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Real Estate Loans > Commercial Financing and Prepayment Penalties on Commercial Mortgage Loans
Commercial Financing and Prepayment Penalties on Commercial Mortgage Loans
If
You Try to Pay Off a Commercial Mortgage Loan Your Penalty Might
Be 20% of the Balance!
Most
commercial mortgage lenders making fixed rate commercial mortgage
loans charge a prepayment penalty. The reason why is because the
investors who buy commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) want
a certain yield that is locked in. Why? Imagine you are a pension
plan making actuarial projections to be sure you have enough money
to pay your retirees. You need to know that you will earn a certain
amount of interest. This is why you buy commercial mortgage backed
securities.
The
most common form of prepayment penalty is a defeasance formula. The
legal definition of defeasance is, "A
provision in an instrument that nullifies it if certain acts are
performed."
When
a borrower wants to pay off a fixed rate commercial mortgage loan,
he must perform an act; i.e., he must give to the lender a bundle
of U.S. Treasuries that provides the lender with the same stream
of interest payments and the same balloon payment as the original
mortgage.
Buying
and assembling these U.S. Treasuries is immensely expensive, often
on the order of 15% to 20% - and sometimes 25% - of the principal
balance on the loan! Watch out for loans with a defeasance prepayment
penalty.
You
can find hundreds of fixed rate commercial lenders, many of whom
have either small prepayment penalties or none at all, by using C-Loans.com: C-Loans
Commercial Mortgage Lender Databank