As a residential mortgage broker, diversifying your business through commercial lending can be a rewarding and profitable venture. However, it requires you to build on your skills and knowledge that you have gained from residential broking. Here are three key areas to focus on.

Understand the Products

Commercial loans are often tailored to the specific needs of your client’s businesses. Understanding the various types of commercial loans available and how your client’s business works will put you in the best position to offer them a product that best suits their needs.

Risk Assessment

Commercial lending often has greater complexity than residential lending. Making sure you are comfortable assessing the financial health of a business and understanding market trends will enable you to make informed decisions to help your client grow their business. 

Relationship Building

Like in residential lending, building strong relationships with lenders and clients is crucial in commercial lending. Having these strong relationships helps when negotiating better loan terms and ensures your clients will come back to you when they are looking to grow their business again.

Adding commercial lending to your business can seem daunting initially, but with the right skills and knowledge, you can successfully navigate this so you can offer commercial and residential loans.

AFG has created a range of courses on commercial lending in Learn to help you diversify with ease. Make sure to keep an eye out for the AFG Commercial monthly newsletter, which provides you with timely updates on industry trends in this ever-evolving field.