Just under a year ago we struggled like mad to get bank financing for one of our parks, hardly anyone seemed interest in dealing with us period… The park was very much undervalued and in need of some work which I thought was the main reason. WRONG!
I actually spent the time to put together a formal loan packet for the refi on our parks, the binder is professionally bound and looks amazing. The cost was $14 each and it took around 10 hours to put together, this was time and money well spent!
I got a completely different reception when I started walking into banks this time, and one sticks out in particular… I went walking in to a small bank in which I have no relationship and the manager almost everything but threw me out when she found out what I wanted and would have if it had not been for the loan packet. Humoring me she took a quick look at the first couple of pages and started asking me a few questions, her demeanor very quickly changed and she started trying to figure out what it was going to take to get our business. After about a 1/2 hour she told me that there is only one person in their bank that does commercial loans in the bank, he’s stuck in a hole somewhere at the corporate office inaccessible to the general public and she picked up the phone and called him…
Her conversation is what stuck out to me, her first words to the guy where “you need to get over here tomorrow, I’ve got a guy that wants to refi a couple MH parks and he’s got a very professional presentation and actually knows what he’s doing” the conversation went back and forth and she popped off with “this isn’t some fly by night operation, he knows what he’s doing and you need to get over here tomorrow… He’s shopping the loan!”
I don’t know how this whole process will turn out but we are asking for a fairly large LOC at 7.5%, but the reception we have received is completely different this time around! If you are looking for bank financing for a MH property take Scott, Tony’s, & Ray Alcorn’s advice, put the proper documents together and go in to the banks armed with a nice professional presentation! I didn’t even get asked to fill out any bank forms or applications, yesterday was a good day. =)
Best wishes,
Ryan Needler