Builder Loans

While home foreclosures pile up due to the greed of “house flippers” and irresponsible predatory creditors, builders in the pool and spa industry are left to suffer. With lenders, such as Key Bank and GE Money no longer putting any stake in the home improvement market, we are seeing FICO scores of 700-740 being turned down for pool loans.

“The feeling around the industry is that we’re children/victims of a broken marriage (creditors and borrowers being the parents)”, says one professional. “How are we able to build pools and stay in business when customers homes’ LTV has dipped by as much as $120,000? There is no equity left to secure the “pool loan!”

The truth is, we’ve stood by and watched all of the high-fives and profit taking from both sides as the housing bubble grew bigger and bigger. Investors came out of the woodworks to capture (I prefer steal) their piece of the pie. They had no intention of actually living in their new home. There was no desire to improve their property value and quality of life by adding a pool or spa. They only cared about their position on the “pyramid”. Unfortunately for many, their position was the last one on the list.

Now everyone wants to bail out the irresponsible homeowners and creditors. I ask; who’s going to bail out the builders in the pool and spa industry? We didn’t sell pools 100 times then what they were worth! We didn’t invest in something we knew was unaffordable!

We are entrepreneurial citizens that contribute to the economy, provide jobs to the workforce, and pay our bills and taxes. When is the legislation going to stand up for us and take action on the credit industries ill behavior?