To package a commercial real estate loan, you collect the property's operating documents, rebuild the numbers in one consistent underwriting record, size the loan against the constraints lenders actually use, and turn that record into a short memo and a deck that answer a credit officer's first questions. Then you send it only to lenders whose box fits the deal. A clean package gets read; a messy one gets a "pass" without a reason.
This guide walks through each step, the documents you need, and the mistakes that cost brokers term sheets.
What a lender-ready package contains
A loan package is the set of documents a lender needs to decide whether to quote. It is not the full closing file. The goal is a fast, confident "yes, send us more" or a fast "no".
| Section | What it answers | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Loan request summary | How much, for what, on what terms | Your underwriting |
| Property overview | What it is, where, what condition | OM, site visit, photos |
| Rent roll | Who pays, how much, until when | Owner or property manager |
| T-12 operating statement | What the property actually earns | Owner's accounting |
| Pro forma | What it will earn under the business plan | Your model |
| Sources and uses | Where every dollar comes from and goes | Your model |
| Sponsor profile | Who is behind the deal and their track record | Sponsor bio, REO schedule, PFS |
| Market and comps | Why the rents and value are supportable | Market data, sale and lease comps |
| Maps and photos | What the lender will see on a site visit | Sponsor, broker |
For construction and heavy value-add deals, add a budget, a construction schedule, the general contractor's background and the entitlement status.
Step 1: Collect the documents
Ask for everything at once. Chasing documents one email at a time is where packaging weeks come from.
Core checklist:
- Current rent roll, dated within the last 30 days
- Trailing 12-month operating statement (T-12), plus the last two year-end statements
- Current year budget
- Purchase contract or existing loan details (for a refinance: payoff, rate, maturity)
- Sponsor bio, schedule of real estate owned, personal financial statement
- Any existing appraisal, property condition report or environmental report
- Photos, site plan, and for multi-tenant assets, the major leases
Add for construction or value-add:
- Hard and soft cost budget
- Construction schedule and draw expectations
- Plans, permits and entitlement status
- Capital expenditure plan with unit-by-unit or suite-by-suite scope
Step 2: Rebuild the numbers in one record
Never send a lender the owner's numbers unchanged. Lenders underwrite the property themselves, and if your figures drift from theirs, your credibility goes first.
- Tie the rent roll to the T-12. Annualized in-place rent from the rent roll should be close to the trailing gross potential rent, adjusted for vacancy and concessions. A gap means something is missing. See how to read a rent roll and T-12.
- Normalize expenses. Remove one-time items, add a management fee if the owner self-manages, add replacement reserves, and re-assess property taxes on a sale.
- Set an underwritten NOI. Use in-place income, a market vacancy factor and normalized expenses. Keep the pro forma separate.
- Pick a value. Underwritten NOI divided by a supportable cap rate, cross-checked against sale comps.
Every number in the memo, the deck and the email should come from this one record. When the deck says one NOI and the memo says another, lenders notice.
Step 3: Size the loan before you ask
Lenders size the loan with several tests and take the smallest answer. Run them yourself before you write a request amount.
- DSCR: underwritten NOI divided by annual debt service, commonly 1.20x to 1.35x minimum for stabilized assets.
- LTV: loan divided by value, commonly capped somewhere between 55% and 75% depending on asset and lender type.
- Debt yield: NOI divided by the loan amount, commonly 8% to 10% for many permanent lenders.
- LTC for construction and value-add: loan divided by total project cost.
If your request exceeds what the binding constraint allows, the lender will cut it anyway, or decline. Our guide to sizing a commercial real estate loan walks through a full example, and the loan sizing calculator runs all three tests at once.
Step 4: Match the deal to the right lenders
A great package sent to the wrong lender is still a decline. Each lender has a lender box: loan size range, maximum leverage, minimum DSCR, asset classes, geographies, sponsor requirements and recourse appetite.
| Deal profile | Lender types that commonly fit |
|---|---|
| Stabilized multifamily, strong sponsor | Agency, life companies, banks |
| Stabilized retail or office, longer term | CMBS, life companies, banks |
| Transitional, lease-up or renovation | Bridge lenders, debt funds |
| Ground-up development | Banks, debt funds (construction loans) |
| Owner-occupied small business property | Banks, SBA 504 |
| Gap above senior debt | Mezzanine or preferred equity providers |
Separate hard fails from soft misses. A loan below a lender's minimum or in a state they do not lend in is a hard fail; do not send. A DSCR slightly under target is a soft miss; the lender may size down. More on this in how to find commercial real estate lenders.
Step 5: Write the memo and build the deck
The memo is the argument. The deck is the evidence.
The memo (two to five pages) states the request, the property, the business plan, the sponsor and the risks with mitigants. Lead with the ask. Use our loan request memo template for the full section outline.
The deck shows the property, the financials, the rent roll summary, the pro forma, comps and maps. Keep financial tables readable on a laptop screen. Label every number's source and date.
Two rules:
- Put the risks in yourself. A lender who finds a rollover cliff you did not mention stops trusting the rest of the package.
- Keep it short. Credit officers skim. If the first page does not tell them the loan amount, leverage, coverage and asset, they move to the next deal.
Step 6: Send, track and follow up
Send a short personalized email with the one-paragraph summary in the body and the package attached or linked. Track who opened, who replied and who passed, and why. Follow up on a schedule rather than when you remember.
When term sheets come in, compare them line by line: proceeds, rate and index (for example, a spread over SOFR), interest-only period, amortization, recourse, prepayment, reserves and fees. The cheapest rate is often not the best term sheet.
Common mistakes
- Numbers that disagree. The deck, memo and email cite different NOIs because each was typed separately.
- Pro forma presented as in-place. Lenders size on what the property earns today unless it is a bridge or construction loan.
- Missing sponsor detail. No REO schedule, no liquidity and net worth figures, no track record on similar assets.
- Shotgun distribution. Sending to 60 lenders without checking their box burns relationships you need on the next deal.
- Stale rent roll. A rent roll from six months ago forces the lender to ask for a new one, and the deal loses its place in the queue.
Worked example
A broker is placing a $9.0 million refinance on a 96-unit multifamily property.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Underwritten NOI | $810,000 |
| Value at a 6.0% cap rate | $13,500,000 |
| Requested loan | $9,000,000 |
| LTV | 66.7% |
| Debt yield | 9.0% |
| Annual debt service (6.5%, 30-yr amortization) | about $683,000 |
| DSCR | about 1.19x |
The LTV and debt yield are in range for most permanent lenders. The DSCR is just under a common 1.20x to 1.25x minimum. The broker can either reduce the request to roughly $8.5 million (1.25x) or $8.9 million (1.20x), show an interest-only period, or target lenders whose box accepts a lower coverage. Doing this math before the package goes out is the difference between a quote and a silent pass. Check it with the DSCR calculator.
How Dori handles packaging
Dori does steps 1 through 6 from the files you already have. Upload the model, rent roll, T-12 and appraisal as PDF, DOCX or XLSX, and Dori extracts the deal into one record and populates your underwriting model. It scores the deal against every lender's real box, with hard fails surfaced separately, then builds a branded PPTX and DOCX memo from the same record, so the numbers always agree. Outreach goes out in your name with tracked replies, and the whole desk sees every deal in one pipeline.
Dori has packaged more than $10B of loan volume, scores more than 800 lender profiles per deal, and takes a median of 10 minutes from deal to first package.