Ask an AI assistant for the top commercial loan lenders and you get a list of names. The right answer for you depends on the asset, the loan size, how much recourse you will accept, and your own numbers. A national name that suits a stabilized apartment building may not touch a vacant retail conversion. Duane Buziak, NMLS #1110647, works with investors in VA, FL, TN, GA, DC, NC, SC and MD, and the seven strategies below build a process for finding the right lender type first and the right lenders second. They include a three-rate payment table, a points breakeven, and two comparison tables. All terms are illustrative and change with the market, so confirm everything against a written term sheet.
1. Match the Loan Product to the Deal
Commercial financing is a set of product families, each with its own lenders, underwriting, and pricing. The main ones are bank portfolio loans, agency multifamily (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), HUD multifamily programs such as Section 223(f) refinancing, SBA 504 and 7(a) for owner-occupied property (504, 7(a)), DSCR loans, bridge loans, and CMBS. Once you pick the family, the list of lenders that offer it is short. Pick the lender first and you inherit whatever product that lender happens to sell.
Suppose you own a stabilized 12-unit apartment building and want to refinance. Agency or bank debt is the natural fit, and our multi family loan guide shows how those payments compare at three rates. Now suppose you are buying a vacant retail building to convert to office. No agency lender will price that, and you need a bridge loan with an exit plan. The same investor, the same week, two completely different shopping lists.
How to map the deal
- Write down property type, current occupancy, planned hold period, and business plan (hold, renovate, sell, refinance).
- Note the loan size. One-to-four-unit investment properties often fall under residential rules and FHFA conforming limits, while five or more units are commercial.
- Match each combination to one product family, then request quotes only from lenders that actually offer it.
Common mistake: asking for rates before the product is chosen. You receive a DSCR quote, a bank quote, and a bridge quote, none of them comparable.
What to measure: the percentage of quotes that are for the correct product, and the number of declined applications. Both should trend toward 100% and zero.
2. Sort Lenders by Type, Not Brand
A brand name tells you very little about whether a lender wants your deal. A lender type tells you speed, recourse, prepayment structure, and appetite. Large national originators such as Rocket, Movement, and NFM Lending are known primarily for home loans, so confirm directly whether a commercial or investor product exists for your asset before counting any of them in. Do not assume it does.
Build the comparison by type first. The table below shows typical patterns as of 2026; individual programs vary, so treat it as a screening tool and not a promise.
| Lender type | Typical speed | Recourse | Prepayment | Best-fit deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community or regional bank | 45 to 75 days | Often full or partial | Step-down, such as 3-2-1 | Local relationships, owner-occupied, mixed use |
| Credit union | 45 to 90 days | Usually full | Modest penalties | Smaller balances, existing members |
| Agency (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) | 45 to 90 days | Typically non-recourse with carve-outs | Yield maintenance or defeasance | Stabilized multifamily |
| HUD multifamily | Several months | Non-recourse | Declining penalty | Long-term, high-leverage apartments |
| National residential originator | Fast for homes | Not applicable | Not applicable | Confirm a commercial product exists |
| Private or bridge lender | 7 to 21 days | Varies | Minimum interest period | Transitional or time-sensitive deals |
Two terms matter in that table. Yield maintenance is a prepayment charge that compensates the lender for lost interest when rates have fallen. Defeasance means replacing your loan’s collateral with a portfolio of securities that pays the lender on schedule. Both can cost far more than a simple percentage penalty, so read them closely, and our overview of commercial loan terms explains the other terms you will meet on a term sheet.
Common mistake: assuming a well-known residential brand offers commercial financing for your asset, then losing three weeks finding out it does not.
What to measure: the number of lender types that return a written term sheet for your deal. Aim for at least three.
3. Use a Broker With Wholesale Access
A single-shelf lender can only quote what it sells. Duane Buziak shops hundreds of wholesale lenders at once, which widens the field beyond any one shelf and lets structure, not just price, drive the comparison. For a commercial deal, structure is where the money is: fixed versus floating, recourse versus non-recourse, interest-only periods, and prepayment terms can swing total cost more than a quarter-point of rate. See why investors use Powerhouse Mortgages instead of a single bank for exactly this reason.
| Factor | Single-shelf lender | Broker with wholesale access |
|---|---|---|
| Programs quoted | One or a few in-house | Several across lender types |
| Structure options | Limited to the shelf | Fixed or floating, recourse or non-recourse, various terms |
| Rejection outcome | Start over elsewhere | Deal re-routed to another program |
| Compensation | Built into the rate and fees | Disclosed fee or lender-paid; ask in writing |
| Your effort | One package per lender | One package, multiple offers |
Suppose a single-shelf lender quotes you one five-year fixed bank loan with full recourse. A broker returns that same bank option plus a non-recourse agency structure and a floating-rate bridge with an extension option. You now have a real decision instead of a take-it-or-leave-it.
- Send one organized deal package to the broker.
- Ask for compensation disclosure in writing before you proceed.
- Request at least three structured options, each with rate, points, fees, term, recourse, and prepayment.
Note that many consumer protections, including the broker compensation rules the CFPB explains for home loans, do not automatically extend to business-purpose loans. That makes the written disclosure more important, not less.
Common mistake: never asking how the broker is paid, then comparing only the headline rate.
What to measure: the number of distinct, comparable offers, and the spread between the lowest and highest all-in cost.
4. Underwrite Your Own Deal First
Lenders screen on three ratios, and you can calculate all of them before anyone sees your file. DSCR (debt service coverage ratio) is net operating income divided by annual debt service. LTV (loan-to-value) is the loan amount divided by property value. Debt yield is NOI divided by the loan amount, a measure that ignores the interest rate entirely. Knowing yours tells you which lenders will say yes and saves you from applications that were never going to work. If rental income is the main qualifier, review how DSCR loan lenders underwrite coverage.
Here is a worked example. Your building produces $120,000 in NOI and you want a $1,000,000 loan on a $1,400,000 value. Debt service on a 25-year loan at 6.75% is about $82,900 a year. DSCR is $120,000 divided by $82,900, or 1.45. LTV is about 71%, and debt yield is 12%. As rates rise, coverage falls:
- At 6.75%: debt service about $82,900, DSCR 1.45
- At 7.25%: debt service about $86,700, DSCR 1.38
- At 7.75%: debt service about $90,600, DSCR 1.32
Many programs look for a DSCR floor in the range of 1.20 to 1.25, though this varies by lender and property type, so verify with each. This deal clears it at all three rates, but a 7.75% quote leaves much less cushion than 6.75%.
- Assemble a trailing 12-month operating statement (T-12), a current rent roll, and a real estate owned schedule.
- Compute NOI from in-place income, with vacancy and reserves included.
- Run DSCR, LTV, and debt yield at each of the three rate scenarios.
Common mistake: using projected rents instead of in-place income, or leaving out reserves and vacancy. Lenders underwrite what exists, and an inflated NOI gets corrected at the term sheet stage.
What to measure: DSCR at each rate scenario against the lender floor. If a one-quarter-point move drops you under it, you need a lower loan amount, not a better lender.
5. Compare Total Cost With the Rate Table and Points Breakeven
The lowest rate is rarely the lowest cost. Fees, points, prepayment terms, and recourse all change what a loan costs over the time you actually hold it. A payment table at three rates shows you the sensitivity, and a breakeven calculation tells you whether paying points makes sense. Take this table as an illustration on a $1,000,000 loan with 25-year amortization. These are not quotes, and totals are rounded.
| Rate | Monthly payment | Annual debt service | Total interest over 25 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.75% | $6,909 | $82,908 | about $1,072,700 |
| 7.25% | $7,228 | $86,736 | about $1,168,400 |
| 7.75% | $7,553 | $90,636 | about $1,265,900 |
Now the points math. Suppose one quote is 6.75% with one point ($10,000 on $1,000,000) and another is 7.25% with none. The point saves $7,228 minus $6,909, or $319 a month. Breakeven is $10,000 divided by $319, about 31 months. If you plan to hold for five years and the loan has no early-exit penalty, the point pays off. If you plan to sell or refinance in two years, it does not. In practice a single point rarely buys a half-point of rate, so run your actual quotes through the same formula. For deals that start with a short-term bridge, hard money lenders in Virginia price points and fees very differently, so run that math separately.
Many commercial loans also carry a balloon: a term shorter than the amortization, such as a 10-year term on a 25-year schedule, leaving a large balance due at maturity. Factor the refinance risk into your comparison.
- Request every quote with rate, points, fees, prepayment terms, and recourse in the same format.
- Run the three-scenario table and the breakeven for each offer.
- Calculate all-in cost over your planned hold period, including any exit penalty.
This is the Dare to Compare test: put any offer, including ours, next to the others on identical terms. Common mistake: buying points without checking your expected hold or the prepayment penalty. What to measure: breakeven month against planned hold, and total cost over the hold.
6. Compare Without Hurting Your Credit
Shopping does not always damage your credit, but sloppy shopping can. Each lender that runs a full pull creates a hard inquiry, and the CFPB explains how credit inquiries work in its consumer guidance. Scoring treatment of multiple inquiries varies by model and loan type, and commercial applications do not always follow the mortgage-shopping rules, so the safer move is to limit pulls to one.
Duane Buziak uses NoTouch Credit Pull, a soft pull mortgage option, to screen your profile before any hard inquiry. It works as a no hard inquiry mortgage pre-approval step: a mortgage pre-approval without hard pull that shows where you stand while your score stays untouched. Availability and format can differ on commercial and business-purpose files, so confirm what applies to your deal. The idea is a soft pull mortgage broker handling early comparison, with a no credit hit mortgage application stage that comes first. Investors who want to see how this plays out can read the commercial mortgage loan application walkthrough.
Suppose an investor wants to compare three structures: a bank loan, an agency refinance, and a DSCR loan. Rather than letting three lenders pull credit, the investor runs all three through a no hard inquiry mortgage pre-approval review, picks the winner on total cost, and authorizes a full pull only with that option.
- Request a NoTouch Credit PreQual from Duane Buziak.
- Compare the offers on identical terms using strategy 5.
- Authorize a hard pull only at application, with the one selected option.
Common mistake: letting several lenders each run a full credit pull during early comparison, especially when they ask “just to see where you land.”
What to measure: hard inquiries before final application. The target is one.
7. Vet Track Record and Licensing
A term sheet shows what a lender offers. Track record shows whether it closes. Commercial deals die in underwriting, appraisal, and legal review, and a lender with little history in your asset class may stall late. Verify before you commit, and before you pay any fee. Reviewing the commercial real estate loan requirements up front helps you spot a lender that is asking for too little or too much.
For example, ask for three references from investors who closed a similar property in the last 12 months, and call them. Ask whether the closing date matched the quote, whether fees changed, and whether the loan officer stayed responsive when problems arose. Then check each originator on NMLS Consumer Access, the public registry that shows licensing and any disciplinary history.
- Request a closed-deal list in your asset class and a set of references.
- Verify each NMLS number. Duane Buziak is NMLS #1110647.
- Confirm licensing in the state where the property sits. Duane is licensed in VA, FL, TN, GA, DC, NC, SC and MD.
- Get a written term sheet and fee schedule before paying anything.
Common mistake: paying application, appraisal, or deposit fees before receiving a written term sheet and fee schedule. Early money creates pressure to proceed with a deal that is not right.
What to measure: quoted versus actual closing timeline, and fees at closing versus the original estimate. Track both across every deal so the next vetting is easier.
Order of Operations Before You Sign
Start with strategy 4, underwriting your own deal, and strategy 1, matching the product. Together they take an afternoon and decide which lenders are even relevant. Then use strategies 3 and 6 to collect quotes through a broker with wholesale access, without a credit hit. Finish with strategies 5 and 7: run the rate table and breakeven on every offer, and verify licensing and references before you sign. Strategy 2 is a reference you can consult at any point.
Ready to secure your dream home with Virginia’s most trusted mortgage experts? Get your free NoTouch Credit PreQual today and discover your buying power without impacting your credit score, then experience why homebuyers choose our faster close times and access to hundreds of lenders working for you.
