In an exclusive interview with Bridging & Commercial, Phil stated that lenders should do this as underwriters were the decision makers in a deal.
“…In fact, we've had this with a couple of lenders, they've said: ‘Where do you want us to spend our money? On BDMs who talk about product guides and things like that, or an underwriter that actually knows the criteria?’
“And we say: ‘Everyday, we'd rather have an underwriter, a decision maker.’”
He added that BDMs should be trained to know more about underwriting.
“To be fair, in our world, they're pretty good, they know their stuff and some of them are pretty good at what they do, obviously.
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“But I think it’s more the fact that you can actually sit face to face with an underwriter who's got a mandate, and you say: ‘What do you think about this deal?'
“And then they, ultimately, make the decision on whether they want to lend or not.”
Phil revealed that, in the past year, Complete FS had been able to get underwriters in its office and believed that this was beneficial to its brokers.
He claimed that InterBay Commercial sends underwriters to visit Complete’s offices three days a week and, during this time, they will look at cases and underwrite deals.
Phil said that this was where it could add “massive value” to its brokers and why Complete had been so successful over the past 26 years.
1 Comments
Tom Tailby
Underwriters may be decision makers but it's BDMs role to know if a loan fits their general criteria based on the information given to them by the packager/broker. If a BDM can't identify that a loan doesn't fit and an issue comes up during underwriting whereby a loan doesn't fit criteria it can be a failing of the BDM not knowing their criteria or a packager not knowing their client. Lending criteria is quite specific and if an underwriter makes a decision to decline a loan, it's usually because of something from the valuation report or legal due diligence that the BDM or broker probably didn't know about. If it isn't one of those things there's usually a breakdown in communication between broker and whoever is bringing in the business to the lender, and the actual loan doesn't match the enquiry. I think underwriters meeting brokers adds value to explain how the underwriting process works and what they look out for during that process, but if your BDM can't spot something from the enquiry that is against lending criteria, they need to know it better to save everyone's time (client, broker, lender). Some lenders like us at Glenhawk have underwriters involved from the offset (when an AIP/DIP is issued) to then take a case from enquiry to completion. Maybe an underwriter/BDM hybrid role is a solution to the problem.