Have any of you ever asked a bank for a small loan ($1,000)?
 

I know nothing about these things. Back when I was working I used the company credit union for loans. They had what they called a "signature loan." On your signature, you could borrow one month's pay, and it would be payroll deducted in 12 payments. Easy as pie.

Now I'm retired, and no longer in the credit union. I have been using a small, local bank, just keeping a small amount in a checking account in order to cash checks. I do not use checks or credit cards. My credit is back good again, after 10 years ago and a financial trainwreck.

The reason I need $1,000. is that I got a quote on replacing the roof and it is for $2,000. Metal roof, well known reputable installer.

I believe the man gave me a serious discount, and I want to get it done before too much time goes by and he may no longer be able to do it for that amount.

My SS will be here, as usual, in about three weeks, and that would give me half the needed amount. I think having at least half the amount necessary would look better to a loan officer than going in with nothing.

So, have any of you ever gone in to ask for a small amount and what was your experience with the bank?

My roof is leaking, the shingles are worn out, 20 years old.

I would think your best bet would be to go in and ask for a line of credit, second option a credit card, and use it only for that purpose since you seem to be able to pay it back quickly

If you can come up with half the money, can you talk to the contractor?

Would he be able to do the work for you if you gave him half up front and then tell him the payment plan you can do with him? (With winter coming, their projects usually slow down or stop, so your monthly checks can help him out there.)

If necessary, give him something as collateral - your car title paper or something like that.

Figure out how much each month you can give him - a number that you are guaranteed you can pay no matter what and show him how quickly he will be paid back - plus throw in an extra month or two as interest.

If that won't work, is there something you can sell to get the money?

You can't wait around with a roof that is already leaking.

Uhhh, not to be a wet blanket. but..... I would question the quote, and doubt it if it is not in writing, in the form of a detailed quote of just what he is going to do for that amount. You won't get many squares done for $2,000, even with a good discount. With roofing that is over twenty years old, and leaking, you may need a complete tear-off, plus new sheathing underneath.....and no one knows just how much sheathing work or patching is needed until the old roofing is torn off.

For financing, why couldn't you go to a new, independent Credit Union? The interest rate will probably much cheaper, and you would stand a better chance of getting a small loan thru them, I think.

And I would be suspicious if the contractor said "Hurry, before I change my discount..." But, you know him better than me, of course, so that's just my way of thinking. Good luck.

geo

A credit card would be your best bet. If things go wrong, you can reverse the charge and make the guy do it right. Did that on a septic tank.........

As to your question on the small loan amount. Hard to say if the bank would make a loan that small. If not, would they do $2000? It would most likely be a simple interest loan and you could pay it off quickly with little finance cost.

The way lenders it look at it. It cost the same to maintain $1000 loan as it does a $100,000. Their income could be 10 times as much on the larger loan................

You must have found the one contractor in a million that would take a credit card for work done. I don't know of a single one.

I started out taking $500 loans 20yrs ago, and up to taking $3000 now. I could get a $1000 loan anytime, but I have a long history with the bank.

Last time we asked for a small loan (less than $5,000) the bank told us to either get a credit card or home equity loan. The ones around here don't do signature loans anymore.

I'm not familiar with the costs of metal roofing. I know a regular shingled roof with tear off and clean up (double layers of shingles are against code here) would cost way more than $2000 even for my small house.

I would think that price is just laying the metal over the old roof. Just saw a bunch of Amish guys do one in a few hours.

When I still had my sign business, I had a job where the materials were going to run $2200.
I tried to get a loan, 90 day, single pay for $1,000. Bank refused to do a loan under $2500.
So I borrowed $2500, had to be paid back within 90 days to get the low interest rate, otherwise it would jump to something like 12%.
So, I signed the paperwork, they issued me a check for $2500, I deposited it in my account, and then wrote them a check for $1500 as a first payment.

Thank you for your responses.

A line of credit sounds promising. It won't hurt anything to go in and ask.

Yes, I have the quote in writing. He was quoting my neighbor's roof and I was over there for supper with them. Their quote is a few hundred more than mine, for a larger house. My house is very small, about 25' x 35', so the square footage is small.

If I have to wait until I can accumulate enough to have the full amount, it will be the middle of November. SS comes once a month. He gave no time limit on the quote, but I would still like to get it all done before winter. The leaks have been caulked for the time being, but I still cringe when a big storm blows through.

Again, thanks for the replies. Good to know one can ask questions here and get many answers and advice.

Have a good Saturday, yall!

Not much smaller than my house. Is it metal sheeting over the shingles? Or tear off shingles and lay metal sheeting?

The answer to your question is "Yes".
I have, the answer was always "No" accompanied with a look of derision, and a comment about "we don't make loans THAT small."
The very reason why I seldom deal with banks and have learned to do without them.
Learn that lesson ASAP.

farmrbrown, I kind of think it would go that way. "Borrow Big or Get Out" like the big boys do. If I were not so reluctant to put the house up for collateral, I'd just borrow against it and fix as much as I could. HOWEVER, I absolutely will not risk it. House is paid for. The economy is going to hit the wall one of these days, and I do not want to be left with a debt like that.

Danaus29, yes, the estimate is for applying the metal over the existing shingles. This company reroofed my other neighbors house this way, and it seems to have been done well.

Around my area, which is not all that populace, there are 4 or 5 credit unions with geographic or other loose srandards for membership. Is there one there you could join in a hurry? If you are willing to do a direct deposit, you kight be able to arrange a signature loan simultaneously.

I borrowed 1000 from my local bank after I returned home from the navy to pay for a divorce. I had a year to pay it back but got that done sooner.
I have seen some credit unions offering 1200 or so loans around here.
Of course, here is not there and things may be different.

This is a horrible idea and I do not recommend it but sometimes you have to do what you must.... payday loan or car title loans. They are extreme on interest.

Do you have anything to pawn?

No, nothing to sell or pawn. Car is 20 years old and falling apart. What possessions I have are old, broken, worn out and of no use or interest to anyone. I have a house full of nothing of value.

I have hesitated on getting a quote to reroof, thinking it would be thousands of dollars, and now wish I'd gone ahead and asked. I could have had it saved up by now. As they say: "hindsight is perfect."

The thought occurred to me a little while ago; remember the report that came out some time ago about how most Americans could not come up with $1000 for an emergency? Well, this is sort of like that, not an emergency, but it points out how hard it is to get together a certain amount of money for something.

It takes so much now to eat and pay the utilities. The money just evaporates and you look around and wonder where it went. I read an article about this inflation and how the dollar has been devalued. In 1971, when I first went to work, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. Today, it takes $9.83 cents to buy what that $1.60 bought then. I bought a new car on that wage in 1971.

Thanks again for the replies and suggestions. I am mulling over some things to try. If nothing else, I will have enough by the end of November, if things do not go haywire between then and now. I'm just all afire to get'er done now.

Thanks everyone!

I would think you can get a home equity line of credit from the bank that holds your note (or did if you own it free and clear).

Never ever use a payday loan or title loan.

I actually just did a small loan for a van. I only wanted $2000.00, but they said to get me a good interest rate they could only do a minimum of $5000.00. The girl I deal with said, if you do not need it all, you can simply turn right around and give me the part you do not need back, as soon as I deposit the funds to your account and you will not pay any interest on that part. So I guess what I am saying is they may not do $1000.00 but even of they do $10,000.00 as soon as they finalize the loan and deposit the money into your account, just turn right around and pay $9000.00 back, no extra interest and you still have your $1000.00 loan.

My local bank is an independently owned small town bank. They will do smaller loans at 10% interest, which is rather high, but if you pay it off fast, it won't be that much. I borrowed $1500.00 a few years back and paid it off in 5 months. But I'd been banking with that bank for 10 years -- don't know if they would do that for someone new.

I been at the same bank near 45 years :thumb: Bought a car once an just wrote a check for it . Called the bank a few days later and told them I needed to come an see about a loan . Guy at the bank said you sure do the car dealer call to see if your check was any good :facepalm: This was in the days of slow moving checks .:lookout:

Most they can do is say no !

DONT USE A PAYDAY LOAN COMPANY VERY VERY BAD
hire a man to put plastic over the roof until you can get the money together.

Last time I ask my local bank for a small loan they wanted my birthright :shocked:. That was about twenty years ago. Had perfect credit overall as well as a perfect history with the bank.
Decided after that to carry my business wherever the most convient and best offer was. And for small loans of several thousand $ that has always been credit cards. However I'm rather disciplined and rarely carry debt for long.
Maybe your bank will do better but that's my story.

Try Prosper. It's a way to get loans from strangers. The whole amount doesn't have to come from the same person. You might have 20 or more lenders on one loan, but Prosper handles all the payment distribution so you only have to make one payment each month. Pretty cool really. I've been loaning money through it for a few years. It's outlawed in some states and the minimum loan is $2,000, but it's worth a try and there's no penalty for paying it off early. There are other sites like it but I think the state bans apply to all of them.

I remember my first attempt to borrow 500 dollars from our local small town bank to purchase a tractor. I was told that money was tight and they wanted to hang on to what little they had in order to loan to their long time customers if they needed it. I then went to another bank who was happy to loan me the money, I bought the tractor, payed them back and now thirty some years later I have had both banks call wanting me to borrow from them. The first 15 years or so most of my loans were in the 5 hundred to 1k range. Some were secured, others were signature only.

You can always ask. The worst they can do is to say no. Like others mentioned, you can always take out more if you have to and turn around and use some of those funds to immediately pay back the loan or you could check into a different credit union. Lots of places have credit unions where you can join simply because you live in the area.

If you do decide to go the route where you take out more than is needed in order to get a better rate or because the bank will only do a little larger loan make sure that you check and see if they have any penalty for early payments and to make sure that you can do an extra payment that is toward the principle only. Otherwise it might not be as good a deal as it appeared to be.

My credit union will do up to 5,000 on a signature loan.

Stay away from payday loans and credit cards if you can. The rates are sky high and you never know what happens in life. You might fully intend to pay it off early but if something happens and you can't then you are stuck with a high interest rate.

Wow. This is a neat site. I put in my info with an income of $18,000.00 a year for a $2,000. loan (the minimum), and was approved for a 6.75% rate over three years. I didn't read the fine print to see if I can pay it off early without penalty, but if so, this would be a great deal for the OP.
Hmm -- apparently I can borrow, but can't become a lender in my state. Pits -- it looks like a good investment opportunity.

Alice, please let us know how you decide to go with this. Of course, pics of your completed roof would be nice. :)

Here are going to be the problems:

A small loan requires about the same paperwork as a big loan. If they loan out $10,000, or loan out $1,000, it costs them an hour of time, a bunch of paper, some filings and credit searches, and so on. They will make some money on the $10,000 loan. On your small $1,000 loan, will they get $100 from you? Won't pay for the costs they have in the loan, it is a losing deal to them.

As well, banking regulations got real odd after the big bank failures a couple years ago. To punish the big banks for needing bailout, the govt passed a whole bunch of rules that punish the good banks that didnt fail and cause them all sorts of extra paperwork and garbage.... They need to do stress tests on most of their loans - this means it doesn't matter what you have to secure the loan - you could put down a free and clear $1,000,000 property to secure your $1,000 loan and it still wouldn't be 'right' for the new govt rules..... You know typical govt, close the barn door after the horses are out, THRN punish the horses that stayed in the barn on their own, don't do nothing to the horses that escaped.....

Now, the govt desperately wants the stock market to work, and desperately needs interest rates to remain very low to service the national debt. The Feds will do anything to keep it so. These polices are really abusing loan rates, and making it very hard for a bank to make anything on loans. Its complicated, but the more the Feds support stocks and low interest rates, the more it messes up bank loans, making them about worthless to the banks.

Put all together, and these small loans are a terrible hassle for the honest banks that are left. Thanks, Feds.......

It just is real hard for a regular bank to make anything on a small loan these days.

Paul

I would talk to the roofer as well. If you can pay enough up front to cover the materials then make a oayment plan to cover the labor over the next 6-12 months and include some extra to make it worth his while.

If you dont have enough to cover the material i doubt he will do it...

Also you need to be very careful but if you shop around you can find a credit card that will have a very attractive "intro rate" that likely will be lower than a signature loan. After 6 months it will jump to 12-15% but for the first 6 will be something like 3.99. Charge the half on that and get it paid off before the intro rate expires.

Hey gang! I'm just going to let it ride for right now. I have SS coming in every month, and I'll just put as much back as I can and try to get it done later.

I do not like to borrow money or be in debt.

Now that I have an estimate, I have something to work toward, and can encourage myself to save up enough to get it done.

I thank all of you for your contributions to the conversation, all are appreciated.

When I do get the work done, I'll let you all know. Sorry, Pony, I don't have a camera and don't have a clue as to how to put up pictures. Best I could do would be give you the pic the Google car took earlier this year when it went by :D.

Have a pleasant day, everyone. The weather is looking great for the rest of the week here.

I get
 

up to 3000$ 0n my signature, they once gave me 5000 on my autograph..
state bank auditors gave 'em 'ell so they told me they were going to require collateral over 3 grand from then on...i have a proven track record and if i purchase a large implement or tractor on a term note ,and then can;t pay it when due,I give them 10% and interest and they extend the note for another term...i talked to them and I can write a check on Sat. and go in Mon and cover it by taking out a loan and depositing it in my checking accoun..just have to communicate with them.:thumb:

Please talk to your contractor. I'm willing to bet he'll work with you for the business. He's not a large corporation. For such a small amount, if you could give him half of the payment upon completion, I bet he'd work with you on the rest.

We're funding a renovation without loans because I had to file bankruptcy during my past divorce. My credit is just now building and any interest rates offered to me are terrible. DF was a student and never bothered to build credit (ignorant to it, as he came from an old fashioned family) so he gets crappy offers too. I refuse to get tangled up in high interest rates right now so we save and do a little at a time, and we've found contractors are not scary, money hungry monsters and a little honesty goes a long way. Some won't work with you, but some will. :)

Use a credit card. Most banks won't give you a loan under $5,000 these days. There are, however, TONS of credit cards which offer 0% interest rates for 12-15 months. I use them fairly regularly for small loans, then I pay them off before the introductory interest rate wears off and cancel them. You really can't beat a one year 0% interest loan :P

I think signature loans diappeared with the doo doo bird. I'd talk to the contractor and see if you can't work out some kind of payment plan.

Bob

One half the country has no idea how the other half lives :sing:
Here our doo doo birds are doing just fine :thumb:

We haven't really had a bank loan for 20+yrs, but back then we would just go in and ask the loan officer for the loan. They put the $ directly into the checking account for us to access as needed. I think the last loan we got was in the late 80s or early 9os for $800. We just signed the 2yr loan agreement, and then got the money in the checking account. It was similar to how you get a car loan or house loan, but a lot less paperwork because it is such a small amount.

If money's that tight, one could put it on theirselves.... it's really not that difficult, if one can climb a ladder. A square of metal and screws costs me less than $60.... that's enough for over 3000 sq. feet of roof...