How to Package Deals That Get Lenders Competing for Your Business
When lenders can quickly understand your opportunity and trust your execution capability, they compete for your business instead of just evaluating it.
- The Foundation: Professional Offering Memorandums
- What Makes an OM Work
- The Technology Revolution
- Beyond Basic Information
- Strategic Outreach: Making First Contact Count
- Personalized Communication
- The Introduction Email
- Timing and Follow-Up
- Building Credibility Through Details
- Financial Presentation
- Property Documentation
- Customization for Different Lender Types
- Traditional Banks
- Credit Unions
- Debt Funds and Private Lenders
- Agency Lenders
- Distribution and Follow-Through
- Multiple Delivery Options
- Managing the Process
- 4 Packaging Mistakes That Kill Deals
- Generic Presentations
- Information Overload
- Poor Quality Control
- Spray-and-Pray Outreach
- Building Your Packaging System
- Get Financing
Many investors think deal packaging is just about creating a nice-looking offering memorandum. That's important, but it's only half the equation. Great deal packaging combines professional presentation with strategic outreach that gets lenders excited about your opportunity.
The difference between deals that generate competing offers and those that collect dust in lender inboxes for weeks often comes down to how well you package the entire experience — not just the documents.
The Foundation: Professional Offering Memorandums
Your offering memorandum is the centerpiece of your deal package, and it needs to tell a compelling story — quickly. Lenders see hundreds of deals, so professional presentation helps yours stand out (for the right reasons).
What Makes an OM Work
The best offering memorandums lead with a clear investment thesis. In the first paragraph, lenders should understand what you're buying, why it's attractive, and how you plan to create value.
Include key metrics upfront — purchase price, loan amount, projected returns, and timeline. Busy lenders want to evaluate opportunity size and fit before diving into details.
Your sponsor track record should be prominently featured early in the document. Lenders evaluate sponsors before they evaluate deals, so make it easy for them to understand why you're qualified to execute.
The Technology Revolution
Creating professional offering memorandums used to require expensive design resources or hours of formatting work. Modern AI tools have changed this completely.
Janover Pro can transform basic deal information into polished, professional presentations in minutes. You input key details — loan amount, property type, basic description — and AI generates structured narratives about the property.
The output isn't generic template language. The AI understands real estate investment concepts and creates customized content that highlights your specific opportunity. You can further refine with AI-powered editing or manual adjustments to ensure the final product perfectly matches your vision.
This technology doesn't replace your judgment or market knowledge, of course. But it eliminates the tedious formatting and writing work that prevents many investors from creating consistently professional presentations. No more needing to panic when you accidentally move an image 1/10th of an inch in Microsoft Word (and chaos ensues), basically.
Beyond Basic Information
Even with AI assistance, great offering memorandums require thoughtful input and customization. Include high-quality property photos that showcase potential. That's really non negotiable. Add relevant market data that supports your investment thesis. Provide specific details about your business plan and execution timeline.
Professional presentation matters, but substance matters more. Lenders can spot thin deals regardless of how well they're packaged.
Strategic Outreach: Making First Contact Count
How you reach out to lenders matters as much as what you send them. Poor outreach kills even the best deals before lenders seriously consider them.
Personalized Communication
Never just blast the same generic emails to multiple lenders simultaneously. Each email should feel at least a bit personal and demonstrate that you understand the lender's business and preferences.
Reference their recent deals or market focus when relevant. "I noticed you recently closed a deal in downtown Phoenix" shows more preparation than "Hope you're interested in this opportunity."
Explain why you're contacting them specifically. "This fits your typical loan size and geographic focus" is much stronger than "Thought you might be interested."
The Introduction Email
Your initial email sets the tone for the entire relationship. Keep it concise but informative — two paragraphs maximum.
Lead with a brief deal summary: property type, location, loan amount, and timeline. Follow with why you chose to contact them and what you're looking for.
Include your offering memorandum as a link or as an attachment, but also provide a brief executive summary in the email body. Some lenders prefer to evaluate opportunities without having to download documents or click anywhere.
Timing and Follow-Up
Contact lenders early enough in your process to allow for proper evaluation and negotiation. Rushing lenders usually results in generic responses or, more often, passes.
Follow up appropriately — once per week maximum unless they request more frequent communication. Persistence shows interest; pestering shows desperation.
At the same time, be responsive when lenders have questions or requests for additional information. Slow responses signal that you're not serious about working with them.
Building Credibility Through Details
Professional packaging isn't just about looking good — it's about demonstrating competence and attention to detail that translates to execution capability.
Financial Presentation
Present realistic projections that lenders can believe. Overly aggressive assumptions often backfire by making lenders question your judgment in other areas.
Show your work on key assumptions — rent growth, expense ratios, capital expenditures. Transparency builds trust and demonstrates market knowledge.
Include sensitivity analysis showing performance under different scenarios. This sophistication helps lenders understand downside protection and evaluate risk appropriately.
Property Documentation
Current rent rolls should be clean and easy to understand. Flag any issues upfront rather than letting lenders discover problems during due diligence.
Market analysis should focus on truly comparable properties. Three perfect comps beat 10 mediocre ones. Quality of analysis matters more than quantity of data.
Include relevant property condition information and capital expenditure requirements. Lenders appreciate honesty about necessary improvements and their costs.
Customization for Different Lender Types
One size doesn't fit all in lender communication. Different lender types respond to different approaches and information priorities.
Traditional Banks
Emphasize stability, conservative projections, and local market knowledge. Banks prefer predictable deals with clear risk mitigation.
Highlight community connections and relationships. Banks often value borrowers who understand their specific markets deeply and can provide additional business opportunities.
Credit Unions
Focus on relationship potential and membership connections. Credit unions are often relationship-focused and prefer borrowers who bring multiple touchpoints.
Demonstrate understanding of their geographic focus and community involvement. Many credit unions prioritize deals that benefit their membership areas.
Debt Funds and Private Lenders
Emphasize value creation opportunity and execution track record. These lenders can handle complexity but want higher returns to compensate for risk.
Include detailed business plans and renovation timelines. Alternative lenders often evaluate deals based on value creation potential rather than just current cash flow.
Agency Lenders
Focus on property quality, stable cash flows, and compliance with agency guidelines. These lenders want deals that fit their specific parameters perfectly.
Include detailed property condition information and environmental considerations. Agency underwriting is thorough and systematic — anticipate their requirements.
Distribution and Follow-Through
How you deliver your package and manage the process afterward affects lender response and competitiveness.
Multiple Delivery Options
Modern platforms offer various ways to share deal information. Direct links to online presentations often get faster responses than email attachments. PDFs work for lenders who prefer traditional formats.
Consider using marketplace features where appropriate. Some lenders actively browse deal platforms and prefer discovering opportunities organically rather than receiving direct solicitations.
Managing the Process
Track which lenders have accessed your materials and responded to your outreach. This helps you prioritize follow-up efforts and understand market interest levels.
Be transparent about your timeline and decision process. Lenders appreciate knowing when you'll make decisions and how you'll evaluate competing proposals.
Maintain professional communication throughout the process, even with lenders you don't select. Today's "no" might be tomorrow's "yes" for a different deal.
4 Packaging Mistakes That Kill Deals
Generic Presentations
Cookie-cutter packages that could apply to any deal fail to differentiate your opportunity. Customization shows preparation and market knowledge that lenders value.
Information Overload
More isn't always better. Lengthy packages with irrelevant information often hide important details and frustrate busy lenders who want efficient evaluation.
Poor Quality Control
Typos, formatting errors, and inconsistent information suggest careless execution. If you can't package a deal properly, lenders question your ability to execute the business plan.
Spray-and-Pray Outreach
Mass emails with no personalization signal that you view lenders as commodities. This approach often generates poor response rates and even damaged relationships.
Building Your Packaging System
Develop standardized processes that let you create professional packages efficiently while maintaining customization for each opportunity. Janover Pro's AI-powered OM creator is a great way to do this.
Create lists of elements you should include for each deal type you work with commonly — as well as for lender categories. This reduces preparation time while ensuring consistent quality across all your deals.
Use Janover Pro to understand exactly which originators' credit boxes your deal fits into — and how to easily contact them. This knowledge becomes more valuable with each successful transaction.
Track which presentation elements and outreach approaches generate the best responses. Different markets and deal types may require different strategies. Document what you can, and use it to streamline your future deals.
Remember that great packaging supports great deals — it doesn't fix bad opportunities. But when you have solid investments, professional presentation and strategic outreach can be the difference between competitive bidding and lukewarm interest.