It's becoming increasingly likely that the economy is headed for a double-dip recession. If you are a commercial mortgage broker, you will have to be wise, efficient, and energetic to survive.
Here are ten tips that may help you to close more commercial mortgage loans and to survive a double-dip recession:
- Close your office and retreat back to the house. You do not need a fancy office to impress borrowers. During the Great Recession, your borrowers will definitely understand your need to keep costs down.
- Fire your staff and do the work yourself. You probably cannot afford a loan processor right now.
- Don't waste time training loan agents. As soon as they start making you money, they'll leave you for the broker down the street who is offering a 5% better commission split.
- The most important asset you own is your time. Learn to say, No," to deals that are difficult.
- Use your time to market for that one deal that is actually do-able.
- Use maps.yahoo.com to plot every bank near your office. Call on the bank using the sales pitch, "I'll help you get unwanted commercial loans off your books. I have a commercial lender that loves to do discounted pay-off (DPO) deals (Blackburne & Sons)."
- Try to personally visit at least one or two local bankers every day.
- Build a small list of referral sources - guys who, because of their jobs, see lots of commercial loan requests. This includes bankers, commercial real estate brokers, property managers, other commercial lenders, residential mortgage brokers, insurance agents, attorneys, and CPA's.
- Touch these referral sources - either in person, by using snail mail, or by using email - at least once every three weeks.
- Plan on eventually - after your borrower has been softened up by three or four bank turndowns - on closing most of your commercial loans with hard money lenders, like Blackburne & Sons. Banks simply are not closing many (any?) conventional commercial mortgage loans these days.
