How can a residential broker start doing commercial deals?

Your database already has commercial files in it. The self employed client who mentioned buying their premises, the investor with four rentals looking at a sixplex, the professional whose practice needs a building. The first step is to stop referring those away and to say, out loud, that you can help.

What changes on a commercial file is the property carrying the loan instead of the borrower's pay stubs, timelines in months instead of weeks, and a fee agreed up front in an engagement letter. What does not change is the client relationship, which is the thing you bring. On the first files the deal desk structures, underwrites and presents to the lender; you manage the client and learn by watching.

By the third or fourth file you are presenting the structure yourself. The guide on adding commercial files walks through the first one from the client's first mention to funding.