Debbie Whitlock of Great White Express Car Wash discusses her experience working with Stone Bank SBA Division President Vinny Muratore.
“I was introduced to (Stone Bank SBA Division President) Vinny Muratore through our loan broker who had done some work with him in the past. We needed to refinance our first car wash before we could get started with the build of a second one.
We had talked to nine other potential banks to refinance the first car wash. It was a difficult situation. Our opening year was 2020. Due to COVID, we had about one fourth as many cars as we had projected so our financials weren’t super strong. Several banks would look at the numbers and say, “Yeah, we can’t do this. You’re going to have to wait another couple of years.”
We started talking with Vinny and I walked him through the situation and the complexity of it. He wasn’t scared at all. He just said, “Okay, then. Let’s get a plan.” It wasn’t a closed door. Any time there was a problem, they said “Okay, let’s figure out what we have to do to get past this.” He was solution oriented.
We had been thinking we would need to refinance with an SBA loan. Vinny introduced us to the idea of using a USDA loan if our area qualified. And it did. We wound up refinancing the first one with a USDA loan which allowed us to use a SBA loan on site number two.
Working with Stone Bank and Vinny was great. It probably wasn’t the typical refinance that they might get to do. But it was very encouraging to us to have both Vinny and Andrew talk with us several times on the phone. Nothing ever really felt like they thought it was impossible.”
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