Business Finance Misinformation and Confusion
Confusion about commercial loans and working capital financing seems to be increasing despite efforts by the federal government and commercial lenders to suggest that there is ample business loan funding. As a result, the actual availability of business financing for commercial finance programs such as commercial mortgages and business cash advances is unclear to most business owners.
It seems apparent that there have been many reports suggesting that normal commercial finance channels are either frozen or extremely sluggish. In reality there are probably more opportunities for commercial loan needs than suggested by such reports. However, increasing uncertainties in financial and credit markets have produced conflicting and misleading information about the availability of commercial financing. For most business owners, it is probably not clear if business finance funding is realistically available to them or not.
In spite of some admittedly bad news, there continue to be to reliable funding sources for commercial real estate loans, working capital loans and especially for business cash advances. At the same time, the current negative economic conditions will prove to be difficult for most businesses. Commercial borrowers should expect that extra efforts will be required to successfully arrange commercial financing. An especially harsh reality for business financing is that many banks have discontinued all or most of their business lending activities, often with very little advance notice.
One common example of commercial finance misinformation distorting what is actually feasible is that some kinds of commercial financing have been more disrupted than others by recent events. Commercial borrowers might be unnecessarily confused by reports that do not refer to all commercial loan situations but rather primarily apply to a very specialized form of business financing. For example, by most accounts commercial construction loans are in short supply currently. Such specialized business loans are not as easily available as they were just a few months ago, and a more accurate accounting would reflect that the number of commercial lenders currently active in construction financing has shrunk dramatically. At the same time, most commercial real estate loans without new construction have not been as severely impacted as funding requests which do involve construction financing.
Several publications have reported that most new business financing requests are on hold or have simply been rejected due to recent financial market uncertainties, and this is another example of how business finance funding reports might confuse small business owners. While the sources for this information might have been honestly told by one or more lending institutions that they are in fact deferring new commercial loan funding, this does not mean that is the case for the entire country. If the discussion involved automobile sales, it would be comparable to concluding that nobody is selling cars anywhere after learning that several major dealers and two manufacturers announced that they were going out of business due to lack of adequate sales. Just because one or more banks fail or stop making business loans, it does not mean that there are not commercial loans available from other sources.
Commercial borrowers would be wise to maintain a cautious perspective in determining how to refinance or obtain small business loans simply because the banking industry has been involved in financial disruptions of an epic proportion. Many banks are sounding and acting like they have been through the equivalent of a train wreck. In such a natural disaster, it might not be prudent for business owners to seek the advice of banks which effectively caused the train to derail in the first place.
Despite reports about limited availability of business financing, some commercial lending activities such as business cash advance programs are actually as active as they have ever been. In the current commercial funding crisis, small business owners should seek a commercial loans expert for a realistic assessment and candid discussion about working capital loans and business finance programs.