Loan Zone: Home improvement
Arkansas CU offers options to homeowners who may not quality for home equity loans.
In this bigger-is-better world, sometimes it’s beneficial to remember the small(er) things credit unions can do to help their members. Mortgages are a major source of income for financial institutions, but what if your member already owns a home and needs help with renovations?
Telcoe Federal Credit Union, Little Rock, Ark., has been offering a solution since 1968, when CEO Sarah Mosley, a CUES member, heard about a home improvement loan product and thought it would be a good to help homeowners in the area.
Karla Walls, mortgage manager for the $354 million CU, says, “Back then, there weren’t equity loans, so there wasn’t that option for a second mortgage. So you were doing some kind of unsecured loan. In 1970, the average cost of a home was $10,000. … A member called in because they were getting water to their neighborhood and needed to cover the cost of the line to reach the city utilities. This could exceed $3,000. Unsecured loans in that amount were not heard of at the time.”
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