Advice switching from underwriting to commercial mortgage broker.
I have over a decade in the commercial real estate business. I am looking for advice from commercial real estate mortgage brokers.
1. What advice do you have for prospecting for clients? I am mainly looking in the $1MM. - $5MM loan size but also curious about larger loan brokers.
2. What was it like working as a mortgage broker your first year? Hours worked, commission, average loan size and volume, stress, etc.
3. What would you change, or do differently during your first 1-3 years if you could?
[{"id": "hsmup9g", "text": "1. The right clients *need* your advice. You are not a rate shopper, you\u2019re an advisor. I\u2019ve done loans as low as $255k and loans as high as $42M. Pick a niche and go after it hard (ie, construction, owner-user, hospitality, multi family, etc)\n\n2. First year was hard. Made $0 in the first three months. Made $40k the next 9 months. Now making $200k+ consistently. The marketing and networking comes first. Leads are your lifeblood. But also doing the deal comes next. You need a system so even when a big deal comes in you don\u2019t cease all marketing, because it will be tempting. You want a steady flow of leads, not an up and down that follows how much time you put in to your marketing (because they are directly correlated). And you are a business owner (even if you don\u2019t own the brokerage you\u2019re with) because no one will care about your success in this business except you. You\u2019ve gotta build your own pipeline. \n\n3. I now get 2-3 leads a day inbound minimum. But early on I didn\u2019t realize the importance of leads as the lifeblood of the business. I spent a lot of time learning bank/lender programs. If I did it differently I would focus more on building the leads side of it instead. Don\u2019t get me wrong: you need to know the lender programs. But without a lead you\u2019ll never truly get their attention anyway. \n\nLast thing: I highly recommend you aim to start by working under someone else, instead of trying to do it in your own like I did. If you work under a high volume broker, you will learn a ton about structuring, lender appetite, etc that you just wouldn\u2019t be exposed to by yourself", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]