Jeff Rauth

Many small business owners struggle with the decision to purchase commercial real estate for their business or to continue renting. The current commercial real estate break down has left many with strong reservations.

Its painfully well known that the last 3 years have been difficult in the commercial lending business. Borrower's commercial loan options have been limited and most have been difficult to close. We discuss the various commercial mortgage refinance options, that are available now and that will likely be available in 2012 below.

Many borrowers are surprised to learn that life companies are one of the most traditional sources of commercial mortgage financing in the business and have been for decades. Historically they focused on trophy type project ie with minimum loan amounts above $10,000,000 up to a billion or more. Due to the credit crisis many life insurance lenders have lowered their minimum loan amounts to a $1,000,000 and a few to as low as $500,000.

Good news from the SBA. They have announced the elimination of most of the restrictions to the SBA 504 refinance program, which made it virtually impossible for borrowers to qualify. This announcement was made on 10/19/2011.

We have seen steady increases in originations in virtually all fronts of commercial lending in the last year. Is all of this momentum and good news about to disappear due to the struggling national and global economy? For example, SBA loans are up and are about to run out of its allocated capital before their fiscal year end (September 30th 2011), and conventional investment property loans are up over 107% in 2nd quarter 2011 from the same period a year ago (according to the Mortgage Bankers

The SBA 504 refinance program was signed into law in September 2010 and has been, for the most part, a complete failure. One year after it was announced, there's been approximately 60 loans funded nationally… At approximately $50 million in total debt issued. A drop in the bucket compared to the $15 billion initially allocated to the program.

More loan options and historic lows for commercial mortgage rates for loan amounts between $5,000,000 - $10,000,000. Jeff Rauth of Commercial Finance Advisors, Inc. discusses how commercial lending is making a comeback as well as more aggressive lending standards for borrowers.

Breaks down the current SBA loan rates into two categories, SBA 7a loans and SBA 504 loans. Current rates are described as well as a brief description of the programs themselves.

Now is one of the best times to purchase commercial real estate in the history of the United States. You may be a little surprised or even skeptical to hear this...

The small balance (loans less than $5 million) commercial mortgage market has seen a tremendous amount of volatility in the last 3 years. Of considerable note has been the "death" of the CMBS market (Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities) which accounted for approximately 55% of all funded commercial mortgages in the US.