Quick funny:  Tomorrow is the National Home-School Tornado Drill.  Lock your kids in the basement until you give the all clear.  You’re welcome.  Haha!

For the past two weeks, we have been discussing the fact that just about every commercial bank in the country is out of the commercial mortgage market.

The CMBS market remains broken for now too, although the Fed’s recent purchase of billions of dollars worth of commercial mortgage-backed securities has helped to prevent a complete collapse of the CMBS market.  CMBS lenders will likely survive to lend again in a year or so.

ABS lenders are also out of the market.  You will recall that ABS stands for asset-backed securities, which are smaller securitizations of an eclectic collection of debt obligations.  An ABS pool might contain subprime auto loans, scratch-and-dent residential loans that have been kicked out of some regular securitization pools, aircraft loans and leases, equipment loans and leases, credit card loans, movie residuals, and non-prime commercial loans.

As a result of recent huge declines in the value of asset-backed securities, ABS commercial real estate lenders; like Silverhill, Velocity, and Cherrywood; are now out of the market right now.

We also discussed how several hundred commercial hard money lenders nationwide are either out of the commercial loan market or have completely closed their doors.  The slaughter has been particularly bloody among those hard money shops that use a mortgage pool to fund their loans.

As soon as the coronavirus crash started, most of their private investors lined up to withdraw their money from these hard money mortgage funds.  This left these hard money shops with no new money with which to lend.  Suddenly they had zero loan fee income coming in, so they didn’t have enough money to make payroll and to keep their doors open.

Bottom line:  When a borrower goes out searching for a commercial loan today, he is going to get turned away by just about every lender.  

Isn’t this wonderful?!  As a commercial loan broker, you make your dough helping borrowers find commercial lenders.  When every bank in the country was making commercial loans, most borrowers didn’t need you.  Now they do.

Commercial real loan officers, working for banks, are telling their prospective borrowers, “I’m sorry, but our bank is not making any new commercial real estate loans right now.”  In other words, the bank is out of the market.

I can also tell you that, after having survived the S&L Crisis, the Dot-Com Meltdown, and the Great Recession, most commercial banks are going to remain out of the market for several years.  Whenever banks bolt to their hidey-holes, they come out very, very timidly.

Those of you who have read and understood my articles about how the Multiplier Effect can sometimes work in reverse should be able to understand the huge deflationary pressures building in the U.S., as well as China.  You may not want to go “all-in” on the stock market, even though Gilead Sciences announced last night that their new therapeutic drug for the coronavirus is doing very well in a large trial.  That huge deflationary tidal wave from China is still coming.  Chinese small business owners have been traumatized, and a new drug does little to immediately restore their savings accounts.

You think it’s bad now?  In 20 years, our country will be run by people home-schooled by day drinkers…

Since banks are turning down every new commercial borrower, it is therefore an incredible time to call bankers for their commercial mortgage turndowns.  The bankers will be grateful to have someone – anyone – to service their frustrated clients.

It also makes good sense to also tell these bankers that you will not be taking their good customers to some competing bank.  “All of your bank competitors are out of the market too.”  Tell them that you have some reasonably priced private money with no prepayment penalty.

Make sure you gather the contact information on every commercial real estate loan officer working for a bank that you meet.   You can trade each bank commercial loan officer for either a free commercial mortgage underwriting manual, a free loan broker fee agreement, a free commercial mortgage marketing course, or a free regional copy of The Blackburne List containing 750 commercial lenders.

These trades are made under the Honor System.  Please don’t cheat.  You can trade trade a banker for ONE of the above four goodies.  If you want all four goodies, please find me four bankers.

And this guy must work for a bank or credit union.  ABC Bank.  First National Bank.  Helloooo?  Banks have huge metal vaults with tens of thousands of dollars in cash on hand, right?  Mortgage companies are NOT banks.  You are not a commercial loan officer working for a bank.  You can’t fill in your own name.  Nice try.  Sorry.

When this is over, what meeting do I attend first… Weight Watchers or AA?

Have you ever coveted my famous, nine-hour course, How to Broker Commercial Loans?  I will give you this course for free if you gather up twenty commercial real estate loan officers working for banks for me.

But where do you go to find these bankers to call?  Simple go to Google Maps and type in your office address.  In the Nearby field, type in “Banks”.  Voila!

Since we can’t eat out, now’s the perfect time to eat better, get fit, and stay healthy.  Hellooo?  We’re quarantined!  Who are we trying to impress?  We have snacks, and we have sweatpants.  I say we use them!  🙂

Commercial Mortgage Rates Today:

Here are today’s commercial mortgage interest rates for permanent loans from banks, SBA 7a loans, CMBS permanent loans from conduits, and commercial construction loans.

Be sure to bookmark our new Commercial Loan Resource Center, where you will always find the latest interest rates on commercial loans; a portal where you can apply to 750 different commercial lenders in just four minutes; four huge databanks of commercial real estate lenders; a Glossary of Commercial Loan Terms, including such advanced terms as defeasance, CTL Financing, this strange new Debt Yield Ratio (which is different from the Debt Service Coverage Ratio), mezzanine loans, preferred equity, and hundreds of other advanced terms; and a wonderful Frequently Asked Questions section, which is designed to train real estate investors and professionals in the advanced subject areas of commercial real estate finance (“CREF”).

By George Blackburne

Some more green shoots are visible as the bridge lenders are starting originations also.  The warehouse lending market (big banks lending to debt funds) has started up again, with more cautious leverage.  The warehouse lenders will also monitor loan collateral more closely.

The difference between a commercial mortgage banker and a commercial mortgage banker is that commercial mortgage bankers service many of the loans that they originate, normally for life companies.

The money in commercial real estate finance (“CREF”) is in loan servicing fees.  As I often say, “It’s the loan servicing fees, silly.”   An easy way to remember this is that mortgage bankers are rich, and mortgage brokers are poor.  Want to start earning huge loan servicing fees?

So where do debt funds get their dough their large commercial bridge loans.  We are talking here about bridge loans from $5 million to $100 million.

The general rule is that the sponsors of a debt fund will put up several million dollars of their own dough.  Then they will go out to wealthy individuals that they know, using a private offering, to raise, say $200 million.  They will make, say, $160 million in bridge loans.

Then they will go to a commercial bank and pledge the first mortgages in their portfolio for a $200 million to $250 million line of credit, giving them $400 million to $450 million in lending capital.

As the debt fund makes a profit, some of the earnings are retained as equity, giving the debt fund the ability to borrow even more.

But where do the sponsors of the debt fund go to raise their original $200 million?  Who invests equity into a debt fund?  The answer is mostly wealthy investors, family offices, hedge funds, and opportunity funds.

But what is a hedge fund?  A hedge fund is a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains.  Investopedia defines a hedge fund as an aggressively managed portfolio of investments that uses leveraged, long, short and derivative positions.

There are two cool things about a hedge fund.  First of all, these public offerings do NOT have to be registered with the SEC.  Registration is a phenomenally expensive process, required before a company can go public, that involves extensive audits going back several years and immense legal documents.  The process can take almost two years, and the up-front cost is well in excess of $1 million  There are also ongoing legal costs of another $1 million per year.  Yikes.

Now remember, hedge funds do NOT have to be registered.  Why?  Because every investor in a hedge fund needs to an accredited investor, i.e., have a net worth, exclusive of his personal residence, of at least $1 million.  The SEC assumes that accredited investors are either smart enough to understand the risk or can afford to pay an advisor.

The second cool thing about a hedge fund is that a hedge fund can publicly advertise for more investors.  They just need to make sure that every investor is accredited.  This freedom to advertise is a huge deal.

So what is an opportunity fund?  An opportunity fund invests in companies, sectors or investment themes depending on where the fund manager anticipates growth opportunities.  In plain English, the manager invests wherever the opportunities lie.

Important note:  Opportunity funds often buy shares of stock in companies, known as equities.  In contrast, most hedge funds invest primarily in debt instruments.

Another difference between a hedge fund and an opportunity fund is that hedge funds investments are not publicly-traded investment instruments.  Opportunity funds, in contrast, are public offerings, offered to the general investing public.  In other words, you don’t have to be accredited to invest in an opportunity fund.  Interests in opportunity funds are typically offered by insurance plans, mutual funds, and other investment firms.

Some opportunity funds focus on real estate itself, REIT’s, and real estate debt instruments, such as mortgages, debt funds, mezzanine debt, and preferred equity.

Another concept to grasp is the concept of one fund investing in another fund.  A hedge fund might invest in a debt fund.  An opportunity fund might invest in a debt fund.  Therefore most debt funds are a fund of funds.

Now where the debt fund makes its dough is that it can often borrow for as little 3.5% to 4.0% and then make loans at 6% to 9%, plus loan fees.

Clearly debt funds are leveraged, and if the bank holding its credit line gets freaked out and calls its line of credit, the debt fund could be forced into liquidation.  The recent report by George Smith Partners that the warehouse lending market is loosening up is great news for debt funds and the availability of large commercial bridge loans.Commercial Mortgage Rates Today:

Here are today’s commercial mortgage interest rates on permanent loans from banks, SBA 7a loans, CMBS permanent loans from conduits, and commercial construction loans.

Be sure to bookmark our new Commercial Loan Resource Center, where you will always find the latest interest rates on commercial loans; a portal where you can apply to 750 different commercial lenders in just four minutes; four HUGE databanks of commercial real estate lenders; a Glossary of Commercial Loan Terms, including such advanced terms as defeasance, CTL Financing, this strange new Debt Yield Ratio (which is different from the Debt Service Coverage Ratio), mezzanine loans, preferred equity, and hundreds of other advanced terms; and a wonderful Frequently Asked Questions section, which is designed to train real estate investors and professionals in the advanced subject areas of commercial real estate finance (“CREF”).

By George Blackburne