For the last 100 years, commercial real estate finance has been primarily conducted via relationships, with of course, borrower's local banks. As government sponsored agencies began to pump capital into the markets, lending became diversified, and in 2005 - 2007, the last big mortgage boom, CMBS lenders took the reigns. Now, in 2015, something interesting is going to happen. With the introduction of crowdfunding and the returned liquidity to the CMBS market, options are becoming abundant. But what makes this year even more interesting? Well there are more than half a trillion dollars of CMBS loans maturing between 2015 and 2017. So what does this mean for borrowers, lenders, and brokers?

With so many options available to multifamily owners and buyers, it is going to be irresponsible to go to the same bank or lender you've had a relationship with for the last dozen years. The increase in options in capital markets means an increase in competition. We aren't talking about residential loans where a few basis points is a few bucks. 10 bps on a ten million dollar loan is $10,000, and a point is a hundred grand! That means going to a local bank that may charge as much as two hundred bps more than a CMBS lender or Freddie Mac perhaps could cost MILLIONS of dollars. 

Multifamily.loans, for example, is a boutique florida lender and broker specializing in commercial properties with the options to price options out with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, CMBS Lender, Life Companies, and of course your local bank. In the past borrowers may have scoffed at paying, say a point, to a broker. But now what's that point worth? Perhaps saving 20 over the life of the loan.

Furthermore as the lending economy evolves, so do documentation requirements as well as sponsorship requirements. Non recourse loans seem more readily available than those with full recourse. Who offers defeasence versus yield maintenance? The bottom line is that there are too many options out there to not shop them and learn about them. As those half a trillion dollars in loans come due, commercial mortgage brokers are going to be in a position to, of course, earn a lot of money, but more-so than that, save a great deal more for the borrowers they are representing.