Church Financial Lending for new building

[Live4the1]

I realize that this is on a bit of a larger scope than media ministry but I know that there are lots of knowledgeable people here. My church will be buying property and will start building a new church soon. First off, prayers for this endeavor is very much needed and wanted. We have $90-100 thousand in the building fund now and that would buy the property that we are looking at but we would still have to take out a loan for the building. The thoughts are that we should take out a large enough loan to cover the property and building, that way we would have money for the loan down payment since we are being told that property is not regarded as collateral on a loan the way it once was. We would really appreciate any advise or experiences that you all may have on financial institutes that specialize at loaning to churches. We are located in Dickson, TN.

Thanks and God Bless,

Lynn

[tdangelo]

Originally Posted by Live4the1

The thoughts are that we should take out a large enough loan to cover the property and building, that way we would have money for the loan down payment since we are being told that property is not regarded as collateral on a loan the way it once was.

Lynn,

I am confused by that statement. If what you are buying is not acceptable collateral I would wonder that maybe the bank feels the specific property is a poor investment, or the down-payment is too low, or the church is a bad credit risk.

If the church has a good credit track record and a 10% or greater deposit I would think the bank would accept the property as collateral.

[Ebroach]

Live4the1, Its not going to be easy. In the current banking environment its tough for churches getting loans. There are some loan companies that specialize in church loans. I see there advertisements in several of the magazines I read.

We have been in our new building for about 20 months now.. It was a process for us to get a loan. We had 500K in the bank, 13 acres of land paid for.

And it was still difficult to get loans. After several denials we finally ended up at a small local bank that worked with us.

A good source for those companies advertising Church Loans check out Church Facilities Magazine.


http://www.worshipfacilities.com/

[JeffReckart]

being in Middle TN, i wonder if Dave Ramsey might have something to help. Churchill Mortage is the one he always rants about, but they don't do commercial.


Jr