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Updated almost 6 years ago on . Most recent reply
Local banks for operations account - Houston Tx
Since starting in real estate about 10 years ago, I've only moved my operations account twice (started at Chase, moved to WF, then later to a local bank where I've been a long time). Since I do everything online, since everything is auto drafted, since our vendors pay us online (including our property management software and much more), and since we use a lot of features of our current bank (check scanning, credit cards, online access for our wires, statements, etc) it's a LOT of work to move operations accounts. We normally give ourselves 2 full months of keeping both in action to work out bugs with our vendors before pulling the plug and even then we find things we missed (some random vendor will auto draft out of our old account)
In fact, even asking this question is starting to make me dread the thought of switching.
That said -- it's time. For the last ~5 years I've had a great relationship with a local bank in Houston. Having done tens of millions in loans. Met their sr. officers, and my rep is like family. However, due to some reasons I'd rather not get into it may be time to move on to another bank. I'd love to stick with a local bank as giving a bank your operations account is the best thing you can do, 'relationship' wise, to help to secure new lending with the best terms. However, local banks tend to have the weakest online products. i.e., janky web access, everything designed to be done on paper, etc. That doesn't fit at all with the way I run my business (I view us as a tech company that just happens to have apartments as the product).
Soooo. Does anyone have any local banks they use and love in Houston? Any they use and hate? Any feedback would be appreciated. I realize I can get great online with the big guys, but no way I'm giving my operations account and the majority of my deposits to a bank that doesn't lend to me (and I've had way more luck with local banks than the big banks since most of my deals tend to have some hair on them)