, 1 point, 25 years amortized, 10 years due, with one rate readjustment (based on a spread over Treasuries) after five years, and a prepayment penalty of 3% in year one, 2% in year two, and 1% thereafter.

George’s Answer:

As a commercial mortgage broker, you should quote your borrower a very specific rate and term, even though you might not yet have a specific lender picked out for the deal.

Now I do not want you to lie and issue some lowball quote for a loan that you suspect would be impossible to deliver.  No-no-no!

I just want you to make a detailed, specific quote based on the knowledge that most banks throughout the country offer commercial real estate loans at roughly the same rates and terms.  Therefore, if your local banks in Minnesota are quoting 4.5% to 4.75% for a loan that is amortized over 25 years and due in 10 years, you can be reasonably sure that the banks in Chicago will be quoting pretty much the same terms.

So you might quote the borrower:  4.625%, 2 points (one of those two points is your fee), 25 years amortized, 10 years due, with a rate readjustment after five years, and a prepayment penalty of 3% in year one, 2% in year two, and 1% thereafter.

“Why is it so important that my commercial loan quote be so precise and exact?  Why can’t I just give a range?”

When an experienced commercial property investor calls his bank, the bank loan officer doesn’t generally give him a loan quote with a very wide variance.   The banker doesn’t quote him, “You rate will be between 4.5% and 12%.”  No, the banker is usually far more precise.  He might say that your rate will be between 4.5% and 4.75%, but that’s about as much variance as he typically puts in the quote.

If you give your borrower a quote of between 4.5% and 12%, the borrower will know that you are just a broker.  You don’t want to come across as “just a broker”.  I don’t want you to lie, and if the borrower asks you directly if you are just a broker, you tell him the truth.

Nevertheless, the wise commercial loan salesman will come across confidently and specifically, as if he has been representing that bank in Chicago for a decade.  (Remember, at this point we don’t know what bank in Chicago might make this loan; but we do know that most banks across the country quote their commercial real estate loans at roughly the same rates and terms.)

“But George, what if I am wrong?  What if I can’t deliver that exact quote?”

Don’t worry about it.  All you can do is quote the most likely rate and terms for which the borrower is likely to qualify.  You are not issuing a low-ball quote.  You are issuing a reasonable, market rate quote.

However, good ethics require that you notify the borrower the moment you learn that you will not be able to deliver the quoted rate.

“Bob, I’m just calling today to let you know that the rate is more likely going to be 5.25% than 4.675%.  The reason why is that this area of Chicago isn’t the greatest.  Do you still want to continue?” 

By this time your borrower will have spent too many hours with you providing documents to start all over.  You will rarely lose him

Now I want to be crystal clear that you must not engage in bait-and-switching.  No-no-no!  If banks in Minnesota are quoting you 5.5% for commercial real estate loans, you must not quote your borrower a 4.625% rate for his Chicago deal.  That would be immoral and illegal.

I’m just saying that commercial banks across the country quote very similar programs on commercial real estate loans, so its reasonable – and a good sales practice – to issue very specific commercial loan quotes, even if you do not have a specific bank in mind when you make the quote.

Commercial loan brokers should never talk about T and A because the use of these words will almost always open up a can of worms that will kill your deal.

Now I am not talking about ta-ta’s and booty.  The t-word I am talking about here is toxic report.  The a-word is appraisal.  The wise commercial mortgage broker avoids the t-word and the a-word like the plague.

Why?  If you’re the first commercial loan broker who has to tell the borrower that he will eventually have to pay $2,500 (to $3,500) for a toxic report and $3,000 (to $5,000) for an appraisal, I guarantee that you will lose the deal.

The borrower is going to be horrified.  Oh my goodness!  He won’t believe you when you tell him that such third party report fees are quite normal in commercial mortgage finance.  He will feel compelled to shop to other lenders in hopes of finding a bank that will do such reports in-house.  (Good luck with that!)

After three or four other banks and commercial mortgage brokers tell him the same thing, he will finally accept the fact that he is going to have to shell out big bucks up-front for the third party reports.  But that won’t help you a bit.  You will have already lost the deal.

Therefore, be smart.  Never talk about T and A.  Don’t even use the words.  If they slip out of your mouth, know that you have just killed your own deal.  Go wash your mouth out with soap.

A commercial mortgage broker is a salesperson, and convincing the borrower to send in his initial commercial loan package is arguably the single most important sales step in the commercial loan business.

In prior lessons on how to rope in a commercial loan package, I laid out for you certain rules:

1. Make sure that your initial list of requested commercial loan documents is short and very easy to gather.  Right now you’re fighting inertia.  The borrower is at rest, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.
   
   
2. Typically the first set of documents will be the income and expenses on the property, plus some color pictures.
   
   
3. Be careful when asking for color pictures.  If the commercial property owner is older, he may not know how to send pictures by email.  If he doesn’t, and if he doesn’t have a property manager or a child who can send in the pictures for him, you should quickly back off from asking for any pictures.
   
   
4. You should collect your commercial loan documents in a series of small batches, making sure that each step is relatively easy.  Once the borrower has sent in his initial package, inertia is now on your side.  A body in motion tends to stay in motion.
   
   
5. Never ask for a complete package!  Remember, out of the 1,000+ times I have asked for a complete commercial loan package, I have received exactly zero packages.
   
   
6. Never send a commercial mortgage borrower a list of all of the loan documents that you will eventually need for your package.  The list is far too long and intimidating.  Your borrower will head for the hills.
   
   
7. Never orally give your borrower a list of all of the loan documents that you will eventually need.  You’ll scare him away 100% of the time.
   
   
8. Don’t combine any document-gathering steps in order to “save time.”  All you will end up doing is saving yourself the time and trouble of depositing a commission check.  Instead, make sure that each step is easy and short.

Now let’s talk about Pooh-Pooh Soup.  My lovely wife, Cisca, and I occasionally go out to French restaurants.  French restaurants are expensive, the waiters are often rude, and the portions are tiny; but the food is usually excellent. 

There is common characteristic of most French restaurants that invariably sets Cisca and me to giggling.  No matter what you order, the waiter always tells you that you have made a great choice and that the food is going to be excellent.

For example, if you order the duck a la orange, the waiter will almost always say something like , “Ah, good choice!  The duck a la orange is magnifique.”  If you order the Crepes Suzette, the waiter will say something like, “Good choice!  The Crepes Suzette are delicious!”

Therefore I have often wondered what would happen if I ordered the pooh-pooh soup?  And yes, folks, the pooh-pooh soup is exactly what you feared – a couple of short brown logs in a delicate broth.   Eeuuuu, yuck!  Would the French waiter say something like, “Ah, the pooh-pooh soup is delicious!”

But as commercial mortgage brokers, we can all learn an important lesson from that French waiter.  When he is telling us that the pooh-pooh soup is delicious, that French waiter is giving us positive feedback.

Commercial mortgage borrowers need a lot of positive feedback as they slave away over a copy machine making copies of their voluminous tax returns and thick leases.  They constantly need to be reassured that they are not wasting their time.

The whole point of the Pooh-Pooh Soup Story is this:

In order to eventually compile a 200+ page commercial loan package, you need to gather the documents just a few pages at a time and then give the borrower lots of reassurance each time that his loan still looks good.

For example, after you receive the income and expenses on the property and the color pictures, you should call the borrower and say:  “Dr. Smith, I analyzed the cash flow of your property, and the numbers look very good.”  (The pooh-pooh soup is delicious!)  Now all I need is an old personal financial statement and two years’ personal tax returns.”

“Dr. Smith, I looked at your personal financial statement and your tax returns, and the numbers looked quite good.  (The pooh-pooh soup is delicious!)  Now all I need is copies of the leases.”

And so on.  Remember, make each set of documents just a short list.  Never combine steps “to save time”.  And be sure to give your commercial mortgage borrower lots of positive reinforcement.  The pooh-pooh soup is dee-licious!

In my last lesson I pointed out that a commercial loan broker has to be very, very careful when he requests the documents that will go into his loan package.  If he asks for too many documents, the borrower will want to shop around.

If he asks for the wrong documents, like an updated financial statement, the commercial loan broker will probably lose the deal to a competitor who will pop up during six long weeks it takes for the borrower’s accountant to prepare the updated financial statement.

And if the commercial mortgage broker makes the horrible mistake of describing all of the documents that will eventually go into the commercial loan package, the deal is most sincerely dead.  Remember, never-ever send or verbally give to your commercial mortgage borrower a list of all of the documents that eventually will go into a complete commercial loan package.  This list is so huge and so scary that your borrower will run for the hills.

Instead, you should just ask for a few loan documents initially.  You will collect the rest of the documents slowly over time, as the borrower slowly becomes wedded to the idea that you are the broker that he has chosen to fund his deal.  (If you and I were chatting over a beer, I would put this differently.  You will wait to collect the bulk of your loan documents until the hook is firmly set in your borrower’s mouth.  Don’t jerk the hook out of his mouth by asking for too many documents too soon.  You’ll just scare the fish away.)

So what documents should you gather first and when should you ask for them?  Here are some general rules:

1. You should collect your commercial loan documents in a series of small batches.  Make each step easy!
   
   
2. After receiving and reviewing each batch of loan documents, call your borrower and tell him that his commercial loan application looks good.  In other words, give him some positive feedback, so he knows that he is not wasting his time.  I’ll cover this important step in another lesson called the Pooh-Pooh Soup Story.
   
   
3. Ask for initially just the income and expenses on the property and some color pictures.  I’ll cover this important first step in far more detail below.
   
   
4. Be very careful when ask for color pictures of the property.  We want the first step to be very easy in order to get inertia on our side.  (Inertia:  A body at rest tends to stay at rest.  A body in motion tends to stay in motion).  For most middle-aged folks, it’s pretty easy for them to snap some pictures using a smart phone and to email them to you.  Many commercial properties, however, are owned by elderly investors who don’t know how to use email to forward pictures.  You might ask your borrower if he knows how to take pictures and to send them by email.  If he doesn’t, you might ask him if he has a property manager or a younger relative who could do this for him.
   
   
5. The second batch of documents you will request is an old (!!) financial statement or an old (!!) loan application, plus his last two years’ personal tax returns.  If you ask for an updated loan application or an updated financial statement, you will probably lose the deal.
   
   
6. Most borrowers do not own a copier with an auto-feeder, so copying the tax returns is often an agonizingly slow, one-by-one, process.  The borrower will therefore only want to do this once.  This is why I often say, “The first commercial mortgage broker to get the borrower’s tax returns usually wins the deal.”
   
   
7. After receiving these documents, call your borrower and give him some positive feedback.  (The Pooh-Pooh Soup Story.)
   
   
8. Next – but do NOT combine steps – ask for copies of all of the commercial leases.
   
   
9. At a later date you will ask for other documents, including a financial statement on the LLC that owns the property, two years’ tax returns on the LLC, the Statement of Organization on the LLC, and the Operating Agreement on the LLC.  However, I recommend that you do NOT ask for these file-filler documents until your lender has issued a term sheet and the borrower has signed it.

So what documents make up the income and expenses on the property (see step 3 above)?  It depends on the type of property:

Multifamily and self-storage properties:

1. Current rent roll.
   
   
2. Last year’s actual operating expenses.

Office, Retail, and Industrial Properties:

1. Schedule of Leases (one page summary of the tenants, the square footage of each unit, the rents, and lease expiration dates)
   
   
2. Last year’s actual operating expenses.

Hospitality (Hotels and Motels) and Health Care Properties:

1. Last TWO years’ actual Profit & Loss Statement (P&L)
   
   
2. Any year-to-date P&L Statement that is ALREADY available.  If it’s late in the year, perhaps a P&L Statement on the first quarter or on the first two quarters might have already been prepared by the accountant.  Do NOT ask for an updated P&L.  No-no-no!  You’ll lose the deal while you’re waiting for the accountant to prepare it.

“But George, if you bleed the loan documents out of the borrower this slowly, it will take four months to close a commercial loan.”

Yup.  That’s right.  The situation reminds me of that age-old joke about the old bull and the young bull who trot up to the top of a hill and see a whole herd of beautiful, available heifers grazing in the valley below.  The young bull turns to the old bull and says, “Hey pops, let’s run down and kiss one of those cows.”  To which the old bull replies, “Son, let’s walk down and kiss them all.”

Folks, if you try to rush the document collection process, you’ll scare away 49 out of every 50 commercial mortgage borrowers.  Why not reel in the necessary commercial loan documents slowly and close them all?