Business owners, investors, developers, DSCR, covenants, the credit memo. You have done the hard part. What changes is who you can place it with and who owns the relationship.
Written by A.I.M.I. Collective Mortgage Group, Brokerage editorial team
Published September 2026 · Last reviewed 11 September 2026
A commercial account manager who moves to brokering brings the three things a residential broker spends years acquiring: commercial clients, the ability to read a rent roll and a set of financials, and fluency with underwriters. What they lack is the brokerage side: which of a dozen lender types wants this file, borrower paid fee structures, and a pipeline that no longer walks in through a branch. This page is the bridge into the commercial track.
Business owners buying their building, investors at their fifth property, developers between projects. Subject to your non solicit and privacy rules, the professionals and the referral sources you know personally are the start of a book.
NOI, DSCR, LTV, covenants, guarantor strength, the credit memo. The Deal Desk speaks this language and so do the lenders at our forums. You skip the year most brokers spend learning it.
You know what a credit committee worries about. That is the scarcest skill in commercial brokering: packaging a file so the lender's questions are answered before they are asked.
Banks, life companies, credit unions, CMHC insured lenders, alternative and private commercial lenders. The file your bank declined has four other homes. Read the deal types and who lends on each.
Commonly 0.5 to 1 percent of the loan on conventional files, higher on private and construction, in an engagement letter, paid at funding. Read how commercial brokers get paid.
No branch, no internal referrals. Your referral partners, your database, your niche. Read the playbook, with builders, accountants and business lawyers as the first three calls.
Answer four quick questions and we will email you the three guides that fit where you are today.
Most commercial bankers add residential files quickly, because the business owner buying a building also has a house, and the investor has a home. Top tier lender status and head office processing make that side simple, and it smooths the income while the first commercial files run their 45 to 90 days.
The Deal Desk commercial underwriter for the first files and any file that needs a second set of eyes. The Commercial Matchmaking Forum and the private lending forum, where the lenders you will place with sit across the table. Weekly lender training on appetite. Compliance, payroll and processing at head office. Read what happens when a commercial file lands and the economics of leaving.
The conversation is confidential and nothing is said to your employer. Clients you originate as a broker are yours, including the renewal and the referral. The client list you built at the bank stays at the bank, and we will not ask you for it. What we carry is the licensing paperwork, the lender registrations and the first hard files while you learn where they go.
Leaving a bank mobile mortgage specialist role to become a broker in BC, Alberta or Ontario: licensing, the income model, lender choice and your contract.
Salary, bonus, pension and benefits against commission, split, book value and expenses: the honest economics of moving from the bank to a brokerage.
Non solicit clauses, privacy law and the client list that cannot leave with you: what a banker turned broker can and cannot do with existing relationships.
Nine steps from the bank to a brokered book: licence, brokerage, orientation, plan, network, first file, book, specialty, scale, and the support at each.
A confidential conversation about building your commercial brokerage business: your clients, your niche and the first three files. Nothing is said to your employer.