As far as June Crain Griffy is concerned, more businesspeople facing tough loan payments should take a look at the Small Business Administration's new refinance program for business owners.

"It hasn't succeeded quite at the level we had hoped," she said. Griffy is with Enchantment Land Certified Development Co., a firm that works closely with the SBA.

But that means there's still time to apply.

The new program, Griffy explained, "is designed to assist businesses [that] may need to refinance an existing loan but may find it difficult to do so because appraisals are much lower than they were a few years ago."

That means a business' real-estate loan taken out three to five years ago may have a call feature that will require the bank to request a new appraisal to comply with banking regulations, Griffy said.

The new refinance program can help because it allows for the SBA to do a second mortgage supporting the bank for 40 percent of the loan amount — which can be up to 90 percent of the business' appraised value — without additional collateral or cash injection, Griffy said.

One local Santa Fe businessman who took advantage of the new program with the help of Griffy is Brian Lock of Santa Fe Brewing Co.

The SBA loan program "mostly came to my attention as a part of my refinancing my building," Lock said. "I was looking at other options" to do that.

"I worked with my banker Max Myers at New Mexico Bank and Trust," Lock said. "And with June Griffy of Enchantment Land Certified Development Co."

Lock ended up with a new loan at a 4.69 percent fixed rate for 20 years on the SBA portion of the loan. The loan process started for Lock in April and concluded in early September.

"The original lender was taken out of the loan altogether," Griffy said. "They got paid off."

As it turned out, the SBA held 40 percent of the new loan and New Mexico Bank and Trust the other 60 percent.

Lock said getting the new loan "was not an easy process. I don't know how we could have done it" without Griffy.

With the help of the loan, Lock said his brewery has been growing in the five states where he sells his products. "Our growth in Colorado is up 60 percent year over year," he said. "It's been a good growth state for us."

Max Myers of New Mexico Bank and Trust said the SBA program "is a great program for anybody who is buying the property they used to lease."

Myers also said Griffy "needs to be involved" in the refinancing process because it's a somewhat complex transaction. "She knows the regulations and changes that are coming from the SBA. You see new ones coming out just about every week. You have to have somebody like June (Griffy), or you're not going to get it done."

Myers estimated that New Mexico Bank and Trust had done about five or six SBA loans in the last 18 months in the Santa Fe market. "For us that's a pretty good volume."

Griffy said the new program can also assist businesses that, through no fault of their own, find it difficult to finance because their former bank failed and their loans are now held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

"Unfortunately, Santa Fe has several businesses in this position, as our community has had more than one bank failure in recent years," she said.

For more information, call Griffy at 595-264-9929.

Guidelines

The basic guidelines for the new SBA  refinance program are as follows:

* Commercial real estate must be at least 51 percent owner occupied.

* The debt to be refinanced must be at least 2 years old.

* The business must have been operating for the previous two years.

* The loan to be refinanced must have been used to finance SBA 504 “eligible assets.”

* Loan payments must have been current for the 12 months immediately prior to the application.

* The maximum loan-to-value is 90 percent without other collateral.

* Federally guaranteed loans are not eligible for refinance.

* The business must employ at least one person for every $65,000 in SBA funds.

For more information, call June Crain Griffy at 595-264-9929.