It's a residential real estate broker's nightmare. You've invested months, or even a year, getting your client to agree on the home of their dreams--a multi-million dollar condo on Manhattan's Upper East Side or a newly constructed home in Westchester. Your client has made a large down payment and gone out on a limb by promising in the contract to pay all cash or has waived the mortgage contingency.

It is now three weeks before closing and you are exasperated. Your client lost a bundle in the stock market and does not have the money to close all cash after all. He stands to lose a large down payment and you stand to lose your commission. The bank with whom your client applied and which promised, "no problem," suddenly finds problems with the loan. They can't verify income. They found a missed mortgage payment somewhere in the borrower's recent history, or the loan amount is just too high.

Such scenarios occur much too often in the metropolitan area. Although we hear of banks anxious to lend at low rates in this market, that willingness is mostly restricted to a narrow group of "plain vanilla" borrowers, people with near-perfect credit scores, verifiably high income jobs, money in the bank, conventional loans and plenty of time to close the deal. When was the last time you had a client like that?

A real estate broker recently had a client purchasing a $590,000 new construction home in Westchester. The contract was signed a year ago and the builder could sell the house now for at least $750,000. To say the least, the builder was more than happy when it appeared the contract might fall through with the current buyer. The deal soured when the buyer's bank could not move fast enough to make the closing date. Large penalties per day were about to kick in and the seller pressed to break the contract so he could find new offers for the rapidly appreciating property.

Then the broker heard about Equity Now, a Manhattan-based direct lender which I founded in 1984. She learned that we specialize in complex situations such as buyers who are good risks but can't verify income and those who just need to close very fast.

One of our loan officers talked with the broker and with her client. We reviewed the client's application and agreed to lend him $470,000 at a good rate. The closing came off on time. The broker received her commission and had a very happy client.