Just finally closed on N690GF. I had posted back in April,2021 about financing N690GF. Bruce Byerly was helping me with the purchase of the aircraft. Thought I would post an update may be helpful to some folk that may be in the market for Twin Commander.
I purchased a Piper Matrix back in 2018 at the time I did not even have a PPL. I finished my PPL in an Archer then did all my IFR training in the Piper Matrix. Flew that for about 550 hours and decided to upgrade to Twin Commander 690B. Piper Matrix with the Release R9 was a great airplane but an airplane with a lot of limits. Buying the first airplane was an interesting experience.
I am in the real estate investment business and have owned a pretty sizable portfolio of properties with a huge amount of equity and we continue to buy. Never been turned down for a loan on real estate but buying an aircraft the financing is looked at a bit differently. I clearly did not know that. I had a lot of cash sitting in properties that I own free and clear but as Adam Frisch pointed out your assets don't count. I had to show other accounts with a lot of cash which I never have to when it comes to real estate but I am not in the airplane business so I just did not know what they were looking for.
AirFleet Capital did the loan on the Piper Matrix with 15% down. Since I had paid off that airplane off in 2 years I thought they would be happy to underwrite the loan on the Twin Commander. The answer was - we would love to do the financing but just buy a jet and we can finance it. Twin Commander due to the older airframe could not be financed.
So I went to a few more places but all of them either said no or after 2 weeks came back with the same answer. Just buy a jet. Finance is not a problem for a jet or a newer a turbine airplane but not for an older airframe on the Twin Commander.
At times I doubted my own judgement if I was making the right choice in buying a 690B. According to Bruce a pair of -10 with 800 hours great engine times newly overhauled props. Dual Garmin 600 panel, GTN 750 & 650 with 2100 auto pilot is a great setup. I couldn't find anything that would do what a 690 could do for the money. I considered buying a M500 and a CJ. The M500 would be easy to get trained in since I had a Piper Matrix. CJ would be tough with only having 600 or so total hours. Plus the CJ1 would not even get me from Chicago to Fort Myers with four or five people and bags without a stop for fuel. I decided to stick with the 690B. From the research I did I could not find anything that would do what a 690B could do for the money both in terms of the purchase price, fuel burn & expected maintenance. I would have to spend significantly more money on purchase and fuel etc.
That lead to my post in April, 2021 on the forum trying to see if there were any resources. Mark S. & Adam Frisch both pretty much suggested to go to the local bank. I had almost decided to pay cash for it but it didn't make sense to do that. I ended up going to the bank I have done business with for years they know me and as Adam suggested they know the assets and are willing to read the balance sheet rather than just the taxable income. I just seemed crazy that even though I had enough cash sitting in the business that could have paid for the airplane 4 or 5 times over with no debt on the business the lenders would not even look at the airplane because of the year of airframe.
In the end my local lender ended up doing the loan. Like Mark S. suggested the chairman of the bank is a pilot and owns a jet and he was willing to do the loan. Even though they do not typically do aircraft loans I guess they knew us and did not have any issue.
The terms were as follows.
30% down. 4.5% with a 10 year term.
Probably not the best terms but I did not care at this point. Fortunately I was not that downpayment, rate or term sensitive financially but did not know that financing an older airframe would be such a headache. Fortunately as soon as I submitted the app I was able to get them moving pretty quickly. Just wanted to thank Mark S. & Adam Frisch for their suggestion. I had not considered just asking my local bank that had a long term relationship.
I just wanted to post this in the hope that it may help anyone else looking for financing on an older airframe. I am new whole aviation industry and as an aircraft owner to begin with and totally new to the Twin Commander world. May be it's just me but I suspect that many folks may run into the same issue I did.