One $3 million commercial file pays what six residential files pay. Most residential brokers refer them out. Here is how to keep them.
Written by A.I.M.I. Collective Mortgage Group, Brokerage editorial team
Published September 2026 · Last reviewed 11 September 2026
A residential broker at $15 million a year funds roughly thirty files. To double the book the residential way you need thirty more clients, thirty more sets of conditions, and a second assistant. To double it the commercial way you need four or five files, and the clients are usually already in your database: the dentist buying their building, the investor with three rentals who wants a sixplex, the business owner whose lease is up, the developer client who mentioned a lot. The volume is walking through the door. The only question is whether you keep it.
A $3 million multi family purchase takes more work than a $600,000 refinance, but not five times more. The fee on it, typically 0.5 to 1 percent of the loan, is a multiple of a residential finder's fee.
Investors buy again. A business owner who financed their building refinances it, buys the next one and sends their accountant's other clients. Commercial clients are a book, not a transaction.
In BC, Alberta and Ontario your existing mortgage licence covers commercial lending. What you are missing is knowledge, lender relationships and a first file that does not blow up.
Commercial borrowers buy structure, speed and certainty. A client who needs 75 percent on a mixed use building with a vacant unit is not comparing you to a website.
Commercial files take 45 to 90 days, need documents residential brokers have never asked for, and the first three you try alone are likely to be declines. That is why most brokers refer them out. The fix is not a course. It is someone structuring the file with you until you can do it yourself.
Bring it to the Deal Desk for structuring and lender placement, and learn on the deal without losing it.
Learn it slowly. Take the courses, sit in on a commercial lender's presentations, place a small owner occupied file with a credit union. Realistic, and it takes two to three years before you are placing files confidently.
Partner and split. Refer files to a commercial broker for a referral fee. You keep a slice and lose the client for the next file, because the relationship moves to whoever funded it.
Submit through an underwriter. At A.I.M.I. Collective the Deal Desk is a commercial underwriter who structures and places the file with you. You stay broker of record, the client stays yours, the commission is split on that file, and by the third or fourth one you know what a lender needs before they ask. Most brokers treat the first few files as the education they never got.
Months one to three: go through your database and flag every client who owns a business, owns more than two properties, or has ever mentioned a building. Call them. Months three to six: submit the first two files through the Deal Desk and sit in on every lender conversation. Months six to twelve: place the next three with the underwriter reviewing rather than leading, and add one commercial lender relationship of your own at the Commercial Matchmaking Forum. By month twelve most brokers have added $8 to $15 million in commercial volume without adding a single residential file.
Read next: the deal types and which lenders take them, how commercial brokers get paid, and the first file checklist.
Commercial is a pillar here, not a specialty someone dabbles in. The Deal Desk structures and places the commercial, B and alternative files you would otherwise refer away, while you stay the client's point of contact. It works in exchange for a commission split on that file, it is optional, and it is your call file by file.
There is no separate commercial licence. How residential mortgage agents move into commercial files: the skills, the lenders, how pay works and support.
A practical path for residential brokers into commercial mortgages: which deals to start with, what lenders need and how an underwriting desk helps.
A commercial file at A.I.M.I. Collective, step by step: the first email, the 24 hour Deal Desk review, term sheet, reports, timeline and fee.
Multi family, mixed use, owner occupied, construction, land and agriculture: what each deal type needs, typical LTV and DSCR, and who lends on it.
Book a discovery call and bring it. We will tell you on the call whether it places, with which lenders, and how the split works.