Saturday, March 21, 2009

Solving Financial Dilemas

There are many adventures involved in the day to day functions of meeting financial needs from mortgage refinance, start-up business capital funding to simple home improvement projects. We feel that there is always a way if you are innovative enough in your search. Innovation is the Key and that is our goal. We seek out and improvise, implementing the leading methods of funding solutions for our contacts. One particular instance comes to mind. Our handy-men friends, the Davis twins were engaged to do a bathroom addition on a home here in NC that had never had an inside bathroom. Aunt Bess said that her husband Sylvester (known to everyone as "Boot") had built her a flushing out-house toilet before he passed away but that had deteriorated and was long-gone. Eddie and Eddie, the twins, said they could do the job for three thousand dollars. Aunt Bess had one water line which ran from the county supply to her kitchen. That was just cold water and it was that line that her husband had run to flush the outhouse. Eddie and Eddie are twins but you can tell them apart, we call them Fast Eddie and Slow Eddie for obvious reasons. Their Mom said when asked why she named them thusly that she thought two Eds were better than just one. Their project was to cover installing a tub, hand-sink and toilet in a side room on the concrete block house and hooking up a water heater and running the hot water line into the kitchen also. What a job! Next Aunt Bess had to apply for a loan since she had only saved up $400. Down at the Farmers Bank the loan officer interviewed Aunt Bess. So you would like us to lend you three thousand dollars to put a bathroon in your house. Do you have an account with us? No sir , I am a widow, I don't have a bank account anywhere. Do you have credit accounts or credit cards? No! I don't owe anyone either. Well do you have any collateral for this loan? Well I have "Boots" old truck and his hunting dog. Well, the banker said , that can hardly qualify as collateral for a three thousand dollar loan. Frankly, Mrs. Bess I don't see how you can expect our bank to lend you that money. You don't have an account with us. You have NO collateral. You don't have any credit. Just where have you done your business in the past? Well there's this scope of pine woods and black-jack oaks behind the house answered our indominable Aunt Bess. What a dilema! Aunt Bess had two daughters who lived in a mobile home on the property and a son who was in the moving business. Sylvester Jr. (Lil' Boot) brought in a tub, wall sink and porcelan toilet. One of the girls had a used water heater. The Davis twins and I put a floor and vinyl in the soon to be bath. Lil' Boot got a man with a backhoe to dig and put in the septic tank. Soon Aunt Bess was taking HOT baths in her own private bath instead trekking to her daughters. We launched Aunt Bess's kitchen and bath into the twentieth century (even though we are now in the 21st! Change is inevitable but sometimes it's a little slow!) and allowed her to pay us back on our own interest-free installment plan. That is what I call an innovative financial solution.