Applying for commercial mortgages
Sunday, September 14, 2008 9:00The application process for a commercial mortgage has only a passing similarity with the application process for a personal residential mortgage. Commercial lenders operate a far more complicated set of selection criteria when weighing up the risk of a commercial mortgages that have been applied for. It is highly recommended that anyone who is considering seeking one of the many commercial mortgages on offer uses the services of a commercial mortgage broker. If you feel that you would prefer to handle the application yourself, then below you will find some tips which have been designed to prepare you for the complex and time consuming application process.
• Investigate the commercial mortgages offered by a whole range of lenders, you will need to apply to several lenders at the same time, in order to increase the possibility of your application have a successful outcome. Multiple applications made across multiple lenders will give you a much better chance of acquiring an offer of one of the commercial mortgages you have applied for.
• Gather the resources together for the production of all of the supporting documentation that will need to be sent along with your application. You will need to have a set of company accounts drawn up and audited by an impartial party. You will also need to prepare a detailed business plan which shows exactly how the company will benefit from the acquisition of the new property and which clearly demonstrates how funds will be made available to meet the repayments. A special consideration is the fact that when you apply for commercial mortgages from several lenders, the documentation may need to be presented in a slightly different format for each one, which means you may have to prepare several slightly different versions of the same documents based on the requirements of the lenders.
• Try to learn how the lenders apply their acceptance criteria, and produce your application to suit them. You will find that lenders will all have slightly different lending criteria, you will need to try and discern which lenders have criteria that most closely suit your own situation, these will be your prime lending candidates, and you should focus upon these lenders.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, applications for commercial mortgages are best handles by a professional commercial mortgage broker. A broker has the specialist knowledge and experience required to deal with the lenders on their own level, they will also have access to a far greater range of commercial mortgages and will be able to assess your requirements and match them to the products which best suit your needs. Think of your commercial mortgage broker as a member of your own team who acts as your point of contact to the lending establishments, they will be able to streamline and simplify the entire application process involved in securing the best in commercial mortgages that will benefit your business the most.



