Every commercial broker has a file the first three lenders declined. The difference between a broker who loses that client and one who keeps them is whether there is a desk that has seen this before.
A difficult file is not a bad file. It is a file with a feature that a first tier lender's policy cannot hold: a borrower two years out of a consumer proposal, a building with a phase two environmental finding, a business purchase where the goodwill is most of the price, a closing in fourteen days. Somebody funds these files every week. The skill is knowing who, at what cost, with what conditions, and telling the client the truth about all three.
Two years of statements that do not tell the story, a business that changed hands, income in three companies. Underwritten to what a lender will accept, then placed with one that reads past the first page.
Vacancy, deferred maintenance, a single tenant with a short lease, a zoning question. Structured with holdbacks, a bridge to stabilisation, or a lender who prices the story instead of declining it.
Bankruptcy, proposal, judgment, a bank that has called a loan. Placed with lenders whose policy is the property first, with the exit planned to a conventional refinance once the event ages.
A phase two, a former gas station, a dry cleaner next door. The desk knows which lenders will lend with remediation holdbacks and which will not look at it.
A purchase with fourteen days, a lender that has walked, a payout demand. Bridge financing arranged fast, priced honestly, with the takeout lined up before the bridge funds.
Hospitality, care homes, places of worship, self storage, gas stations. Files most brokers refer away, and lenders who specialise in each.
A restaurant owner is buying the building they lease, $1.9 million, with a phase two report showing historic contamination from a previous tenant. Two banks decline on the report. The desk places it with an alternative lender at 60 percent with a remediation holdback, arranges a vendor take back for part of the balance, and plans a refinance to a credit union once the remediation certificate is issued. The client owns the building. The broker keeps the client.
Difficult files cost more. The desk tells the client the real rate, the real fee and the real exit before anyone signs an engagement letter, because a hard file placed with a surprise in it becomes a complaint. Read how the lending tiers work for the cost of each step down, and the files brokers turn away for why keeping them matters.
Part of the Commercial Deal Desk. Previous: underwriting. Next: construction.
Book a discovery call and bring it. The desk will tell you honestly whether it can be placed, where, and at what cost.