Customer financing

I have never offered customer financing. Well, let me take that back. I did help out a very few select customers in the past. I let them pay me back over time as they got paid from their work. One was a single mom raising two teenagers. Super human being. It was a real pleasure to help her out.

If you are wealthy, you can offer your own financing. You can charge interest too. Make sure you do some background checks on the customer first. You would be surprised at how many customers have previous judgements against them.

There are companies that you can work with to offer financing. Of course they carry fees and this will cut into your profit margin. You can either absorb that loss to your margin and collect that money up front and let the customer pay back the financing entity over time. The other option is a little more risky as you can price yourself out of the job. You can increase your bid to cover that financing fee so that you don't impact your margin at all. Unfortunately, the customer may think that the few extra hundred dollars or thousand dollars is more than they are willing to pay.

In all honesty, I have met with over 2,000 home owners, and only two or three have ever asked if I offer customer financing.

I did have a few people ask me to repair their home so they can sell it and they would pay me back when the house sells. I obviously said no to those individuals. A house could take months or even years to sell. Hell, it may not even sale at all. You just never know. I definitely would avoid that risk.