The speed of business?

[shane@js]

Hello everyone,

This may turn into a rant more then a cry for guidence but bear with me through the details... About a year and a half ago my business partner and I established an LLC to start an auto repair shop. We finally (in the past 2 months) found a location that has potential for us to operate out of. After going through multiple hoops with the current land owners we came up with a signed purchase agreement for the location. Now, by no means is our current business numbers considered to be a "power house business," we are profitable. The property is inexpensive but we will still need to finance. Both my partner and I have very good credit scores and virtually no debt with exclusions of each having a mortgage. We've presented our plan to a bank and delivered all the financial statements that were requested. We've asked for extra money on top of the actual loan of immediate improvments for us to utilize this as an auto repair facility.

So... this is where we are today. The bank has told us that this process takes about 8 - 10 days for loan approval. This issue is time sensitive due to date restraints with the purchase agreement. It has gone into day 15 now waiting for approval of the loan with no property evalutation. I've called multiple times to the bank to have some sort of status update and these guys are usually on vacation and are never communicating amongst each other because I still have no definitive answer. I want to remain calm and stay professional but do I need to become "pushy" with this issue? Should I be speaking with other banks in the mean time? We now have officially 30 days before we seek the closing date and nerves and stimulated to say the least. Is this common for loan approval processes to take this long?


I apprciate any input immensely.
Thank you.

[Fulcrum]

Start looking to other avenues immediately (seller financing maybe) and keep pushing on the current application. Being on vacation is not an excuse to have as an answer for companies as large as banks. If they give that as an answer again, you need to keep jumping up the chain until you get to someone who can actually give you a yea or nay.

[Harold Mansfield]

No, you don't want to become pushy because you are asking someone else for money. They don't owe you a loan, and obviously they don't care about customer service.

So here comes the harsh reality...

Banks don't give a crap about your time sensitive problem. You're asking for money. You're a little guy. You have no history with them with any significant amount of money.
They don't care. Banks don't get awards for customer service.

I'd look for other avenues, apply at other banks. You should become a member of a credit union. Most times they are much more appreciative of your business, don't have the huge overheads and profit margins, don't have to maximize profits for share holders, and in my opinion it's just an all around more pleasant experience.

Other than that, there's nothing you can do. It's summer. People are in and out taking long weekends, vacations..whatever.
I rant about summer all of the time. People are slow to pay, don't respond to things timely and so on and so on.

It's not everyone, but there are some people that I hate doing business with in the summer or on Friday because they are just unreliable.

[Bobjob]

You are already set up working out of the property?

Since you are asking for more money to do improvements - it might make the loan above what the bank deems the property is worth? Or this may be what's slowing the process down. If it's a local bank, I would visit in person and talk with someone, especially with whoever you began this process. I assume someone at the bank has copies your personal finances. Prepare additional copies for other lending institutions.

[Fulcrum]

No, you don't want to become pushy because you are asking someone else for money. They don't owe you a loan, and obviously they don't care about customer service.

Looks like we disagree on this.


So here comes the harsh reality...

Banks don't give a crap about your time sensitive problem. You're asking for money. You're a little guy. You have no history with them with any significant amount of money.
They don't care. Banks don't get awards for customer service.

Intrestingly, we have the same reasoning .

[shane@js]

To everyone that responded, I truly appreciate your advice! Come Monday we are going to be in search of a few other lenders. We aren't going to burn any bridges with the current bank we are using and hoping they come through for us next week. I treat my company like a baby and it's hard to put it in the hands of others (bankers) and feel there is no sense of care from these guys. None-the-less I realize I'm not the only person going through these situations and bankers also have other clients as well. Again, Thanks for all the input, I will keep you guys posted on how this ordeal unfolds.