SB: Persuasive words for the bank...

["Keith Rowe" <keithrowe@ezpost.com>]

Kellie,

Okay, I think the first thing we need to do is to stop thinking like a
reasonable human being with reasonable human concerns and wants, and begin
to think like a bank(for once I am NOT being sarcastic or condescending
here, just realistic). If I am a bank(which I'm not) I want answers to some
tough questions that will make me confident the assets I lend you will be
repaid, and that I have security against them.

For example, as the banker I want to know that you can give me some
security, like your land, and that the land in question has enough of your
equity into it that I can get my money back if I have to foreclose on you.

I want to know that you have the wherewithall to pay the loan off, in the
form of income or assets. Or that you have someone to co-sign that does.
(Nothing forces us to swallow pride faster than having to get someone
co-sign)

As your banker, unless you happen to see a Greenpeace bumper sticker on my
car, I will not give two hoots about the environmental aspect of your home,
how beautiful it will be, or what the r-value is. I want to know that you
will finish it, that you have no imagination, and that it will look just
like everybody else's.

As your banker I do not want to be forever known as " The Loans Officer
Formerly Known as ----- who lent the crazy people money to build their house
of straw and when we went to foreclose it was worthless."


Okay, enough of the negativity, I'm just saying that the bank comes at this
from a different place than you and I.

I would try this approach. I would say in my letter that there are XXX
thousand people right now living in straw bale houses, and that by in large
they are very similar to other houses, they even appear the same from the
outside. The difference is that the exterior walls are made of straw bale
covered in stucco, a combination which happens to be the meanest, toughest,
best insulating, most fireproof, environmentally friendly thing there is.
Stress the points about your house that are similar to the guy next door's
house so the banker sees that all you really want is money to build a house
just like everybody else's.

Also a great weapon in your arsenal is if you could invite an appraiser out
to your place to show them the beautiful location and the plans. Explain
that you want bank money and could he do up an estimate on what he thought
the place would be worth when complete. Even better if you can get him in
the car first and go show him a few willing people's COMPLETED projects.
Nothing removes skepticism like standing in one of these beautiful homes. If
he'd do it, you can then take his unbiased opinion to the bank. Even if it's
conservative you now have a value for the place that you can take to the
banker. As a banker, I like numbers, plus I like to see you've done your
homework. 

Personally, I am as much of a granola head as the next baler, but that is
the LAST thing in the world you want to appear. You want to sound like a
normal person, building a mostly normal house, and that you have done your
homework to provide the bank with the answers THEY want to hear. If that
doesn't work, build a little wall of bales and stucco and drive over it with
your car in their parking lot while a friend holds a tiger torch on the
stucco to prove how good these things are...

Good luck, and use these same train of thoughts when you go to get
insurance. I went to my broker, stood up tall and said: "I have built my
house this way, it is basically fireproof, and I can prove it with empirical
data. Because of this I want a break on my insurance."   I then sent him the
really cool fire video where the wall laughed at the blast furnace. The
answer came back that "Sorry, but we can't give you a break on your
insurance, we can only give you the regular rate for your size of house."
Mission accomplished! I don't think it would have worked out quite the same
way if I'd said "Um... I built a house of straw. Will you insure me?"

Regards
Keith Rowe









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