I won't bore you with the long ugly saga of our construction loan but suffice it to say we got a big dose of "Big Corporate Bank". 35 years of banking relationship and 6 months of regular loan meetings at CCB/SunTrust ended up being worth less than a cup of coffee when 2 days before our closing (and with construction already started), having outsourced loan decisions to folks in Georgia, we were informed that we couldn't have a loan because our house design "had features that lacked broad appeal to the wider market". They were adamant that there were no financial or credit issues--only DESIGN issues. They'd had the plans for 6 months and they wait for 48 hours before closing to decide our house is too weird?!?!?! Our local SunTrust friends were fantastic through the whole thing but when the people in the best position to make decisions about loans are no longer allowed to make those decisions it is time for a new bank. Thanks to a referral from our builder Leon, we met Larry Loeser, the president of Harrington Bank in Chapel Hill. WOW. Talk about night and day. We had our approval in a day and who do you think comes out to the job site every month to approve draw requests? Larry. He showed up to meet Ellen and I out there on Monday sporting blue jeans and a Michael Jordan T shirt and brought us lunch from Subway. We gave him the 10$ tour and walked down to the stream to get the lay of the land. I can't tell you what a breath of fresh air it is to find a banker that really walks the local service talk and invests in your dreams because they think you are doing an interesting and worthy project rather than only loaning money for the lowest common denominator thing that checks all the right safe boxes. Thank you Larry!! I forgot to bring my camera to lunch so you get only words today.
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