Money woes

Well, we visited the bank today and not all the news is good. None of the news is really bad, but it could be better. Basically, we have a home equity loan right now that we took out to pay for all our new flooring and for our sunroom. The amount we borrowed was not the most we could have, based on our equity. We thought that the amount we had in equity was enough to cover the roughly $47,000 we would need to put down on the house to get it started. But it is not - we can only borrow another $18,000 on that equity loan, because of the appraised value of our home at the time the loan was created.

To get more, we need the house to be reappraised, and that will take a minimum of 7 to 10 days. After that, assuming it appraises for at least $250,000 (which it should), then we'd get a check 3 days later. So 10 to 15 days is the soonest we could get the money. We wanted to be able to tell Tom to start. Now.

So we're looking at options. We don't know anyone we can borrow $47,000 from or even $30,000 from for no more than a month. A personal loan is probably out of the question (it can be done, but we would have to pay at least one payment, and based on the years to pay and the interest rate, it is a lot for one payment). The banker suggested a loan on a 401K, and I have that much, but I know from experience that it takes at least a couple of weeks to process the paperwork and get a check.

So, we called Tom and asked him if he would take $17,000 as seed money to get everything started that he needed to start, and then take the remaining $30,000 once the appraisal is done and the waiting period is over. Unfortunately, I had to leave him a message about this, so we don't know if it is something he can consider or not. $17,000 is a lot of money, but I don't know if it covers all of his costs that he would incur in the next few weeks, with the permitting, blueprints, and all whatever other crap he needs cash for.

So right now, we're waiting to hear from him, to see what his thoughts are.