Every commercial mortgage broker's website says they cover $1M to $50M nationwide. Most of them mean: "I'll happily try to place your deal anywhere, but my real relationships are with 3 lenders in 2 states and one product type." The brokers who actually execute across that range look different — different capital infrastructure, different deal team, different fee discipline.
Here's how to tell which is which before you sign an engagement letter.
What real $1M–$50M nationwide capability looks like
- Capital partnerships across at least 4 asset classes: multifamily, retail/mixed-use, industrial, hospitality or office. A broker who has only done multifamily can't run a 40M industrial deal credibly.
- Both institutional and private capital channels. Institutional (banks, debt funds, agency) for in-the-box deals; private capital pools for time-sensitive or out-of-box deals. A broker with only one type of relationship can't handle the spread.
- Bridge, construction, permanent, and DSCR products under one roof. Brokers who only do bridge can't refinance their own bridge deal into permanent debt.
- Geographic coverage that's actually national: meaning capital relationships with lenders who lend in California, Florida, Texas, New York, and tertiary markets — not just licensed everywhere.
- Team scale: a single-person broker can run 5–10 deals/year well. The $1M–$50M nationwide range typically needs 2+ underwriters or analysts behind the front-facing broker to maintain quality.
What to look for on the first call
- Response time: a real broker channel responds within hours, not days. The first response gives the term sheet timeline — if it's vague, that's the actual close timeline.
- Transparent fee structure: 1–2% broker fee disclosed at intake, broken out between origination and capital partner split if applicable, paid from loan proceeds at close. No upfront fees, no "due diligence retainer."
- No-poach / no-solicit commitment: written into the engagement letter, covering future deals from the same borrower for a defined period (24 months is standard).
- Asset class question: ask which asset classes they've closed in the last 12 months. If they can't name 3+ recent closes outside of multifamily, they're not as broad as the website claims.
- Capital source disclosure: on the deal under discussion, will they disclose the capital source before close? If not, you don't control your own deal.
Red flags
- Upfront fees — broker fees should be paid at close, never before
- Vague pipeline references ("we just closed something similar" without specifics — geography, size, capital source)
- Inability to name the capital partner or lender they're routing your deal to
- Engagement letters with no no-solicit clause or with a clause limited to the current deal only
- Promises of specific terms or pricing before the deal is underwritten — real lenders don't quote pricing on a hypothetical
- Pressure to sign engagement before you understand the fee structure
How Passy Capital fits this profile
Passy Capital runs the $1M–$50M nationwide CRE financing channel as the core business model. The capital infrastructure: institutional capital partners for in-the-box deals (defined credit, LTV, geography) plus a private capital pool for out-of-box deals. Capital source disclosed per deal. Asset class coverage: bridge, construction, renovation, fix and flip, DSCR — multifamily, mixed-use, industrial, retail, hospitality. Geographic coverage: nationwide, with active deal flow in Florida, Texas, California, New York, and a long tail of secondary markets.
Fee structure: 1–2% broker fee paid from loan proceeds at close, disclosed on the closing statement, no upfront fees. Engagement letter includes a 24-month no-solicit clause covering the borrower and affiliated entities. For brokers bringing deals: 50/50 split on the borrower fee, NDA before introduction, written engagement before underwriting begins.
The single most useful diagnostic
Ask the broker to send you the last three engagement letters they signed (with the borrower names redacted). If the engagement structure is consistent — same fee, same no-solicit, same fee-disclosure language — that's the signal the broker actually runs a real channel and not improvised one-off deals. If they can't or won't send them, the structure isn't disciplined enough to handle a $1M–$50M range cleanly.