I would ask that question to the bank, which could mean several banks or lenders to find one that will work with you.

I can't see any reason why any bank would refuse to finance at 70% loan to value for commercial property.

The last time we looked into buying our own building the bank would finance a maximum of 75% fixed for 15 years.

Even if they want a personal guarantee....so what?

If the business fails it will be you who's out the $30,000 down payment as the bank should have no problem getting their money back at 70% loan to value.

Usually when you finance 75% loan to value or more you don't even have to produce any profit/loss statements or even prove income as the word risk has already been removed from the bank's transaction because of your substantial down payment.

That issue is one thing that's missed with many of the discussions on this board. The fact that you don't have financing problems if you can put at least 25% of your own money into the transaction.

__________________
Gary Spicuzza, *SAFE
Copyright 1956.
No Rights Reserved.
*Self Appointed Financial Expert

I have been in small business finance for the past 12 years. In my experience, if you are looking to finance a $100,000 commercial real estate property, a traditional lender will require a personal guarantee from any principal owner of 20% or more. The only non-recourse loans that I have come accross are for larger corporations on much larger loan amounts.

What is your concern with the personal guarantee?

Symtek offers step by step process to achieve business loans with no personal guarantee.

What is the step by step process to obtain business lines of credit with out a personal guarantee?

We are finding that many property owners are owner financing the whole freaking thing for little down. I just spoke with a 3 unit strip center that is has a month gross of 1500.00 and they are asking 80k or take over the note of 750.00 per month. Taxes, CAM, and pain-in-the-a%% factors negate the other 750.00 in gross profit but deal after deal are being brought to us for review. Pull tax records and deal with the owner, if not, move to the next deal!

Small owner run business getting most banks to finance with you as the operating owner signing your life to it is fairly slim, unless they figure there is a business or property they could unload really fast.

You see many of these small businesses collapse if anything happens to the owner and cleaning up your property to sell it can be expensive.

The personal Guarantee is not always required. It depends on the property and the strenght of the borrower and the deal.

We do non-recourse deals which do not require a personal guarantee on owner occupied commercial reaL estate.

Rob Hall