No, institutional CRE lenders do not charge a fee to bid an indicative LOI . The good-faith deposit (typically 0.10% to 0.50% of loan amount) attaches at term-sheet acceptance, not at bid. The borrower carries no out-of-pocket cost during the bake-off itself other than the placement engagement and the cost of building the package.
When fees attach during the placement
Bid stage: zero borrower cost from the lender side. Lenders absorb their underwriting time as cost of doing business; the typical institutional desk underwrites 30 to 50 deals for every 5 to 10 it wins.
Term-sheet acceptance: good-faith deposit attaches, typically 0.10% to 0.50% of loan amount. The deposit is held in a non-interest-bearing account and applied at closing toward third-party costs; refundability is governed by the deposit paragraph in the term sheet.
Third-party reports: appraisal, environmental Phase I, property condition assessment, title, survey, and lender legal are paid by the borrower outside of the deposit. Hard third-party costs run typically 0.4% to 0.8% of loan amount on a routine deal.
Closing: origination fee (typically 0.5% to 1.0% of loan amount on bridge, 0% to 0.50% on agency, 0.25% to 0.75% on perm) and exit fee on bridge (0.25% to 1.0%) are paid at closing out of loan proceeds.
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