A term sheet has one job: tell you what the money costs. If you have to wait until closing to find out, it didn't do its job.
The closing-table surprise
Here's a scene every experienced operator has lived. You get a clean quote — a rate and a point. The deal pencils. You spend three weeks and real money getting to the closing table. And then the settlement statement has line items nobody mentioned: a processing fee, an underwriting fee, a doc-prep fee, an admin fee, a wire fee. Each one looks small. Together they quietly eat the margin you underwrote three weeks ago — at the exact moment it's too late to walk.
What a complete term sheet contains
Our entire term sheet fits on one page, and every number that will ever touch your deal is on it before you sign. That means:
- The points charged at origination
- The interest, and how it's calculated
- Our one flat fee — not a stack of itemized add-ons
- The payoff terms
- The cost of an extension, if you ever need one
The number you see on day one is the number you pay. Nothing is waiting for you at closing.
Why so many lenders leave it for later
It isn't always deliberate — sometimes it's just a disorganized shop that doesn't know its own costs until the title company assembles the file. But often it is a choice: a low rate-and-a-point quote wins your business, and the rest gets backfilled where it's harder to question. Either way, the cost to you is identical. You committed to a deal based on numbers that weren't the real numbers.
What a one-page term sheet buys you
A pro forma that holds up. When you're deciding whether a deal works, you plug in your true cost of capital — not an optimistic guess that a stack of fees blows up later. You can make the offer knowing exactly what the money costs, and you can hold your margin all the way to the closing table because nothing new shows up there.
That certainty is worth more than a teaser rate. A loan that costs a little more but holds no surprises beats a "cheaper" loan that quietly reprices itself at closing.
How to read a term sheet before you sign
Three questions cut right to it:
- What's my all-in cost? Add the points, the interest over your expected hold, and every fee. One number.
- What will show up at closing that isn't on this page? A straight lender will tell you "nothing." Listen for a pause.
- Can you put it on one page? If a lender can't fit the whole cost of your loan onto a single page, that's your answer about how the rest of the relationship will go.
A term sheet should tell you everything. If it doesn't, it isn't a term sheet — it's a sales pitch.
See it for your deal
Want to see what a complete, one-page term sheet looks like for your deal? Tell us about it on Discuss My Deal. It takes about a minute, and we'll respond the same day.