Every time a deal lands on a lender's desk, three things get assessed.

The transaction. The borrower. And the person who brought it.

Most people preparing a deal focus on the first two. Credit teams notice all three.

We stay in regular contact with more than 70 lenders. When we ask their credit teams what frustrates them, it's rarely the numbers. It's how deals arrive.

This is written mainly for finance brokers. But it applies just as much to accountants, lawyers, agents and anyone else who introduces a client to a lender. The moment you put a deal in front of credit, you become part of how it's read.

What credit teams tell us

The same frustrations come up again and again.

The deal doesn't fit what they fund. A construction deal arrives at a lender that only does bridging. Before anyone looks at the numbers, it tells them nobody checked.

The numbers are there, but the story isn't. Credit wants to know why the borrower needs the money, why now, and how the loan gets repaid. Leave out the exit and they're left to guess. Credit teams don't like guessing.

Surprises turn up late. Arrears, a second mortgage, a valuation that comes in short. Raised at the start, most of these can be worked through. Found after terms are issued, they damage trust in the whole deal.

There's no time left. A deal that turns up days before settlement with half the information missing puts a lender under pressure to rush. Most would rather pass.

They've already seen it. Often from someone else.

You're being assessed too

This is the part that's easy to miss.

Every approach tells a lender something. How well you understand the transaction. How well you understand their credit appetite. And whether you're someone they want to work with again.

How you present a deal, how well it's prepared, whether it fits what they fund, and whether you understand their credit parameters all get noticed. Over time, that becomes your reputation with that credit team.

What credit sees when a deal is shopped

Sending a deal to as many lenders as possible can feel like the fastest way to get it funded. From the lender side, it looks very different.

A transaction that's been shopped arrives with a history. Same borrower, same security, a slightly different story each time. Credit teams talk to each other more than most people assume, and the ones who don't still recognise a deal they've seen before. A valuer gets a second instruction on the same address. A borrower mentions that another lender has already offered terms.

What that signals isn't that the deal is bad. It's that nobody's sure where it fits. And a lender reading uncertainty prices for it, slows down, or passes.

The details drift too. The exit one lender heard isn't quite the exit another lender heard. By the time the deal reaches the lender it actually suits, that lender may be more cautious than if it had seen the deal first.

The cost isn't this deal. It's the next one.

Most people assume the risk is a decline. It isn't. A decline is survivable.

The real cost is the relationship. A credit team that's seen three loosely positioned deals from the same broker reads the fourth differently, and nobody tells you that's happening. Your next transaction just takes longer, or gets a maybe instead of a yes.

There's always another deal. But there isn't an unlimited number of quality lender relationships. Every approach either builds one or spends a little of it.

Build your priorities in reverse

The answer isn't sending fewer deals. It's sending them to the right place first time.

That means starting at the other end. Rather than starting with the transaction and looking for someone to fund it, start with the lenders and what they're backing right now. Then work out where the transaction fits.

That matters because credit parameters change. What a lender backed last quarter, it may not back today. Appetite for an asset type, a location or an LVR range can tighten or open up without much notice. And what a lender is actually funding isn't always what its website says.

Start with the lender and it changes everything that follows. How you assess a deal. How you position it. Where you place it. And how the lender sees you.

A pattern we see

A borrower needs a short-term commercial loan. The security is strong and the LVR is reasonable. On paper, it should be simple.

A one-page summary goes to several lenders at once. Two decline straight away because it's outside their current appetite. A third asks about the exit and gets a different answer from the one a fourth lender was given. By the time a lender whose appetite suits the deal takes a proper look, it has heard about it from somewhere else, and treats it with caution.

Now picture the same deal with the exit laid out and supported up front, any issues raised at the start, and the deal matched to one or two lenders whose current appetite fits.

Same borrower. Same property. A very different conversation with credit.

Questions worth asking before a deal goes to credit

  • Does this lender fund this type of deal now, not six months ago?
  • Can I explain the purpose and the exit in a couple of sentences, with evidence?
  • What will credit ask first, and have I already answered it?
  • Is there anything I know that the lender will find out later anyway?
  • Who else has seen this deal?
  • Am I sending it because it fits, or because I'm hoping?

Where Private Lending Group fits

Knowing which credit teams are active in an asset class this month, what they're actually funding and how they want a deal presented is a full-time job. It's ours.

We stay across the credit parameters of more than 70 lenders and speak with them regularly. So instead of testing the market yourself, you have one conversation. We work out where the deal is likely to fit and take it there, positioned the way that credit team wants to see it. Your name isn't attached to five approaches. It's attached to one deal, in the right place.

For brokers, the client stays with you. If a deal fits a lender in our group, think of us as a BDM, just across multiple credit teams. If it doesn't, we can look at our broader network and walk you through the options, including any fees, up front.

For accountants, lawyers and other referrers, you don't need to know which lender to approach. Once we have the basics, within 24 hours, your client will know whether there's a credible funding pathway. And if we can't help, we'll say so up front.

We work across commercial property finance, construction and development funding, bridging, business lending against property, second mortgages, and deals a bank or non-bank has already declined. Not sure whether a scenario fits? That's the quickest thing to settle on a call.

And if you'd like to see how credit teams actually read deals, Five Deal Friday goes behind five private lending transactions on the last Friday of every month. Some settled. Some didn't.