OPINION OF THE COURT
Thеse cases require us to consider the borders of personal jurisdiction and the permissible exercise of judicial power. Finding that the district court remained within the boundaries established by the Supreme Court, we will affirm.
I.
Mellon Bank (East) PSFS (“Mellon”), a Pennsylvania based financial institution, filed complaints in these three, consolidated diversity actions in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging the breach of three guaranty and suretyship agreements. The defendants filed motions to dismiss the complaints for lack of personal jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court denied the motions to dismiss and later granted Mellon’s motions for summary judgment. The defendants’ only argument on appeal is that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over them.
The defendants are limited partners in three Virginia limited partnerships. Defendants Robert A. Levitas, Leslie Trinin, and Eileen Michaels are residents of the State of New York. Defendant Kenneth V. Fari-no is a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia and is also the president of three, related Virginia corporations that serve as the general partners of the limited partnerships.
The partnerships were created to purchase and develop real estate in Richmond, Virginia. In connection with this development, the partnerships, through a mortgage broker, approached Mellon for financing. In preliminary correspondence with Mellon’s Washington, D.C. branch, the mortgage broker explained the nature of the real estate transactions that the partnerships hoped to finance and represented that the limited partners would personally guaranty any loans made to the partnerships. 1
*1220 In addition to the personal liability of the limited partners, the partnerships represented to Mellon that the talent and experience that each partner brought to the partnerships was fundamental to their success. According to the affidavit of Frederick Fel-ter, a Mellon vice-president, Mellon was favorably disposed to make the loans because:
[T]he Bank was told that each of the defendants had particular skills and abilities which they would contribute toward the success of the projects. Farino, an attorney, was represented as having ability in the area of real estate development and property mаnagement. Levitas, a lawyer also, was to contribute expertise in real estate law and development. Trinin, senior vice president of Glick Construction Co., was expected to provide construction experience which would be helpful during the renovation and rehabilitation stages. Michaels, a vice president of Prudential Bache, was to provide investment advice and assistance.
App. at 193. Relying on these representations and the limited partners’ personal financial information, which was sent to the bank in Pennsylvania, Mellon agreed to make three loans to the partnerships total-ling over $4.2 million. Each of the loan documents, which were essentially identical, provided that the partnerships would make monthly interest payments over the term of the loan to Mellon in Pennsylvania and a balloon payment of principal at the same location when the term of the loan expired. The first two loans were due 18 months from their respective closing dates; the third, 12 months from its closing date. The closings on each of the loans took place in Richmond, Virginia with Mr. Fari-no executing the loan documents on behalf of the general partners. The limited partners executed the guaranty and suretyship agreements for these debts in each of their states of residence.
The terms of the notes provided that the partnerships were to make payments to Mellon Bank Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Each note also stated that, “[t]his note has been delivered in Pennsylvania,” but also that “[t]his note is to be construed and enforced in all respects in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” The guaranty and suretyship agreements also stated that Philadelphia was the mailing address of the bank аnd that any correspondence between the guarantors and Mellon, including payments if the partnerships defaulted, must be sent to the bank at that address in Pennsylvania.
On May 19, 1989, when the balloon payment on the first of the three loans was three months past due, Mellon granted an extension. On that same date, the balloon payment on the second loan was due. This due date was apparently also missed as Mellon granted an extension on the second loan in August, 1989. Mr. Farino and Mr. Levitas negotiated these extensions on behalf of the partnerships and the limited partners with Mellon personnel in Pennsylvania.
Despite Mellon’s forbearance, the partnerships were again unable to make payment when the new due dates arrived. Mellon granted two additional extensions of the due date on the first loan and one additional extension on the second. The partners continued to forward updated personal financial information to Mellon in Pennsylvania to induce the bank to grant the extensions. The limited partners also attempted to restructure the debt through phone and mail contacts with Mellon in Pennsylvania. Despite these efforts, the partnerships dеfaulted on the first two loans when the balloon payments finally came due. The third loan was subject to a cross default provision, so Mellon called for payment from the guarantors on all three obligations. When the defendants failed to remit payment, Mellon brought these suits to collect.
To the extent that the district court made factual findings, a clearly erroneous standard of review applies.
North Penn Gas Co. v. Corning Natural Gas Corp.,
II.
A.
Rule 4(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
2
is the starting point of our analysis. The rulе authorizes personal jurisdiction over non-resident defendants to the extent permissible under the law of the state where the district court sits.
Mesalic,
The next logical step in the jurisdictional inquiry is to determine whether a defendant’s contacts with the state are sufficient to support general personal jurisdiction. If a party is subject to the general jurisdiction of a state, that party can be called to answer any claim against her, regardless of whether the subject matter of the cause of action has any connection to the forum. In the current case, however, the parties agree and the facts bear out that the defendants do not have sufficient contacts with Pennsylvania to be subject to the general jurisdiction of the сourts of the Commonwealth.
B.
In the absence of general jurisdiction, permissible
in personam
jurisdiction is dependent upon the concept of specific personal jurisdiction. Specific jurisdiction arises when the plaintiff’s “claim is related to or arises out of the defendant’s contacts with the forum.”
Dollar Sav. Bank v. First Sec. Bank,
These offspring have solidified and refined the due process inquiry such that we now know that, “it is essentiаl in each case that there be some act by which the defendant purposely avails itself of the privilege of conducting business within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.”
Hanson v. Denckla,
Because this case involved contracts among interstate parties, we are primarily directed in our analysis by the Court’s opinion in
Burger King Corporation v. Rudzewicz,
In upholding the Florida district court’s exercise of jurisdiction in
Burger King,
the Court reviewed its own jurisprudence in this area. The Court first noted that the minimum contacts inquiry is a “fair warning” requirement of due process which is satisfied “if the defendant has ‘purposely directed’ his activities at residents of the forum, and the litigation results from alleged injuries that ‘arise out of or relate to’ those activities.”
Id.
at 472,
[W]ith respect to interstate contractual obligations, we have emphasized that parties who “reach out beyond one state and create continuing relationships and obligations with citizens of another state” are subject to regulation and sanctions in the other State for the consequences of their activities.... [Wjhere individuals “purposely derive benefit” from their interstate activities, it may well be unfair to allow them to escape having to account in other States for consequences that arise proximately from such activities; the Due Process Clause may not readily be wielded as a territorial shield to avoid interstate obligations that have been voluntarily assumed.
Id.
at 473-74,
[Wjhere the defendant “deliberately” has engaged in significant activity within a State, or has created “continuing obligations” between himself and residents of the forum, he manifestly has availed himself of the privilege of conducting business there, and because his activities are shielded by “the benefits and protections” of the forum’s law it is presumptively not unreasonable to require him to submit to the burdens of litigation in that forum as well.
Id.
at 475-76,
After deciding that a defendant has sufficient minimum contacts, the court may next inquire “whether the assertion of pеrsonal jurisdiction would comport with ‘fair play and substantial justice.’ ”
Id.
at 476,
III.
A.
With regard to the facts currently before us, we first address whether the
*1223
defendants’ activities are such that the defendants had sufficient minimum contacts with Pennsylvania to justify the district court’s assertion of jurisdiction. When a defendant raises the defense of the court’s lack of personal jurisdiction, the burden falls upon the plaintiff to come forward with sufficient facts to establish that jurisdiction is proper.
Carteret Savings Bank v. Shushan,
The fact that a non-resident has contracted with a resident of the forum state is not, by itself, sufficient to justify personal jurisdiction over the nonresident. The requisite contacts, however, may be supplied by the terms of the agreement, the place and character of prior negotiations, contemplated future consequences, or the course of dealings between the parties.
Burger King,
The defendants here purposefully availed themselves of the privilege of conducting business in the Commonwealth. They were all well aware, or should have been, that they were dealing with a Pennsylvania bank. The guaranty and suretyship agreements, which they all signed, and the notes that those guaranties backed indicated that Mellon was a Pennsylvania entity. Payments on the notes and on the guaranties, if necessary, and any other correspondence were to be sent to Mellon’s Philadelphia address. The defendants also provided personal net worth documentаtion to Mellon, initially through the mortgage broker and then directly to the bank in Pennsylvania, in the hope that, first, someone in the Commonwealth would approve the financing that the partnerships sought, and later, that Mellon would extend the due date of those obligations. Mellon did not approach the borrowers seeking to lend money nor did Mellon initially request the guaranties. It was the defendants who approached Mellon and through this contact established a business relationship with a Pennsylvania entity.
For some reason, be it the rate of interest offered by Mellon, the service that the bank provided, the availability of funds, or merely the whim of the investors, the limited partnerships chose to finance their business through Mellon. They clearly had the option to seek financing with a bank or banks in any number of other states. Yet, the defendants chose Mellon in Pennsylvania. While it is true that the initial contact with Mellon was through its branch in Washington, D.C., the parties subsequently negotiated and corresponded with Mellon in Pennsylvania. We conclude that the defendants “purposely directed” their activities toward a Pennsylvania resident and thereby availed themselves of the opportunity to do business there within the meaning of Burger King.
In addition, by asking Mellon to lend money and offering to guaranty that debt, the defendants deliberately “reach[ed] out beyond one state and create[d] continuing relationships and obligations with citizens of another state,”
Travelers Health Ass’n v. Virginia,
The defendants argue that, in making the minimum contacts determination, we should ignore any contacts that they had with the Commonwealth after the loans went into default. As a result, we *1224 should limit our examination to the pre-contract contacts that the defendants had with the Commonwealth, which are virtually nonexistent, and then to the contract itself, which provides only the barest of connections among the defendants and the Commonwealth. We decline so to limit the scope of our inquiry.
The Supreme Court prеcedent in this area commands that such an inquiry is not to be limited in such an arbitrary way. In making personal jurisdiction decisions, we must employ a “highly realistic” approach and are to take into account “prior negotiations and
contemplated future consequences,
along with the terms of the contract and the parties’
actual course of dealing.” Burger King,
In Mesalic, nearly all of the pre-contract negotiations and the execution of the contract itself took place in Florida between a New Jersey purchaser and a Florida manufacturer of luxury power boats. The buyer went to the manufacturer’s Florida shоwroom to discuss the purchase. The sales contract was signed there. The boat was built in Florida and the buyer made several trips to that state to inspect the construction and to make progress payments. When the construction was finished, the buyer made yet another trip to Florida to test the boat and to make the final payment. Although there were apparently a few problems with the finished product, the buyer accepted the boat and requested that it be delivered to New Jersey. The manufacturer’s agents delivered the boat to New Jersey and apparеntly made some repairs there. In the buyer’s breach of contract suit against the manufacturer, we held that the district court should have exercised personal jurisdiction over the manufacturer based solely upon the manufacturer’s post-contract, post-default contacts with the Garden State. We stated:
While the contract between the parties may not have obligated Fiberfloat [the manufacturer] to deliver and repair the boat in New Jersey, nonetheless they did.... Under such circumstances, we must assess the contacts actually made. We are not narrowly confined to reviewing the contractual obligations of the parties, as suggested by the district court. Our focus is not on the rights of the parties under the contract, but instead our focus is on whether there were sufficient minimum contacts between Fi-berfloat and New Jersey.
Id. at 700-01.
Applying this reasoning in the current case, we must take into account the defendants’ contacts with the Commonwealth before, during, and after the dates the loans were made and the guaranties were executed. Therefore, we may not disregard the fact that the defendants in this case sought extensions of the loan obligations dirеctly from Mellon in Pennsylvania and supplied additional personal financial information to Mellon in Pennsylvania in furtherance of that objective.
[9-11] The defendants also cite other cases where courts have found that guarantors of contractual obligations were not subject to a distant forum’s jurisdiction.
See, e.g., Arkansas Rice Growers Coop. Ass’n v. Alchemy Indus., Inc.,
Nevertheless, this proposition does not mean that we must decide such cases in a vacuum, without the benefit of the wisdom and insight of other courts that have decided similar questions. Our conclusion is, in fact, bolstered by the holdings of other courts. In
National Can Corp. v. K Beverage Co.,
The defendants rely hеavily on the fact that they have no physical contact with or presence in the Commonwealth. They argue that, “the defendants are four individuals who have, quite literally,
no
contacts to Pennsylvania.” Appellants’ Brief at 5 (emphasis in original). Defendants go on to list all the physical contacts that they do not have with Pennsylvania, e.g., no residence, no office, no bank accounts, no telephone listing, no property in the Commonwealth. While it may be true that the defendants have no physical connection with the forum, that is not dispositive. When a defendant has received the benefits and protections of the forum’s laws by engaging in business activities with a forum resident, the courts have “consistently rejected the notion that an absence of physical contacts can defeat personal jurisdiction there.”
Burger King,
Defendants also construe this court’s decision in
Dollar Savings Bank v. First Security Bank of Utah,
The dealings between the defendants and Mellon in this case are far more substantial. Defendants here did directly solicit business in the Commonwealth. At various points in the relationship between Mellon and the defendants, each defendant dealt with Mellon directly and through the defendants’ agent. 5 In addition, they supplied personal financial information and secured the debts not only with mortgages on the properties but with personal guaranties. In Dollar Savings, the dеfendant’s only connection to the forum was the contract. But here the defendants had contacts with Pennsylvania both before and after the contract.
B.
“Once the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case in favor of personal jurisdiction, the defendant ‘must present a compelling case that the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable.’ ”
Carteret Sav. Bank v. Shushan,
After holding in
Burger King
that the defendant had sufficient minimum contacts with Florida, the Court stated, “[n]or has Rudzewicz [the defendant] pointed to other factors that can be said persuasively to outweigh the considerations discussed above [minimum contacts] and to establish the
unconstitutionality
of Florida’s assertion of jurisdiction.”
Burger King,
The defendants in this case have limited their argument to whether they had sufficient minimum contacts with the Commonwealth. They make no mention in their brief of the other factors that the *1227 Supreme Court has considered in determining whether a specific assertion of jurisdiction is unreasonable despite the existence of minimum contacts. Because the defendants bear the burden of showing the unreasonableness of an othеrwise constitutional assertion of jurisdiction, and because they have failed to raise the issue in this court, we conclude that this is not an “appropriate case” in which to consider the other factors bearing on “fair play and substantial justice.” 6
IV.
Based upon the above reasoning, the decision of the district court regarding personal jurisdiction will be affirmed. The defendants’ appeal was limited to the issue of jurisdiction; they have not challenged the district court’s entry of summary judgment against them. We, therefore, leave those judgments undisturbed.
Notes
. A letter from the defendants' mortgage brokеr to Mellon requesting that the bank consider financing the deal states:
Copies of the four principal’s financial statements are also enclosed. The combined net worth of the principal’s is about $30 million. All will endorse!
App. at 188 (emphasis in original). We can draw no conclusion from this language other than that the agent of the "principals” offered *1220 their personal guaranties as an inducement to Mellon to make the loan.
. Rule 4(e) provides in relevant part:
******
Whenever a statute or rule of court of the state in which the district court is held provides (1) for service of a summons, or of a notice, or of an order in lieu of a summons upon a party not an inhabitant of or found within the state, or (2) for service upon or notice to such a party to appear and respond or defend in an action by reason of the attachment or garnishment or similar seizure of the party's property located within the state, service may in either case be made under the circumstances and in the manner prescribed' in the statute or rule.
. Section 5322(b) provides:
[T]he jurisdiction of the tribunals of this Commonwealth shall extend to all persons who are not within the scope of section 5301 [relating to general jurisdiction] to the fullest extent allowed under the Constitution of the United States and may be based on the most minimum contact with this Commonwealth allowed under the Constitution of the United States.
. Some courts, when faced with suits against guarantors in a distant forum, have found significance in the guarantor's financial stake in the enterprise that was the beneficiary of the guaranty.
See, e.g., Bond Leather Co. v. Q.T. Shoe Mfg. Co.,
. Defendants also argue that the contacts of their agent with the forum state cannot be attributed to them. This argument has been roundly rejected.
See Wells Fargo & Co. v. Wells Fargo Express Co.,
. We note, nevertheless, that Mellon did address this issue in its brief. Mellon observes that the inquiry into fair play and substantial justice can also make constitutional the assertion of jurisdiction on a lesser showing of minimum contacts than may otherwise be required.
Burger King,