A commercial mortgage broker is a person or firm that takes a borrower's loan request to lenders and is paid a fee, without lending its own money.
A broker does three things: shapes the request into a package a credit officer can read, chooses which lenders to show it to, and manages the back and forth until closing. The broker does not make the credit decision and does not fund the loan.
Pay is usually a fee at closing, a percentage of the loan amount, set in a written agreement with the borrower. Sometimes the lender pays instead, or as well. Ask early who pays, how much, and whether the fee is owed if you close with a lender the broker did not introduce.
One federal program writes rules for this. SBA treats anyone who represents a borrower or a lender in dealings with the agency as an “Agent”, a term that covers packagers, consultants and lender service providers, and it requires fees paid to agents to be disclosed on a form.
Outside SBA loans, rules on brokering commercial loans are set by states and differ. A good broker earns the fee by knowing which lenders hold loans like yours.
How it shows up in the data here
Brokers are not in the lender data: the public files name the institution that made or holds a loan, never the intermediary. The site is built for the broker's first job, building a lender list. Start at for brokers, or enter a deal in loan comps to see which lenders made or hold similar loans in that state.
Go further
- For brokers: How brokers use the lender data.
- Loan comps: Lenders with similar loans, by type, size and state.
- Deal summary builder: Turn the facts of a deal into a clean one-page summary you can copy or print. Nothing is saved or sent.
- How a loan broker works with community banks: A community bank will take a good loan from a broker it trusts. Trust comes from three things: the bank knows who is paying you, your packages are accurate, and you bring loans that fit what the bank does.
- A banker's guide to working with loan brokers: Broker-sourced loans are ordinary business for many banks. Handling them well is mostly a matter of knowing who the broker is, who pays them, and keeping the credit work your own.
- What a lender-ready loan package looks like: A lender decides in minutes whether to keep reading. A package that answers the first five questions on one page, and backs each answer with a document, gets read.
Related terms
- SBA agent (packager, referral agent or broker): Anyone who represents an applicant or a lender in dealings with SBA for pay: an attorney, accountant, consultant, packager or broker. SBA does not require a borrower to use one.
- SBA Form 159 (fee disclosure): The form that discloses to SBA any fee paid to an agent such as a packager or broker, and a lender fee above $2,500, with the compensation agreement behind it.
- Originator: An originator is the person, or the lender, that brings in a loan request and carries it through to closing.
- Term sheet: A term sheet is a short written outline of the loan a lender is prepared to consider: amount, rate, term, fees and main conditions. It is usually not binding.
- Community bank: A community bank is a smaller bank that takes deposits and lends mostly in the area around its offices, and decides on loans close to home.
- Non-bank lender: A non-bank lender is a company that makes loans but does not take deposits, so it is not a bank, a savings institution or a credit union.
Sources
Plain definitions for orientation, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do.