The short answer
An investor commercial real estate package has three files: the property's income (rent roll, leases, two to three years of operating statements and a trailing twelve months), the sponsor (financial statement, schedule of real estate owned, contingent liabilities, entity documents) and the third-party reports the lender orders. The lender sizes the loan on net operating income, so every line of income and expense must tie to a document.
What the lender is deciding
An investor loan is repaid from rent. The lender asks three things in order: how much net income does the property produce, how durable is it, and who is the sponsor. Everything in the package answers one of those.
Lenders hold $1.32T FDIC call reports and NCUA 5300, of non-owner-occupied commercial property loans. The 2006 interagency guidance counts these loans toward a bank’s commercial real estate concentration, so a bank’s room for them can be tighter than for owner-occupied loans. See the concentration guide.
Part 1: the income
- A current rent roll: tenant, suite, square feet, rent, lease start and end, renewal options, security deposit, and any rent owed
- Every lease and amendment, complete and signed
- Operating statements for the last two or three full years
- A trailing twelve months statement, month by month
- The current year’s budget
- Real estate tax bills and insurance declarations
- A schedule of capital work done in the last three years and work planned
- For a purchase: the contract, and the seller’s statements where you have them
Make it tie. The rent on the rent roll should equal the rent in the leases and come close to the rent collected in the trailing twelve months. Where it does not, say why in a note: a tenant in free rent, a new lease, a vacancy since filled. An unexplained gap costs time and trust.
How the lender builds net operating income. It starts from rent in place, deducts an allowance for vacancy and collection loss even if the building is full, and deducts operating expenses. It usually adds a management fee and a reserve for replacements whether or not you pay them, because a lender that took the property back would. The result is underwritten NOI, and it is normally lower than the figure in the seller’s brochure.
Part 2: how durable the income is
The lender reads the leases for four things.
- Rollover. How much rent expires in each year of the loan term. A building with 60 percent of its rent expiring in year two is a different credit from one with expirations spread over ten years.
- Concentration. How much of the rent one tenant pays. For a single-tenant building, the tenant’s financial strength is the credit, and the lender will ask for the tenant’s financial statements if they are available.
- Who pays expenses. Under a net lease the tenant pays taxes, insurance and maintenance. Under a gross lease the owner does, and expense growth comes out of the owner’s income.
- Options and outs. Early termination rights, co-tenancy clauses, purchase options and rights of first refusal.
A short lease summary table, one row per tenant, saves the lender hours and shows that you know the building.
Part 3: the sponsor
- A personal financial statement for each guarantor, signed and dated
- Two or three years of personal federal tax returns
- A schedule of real estate owned: property, ownership share, value, loan balance, lender, maturity, annual net income and annual debt service
- A list of contingent liabilities: every loan guarantied, with the amount
- Proof of liquidity: recent bank and brokerage statements
- A short record of similar properties owned or managed
- Entity documents for the borrower: articles, operating agreement, an organization chart showing every owner, and a certificate of good standing
Lenders read the schedule of real estate owned closely. Include every property, including the ones that are not doing well. See guarantor strength and recourse.
Part 4: reports the lender orders
What the rules require
| Report | Rule | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| Appraisal | 12 CFR 323.3 | Required for a commercial real estate transaction above $500,000. An investor loan depends on rental income, so the $1 million business loan exemption does not fit it |
| Evaluation | 12 CFR 323.3(b) | Required in place of an appraisal for a transaction at or under the threshold |
| Loan to value | 12 CFR part 365, appendix A | Supervisory limit of 85 percent for improved property. Loans above a supervisory limit must be identified in the bank’s records and reported to its board |
The supervisory limit is a ceiling for the bank’s policy, not a lending standard. See the supervisory loan to value guide.
By policy most lenders also order a Phase I environmental site assessment, a property condition report, a survey and title work. At closing they commonly ask for tenant estoppel certificates and, for larger tenants, a subordination, non-disturbance and attornment agreement. The lender chooses the vendors. Ask for the list and the cost before you sign a term sheet.
Looking for a lender now? Find lenders for this in your state or see Investor CRE lenders state by state.
Differences by property type
The core package is the same. Each property type adds something.
What each property type adds to the package
| Property | Added documents and questions |
|---|---|
| Office | Lease expirations by year, tenant improvement and leasing commission costs for expiring space, parking, and how much space tenants actually use |
| Retail | Tenant sales reports where leases require them, percentage rent, co-tenancy clauses, anchor tenant status, and whether the anchor owns its own parcel |
| Industrial and warehouse | Clear height, loading, power, yard space, environmental history, and how specialized the building is for the current tenant |
| Self-storage | Unit mix, occupancy and rate by unit type, month by month, and a management summary report. There are no long leases, so the operating history is the evidence |
| Hotel | Daily rate, occupancy and revenue per available room by month, the franchise agreement and any required property improvement plan, and the management agreement |
Self-storage and hotels are operating businesses in a real estate wrapper. Lenders treat them as special purpose property, look harder at the operator, and many community banks do not lend on them at all. Ask before you send a package.
Size the loan before the lender does
Three tests bound the loan. The smallest result sets the loan.
Worked example (hypothetical). A small shopping center is under contract for $4,000,000. Underwritten NOI, after a vacancy allowance, a management fee and reserves, is $300,000.
Loan to value. Say the lender’s policy limit is 70 percent. 70 percent of $4,000,000 is $2,800,000.
Coverage. Say the lender wants NOI of at least 1.25 times the annual payment. $300,000 divided by 1.25 is $240,000 of payment a year. At a 7 percent rate on a 25-year schedule, each $1,000,000 of loan costs about $84,800 a year, so $240,000 supports about $2,830,000 ($240,000 divided by $84,800, times $1,000,000).
Debt yield. Say the lender wants NOI of at least 10 percent of the loan. $300,000 divided by 0.10 is $3,000,000.
The loan to value test binds at $2,800,000. The 70 percent, 1.25 and 10 percent are this example’s assumptions. They are not any lender’s terms.
The maximum loan calculator runs the three tests on your numbers. How bankers evaluate a deal explains each.
Finding lenders for this kind of loan
There is no loan-level public record. Regulation C covers loans secured by a dwelling, and an office or a warehouse is not one. So the search runs on balances: which banks and credit unions hold non-owner-occupied commercial property loans, how large they are, and where they have branches. How to pick banks with public data walks through it.
Life companies, debt funds and conduit lenders also make these loans and file no call report. They are outside this site’s bank and credit union data.
Want a person to check the public record for an investment property loan? Request financing from The Lender Report’s operator. A person replies by email, usually naming lenders that have made loans like yours. It is free, it covers business and investment property loans only, and nothing is sent to a lender.
What the public record can and cannot tell you
It can: show which banks and credit unions hold investor commercial property loans, the size of that book and its change over a year, and each lender’s capital.
It cannot: show which property types a lender wants, its loan to value or coverage limits, its rates, or any individual loan. A large book is a balance held on a date. It is not a statement that the lender is adding to it.
Questions to put to the lender
- Do you lend on this property type, at this size, in this market?
- What coverage, loan to value and debt yield does your policy call for?
- How do you underwrite vacancy, management and reserves?
- Is the loan full recourse, and to whom?
- Which reports will you order and what will they cost?
Terms used here
- Non-owner-occupied commercial real estate: Commercial property where half or more of the loan's repayment comes from rent paid by tenants unrelated to the owner.
- Rent roll: A list of every unit or space in a property showing the tenant, the rent, the lease dates and what is vacant, as of a stated date.
- T-12 (trailing 12 months): A property's income and expense statement for the most recent twelve months, usually shown month by month.
- Net operating income (NOI): A property's annual income minus its operating expenses, before loan payments, income taxes and depreciation. It is the top number in DSCR and debt yield.
- Effective gross income (EGI): The income a property is expected to produce after subtracting an allowance for vacancy and for rent that will not be collected.
- Tenant estoppel certificate: A signed statement from a tenant confirming the terms of its lease and that the lease is in effect, which a lender or buyer can then rely on.
- Subordination, non-disturbance and attornment (SNDA): An agreement in which a tenant puts its lease behind the lender's mortgage, the lender agrees to honor the lease after a foreclosure, and the tenant agrees to treat the new owner as landlord.
- NNN lease (triple net): A lease where the tenant pays rent plus the property's operating costs, typically taxes, insurance and maintenance. The exact split is whatever the lease says.
- Appraisal: A written, independent opinion of a property's market value as of a specific date, prepared by a qualified appraiser.
- Phase I environmental site assessment: A study of a property's records, history and visible condition by an environmental professional to identify likely contamination, done without sampling soil or water.
- Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR): Net operating income, or business cash flow, divided by the loan payments due in a year. It shows how many dollars come in for each dollar of debt service.
- Debt yield: Net operating income divided by the loan amount, shown as a percent. It measures how much income stands behind each dollar lent, whatever the rate or term.
- Contingent liability: A debt a person or company would owe only if something happens, most often a guaranty of someone else's loan that the borrower then stops paying.
- Special purpose property: A building whose design or construction limits it to the use it was built for, such as a car wash, hotel, gas station or bowling alley.
Sources
Every rule and outside figure above comes from one of these, opened on . Dates are the source's own. Figures from this site's data carry their own source and date beside them.
- 12 CFR part 365, appendix A, Interagency Guidelines for Real Estate Lending Policies (supervisory loan-to-value limits), retrieved .
- 12 CFR 323.3, Appraisals required (FDIC), retrieved .
- 12 CFR 1003.2, Regulation C, definitions (dwelling), retrieved .
- Concentrations in Commercial Real Estate Lending, Sound Risk Management Practices, 71 FR 74580, dated .
Next step: check the record
- Lenders for investor commercial real estateBanks and credit unions by the non-owner-occupied commercial property loans they hold.
- Loan Comps for an investor propertyLenders that hold loans of this kind in a state, with the source of each figure.
- Size the loan three waysThe largest loan under a coverage test, a loan to value test and a debt yield test.
Keep reading
- DSCR calculator: Cash flow over debt service. Type the cash flow and the loan terms, see the ratio and the cushion before it falls to 1.00x.
- Debt yield calculator: Cash flow over the loan. The one ratio that ignores the rate, the amortization and the cap rate.
- LTV and LTC calculator: Loan to value and loan to cost, the equity a lender will ask for, and the federal supervisory limit for the property type.
- Maximum loan calculator: The loan each test allows: DSCR, LTV and debt yield side by side, and which one binds.
- 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.
- 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.
- How bankers evaluate a commercial loan deal: A credit officer asks one question five ways: how will this loan be repaid, and what happens if it is not? Knowing the five tests lets you size a request before you send it.
- Guarantor strength and recourse, explained: A guaranty is the lender's second way out. Whether you sign one, how much it covers and what the lender checks before accepting it shape a commercial loan as much as the rate does.
- Supervisory loan to value limits and HVCRE, explained: Two federal rules shape how much a bank will lend against real estate: a table of loan to value ceilings, and a capital rule that makes some construction loans cost the bank more to hold.
- The CRE concentration guidance, explained: Bank regulators watch how much commercial real estate a bank holds against its capital. The guidance sets two screens. It does not set a limit, and it does not count owner-occupied buildings.
- Owner-occupied commercial real estate loan checklist: When a business borrows on the building it works in, the lender is underwriting the business first and the building second. The package has to prove both.
- Multifamily loan checklist for 5+ unit properties: A larger apartment loan can go to five kinds of lender. They want much the same package. They differ on recourse, term, prepayment, speed and what they ask of the sponsor.
Questions people ask
Is there a public list of lenders that made loans on offices or warehouses?
No. HMDA covers loans secured by dwellings, so loans on offices, stores, warehouses, self-storage and hotels are not in it. The public record for these is the balance each bank and credit union holds, from its call report.
What loan to value will a bank lend on an investor property?
Each bank sets its own limit in its loan policy. The interagency guidelines set a supervisory limit of 85 percent for improved property, and a bank's own limit for a rented commercial building is normally well under that. Ask the bank.
Do I need estoppels before I approach a lender?
No. A lender usually asks for tenant estoppel certificates as a closing condition, after it has issued terms. Have the leases and rent roll ready first.
Cite this
Source: The Lender Report, Investor commercial real estate loan checklist, https://lender.report/guides/package-checklist-investor-cre/, data as of November 11, 2026.
General information, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do; ask it for the policy in writing.
Source and date appear beside each figure. Banks report balances, not loans made. Loans made come only from HMDA and SBA files. We do not audit filings and can make errors joining them. Report a problem