Big Deal Small Business: Broker Questions The broker is the first gatekeeper you must bypass to look at a deal. Today, I want to detail the FAQs you’ll receive from brokers and how I answer them. These are specific to me and my experience, but hopefully gets you thinking about how to craft your story.
I may have misunderstood your question -- I was answering how does a searcher get a deal underwritten. I think you're asking how do you get approved before finding a deal?
The answer is you don't -- first you find a deal that should work for a bank (based on being a good business, reasonable debt level, etc.). You can preview with a bank to get a head nod. Then once you're under LOI, you submit it for formal approval. Getting financing approved is a closing contingency always.
That was my understanding as well—I misinterpreted your initial statement re: getting "preapproved" for a 7(a) loan, so apologies for that. Thought you were suggesting there was a way to get pre-vetted by one of the SBA PLP lenders before finding a deal. In any case, keep the good literature coming!
Just out of curiosity, how do you go about getting approved for a $3.7mm SBA loan prior to finding a deal? Thanks for the post btw—awesome content.
Hey! If you check out my archive, there's a post about Navigating the SBA 7(a) Maze that lays that out.
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I didn't see anything in that article about the 7(a) pre-approval process—am I missing something? Thanks!
I may have misunderstood your question -- I was answering how does a searcher get a deal underwritten. I think you're asking how do you get approved before finding a deal?
The answer is you don't -- first you find a deal that should work for a bank (based on being a good business, reasonable debt level, etc.). You can preview with a bank to get a head nod. Then once you're under LOI, you submit it for formal approval. Getting financing approved is a closing contingency always.
That was my understanding as well—I misinterpreted your initial statement re: getting "preapproved" for a 7(a) loan, so apologies for that. Thought you were suggesting there was a way to get pre-vetted by one of the SBA PLP lenders before finding a deal. In any case, keep the good literature coming!