Six to twelve carefully selected lenders is the working range. Below six, pricing discovery is incomplete; a single lender's pricing varies meaningfully week-to-week. Above twelve, the deal starts to feel shopped; lenders learn the deal is going wide and price defensively or skip the opportunity. Selection beats volume.
Why curation matters more than volume
The right six-to-twelve is built around the deal's specific characteristics: property type, sponsor profile, loan size, leverage, business plan, and timeline. Random outreach to a long list of lenders wastes the borrower's time and stamps the deal as less-experienced.
A typical bake-off list for stabilized $20M multifamily refi: three agency lenders (one Fannie DUS, two Freddie Optigo), two life cos, two CMBS conduits, one regional bank, and one debt fund as a high-leverage cross-bid. Total nine lenders.
A typical bake-off list for $30M value-add multifamily bridge: four debt funds (varying in their leverage and pricing positioning), two banks (relationship-eligible), one mortgage REIT, and one specialty multifamily bridge platform. Total eight lenders.
Deals where five or fewer is appropriate: very small deals ($1M to $5M, regional bank only), highly relationship-driven deals where the sponsor has a strong existing lender, or specialty asset types where the eligible lender options is genuinely thin (e.g., specialty hotel, marina, certain healthcare).
Sources
- Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations · Mortgage Bankers Association · 2026-Q1
- Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) · Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · 2026-Q1