🧭 Prefer learning by doing? Start the guided tour from the
Overview page — it walks the whole platform with a live sample deal.
1 · The big picture — the life of one loan
A commercial mortgage is a loan against an income-producing building — an office, a shopping centre, an apartment complex. The lender's entire job is to answer two questions: “Will the building's income repay the loan?” and “If it doesn't, is the collateral protected and recoverable?” Every page of this platform answers a piece of that.
| # | Stage | Plain English | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Document Review | Upload and read the loan package: extract the terms, flag the risks, cross-check documents — everything the platform learns here feeds every later stage. | Document Review |
| 2 | Deal (Application) | Capture who is borrowing, on what property, how much, funded how — auto-filled from the analysed documents. | Deal |
| 3 | Loan Sizing | “How big a loan can this property support?” — each lender limit produces a maximum; the smallest wins. | Loan Sizing |
| 4 | Underwriting | Prove the income: rebuild NOI from the rent roll and expenses, then test coverage and stress it. | Cash Flow |
| 5 | Credit Memo | Consolidate everything into a committee recommendation with a 1–10 risk grade. | Credit Memo |
| 6 | Closing | Clear every condition precedent — documents, title, insurance, funding — before the lender wires money. | Closing |
| 7 | Post-Closing | Perfect the file after funding: record, file, vault the originals — and track insurance renewals forever. | Post-Closing |
2 · The six numbers that run through everything
Learn these and every page of the platform clicks into place.
| Metric | Formula | Plain English | Lender wants |
|---|---|---|---|
| NOI | income − operating expenses | The building's annual profit before the mortgage. Everything is built on this number. | Higher |
| DSCR | NOI ÷ annual debt service | “Does income cover the mortgage, with cushion?” 1.25x = a 25% cushion. | ≥ 1.20–1.25x |
| LTV | loan ÷ property value | How much of the value is borrowed. The equity beneath the loan is the lender's protection. | ≤ 70–75% |
| Debt Yield | NOI ÷ loan | A value-independent safety check — it can't be inflated by an optimistic appraisal. | ≥ 8–10% |
| Cap Rate | NOI ÷ value | The market's yield on the building. Higher cap = cheaper building = more perceived risk. | — |
| LTC | loan ÷ total project cost | For construction and bridge loans: how much of the cost is borrowed. | ≤ 75–80% |
3 · The insurance thread
Insurance is the lender's collateral protection — it runs through every stage.
- Underwriting: the premium is an operating expense, so an understated premium silently inflates NOI and DSCR — benchmark it ($/SF) and stress it (+25/50/100%).
- Closing: property insurance with the lender as mortgagee, liability with the lender as additional insured, flood resolved (mandatory in an SFHA), business-interruption ≥ 12 months — all conditions precedent to funding.
- Post-closing: insurance is the one document that must be re-collected every year. A lapsed policy means force-placed insurance — track the expirations.
4 · Test-drive the platform (the golden path)
- Overview → ▶ Load sample into tools (seeds the Riverside Office Park deal everywhere).
- Document Review → ▶ Package Demo → open Cross-Check and Document Completeness — this is where every deal starts.
- Deal → ⚡ Auto-fill (or Load Demo) → 💾 Save — see the capital stack and the sponsor strength check.
- Loan Sizing → ⚡ Auto-fill (or Load Demo) → 📐 Calculate — find the ⭐ binding constraint.
- Cash Flow → ⚡ Auto-fill (or Load Demo) → 📊 Calculate — the waterfall, DSCR, insurance and expense checks.
- Credit Memo → read the grade breakdown, edit the narrative, 🖨️ Print.
- Closing → Load Demo → 18 of 20 conditions; add a note/owner to an open one.
- Post-Closing → Load Demo → find the “Renew · 25d” insurance pill.
5 · Full glossary
Every term the platform uses — the same definitions you get by hovering any dotted-underlined label.