I just spent the last eight weeks supplying personal and corporate financial statements, along with current profit/loss statements and business and personal tax returns to six different lending institutions, not to mention the number of times my three credit scores have been pulled from the reporting agencies.

I heard from two selected institutions that they had a federal inspection coming up, and they wanted only golden borrowers showing on their books, thus making me less then a desirable customer.

That’s always a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.

My original theory was seek out an institution with money to loan. When it became clear they really wanted to make sure I didn’t need the money, I thought I would find an institution with less stringent requirements, and slightly higher loan fees and rates.

Welcome to the new era of federal rules governing all of the lenders.

All I can say is that it’s a little disturbing for a person with a CLEAN record, never declared bankruptcy, paid obligations on time, and operated above board for 35 years, to be told to wait a year.  Really? Wait after the economy has heated back up to get out there and compete for our limited high quality laborers. Wait and probably pay more for the same building?

I am employing some of the different approaches suggested by the savvy bankers as to how to work in this limited system. I feel like I’m going through the secret door into the back room, where there’s smoke and mirrors, as they evaluate your risk.

Trust me, I looked into private lending, and WOW! There’s money available from that group…with extremely high loan fees, attached to exorbitant interest rates, and some very unconventional terms.

Understand, this is not a done deal by any means, we’re simply taking another approach to try to qualify for a loan to build my dream home, the New Cottage in the Woods. The learning curve is accelerating.

Six months have lapsed and I have obtained a home equity loan (HELOC) from a community bank in Clatsop County. A bank that really spent time “talking” to me about my history AND my future. They are personal in a very different way from the big corporate banks that I had previously dealt with and their statistic pool overlay. Don’t get me wrong, they are covering their bases in a multitude of ways, but just today I received a call from my loan officer at that bank, who wanted to update their file in the ways things were actually developing.

Photo credit: Damian Gadal