Minnesota lenders

[Mike Henning]

Does anyone know which lenders in Minnesota offer the best terms for commercial deals? We are looking at small apartments and trying to stay under $350,000. Thanks

[Pavel Sakurets]

These are my top 5 banks that I have been working with who financed my RE deals for the last 10 years. (These are all commercial loans, made out to LLC or Corp)

Drake Bank (Used to work with Jeff Carter)

Home Federal Bank ( Jason Madson, awesome banker, if the loan over 0.5M will take longer)

Granite Community Bank (Jake, president's son, smart guy, low origination fees)

Round Bank (Andy Klassen, low origination charges)

Bridgewater Bank (Tom Johnson, the fastest banker that I love, my favorite, higher than normal origination charges though, 2.5 weeks to close a deal for him, have been working with Tom since 2006)

Merchant Bank (sucked in 2007 at the day of closing they backed out of the deal, didn't follow their commitment and instead of financing 380k for me at closing financed only 120k, I had to borrow money from somebody else at a very high rate, just to keep my word).

The funny thing is that the banker from Merchant Bank was my instructor at the University of St Thomas grad school, teaching me a banking class next year when she screwed me over the deal :)

I know Jeff Carter from Merchants, he used to work at Drake Bank and financed many of my deals, and then moved to Merchants. Good guy.

No hard feelings to Merchants Bank though, simple bankers just follow the instructions from their presidents.

Guys, also you need to look after yourself. Even with bankers that I have been working for 10 years or longer, make sure that the fees and interest rate on the HUD is the same as it was in the commitment.