Commercial Loans and Fun Blog

Banks Are the Best Source for Commercial Loan Leads

If you are a commercial loan broker, your number one source for commercial real estate loan leads should be the local banks located close to your office. It's a great time to be trolling in these waters because commercial banks are turning down a lot of commercial real estate loan requests right now.

Start by going to maps.yahoo.com. Input your office address and then ask for a map. Then plot every commercial bank located close to your office. It's easy. In the Find a Business on the Map field, simply type in the word, "bank". Instantly every nearby bank will be plotted on the map.

After locating all of the bank branches close to your office, then drop in on one or two commercial banks every business day. Ask to speak to the loan officer who handles their commercial real estate loans.

Explain to the banker that you would like to provide commercial loan services to any of his customers who the banker has to turn down. Leave the banker a flyer, along with three or four of your business cards.

Follow up the visit with a handwritten thank-you note to the banker on your company stationary and in a hand-written company envelope. The idea here is to get the banker to recognize your logo and company name. Of course, be sure to include several more of your business cards. Make sure these business cards prominently display the words, "Commercial Real Estate Loans".

Then, every ten days, be sure to send the banker something. One time you might send a funny political cartoon, and the next you might send a folksy newsletter with lots of jokes. And, of course, always be sure to include three more of your business cards with every fun communication. Pretty soon the banker will look forward to your snail mail because you always send something fun.

Try to take each of your bankers out to lunch every couple of months. Invite them to play golf with you. If a banker sends you a referral, drop by the next day with a sleeve of golf balls or a gift certificate for a free lunch. Make these guys your friends. Remember, the typical bank loan officer probably turns down a half-dozen commercial loan requests every week. Often there is no real good reason for the turndown, other than the bank simply doesn't like motels loans or the loan is the wrong size (too large or too small).

If you religiously call on one or two bankers every business day, you will quickly develop a terrific flow of commercial real estate loan leads.

Even Small and Regional Commercial Banks Have Cut Back Sharply on Commercial Real Estate Loans

As the sponsor of the C-Loans Commercial Mortgage Lender Databank, we have our fingers on the pulse of the commercial real estate lending market. The CMBS lenders started to die late last year and now they are not lending at all.

Most of the mega commercial banks got crushed in the subprime residential lending debacle. Their balance sheets are so underwater that they are making at most 2% of their 2007 volume of commercial real estate loans. Essentially the mega-banks are out of the market.

Until this last week, however, the smaller banks were still making some commercial real estate loans.  We were greatly disturbed last week, however, when several smaller commercial banks - lenders with no exposure to the subprime crisis - contacted us and confided that their balance sheets were so troubled that they too had stopped making any commercial real estate loans.

We are pretty sure that this is a trend that will continue among the surviving small and regional commercial banks. As their commercial loans to local industrial companies start to go bad (sales of widgets and other industrial products are cratering), soon most commercial banks will stop making commercial real estate loans completely - even permanent loans on standing commercial properties.

If any of your "A" borrowers are delaying their plans to pull equity out of their commercial properties, tell them that this is the last call for commercial loans from banks. If they don't close their loans in the next 90 to 120 days, they may have to wait five to ten years before commercial loans with decent interest rates reappear.

If you need a commercial real estate loan right now, please click here.

Advertise to Companies Who Are Spending Big Money to Market for Mortgages

If you're a commercial mortgage broker, you probably need more leads on borrowers seeking commercial loans. Eventually you will discover that marketing directly to the public for commercial real estate loans just doesn't work. If you send out 10,000 mail pieces, you'll usually only get around six leads and no closings.

So what does work? Residential mortgage brokers can be a wonderful source of referrals. Just pay them 20% of your loan fee in return for a name and telephone number of a prospective commercial real estate loan borrower.

Here's why advertising to residential mortgage brokers is so effective. The typical residential mortgage broker spends about $400 per month on some form of advertising - perhaps a small classifed ad in the Money to Loan section of the newspaper, a big Yellow Pages ad or a display ad in the Pennysaver or similar free grocery store magazine.

This advertisment by the residential mortgage broker probably reaches thousands of potential borrowers every month. Now if this residential mortgage broker is giving you all of his commercial loan referrals, this means that with a single $1 mail piece to the mortgage broker, you are reaching thousands of potential borrowers.

If the residential mortgage broker is spending $400 per month, then your $1 mail piece is getting leveraged by a whopping 400 times. This is marketing leverage.

Do you need to place a commercial real estate loan right now? You can submit your commercial real estate loan to 750 different commercial mortgage lenders in just four minutes using the C-Loans Commercial Mortgage Lender Portal.

Auto Repair is Hot and Retail is Not

I recently spoke on commercial real estate loan matters at the National Association of Mortgage Brokers Annual Conference in New Orleans. While at the conference, I wandered through the exhibit room and brain-stormed with the exhibitors.

Not surpisingly, commercial real estate lending was way down. Commercial lenders had scaled back their appetite for retail properties.

But one asset class was hot - of all things, auto repair! Apparently some of the larger commercial lenders had noticed that the best performing class of commercial properties in their portfolios was in fact auto repair. It makes sense. Americans are not buying new cars right now but are rather just repairing their existing cars.

One lender with whom I spoke had actually raised its loan-to-value ratios on auto repair loans from 65% to 75%, in order to encourage more commercial loan applications on such properties.

Do you need a commercial loan? You can apply to 750 commercial lenders in just four minutes using C-Loans.com. And C-Loans is free!

The Commercial Loans They Made Were Darned Good

Lehman Brothers got screwed. They filed for bankruptcy today because foolish regulators forced Lehman Brothers to mark the commercial real estate loans in their portfolio to market. Because the market for subprime commercial loans has completely frozen up, Lehman Brothers became insolvent.

It's a darned shame. For the last seven years my commercial mortgage company, Blackburne & Brown Mortgage Company, Inc., has been competing against Lehman Brothers for small, subprime commercial loans. Since their rates were better than ours, Lehman Brothers was able to cream the market for the best quality subprime commercial loans. I never knew them to make a foolish loan.

When the dust all settles and Lehman's assets are scattered to the four winds, history will show that this was a darned fine portfolio. They were earning around 9.5% on a portfolio of commercial first mortgage loans with an average loan-to-value ratio of 68% to borrowers with fairly decent credit. An investor could buy that entire portfolio at par and beat the pants off of most competing investments. These were not high-LTV loans to flakey borrowers on grossly over-valued homes. These are darned good assets.

If anyone wants to sell a portfolio of Lehman's subprime commercial loans, Blackburne & Brown is definitely a buyer. Please contact me, George Blackburne, immediately.

Need a commercial real estate loan? You can apply to hundreds of banks and subprime commercial real estate lenders in just four minutes using C-Loans.com. And C-Loans is free!

Fraudulent Commercial Lenders Often Steal Application Fees

Every year commercial real estate borrowers lose millions of dollars to con men posing as commercial real estate lenders. Here is how the scam work:

In order to get a commercial loan, borrowers have to give large application fees to commercial lenders to pay for the appraisal, toxic report, title work and legal fees. These application fees run from $3,500 to $250,000. In most cases, these are legitimate fees required by bona fide commercial lenders to do their investigations.

But sometimes con men pose as commercial real estate lenders. They're not a bank. They don't operate a mortgage investment fund. They don't syndicate wealthy private investors to make hard money commercial real estate loans. Nope. These fraudulent commercial mortgage companies usually don't have a dime to lend. But they have impressive letterhead and a great sales ability.

These con men will buy commercial mortgage leads from some internet source. They'll then call the borrower and say that they make commercial loans. After the borrower has submitted his commercial real estate loan application, the "lender" will then issue a conditional commitment letter (term sheet) with great terms - often just 6% interest in a 7.5% market - that calls for a large application fee.

The borrower is thrilled to get the term sheet and sends in his deposit.  After the check clears, the borrower never hears from the "lender" again. The borrower will call and call, but all he'll get is the sound of a telephone ringing or an answering machine. The borrower will leave repeated messages that eventually escalate to legal threats, but still he'll get get no response.

Eventually the borrower will contact the state authorities, but unfortunately few states ever follow up on commercial loan fraud. It's a white collar crime. Heaven help the ghetto kid who steals $1,000 for dope. The police will track him down and send him away to jail. But if some hustler cons a commercial property investor out of a $50,000 loan fee, his complaint will often rot forever in some unworked file.

So what should a commercial borrower do to avoid falling prey to this con?

1. Be suspicious of any commercial loan offer with terms far superior to everyone else. If a commercial lender is quoting 6.0% in a 7.5% market, the commercial borrower should ask himself, "What lender is at 6.125% that forced this lender to drop his rate to 6.0% in order to get the deal?" Legitimate commercial lenders don't just lower their rates to 6.0% because they are nice guys. C'mon. Use some common sense here.
2. Google your commercial lender. Many times complaints from similar victims will show up in discussion groups.
3. Look at the "lender's" web site. Legitimate commercial lenders will have extensive and expensive web sites, not just three or four pages.
4. Where does this "lender" get his dough to lend? Banks and savings and loan associations get their dough from deposits. Life companies get their dough from insurance premiums. Hard money lenders get their dough from private investors. If this "lender" claims to be a hard money lender, his web site should have a bunch of pages devoted to enticing private investors to invest with his company.
5. Be more suspicious if the lender is a "mortgage company", "capital company" or a "funding company" rather than a bank.  He could be legitimate, but you'll need to do more due diligence.
6. I am always suspicious of any "lender" pretending to be a bank when he is not. Tipoffs include the words "Banc" or "Something Bankers" in the company name. The names of legitimate banks almost always end with the word "Bank".
7. Trust your instincts. If the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. If the "lender" is too easy on the paperwork or the length of the procedure, be on guard.
8. Does the "lender" have a warm body answering the phone or just an answering machine?
9. One final point. A very wise man once told me that the way to spot a con man in a crowd of 100 people. Ask yourself which of these guys are you SURE is not the con man ... and he will be the con man! They are experts at projecting trustability.

Don't be a victim. There are hundreds of these advance fee scammers at work in the commercial real estate mortgage marketplace.

You can apply to hundreds of commercial real estate lenders for free using C-Loans.com. Just click here.

Your comments are invited.