From the winter issue: As commercial real estate plugs along, commercial brokers, leasing agents and lenders are banking on a steady stream of business to pay the bills.
In South Florida, commercial mortgage brokers who shop for loans with a number of banks are more common than mortgage bankers who work with only one institution, said Thomas Wood Jr., president of Thomas D. Wood and Company, a Miami mortgage banking firm.
Wood’s firm provides mortgage banking services for lenders. “The last three years have been steady — most of our business is in the $1 million-to-$20 million loan amounts, and there are more smaller loans to originate than larger loans,” he said.
The Real Deal spoke with industry veterans and dug into public records to get a sense of the incomes across a dozen of the more popular fields in real estate, and to gauge the effects — if any — the market slowdown is having on earnings.
Like most sales professionals, commercial mortgage brokers and bankers charge a commission for their services. They typically charge a “loan origination fee,” which is about 1 percent of the loan amount, paid by the borrower at closing. According to Indeed.com, mortgage brokers in South Florida earn an average annual income of around $77,700. The site found that mortgage bankers in South Florida make about $68,000.
Click here to read more of “Making bank?” from The Real Deal South Florida‘s winter issue.