Brokers love to promise speed: “We’ll submit your app everywhere, speak fluent underwriter, and watch your file like a hawk.” In a perfect world, that might save time.
In the real world, their incentives turn the clock into a treadmill.
The Pitch vs. Reality
Pitch: “We’ll shop your file, handle the docs, and leverage relationships to fast-track you.”
Reality: You’re shown the offers that are best for them, not you—because the “best” deal is the one with the fattest commission. The offers you’re most likely to reject (a.k.a. the expensive ones) are the ones they lead with. And what eats time? Negotiation. You push back (rightly). They “go back to underwriting.” You push again. Rinse, repeat.
From inside the industry, we’ve watched this play out thousands of times. The longest, messiest files are the ones that started with an overpriced offer engineered for a seven-round price dance. That’s not velocity; that’s theater.
Why Brokers Actually Slow You Down
1) Misaligned incentives = negotiation marathons
They start where their commission is biggest. You haggle down. They stage a pilgrimage to the “underwriter,” shave a little, come back… and you’re now calendar-poor and no closer to fair.
2) The Telephone Game
Every question and doc travels you → broker → lender and back. A 10-minute clarification direct can take 24–48 hours with a middle narrator “managing the process.”
3) Shotgunning creates doc-churn
“Great news, we sent your file to 14 lenders!” Prepare for duplicated requests, multiple portals, inconsistent notes, and fresh credit pulls. That’s more motion, not more progress.
4) Manufactured delays dressed up as “process”
- “I don’t pitch on Fridays.” (Broker internal monologue: If they sit on it all weekend, close rates drop.) Translation: a self-imposed stall to keep pressure high—not a speed hack.
- “I’ll ask the underwriter for a price break.” Cute. Nine times out of ten, the fastest “price break” is the broker trimming their own commission. Lenders rarely drop buy rates on command; brokers can drop their take instantly.
5) Hidden fees = more haggling
When “packaging,” “origination,” or “points” surface late, you’re rightfully annoyed—and now you’re negotiating that too. Time: wasted.
What It Looks Like Behind the Curtain
- Broker leads with a rich offer (high fee/rate, short term).
- You balk.
- Broker disappears to the “underwriter temple.”
- Returns with a slightly less bad offer.
- Repeat until you’re exhausted—or the window you actually cared about is gone.
You didn’t save time. You burned it fighting gravity.
“But They Know the Docs!” (So do direct portals.)
Modern fintech portals tell you exactly what they need, let you upload once, and respond faster than a group text. If a lender wants a quick clarification, you answer directly—no middleman lag, no creative reinterpretation.
The Only Times a Broker Might Save Time (And Why It Still Backfires)
- Edge-case packaging: Messy files can be assembled faster by someone who’s done it before.
- Rapport: A broker can sometimes get a same-day look.
Problem: You’ll still be steered toward the offers that pay them most. That re-introduces the negotiation spiral—which erases any time “saved” and usually costs you more.
How to Actually Save Time
- Target 2–4 real fits (direct). Match your revenue, credit, time-in-business, and use-of-funds to lenders who actually do that product.
- Send a complete file once. Recent bank statements, IDs, voided check, ownership info, basic P&L.
- Set a hard decision deadline. “We’re choosing by Thursday at 3 pm. Please provide all-in cost and any fees.”
- Demand itemized pricing in writing. Rate/factor, term, payment frequency, all fees.
- Compare apples to apples. Total cost of capital and cash-flow impact—not just the headline APR/fee.
Bottom Line
Brokers don’t save time; they sell delay disguised as service, then turn the clock against you to make their price look inevitable. If you want speed, skip the middle layer, get transparent direct offers, and spend your energy running your business—not running laps around someone else’s commission grid.
Want a sanity check without the theater? Diogenes (our blunt, broker-free guide) asks the right questions and points you to direct options that fit—no stalling, no “Friday rules,” no pilgrimage to the underwriter temple.