Answers · Comparing Your Options
When should I not borrow at all?
Don't borrow when the exit is hope instead of a plan, when the payment only works in your best crop year, or when you are borrowing to defend a mistake. Short-term money needs a defined exit — sale, refinance, or contracted income — visible on day one. No exit, no loan, from us or anyone.
The bridge-loan failure mode is borrowing against an optimistic future: land bought at auction fever with no refinance takeout lined up, a balloon that assumes appraisals only rise, a plan that requires the best yield in ten years to service debt. Stress-test the exit: if the refinance lender says no and the land takes a year to sell, what happens? If the answer is "I lose the farm," the loan is mispriced risk no matter the rate.
Other clear no-borrow situations: debt to cover operating losses with no change in the operation (that is a business problem wearing a financing costume), borrowing when selling an underused parcel solves it cleaner, and leverage on top of leverage — a second loan to service the first is the oldest chapter in the farm-crisis book. Sometimes the right capital is a partner, a lease, or patience.
The useful discipline is total-cost honesty: a 24-month bridge has a knowable all-in dollar cost. Write that number down and ask whether the opportunity clears it with room to spare. If the deal only works when nothing goes wrong, it does not work.
The Turnrow angle
We decline deals without a credible exit — a defaulting borrower is a bad outcome for us too, and saying "don't take this loan" is part of the job. When the exit is real, we will put the structure and the timeline in writing within 48 hours.
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