In the commercial real estate financing industry, the buzz centers on a small company that recently facilitated over $600M in transactions during its beta testing: Finance Lobby. The early days of any business are hard enough, and beta testing, with the relentless search for bugs and other issues, can make them even more so. The news that Finance Lobby not only sailed through beta testing but easily handled hundreds of CRE transactions means that the company is already accomplishing its goal of streamlining the workdays of commercial real estate brokers and lenders.

Kelly Wagman, Finance Lobby’s CMO, gives full credit to the engineers who designed the platform and to the company’s other team members. “Everyone dedicated themselves to creating a solution for the inefficiency that CRE professionals have long struggled to overcome. We put in a lot of long hours each day to give lenders and brokers a platform that can make it much easier to find deals that match their perfect terms and to connect with each other.”

CRE transactions of all sizes were conducted during beta testing. “Transactions ranged between $900K to $87MM,” Kelly says. “While each one received competitive quotes, of course, we were impressed by the $87MM transaction. Can you imagine a deal of this size receiving an offer in under an hour? The broker accepted it immediately. While it’s true that we can’t promise all our users that they will see the same speed, it does illustrate the potential benefits of Finance Lobby’s platform.”

After its successful beta testing, Finance Lobby has moved into open beta, a major milestone for the company as well as the industry. Brokers are able to post deals live, and lenders of all types, including traditional and hard money, can sign up for free.

“Currently, we are seeing each deal receive an average of four competitive quotes,” Kelly states. “This is a great number when the terms of those quotes are exactly what a client needs, and it’s all being done without making phone call after phone call.”

Finance Lobby was started when a team of CRE professionals decided to revolutionize their industry by minimizing, or even eliminating, phone calls from the workdays of brokers and lenders. The goal was to make it easier and faster for CRE professionals to locate the best deals instead of having to settle for mediocre terms.

“Technology in nearly every business sector had been streamlining daily operations and bringing companies into the 21st century, yet CRE financing was still behind the times,” Kelly recalls. “Brokers and lenders, who were all highly skilled at their jobs, were expected to make dozens of calls to match up supply and demand. Yet, more often than not, they couldn’t secure their perfect terms not because they weren’t talented but because they lacked an efficient way to do so.”

The answer was to create an online CRE financing marketplace that could cut through irrelevant or weak deals by directly connecting a broker with a lender. “We have accomplished this by allowing each one to set the terms of the deals they are looking for,” Kelly says. “By doing so, the deals that don’t match are automatically filtered out, so CRE professionals only see those that have perfect terms. Goodbye to square peg, round hole deals!”

Lenders receive vital information, including rent roll, income, and expenses; the sponsor’s financial information; and any relevant details about the deal. Brokers can submit their deals through a process that is quick and helps thousands of eyes to see each loan request. 

“Perhaps the best part is that our system is very intuitive,” Kelly believes. “After all, the digital revolution has arrived. Most of us, including those who grew up in the pre-Internet age, are very comfortable with online platforms and have been booking their own flights and shopping online for years now. Using the Finance Lobby platform is an easy sidestep from that.”

According to Kelly, this is just one of many factors behind the success of the company’s ongoing open beta. “We currently have more than 4,000 lenders on our platform,” she says. “We are outperforming even our own expectations. CRE professionals are discovering that when they no longer have to make phone call after phone call in search of perfect deals, their efficiency is increased. That, in turn, gives them the potential to generate more revenue, which can only make the industry and the futures of those who work in it even stronger.”

For more information about Finance Lobby, please see the company’s website at https://financelobby.com/ or contact it at [email protected].