Customer Testimonial 👏

See why Pueblo local developer, Jim, goes to FirstOak for all his construction lending needs.

Transcript

My name is Jim Gilbertson and I do work with FirstOak Bank

I’m a developer. I work with residential home, custom-built homes, and do a lot of commercial projects as well so construction loans are often loans that I seek and I’ve felt very comfortable with FirstOak.

When I was first looking to build my first home out in the vistas which is a subdivision that I have. I looked around for some of the better construction lenders in town.

I do know a lot of the banks and have done business with a lot of banks in town but when I cam across Jim Staley, I found that he was very knowledgeable in the construction business and he wasn’t just a lender but he understood the markets he knew a lot of the builders and what was being built and he knew the costs of what a lot of these guys were doing and so he was very helpful in the big picture for me to help me know I was on the right page.

So from that point I knew that that was the guy that I was comfortable using.

I did build a relationship with Jim. We talked often and I’ll bounce things off him at times. Because like I said, he has more knowledge than some of these other bankers and not just about getting a mortgage. But he has he’s got knowledge about many areas of the real estate business and he understands construction very well.

As I did my first build with him the way we did the draws and how he looked over the draws. and we kept to the numbers, it was helpful. It wasn’t like walking into a bank and grabbing a loan somewhere. He was very knowledgeable and helpful specifically with what I was trying to do. He is a go-to guy. I can call him up and chat.

I often am out of the box with a lot of projects Im doing and I’m very creative when it comes to finance. Some of the guys I work with have to be willingness to work along with me on some of these creative type of deals I do.

One of the homes I built with FirstOak Bank, I had a customer who wanted to do a lease option and so we took it from a construction loan and extended it into a lease option to purchase.

It’s very ironic that we’re talking about that now because Jim if you are listening I am paying it off today.

The customer is buying the house as the contract read. We leased it to them for 3 years and now he’s buying and closing on it today.

Without Jim’s loan and willingness work with me to go from a construction loan to a regular loan until he closes on the house was very helpful.

I do appreciate that and I’m sure I will be doing a few more things with them.