Seven Words Describing Commercial Real Estate Financing

There is a growing consensus that small businesses are currently confronting one of the worst commercial lending environments during the past sixty years. Because there are very few reliable signs indicating that commercial mortgage options are improving, business borrowers should be developing strategies for dealing with the serious ongoing commercial banking problems impacting their ability to obtain commercial financing. These efforts should be facilitated by concise and candid explanations about lenders, and this report provides several short and straightforward descriptions using seven words to explain commercial property loans. We adopted a similar approach in related business finance articles that include "six words describing business financing options".

"Commercial loans are getting harder to find" is the first illustration of seven words to describe commercial real estate financing. Hearing a bank say that they can help with commercial property loans or any other form of small business financing is not sufficient by itself. Finding banks that are routinely providing commercial mortgage options to small businesses is the acid test. Bankers are typically stating that they are lending normally when in fact they are not, and this is both a disappointing and common observation.

As a second seven-word description, "business financing is the next big problem" indicates growing commercial property loan concerns on several levels. Far too many banks have not yet satisfactorily put their initial big problem related to residential mortgage financing behind them. Declining sales, decreasing business property values and depleted bank resources are part of the overwhelming evidence to support the likelihood that commercial real estate loans will become an even more serious problem. Further bank bailouts related to commercial property loans are highly unlikely, and banks are continuing to fail at a record rate.

Our third group of seven words describing commercial real estate loans is "contingency planning is critical for commercial mortgages". To help businesses plan in advance what to do if something goes wrong, this approach to business planning has always been an invaluable tool. Small business owners have discovered during recent years that for improving commercial mortgage options, a similar contingency planning perspective is equally valuable. If a commercial borrower has a small business loan that their current bank can recall with very little advance notice, this strategic thinking is especially critical. With commercial property loans for small businesses, such a possibility is particularly common.

"Borrowers need a healthy amount of skepticism" represents our final seven words describing commercial real estate financing. Even if a small business owner is in the enviable position of believing that they have no current commercial mortgage worries, this observation is still relevant. It might be helpful to recall that banks were almost universally less than accurate and candid in describing their problems with residential mortgages. This observation should be evaluated in the light of banks reporting that they are lending normally to businesses while simultaneously eliminating or reducing commercial loan programs for small businesses. Being skeptical of commercial banks for the foreseeable future is appropriate for any prudent commercial borrower.

A more complete understanding of the practical small business finance options necessary to cope with one of the most chaotic commercial banking climates seen in decades should also be facilitated by a review of commercial financing reports such as "six more words about business loans" and "seven words to describe merchant cash advances". Small business owners will generally need to plan ahead and be more aggressive in their efforts to successfully locate reliable business financing alternatives because effective and practical commercial mortgage options seem to be declining. This report was intentionally structured to produce a concise overview of pertinent commercial real estate finance issues by describing commercial real estate loan difficulties in seven words.