Brownsville, Texas.

I have a day or so to go on Facebook suspension.  There are a few people's pages I would have liked to have been able to say something.  I have no regrets on my activities that got me the suspension, it will likely happen again and sooner or later, they will delete my account and then....I will have to decide whether I want to bother with Facebook.  

My thought processes lead me back to an SBA loan today.  The loan officer I had originally talked to about getting an SBA loan left out one very important detail that would have had me pursuing an SBA loan if I had known it at the time.  

This is how this went down today.  I started thinking, I'm going to have to take a loan of some kind regardless if I do this myself or if I have sub contractors helping me out.  If I end up doing a personal loan, the interest rates are high. The payments are high because of it - well that and short terms.  I thought, what if I could get a much bigger loan but at a much lessor interest rate?  The payments might not be so far off from each other.  

After much pondering, I decided I would be wondering about this for - a long time - if I didn't at least try to get one of these loans.  Remember, I have to make that decision before I start using my 401k money.  I haven't cashed it out - yet - but if I spend any of it on building the property, there goes any kind of high dollar loan out the window. All of that money would have to go as down payment or whatever they are calling it to get - 250k is what I want.  

So, I texted my next door neighbor who is a banker and runs 2 banks.  He had told me he knows the guy that does SBA loans in another town and he could introduce him to me.  Before going on, I just found out a few minutes ago my neighbor has tested positive for Covid. He is in good health, I suspect he will not have any great problems with it.  

He texted me back the name of the man that runs the bank and the name of the bank - said he was driving and didn't have the phone number, but to contact him, tell him I am your neighbor and I sent you.  So, after I got through Houston and then all the construction down south of it - rain/thunder storms and terrible driving conditions - I called. Ended up he had to call me back, told me what I have to do to get one of those loans: Call such and such man at the small business help center (or whatever it's called, sorry, I've heard a lot of different names in the last several days and I am not good with names to begin with) and he will help you put all the paperwork together including the projections you will need.  

He basically said they would do all of the paperwork for me, or most of it anyway.  Trust me, there is a lot of paperwork to fill out. If you remember, I was writing about this months ago, I decided against it because I would have to pay a firm to do all of this stuff for me, I couldn't possibly, legitimately, come up with those kinds of numbers and even if I could, a bank likely wouldn't be taking my word for it.  They want experts to sign off on it. My objection to that at the time as well as now was I didn't want to pay some firm thousands of dollars for something that I am not guaranteed to receive.  

Here comes the part I didn't know: That SBA center? Is a government financed agency.  The first loan agent I talked told me nothing about this agency and  - may not know about it himself? The second revelation was the best part: it costs me nothing.  It's financed by Mother Government and Mama says they be giving away such stuff for nothing.  Yup, your taxpayer dollars at work, the things we sometimes find out about, revelations, that are actually surprising.  I'm not one for government handouts, but if this is the way to get the loan - which the bank officer said it was the only way they would finance me - then there you go.

What kind of hellish nightmare am I in for giving these people all the information they will need? I have no idea.  I do believe it will be far more involved than the loan for the land.  

But think about it, if I  could get a 250k loan, what that implies.  I simply pay a construction company to come out and clear the land - or not - I'm not sold on that even with that kind of money. The reason is that I don't want them cutting down all the trees and I can't really get a feel for how the thing can be laid out until I get all that junk out of there while at the same time leaving up the bigger trees.  I could just lay out the blue print which is in my mind on paper and say okay, any trees - here - stay up - any trees here - come down.  But in my mind, it's just not that simple and I will continue to work on clearing the land by hand until something different - if something different - occurs.  

So lets' get past the land clearing.  I will need a blue print for them to finance this, that's just common knowledge.  There are firms that specialize in RV parks that can do this, it would be the only out put of money I know of that I would have to do for this loan - unless this agency also does that as well.  I doubt it tho, RV parks are a specialty thing.

Regardless, a 250k gets me an office, a laundry room, a  4 room bath house, all the lots and the driveways created, around 300 tons of gravel (maybe more, not sure about that yet), the electricity, water lines and septic installed, a dog park, a playground, a pond built in the back  and possibly even a swimming pool installed with a jacuzzi.  In this scenario, I would still create my own walkways in the back of the property, just something I'd like to do.  And the tent campsites, I don't need a contractor for that. It would include a picnic table and a fire ring at every lot.  It would hopefully allow for a pavilion - a covered gathering area for large parties that might come or just the people that are there to use as a gathering place.  

This park would be built much faster than my current time table and it would be far better endowed with amenities that I want to have with the park.  I am so far off with having to take any steps beyond land clearing that I am definitely going to at least try going the SBA loan route. 

I did call the man at the SBA center, but he was unavailable - it was near closing time.  I should hear back from him tomorrow, if not I will be calling back lol.  

Really, after finding out the government pays for an agency to help you with all the paperwork, that was all I needed to hear.  It's not information that I had heard anywhere before today, not even in the RV build groups.  I should have taken my neighbor's advice and offer to call that banker sooner. I'm not experienced at this, I am wading through unknown waters, it's a nice challenge but it can be a bit perplexing.  This information was more "finding out by accident" than anything.  A Godsend, tho, as far as I'm concerned.  

So tomorrow, I hope to talk to this  man and get a feel - or direct information - of what I will need to do to get this process started. I am sure it's a process, dunno how long it takes.  A month, months, no idea. I'm probably months out from getting all of that land cleared so I don't have any looming decisions to make beyond what I have already decided on - the water install and the survey marking out the entire eastern side of the property.  I do hope that takes him less than a day to do, at $125 per hour, that could get expensive.  My great interest is the portion of the property in the front - how far east does it go?  Can we set some stakes in the ground starting at the road and going all the way back t where the trees start and then, ribbons around the trees?  

Yes, he is going to do that, sometime this coming month.  Well, October is virtually here, a few more hours and there it is lol.

What if this SBA loan doesn't work out? The lady I talked to at the center today said they do the paperwork for "all kinds of business loans, not just SBA loans".  Oh?  I didn't ask, she just said the SBA loans give the best interest rates.  What other types of loans are there? What do they want up front? I will find that out of SBA doesn't work.  As I have said, I will find a way to finance this venture. It's not if I can, it's how it will happen.  Personal loan, HELOC loan, SBA loan, other type of business loan, who knows, maybe someone with money that I haven't thought of will offer a loan.  That's not a hint, I'm just saying, there are many ways this could work out.  I will exhaust every avenue until I find some way to make it work.  

And with that? It's almost 9:00 pm and I have - well need - to get up at 5:00 am, to leave here around 5:30 am.  I ran into all kinds of traffic snarls today with the rain and slow downs with visibility reduced to almost nothing, everyone slowed down, but for good reason.  I got here later than I would have normally without all of those delays, so I'm leaving later than I would like to because of it.

G'nite.