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East Arkansas | I always heard that you would outgrow your bank... First a little history; I started farming 8 years ago after my father retired. I have been able to add acres at a fairly stable pace after the first couple of years, I guess people had to see I was serious. When I started farming I farmed 800 acres and I had a net worth of around 400,000 dollars. When I started I needed 240,000 dollars to farm and my lender had to take vehicles and crops as collateral as I had no farm assets. We are in a crop share area so we don't have the big swings that you might see in the midwest.
Flash forward to today and I am farming nearly 4,000 acres with a net about 4 times higher than 8 years ago and I need around 1,500,000 to operate. Here's the rub, when I approached the bank this year they got a little squeamish with me (I picked up 1,000 acres this year) and took 5 weeks to approve my loan all the while assuring me things were fine. A good friend at a competing bank made me an offer within 2 weeks with lower interest rate to boot.
I really hate to leave my current bank as I like my loan officer but they always seem to try to short change me on the money I need to make a crop and I didn't appreciate the holdup this year.
What say you??? Flame Away!!
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Changing Bank-- and feel bad about it
