Commercial Loans and Fun Blog

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.

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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!

September 23, 2020

Below is the Advice I Gave To 
a Struggling Commercial Mortgage Broker

After writing this blog article waaay back in 2008, I actually sat down and wrote an entire training course devoted to keeping new commercial mortgage brokers from making the same bone-headed mistakes that I cluelessly made forty years ago, when I first entered this industry.  I call it my Practice Course, and I consider it my finest work.  It contains over sixty lessons.

 

 

 

 

Here’s my advice:

1. Stick to small commercial permanent loans. Do not work on anything larger than $3 million unless you have a special relationship with the borrower (former client). Small commercial loans are the ones that close and feed your family.
   
   
2. New commercial mortgage brokers almost never close large loans. Why would a filthy rich investor with perfect credit and millions of dollars in equity work with a mortgage broker who is obviously new to the business? He'll spot the new broker's inexperience in the first few minutes of conversation. So the large deals that new mortgage brokers get are almost always hopeless. And even if the perfect, large deal ever did fall in their laps (one chance in a million), most new brokers don't yet have a personal relationship with the top loan officers at the huge banks. These top dogs are very, very, VERY cliquish. They don't fight hard in Loan Committee for newbies. So don't waste precious time trying to place large loans ... unless you have 18 small commercial permanent loans in process that will feed your family.Give me a $300,000 lead over a $30 million lead any day!  Small deals close. Large deals waste your time.
   
   
3. Do NOT waste precious time working on construction loans. The world has more enough homes and commercial buildings right now. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when a developer approaches a mortgage broker for help placing a construction loan, the developer does not have enough cash into the deal to qualify for a construction loan. He can't cover 20% of the construction costs. Do not work on construction loans! The deals you want are the permanent loans and the bridge loans.
   
   
4. Never waste a minute on international loans. They never close.  Ever. Ever!  There is a huge tax issue.
   
   
5. Read my blog daily for tips. http://www.blog.c-loans.com.  Go back and read all 100 of the old articles.
   
   
6. Build a databank of referral sources (commercial brokers, residential mortgage brokers, bankers, property managers, estate planners, etc.) and advertise to them by snail mail or email regularly.  Pepper your newsletters with TONS and TONS and even more TONS of jokes and fun stuff.  Condition your referral sources to look forward to your emails.
   
   
7. Your newsletter does NOT have to fancy.  A funny pic (see above), along with your signature block, with the words, "commercial loans" prominently displayed, will work just fine.
   
   
8. Learn how to create your loan packages using PDF’s.  This saves on shipping and allows you to submit a deal to multiple lenders in seconds.
   
   
9. Start buying leads from C-Loans. They’re only around $2 apiece (plus 37.5 bps. on closing). http://www.c-loans.com/leads.html
   
   
10. Get a signed fee agreement on every deal, but don’t ask the borrower to sign it until you’ve run him around for weeks fetching documents.  Wait until the borrower is desperate and hungry before presenting your agreement.
    
    
11. Don’t waste time working on deals with a low probability of closing.  Instead, use every free minute to meet new bankers and commercial brokers (realtors).  Add them to your email list.
    
    
12. Realize that your closing rate will never exceed 30%.  This means you need to have 15 to 18 loans in process at all times. Do you have 18 loans in process right now?  If not, get busy building your email list.
    
    
13. Only work with strong loan officers.  Loan Committee is a process where the decision-maker almost always says, "No", initially.  Then the loan officer has to use logic, fundamentals, oratory skills, and strength of will to push the deal through to approval.  If the loan officer at the bank who has your deal sounds and acts like a wimp, ask for the package back and then submit the same deal to a stronger loan officer at the same bank.
    
    
14. Grasp the concept that commercial lenders make loans for their friends. Become buddies with the top loan officers at various banks.  They will then fight for your deal in Loan Committee.  This may be my most important tip.
    
    

Learn the business! If you truly know how to underwrite commercial real estate loans, you won't waste countless hours working on hopeless deals.  Hundreds of graduates of my commercial mortgage training course now earn more money than the average physician.  You'll learn an entire profession for a lousy $499.  Hellooo?  Is this a trick question?*

 

 

 

Need a lender for your commercial deal?  You can submit your commercial real estate loan to to 750 commercial lenders in just four minutes using C-Loans.com. And C-Loans.com is free.  Click here.

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*  I always loved that line.  It comes come from the Ghostbusters II movie, when a demon possesses the body of a very young (40 years ago) and beautiful Sigourney Weaver.  Sigourney is laying on the bed seductively, and she asks the whacky Bill Murray, "Do you want this body?"  Bill turns to the movie audience and famously replies, "Is this a trick question?" :-)