90% Commercial Loans - Does This Really Exist?

By Author: Larry Tang
Total Articles: 512
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Business owners as well as investors are constantly looking for way to increase their rate of return. One of the quickest way to do this in the commercial real estate industry is buy property with as little down as possible.

However banks and lenders make the rules and dictate what the minimum are for down payments. Currently as of this writing there are really only two viable options for straight 90% commercial loans. And those options are restricted to the SBA and a couple of CMBS lenders that are still in business. These loans are only for business owners and not for investors.

There are no 90% commercial loans for investors currently in the market. There are ways to structure 90% financing which you probably already know - seller seconds and cross collateralization. With seller seconds you'd get the seller to hold say 10% of the sale price as a loan that sits in second lien position. Most sellers are not willing to do this and most banks do not allow any type of financing to sit behind their loan. So just because it's a well known technique doesn't mean it's easy to get done.

With cross collateralization ...
... the funding bank improves their position by tying more collateral in the loan by tying up another property or really any other assets the borrower has. Cross collertization is common but not to get to 90% financing. It's normally used as a way to get typical, conservative loans done.

Going back to 90% commercial loans for businesses - The SBA programs are the most common answer for business owners to keep as much cash in their pockets as possible. There are two types of SBA loans that are important. The SBA 7a and the SBA 504.

The SBA 7a loan is geared primarily for loan amounts under $2,000,000 while the 504 is geared towards loans between $2,000,000 to $7,000,000. Both go to 90% financing and both can be set up for 90% loan to cost financing.

90% loan to costs means you take the entire project cost and finance that total amount. For example, say you're purchasing a property at $1,000,000 and have $200,000 in build out and $100,000 of equipment. Your total project costs would be $1,300,000 and you could finance 90% of this amount and would only have to bring $130,000 to close.