Short-term commercial loan alternatives are frequently forgotten because of misunderstandings about long-term commercial financing. Although long-term commercial mortgage options are often appropriate, there are practical short-term business financing choices that will be more workable for commercial borrowers in realizing profitable business loan outcomes.
Short-Term Commercial Loan and Credit Card Processing Choices
Two of the most overlooked short-term working capital business loan strategies are short-term commercial mortgage loan programs and business cash advance programs in conjunction with credit card processing. Both of these business financing options are relevant for most business owners but are frequently misunderstood.
Short-Term Commercial Mortgage Business Loan Programs
A long-term commercial mortgage is possible for most businesses that involve commercial property. Businesses should not normally be totally financed with short-term funds. When a longer-term commercial property loan is desired, a long-term commercial mortgage of at least 15-20 years is suggested.
However there will be many commercial mortgage loan situations in which longer-term business financing is not appropriate for the business owner. In such circumstances it is important for a business owner to realize that there are viable short-term working capital management options.
When is Short-Term Business Financing Preferable?
For business owners who expect to sell or refinance their commercial property within one to five years, it is especially advisable to explore short-term commercial mortgage loan programs. The most appropriate short-term working capital loan will have little or no prepayment penalties and "lockout" fees normally associated with longer-term commercial mortgage loans.
While we will not attempt to describe the technical aspects of commercial loan prepayment fees and lockout fees in this article, we will note that the absence of such fees in most short-term commercial mortgage loan programs is a very positive aspect of these short-term working capital management options. The lack of such penalty fees could easily translate to a savings of 10% to 30% or more if a business owner needs to sell their commercial property during the time period which would have triggered prepayment fees and lockout fees in a traditional longer-term commercial mortgage loan.
What are the Tradeoffs in a Shorter-Term Commercial Mortgage?
Substantial penalty fees will often be avoided with a short-term commercial real estate loan, but there are some important trade-offs to understand beforehand if a business owner wants a shorter-term commercial mortgage loan. When a short-term business loan is a possibility, the likely business financing will not include special purpose businesses such as funeral homes, the interest rate will frequently be in the range of 12% to 13% and the loan-to-value will typically less than 70%.
Best Possibilities for a Short-Term Commercial Mortgage
The maximum time period for a short-term commercial mortgage is usually three years. The most likely candidates for a short-term business loan are mixed-use, retail, office, multi-family and warehouse properties.
Short-Term Commercial Mortgage Business Loan Lender Limitations
Business borrowers should be prepared for the shortage of lenders who can implement a short-term business loan effectively. There are many difficulties to be avoided with short-term business financing, and selecting a viable commercial lender is of critical importance when obtaining short-term commercial real estate financing.
Credit Card Processing and Credit Card Financing
For any business that accepts credit cards as a method of payment, a business cash advance is a critical working capital management tool that is often overlooked. Even thriving businesses frequently need more working capital than they can borrow. One of the least-known working capital management strategies for successful businesses is potentially the single best working capital loan strategy for obtaining needed cash for growing their business: the use of a merchant cash advance or business cash advance program.
The most likely candidates to benefit from this working capital loan strategy are retail stores, service businesses, restaurants and bars. This highly-effective working capital management strategy uses an under-utilized business asset (credit card receivables) to obtain business cash advances based upon a merchant's sales volume.
Credit Card Financing Based on Credit Card Processing Programs
This business financing technique is called "credit card financing". Some business owners might have used a business loan technique referred to as "receivables factoring" to sell future receivables at a discount and receive immediate cash.
Very few retail and service businesses can properly document their accounts receivable to acquire business financing. Smaller service businesses and retail stores are not likely to have receivables for a business loan.
What these businesses do have in many cases is documented sales volume and documented credit card sales activity. It is this documented level of sales volume and credit card sales activity that becomes a financial asset to the business and its working capital management strategies. Business cash advances from $5,000 to $300,000 can usually be obtained based on a merchant's sales volume and future credit card sales.
The working capital loan time period covered by a business cash advance is typically 12 months or less. For businesses that desire to continue the merchant cash advance program beyond this period, it is usually an easy matter to get an additional working capital cash advance once the initial one has been completed.
Avoiding Problems with Credit Card Financing and Lender Limitations
As with any successful working capital management strategy, there will typically be only a small number of commercial lenders who are effective at implementing the working capital loan strategy properly. There are also a number of problems to be avoided with business cash advance programs, so choosing the appropriate provider of this working capital management service is extremely important to any business owner considering a business cash advance program.
Copyright 1995-2007 AEX Commercial Financing Group and Stephen Bush. All Rights Reserved.
One of the most serious commercial loan situations is a small business commercial lender that causes problems for their commercial borrowers on a repeating basis. Commercial borrowers should be prepared to avoid certain problematic commercial lenders unless alternative working capital loan options are impossible.
This article will not name specific lenders to avoid. This article will focus on how important it is to avoid lenders that cause the problems described below. We will provide several examples to demonstrate why commercial borrowers should be prepared to avoid a number of commercial lenders when seeking commercial mortgages and small business financing.
I have been advising business owners for many years, and I have encountered many commercial loan situations which have involved commercial lenders that I would not recommend as a result. This conclusion is typically based on an obvious pattern of lending abuses by select business financing providers.
As a first example of lenders to avoid, I have published an article which discusses the tendency of many banks to say "yes" when they mean "no". Such banks will typically attach onerous business financing conditions to commercial loans instead of simply declining the loan. Business owners should explore other commercial mortgage alternatives before accepting commercial financing terms that put them at a competitive disadvantage.
The second example of lenders to avoid involves the commercial appraisal process. For commercial mortgage loans, commercial appraisals are an unavoidable part of the commercial loan underwriting process. The process to obtain commercial appraisals is expensive and lengthy. Avoiding commercial lenders which have displayed a pattern of problems and abuses in this area will benefit the commercial borrower by saving them both time and money.
The third example of lenders to avoid is illustrated by those which provide worthless pre-approvals for commercial loans. Many borrowers think it is important to obtain a business loan pre-approval. The apparent result of the preliminary business financing approval is that it will allow the borrower to make other business commitments which are dependent on the commercial mortgage being approved.
Commercial borrowers should expect that a valid approval will not be regularly issued in a day or so. Any form of commercial financing approval will be treated as a binding action by ethical lenders. Nevertheless there are commercial lenders who provide their own special version of a pre-approval within just a few days of receiving preliminary application information. Because this abbreviated approach to pre-approvals almost always produces unexpected surprises for the commercial borrower as the business loan process goes forward, commercial borrowers need to be extremely wary of any commercial lenders that take this approach.
You might ask why any lender would use a misleading pre-approval for a commercial loan? Here are two primary possibilities. The first reason is to employ a pre-approval process that resembles the approach used for residential mortgage loans. A second reason is to cause borrowers to prematurely end their financing search due to the often false hope created by an artificial approval.
Since many commercial mortgage loans are arranged by residential mortgage brokers who are frequently unfamiliar with common commercial loan procedures, this reason will be especially applicable when dealing with commercial lenders that specialize in dealing with residential mortgage brokers. This type of commercial lender should be avoided at all costs for most business financing situations.
The fourth example of lenders to avoid is related to lack of sufficient lending competition. It is not unusual for the leading small business lender in some markets to use more restrictive commercial loan terms. Such lenders often take advantage of a lack of other local commercial lenders. It is not wise for borrowers to rely upon local and regional banks for most business financing requirements. A non-local lender can frequently provide better business loan terms for most lending scenarios because they are routinely competing with other business lenders.
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