Lenders that decoded complex balance sheets won the clients banks could not keep
High-net-worth borrowers were discovering that the real differentiator in luxury mortgage finance was not price, but the ability to understand a complex story and turn it into workable credit, according to mortgage broker Damon Germanides, co-founder of Insignia Capital Corp. For the ultra-wealthy clients he served, the starting point was not a standard checklist; it was a narrative that traditional underwriting teams often failed to grasp.
These borrowers brought layered income streams, partnership stakes, LLCs, and cross-border holdings that did not fit a conventional underwriting box. Germanides argued that lenders still trying to treat them like vanilla W-2 applicants were losing deals before the first application was complete. “These clients have means, so they’re used to getting what they want,” he said. In his practice, that reality forced a higher bar, where lenders had to decode how clients earned and moved capital instead of hiding behind rigid forms.
Complex borrowers needed more than forms and rate sheets
For Insignia, that work began with what he called connectivity, a deliberate front-end conversation that was designed to surface the nuances behind the numbers. “It’s not just a paycheck and a bank statement. It’s a story, because most of our wealthy clients are self-employed,” he said. Many were partners in major firms or entrepreneurs whose returns and write-offs looked opaque to outsiders but formed a coherent picture once a lender took the time to map how their businesses actually generated cash.
That deeper engagement only mattered if it was backed by execution. Germanides argued that teams serving this segment could not improvise their way through documentation and income analysis, because that was how a supposedly white-glove experience turned into a string of follow-up emails and damaged trust. “You have to have a team around you that knows what to look for so that you’re not frustrating the client with a bunch of follow-ups,” he said. His aim was to collect a complete package almost at once and then build a non-cookie-cutter structure that matched the client’s goals and timeframes.
Once the file landed on a desk, imagination became a hard skill rather than a soft quality. Insignia frequently worked with high-net-worth borrowers who technically failed traditional criteria, not because they lacked resources but because their tax returns or entity structures confused institutional decision-makers. “For some of these clients, there’s no playbook,” he said. In that environment, the question shifted from whether a borrower fitted conforming guidelines to what the next-best option looked like across the non-agency and non-QM universe, and lenders that could answer that question cleanly were the ones that kept getting called.
Training gaps showed up fastest with wealthy clients
Germanides linked that capability directly to training, or the lack of it. “From an industry standpoint, what’s happened is that the banks have moved away from training programs for loan officers, so there really is none,” he said. Without grounding in tax returns, financial statements, and layered entities, too many front-line salespeople remained skilled at relationship-building but weak at structuring a deal that could withstand serious underwriting scrutiny. “They might be great salespeople, but they’re not fundamentally sound,” he said. Sophisticated clients noticed quickly when the person across the table could not explain how their LLCs, trusts, and operating companies fed into the loan file.
Insignia tried to flip that script by turning pattern recognition into a front-line tool rather than an internal specialty, and Germanides saw that as a concrete edge in a tighter market. He described borrowers who reacted with surprise because the lending team already understood their set-up. “The client will say, ‘Yes, that’s my… that’s how I do it, how did you know?’” he said.
That recognition sat alongside what he described as a doctor-style approach to complex loans. “Do you like the doctor who looks at you for one minute and says, ‘You’re fine,’ or do you like the doctor who spends 10 or 15 minutes checking and then rechecking, and then double-checking and saying, ‘You look okay to me’?” he said. For the clients Insignia targeted, a lender who took the second route at the outset was far more likely to hold the relationship once conditions tightened.
