This member’s original request was for a $2,000 loan, but his application was denied because of too much existing debt. After receiving that decision, he called back with questions and I was the one who spoke to him. After I answered his questions, and learned the original loan was to pay for his dog’s surgery, I checked on the value of his home and offered to see if an equity loan to consolidate his high rate debt would be a good solution. He liked that idea, so we got started on his equity loan application. When the approval came back, I noticed a full pre-paid appraisal report would be required. I knew he wouldn’t have the amount needed to pay for the report, so I quickly came up with another option to help take care of it. I created an additional application for a Personal Line of Credit, and noted the funds would be used to pay for the full appraisal report, pay off an existing auto loan with us, AND there would be enough left to pay for his dog’s surgery. When I submitted it for a decision, the application came back APPROVED! When I called him back to explain what we could do, he happily accepted the Personal Line of Credit deal to take care of those few expenses, which put him in a better situation to get an equity loan to pay off his other high rate debt.
The appraisal report came back a couple of weeks later, and the $100,000 Advantage Equity loan funded shortly after that. We were able to pay off another existing auto loan and paid off ALL of his (and his wife’s) unsecured credit card debt. We lowered their total monthly payments by over $1,000.00 and he will no longer be struggling to pay all of those individual credit card balances here & there. And most importantly, his dog is doing GREAT!
