National Bank vs Credit Union

[Zach Grim]

I feel that opening an account and building a relationship with a credit union over a national bank will offer more benefits. What are your opinions?

[Doug Smith]

Great questions. I was a banking executive for more than 25 years prior to joining Castle Rock. I have worked for some of the biggest banks in the world and, later in my career, I went to smaller community banks. Here's the skinny. Big banks now staff with robots and provide banking services like they are running an assembly line. If you are looking for a bank that will think outside of the box, I wouldn't work with a big bank. Credit Unions are cheap and they have super-low goals for employees, but they also tend to pay very little to employees, therefore they tend to also be unable to think outside of the box. I would go with a smaller community bank where the person you are actually talking to (typically the person running the office) has underwriting authority of some sort. They are usually seasoned bankers that are more customer service oriented. Community banks, however, do have different appetites for the types of loans that they do. One community bank I worked for would not, under any circumstances, lend to a real estate investors. Others do a ton of it. I would go to your county clerk's website and use their search function. Pull mortgages/deeds of trust that they have done in the past year and see if some were for rental/investment property. I would go to one of those banks that do that and establish my relationship there. Good luck! I hope that helps.