We took the salesperson course from ERA in Worcester, took the test and then started shopping for investor friendly brokerages that would i) help us get established as agents and ii) allow us to grow our investment business.  

WF has high lender fees and the interest rate could be better.My question is should I shop around with smaller banks?

I look up, and there are shopping carts going every which way in the lot :)Not to self!

The rule that makes or breaks a meat shop is this.

Let the lenders know you are shopping around and getting quotes.  

I've definitely seen the pros and cons of going the single family route, first hand...Do let me know if you'd like to sit down and talk shop sometime. 

Also consider driving for dollars, posting signs at coffee shops, etc. 9.

I haven't looked at their financing yet, but there are other lenders out there and financing is opening up - so shopping around is definitely an option. 

From there you should get quite an education and then can shop more competently for bids.

To identify your best HML, I would recommend both networking with lenders at your local RE meetings (the way @Justin R. suggested), and reaching out to established HMLs from BiggerPockets' database for California (as suggested by @Sean Walton), which you can find here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/hardmoneylenders/cal...There are not that many, and it pays to connect with all of them, shop around, see which ones work best for you.