This Broker Wants to Build the Zillow for CRE Debt
[{"id": "e6o9wsu", "text": "Do dome dude created a website that lets people list deals they want funded, and has a bunch of his own properties on it, but no lenders have done a transaction yet? \n\nGood luck pal. ", "replies": [{"id": "e6obssq", "text": "agreed, but like a lot of disruptors, maybe this begins to normalize it and then its only a matter of time before someone else gets it right, it grows, and it's adopted.  the robots are coming for us all. ", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "e6oekc8", "text": "I looked at the platform, [Remissary](https://remissary.com/), and the web app looks polished. They haven't closed a deal through this platform per the article. However, that's not too surprising given that it takes 60-90 days for the average deal to close.\n\nAs a commercial mortgage broker, I am conflicted on its success. \n\nOn one hand, disintermediation is a great thing for the market since it increases efficiency and reduces costs. On the other, this cost savings comes from removing people, specifically the broker, from the process. \n\nUltimately, if this application leads to a better experience for the sponsors/property owners, then I hope it succeeds.\n\nThat said, in my experience, deals are not homogeneous enough in the commercial space for the QuickenLoans/RocketMortgage self-service approach. Consider that RocketMortgage tends to shy away from 2-4 unit transactions. Furthermore, even if this works at the matching stage, the sponsor will still have to deal with the lender and the myriad of documents and particularities they provide. This is where a good commercial mortgage broker/advisor adds value by filtering the lender jargon and guiding the sponsor through the process with minimal brain damage.\n\nIn addition, this is not the first \"online marketplace\" I've seen (though it does look better than most). Unfortunately, most of these end up being sales funnels for the creator to ultimately act as the commercial mortgage broker. The approach appeals to owners/sponsors who don't want to deal with a broker and think they can use the platform to self-service. The sponsor either pays the funnel (in this case they act as a broker) or the funnel gets paid by the lender in exchange for prioritizing the options the sponsor sees in favor of that lender.\n\nUntil the financing process becomes homogeneous (tough given the heterogeneous nature of commercial real estate), it will require expertise to navigate the process. Either the owner/sponsor has to develop/hire that expertise in-house or they can hire it out to a commercial mortgage broker/advisor they trust.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "e6oie00", "text": "doubtful this will work, but interested to see what happens. unlike residential, there's no generally accepted overlay for underwriting (fannie/freddie). every lender has their own requirements and expectations, every deal is different. not to mention, i don't know any lenders eager to originate loans of consequential size based on an online application. personally, i want to meet my borrowers and kick the tires of any collateral i'm lending on. imo, the most likely users of this site would be those unable to fund loans any other way. no thanks. ", "replies": [{"id": "e6rpcs8", "text": "I think it does not depend on the lender but rather in my view it depends on the particular loan product that a lender offers. My shop's balance sheet product where the average loan size is $70MM will of course not consider this as an origination source or lead source. Our institutional clients-Blackstone, Carlyle, Related, HIG etc that use our balance sheet loan products are also not going through an online app. They go through Eastdill and HFF. However, our CMBS side of the business is a completely different ball game. Average loan amount is $5MM and we work with mostly non institutional clients who be the most likely users of a service like this and our CMBS originators will be more likely to  entertain such loan requests. I work on the CMBS side and if we get dozens of requests at a time from a service like this, i get that it can be crappy, so I will just tell them to send me deals using a particular format with all the required info in excel. I will then just drop it in my sizing model and I can provide feedback in a few hours, It's not that big of a deal. ", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]