How We Work With Lenders

When a lender refers a buyer to us, we respond to the introduction within one business day, often same day. The buyer goes through a structured initial consultation that covers their goals, timeline, financing posture, and target markets. Before any offer is written, the buyer runs scenarios through our Offer Structure Explorer tool, which models the financing implications of different offer structures. The lender stays in the loop throughout — not with weekly check-ins, but with proactive updates on offer status, contingency dates, and any timeline changes that affect underwriting.

The Offer Structure Explorer is a tool we built that lets a buyer compare three different offer scenarios side by side before making an offer. Each scenario shows the actual cash-to-close, contingency timeline, and trade-offs. The buyer sees how different structures — different prices, different contingencies, different concession arrangements, different down-payment levels — affect both their out-of-pocket costs and their loan timeline.

For lenders, this reduces the most common loan complications: appraisal-gap surprises, inspection contingency timing mismatches, rate-lock misalignment, down-payment stacking issues, and concession structures that exceed program limits. The buyer who arrives at underwriting has already internalized the financing implications of their offer because they ran the comparison themselves.

When a buyer uses the listing agent — a practice called dual agency — neither side has an agent representing only their interests. The listing agent's primary fiduciary duty is to the seller, and dual agency requires duties to each side to weaken to the lowest common denominator. The buyer ends up negotiating their largest financial transaction without independent representation.

For a lender, this creates a specific operational risk. Offer structures aren't optimized for the buyer's financing reality because the agent's first duty is to the seller's outcome. Contingencies get waived that shouldn't be waived. Concession structures benefit the seller's net rather than the buyer's underwriting needs. The buyer signs terms they don't fully understand, and the resulting complications surface during underwriting or at the closing table.

The Cyr Team does not practice dual agency. When we represent a buyer, we represent only the buyer — including how the offer's terms interact with the financing the lender has structured. This is one of the reasons our buyers tend to be easier to underwrite.

No. We don't ask for exclusivity, contracts, paperwork, or any formal partnership structure. Lenders refer buyers when the situation fits — we expect and respect that you have multiple agent relationships and that different transactions warrant different referral choices. The relationship continues based on whether the outcomes we deliver hold up over time. If the experience isn't what we promised, we expect to hear about it directly so we can correct the issue or end the referral relationship cleanly.

We work primarily in Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and New Castle counties. Our office is in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, which sits at the convergence of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Within that footprint, we cover the Brandywine corridor, the Philadelphia western suburbs, and Wilmington-area Delaware.

For buyers outside that footprint, we maintain a network of fiduciary-aligned agents in other markets and can provide a referred introduction. We don't take fees for those referrals — we make them because the buyer's outcome matters more than ours.

Our buyer-side transaction record over the last five years has a median settled price of $459,000 and a mean of $521,000. Roughly 85% of our buyer transactions fall between $300,000 and $1 million, with the highest concentration in the $400,000–$750,000 range. We work the $750,000–$1.5 million range selectively. Above $1.5 million on the buyer side, our experience is light enough that we'd typically refer to an agent whose history goes deeper into that bracket.

For a lender evaluating fit, this means: if your buyer is in the $300K–$1M range, our transaction depth is meaningful. If your buyer is in the $1M–$1.5M range, we have working experience and the upper-bracket designations to support the transaction. Above $1.5M, we'd direct the referral to a more concentrated specialist.

Our deepest buyer-side experience falls in six categories: first-time and entry-tier buyers in the $300K–$500K range, often using 90–97% LTV conventional or FHA financing; move-up and step-up buyers in the $500K–$750K range coordinating with the sale of an existing home; upper-tier buyers in the $750K–$1.5M range; cash buyers across all price points (roughly one in five of our buyer transactions is cash); relocation and out-of-area buyers, including remote-only buyers; and estate, divorce, and life-transition buyers, where Vincent's SRES and Jane's RCS-D designations apply.

For categories outside this list — VA-specialized buyers, portfolio investors, builder-rep-only new construction, $2M+ luxury — we'd typically refer the buyer to an agent whose transaction history fits better. We don't take referrals we can't back up with experience.

Roughly 58% of our buyer transactions are in Chester County, with the deepest district concentrations in Kennett Consolidated, West Chester Area, Unionville-Chadds Ford, Avon Grove, Downingtown Area, and Brandywine. The Brandywine corridor — Chadds Ford, Pennsbury, Concord, Birmingham — is where we have both transaction depth and daily field presence from our office.

Roughly 22% of buyer transactions are in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, with Garnet Valley as our largest single district outside Chester County. Penn-Delco, Rose Tree Media, Marple Newtown, and Ridley have working transaction history. New Castle County, Delaware — particularly Wilmington suburbs, Greenville, Hockessin, and the Brandywine Hundred area — is lighter in volume but present, with our Chadds Ford office sitting at the Pennsylvania-Delaware convergence. Montgomery County we cover selectively.

Relocation and out-of-area buyers are one of our six core buyer categories. Our infrastructure was built for buyers who tour virtually, sign electronically, and close without ever flying in — including video walkthroughs, written market context delivered before showings, structured comparison reports between properties, and proactive coordination with lenders working in different time zones.

For lenders working with a buyer relocating to southeastern Pennsylvania or northern Delaware, this means the agent's process doesn't break when the buyer is remote. The buyer gets the same structured offer analysis, the same lender communication cadence, and the same fiduciary representation as a local buyer. We've represented buyers from California, Texas, the Mid-Atlantic, and elsewhere on this basis.

Yes. Roughly 19% of our buyer-side transactions over the last five years have been cash — including downsizing seniors, estate-funded purchasers, and out-of-area relocators with liquidity. Cash transactions have a different rhythm, different timeline pressures, and different verification requirements than financed transactions, but the structured analysis we apply to offer terms, contingencies, and concession negotiation is the same.

For a lender, this matters in two situations: when a buyer who initially expected to finance pivots to cash, and when a cash buyer has a related financing transaction (HELOC, post-purchase refinance, etc.) where the lender's involvement begins after closing. In either case, we keep the lender in the loop on the structure and timing.

The communication cadence is proactive but not noisy. When an offer is written, we share the executed offer with the lender so the contingency calendar and closing date are visible immediately. When a contingency triggers — inspection responses, appraisal results, title issues — the lender is notified the same day, not at the next milestone. When something changes that affects the closing timeline, the lender hears about it before the buyer does, so the lender can react proactively on rate locks, underwriting timelines, or scheduling.

We don't send weekly status emails or unnecessary updates. We send what you need to know, when you need to know it, in the channel you prefer.

When inspection or appraisal issues surface, the lender is notified the same day with the specifics — what came up, what the buyer's options are, what timeline pressures exist. The buyer has already been prepared, before the offer was written, for the realistic possibilities of what an inspection or appraisal might reveal in this property type and market. So the conversation isn't reactive panic — it's a structured discussion of options against a known framework.

If the issue requires renegotiation, the lender stays informed about how the renegotiation might affect closing timing, rate locks, or program parameters. If it requires a deal restructure, the lender is part of the conversation early enough to evaluate alternatives. The goal is to surface complications when they're solvable, not at the wire.

We work with multiple local lenders on an ongoing referral basis, but we don't operate as exclusive partners with any single lender. The buyer always chooses the lender. If the buyer hasn't selected a lender when we begin working with them, we provide a list of lenders we've had positive experiences with — including the lender who referred them, if applicable — and let the buyer evaluate. We never receive compensation for lender referrals. The buyer's interest is the only consideration.

If the buyer has an existing agent relationship that's working well, they should keep it. We don't try to displace existing relationships. The lender's referral matters most when the buyer doesn't yet have an agent, or when the existing agent isn't delivering the level of structured analysis and lender communication that protects the loan timeline.

The reason a lender would choose to refer to us specifically is because the operational outcomes — cleaner appraisals, predictable timelines, informed buyers, proactive communication, no last-minute surprises — show up consistently across transactions. Lenders who refer to us repeatedly do so because the pattern holds. Lenders who try a single referral and don't see what we describe here don't continue. That's how it should work.

Reach out directly to either Vincent or Jane Cyr. The phone numbers and email addresses are at the bottom of this page. The first conversation is informal — we'll talk through how you typically refer, what the lender experiences you've valued (and which haven't worked), and whether what we describe actually fits how you'd want a referral relationship to function. No pitch, no formal partnership setup. If it makes sense, the next buyer who fits gets introduced.