Is CRE Lending Automation Worth It? Measuring the ROI with Blooma

Key Takeaways:

• AI underwriting tools can reduce loan processing time significantly turning weeks of work into hours
• CRE lending automation delivers ROI through increased deal capacity, reduced operational costs, and improved risk assessment
• Blooma's intelligent automation enables lenders to handle 3-4x more applications with the same staff
• Automated systems free underwriters to focus on high-value activities like complex deal structuring and client relationships 
  
  
  

The Pressure to Perform in CRE Lending

If you had the opportunity to cut your loan processing time by 85% while simultaneously improving deal quality, would you take it in a heartbeat?

The truth is that CRE lenders face an impossible balancing act: the market demands lightning-fast decisions and competitive terms, while regulatory requirements and risk management demand thorough, methodical analysis. 

Traditional manual underwriting processes, with their endless data entry and document shuffling, simply can’t keep pace with modern expectations.

That’s where Blooma’s AI underwriting tools and automation platforms designed specifically for CRE lending comes in. These technologies promise to transform how lenders evaluate deals, manage risk, and serve borrowers. 

But three critical questions remain: 

• How much time can these tools actually save?
• Is the investment in automation truly worth it? 
• And what kind of return on investment can lenders realistically expect?

Blooma’s origination intelligence platform represents the cutting edge of this technological evolution, delivering measurable time savings and compelling ROI for CRE lenders who are ready to modernize their operations. 

Keep reading to find out the real-world impact of AI underwriting, make the compelling case for automation investment, and detail the specific returns achievable through intelligent lending solutions.

Quantifying Time Savings with AI Underwriting Tools

Traditional CRE underwriting is drowning in inefficiency. Manual data entry, document review, financial spreading, and compliance checks consume weeks of valuable time. 

A typical commercial loan can take 3-5 days just for initial review, with full underwriting stretching into weeks—and remember, only a tiny percentage of these deals actually close.

Here’s where you can actually save time with AI. 

Automated Data Extraction & Validation

Modern AI platforms like Blooma instantly pull and validate data from offering memorandums, rent rolls, financial statements, and tax returns. What used to require hours of manual data entry now happens in minutes or seconds.

Quantification: This represents up to 20x faster processing, reducing time-to-decision by 50-75% for standard commercial loans.

Accelerated Deal Screening & Pre-Underwriting

AI systems quickly assess initial deal viability against predefined criteria, identifying promising opportunities and filtering out non-starters before human resources are invested.

Quantification: Initial review time drops from days to minutes. Industry data shows average underwriting decisions for standard policies moving from 3-5 days to approximately 12 minutes.

Streamlined Workflow & Task Automation

Beyond document processing, AI automates repetitive tasks including document routing, basic compliance checks, and data aggregation across multiple systems.

Quantification: This automation can free up to 40% of an underwriter’s time, allowing them to focus on analysis and relationship building rather than administrative tasks.

Faster Communication & Collaboration

AI-driven platforms centralize information and facilitate quicker handoffs between team members, eliminating the endless email chains and phone calls that typically accompany deal processing.

Benefit: Less time chasing information translates to more time on meaningful analysis and client interaction.

Is Investing in CRE Lending Automation Worth It? Exploring the Broader Value Proposition

The time savings alone make a compelling case, but the broader value proposition extends far beyond efficiency gains.

• Increased Deal Capacity: Automated systems allow teams to handle significantly larger volumes without proportional staff increases. Leading institutions report handling 3-4x more loan applications with existing staff, with some managing volume increases of up to 400%.

• Reduced Errors & Improved Accuracy: AI minimizes human error in data processing and analysis, leading to more reliable outcomes and fewer costly mistakes that can derail deals or create compliance issues.

• Enhanced Risk Assessment: Advanced algorithms identify patterns and subtle risk factors that human underwriters might miss, improving predictive accuracy and reducing potential portfolio losses.

• Greater Consistency & Objectivity: Standardized rule application reduces bias and ensures fair, consistent decisions across all deals and borrowers.

• Improved Borrower Experience: Faster approvals and streamlined digital processes lead to higher client satisfaction and stronger relationships which are critical differentiators in relationship-driven CRE lending.

• Competitive Advantage: Lenders who adopt automation can respond faster, offer superior service, and capture more market share. In CRE lending, being first to respond often means winning the deal.

• Strategic Alignment: Blooma’s comprehensive platform connects to existing CRM, LOS, and data systems, aligning teams across strategy, credit, origination, and IT departments around shared efficiency goals.

What’s the ROI of Using Blooma for Commercial Lending?

When directly quantifying Blooma’s impact, here are the ROI benefits you should know about:

• Reduced Operational Costs: By eliminating manual processes and streamlining workflows, Blooma significantly cuts the cost-to-originate each loan. Processing times can be reduced by up to 20x, with some institutions seeing 75% reductions in loan origination time and 4x reductions in origination and servicing costs.

• Increased Revenue & Throughput: Faster processing and higher capacity translate directly to more closed deals and increased revenue. Institutions typically see 50% increases in transaction volume with the same headcount.

• Improved Portfolio Health & Reduced Losses: Blooma’s risk assessment capabilities, real-time monitoring, and stress testing capabilities lead to better credit decisions and proactive risk mitigation. Industry research suggests that a 15% improvement in default prediction accuracy can translate to tens of millions in avoided losses annually for large portfolios. Plus, Blooma’s portfolio intelligence provides the continuous monitoring needed to achieve these improvements.

• Enhanced Strategic Focus: By freeing underwriters from mundane tasks, Blooma allows them to focus on high-value activities like complex deal structuring, client relationships, and market strategy. This shift in focus from data entry to strategic thinking drives more profitable and sustainable growth.

The Blooma Difference: Built by Experts

Blooma was built by lenders, for lenders.

The minds behind Blooma belong to those who understand the complexities of CRE lending and are dedicated to simplifying them through intelligent automation. 

This deep industry knowledge ensures that every feature delivers relevant and impactful ROI for real-world lending scenarios.

Maximizing Your ROI: Key Considerations for Implementation

Before integrating Blooma into your workflows, here’s what you need to keep in mind:

• Strategic Integration: Blooma is designed to seamlessly integrate with existing LOS, CRM, and data systems, minimizing disruption while maximizing value from current technology investments. Different plan levels ensure the right fit for institutions of all sizes.

• Phased Adoption: Blooma’s smart implementation process follows a crawl-walk-run approach, starting with key areas to demonstrate quick wins and build internal champions. 

This is a major focus area before expanding to full deployment.

• Training & Change Management: Proper training ensures user adoption and maximizes the benefits of new tools. The greatest ROI comes from empowering teams, not just implementing technology.

• Continuous Optimization: ROI is an ongoing process requiring continuous monitoring and refinement of workflows and AI models to adapt to changing market conditions and business needs.

• Human-AI Partnership: The greatest returns come from empowering human experts with AI capabilities, not replacing their judgment. 

Blooma empowers this decision-making process rather than automating it away fully.

The Undeniable Value of AI in CRE Lending

The evidence is clear: AI underwriting tools offer substantial time savings and compelling ROI, making investment in CRE lending automation not just beneficial but essential for competitive survival. 

Forward-thinking lenders are already capturing these benefits while their competitors struggle with outdated manual processes.

The question isn’t one of whether or not to invest in automation but about how quickly you can implement it effectively. Every day spent on manual processes is revenue lost to more efficient competitors and opportunities missed due to slow response times.

Ready to quantify the impact of AI on your commercial lending operations? Discover how Blooma’s intelligent automation can deliver significant time savings, boost your ROI, and transform your lending experience through a personalized demonstration.

FAQs

• How much time can I save with AI underwriting tools?
  • Answer: AI underwriting tools can dramatically reduce processing times, often cutting days or weeks of manual work down to minutes or hours for initial assessments. They achieve this by automating data extraction, analysis, and routine decision-making, while also removing data silos, eliminating the wasted time spent bouncing between systems to gather information.
• Is it worth investing in CRE lending automation?
  • Answer: Yes, investing in CRE lending automation is highly worthwhile. It delivers significant ROI through increased efficiency, reduced operational costs, higher deal throughput, improved accuracy in risk assessment, and enhanced borrower satisfaction, ultimately driving growth and competitive advantage.
• What’s the ROI of using Blooma for commercial lending?
  • Answer: Blooma delivers measurable ROI by significantly reducing loan processing time (Case study:How A Regional Bank Cut Loan Processing Time by up to 85% faster), increasing deal volume (by 50% more transactions with the same headcount), lowering operational costs, and improving portfolio quality through enhanced risk management and real-time insights.  A big priority for our current customers is streamlining underwriting because time saved also equals money saved.
• What are the benefits of automating loan underwriting procedures?
  • Answer: Benefits include removing the tedious, manual work of data extraction and eliminating the time wasted bouncing between multiple platforms to dig for documents by connecting everything in one place. Automation streamlines the underwriting process, improves scalability, and provides real-time risk analysis, freeing up underwriters to focus on the art of underwriting and higher-value decision-making. 
• Which of the following is a downside of automated underwriting?
  • Answer:  A primary consideration is that automated systems may struggle with highly complex, unique, or unusual cases that require nuanced human judgment. Ensuring data quality and mitigating algorithmic bias are also important considerations. That is why Blooma uses a Human in the Loop approach to ensure that humans make the final decision and can review all information. This transparency eliminates the “black box” concern and helps continuously train the software for better performance.