At ropes end! Please someone help me figure out how to get financing for my rental business!

Hi, I'm a 52 year old male who has been in the rental business for some 20 years and has fallen upon hard times of late. Went to the small business development center a while back and they told me my business is not considered a business but a speculative business and no funds could be obtained there for improvements to my business or to help me get my finances in order. I thought ALL businesses are speculative businesses as when people open their doors they're speculating that someone will come in and buy something from them??

Anyhow, to get the whole matter on the table, I was renting to what turned out to be mostly illegal Hispanic workers who were working at area poultry plants and in 2006 our park got raided and they can no longer work at the poultry plant and almost the entire rental units that I own became vacant. Through a good bit of borrowing and hard work I have managed to get about 32-36 of the 52 units I own back up and rented to mostly whites and blacks but most of the other units aren't good enough for the whites and blacks and I need money (hopefully some sort of grant) to get more up to date housing for these people. I really don't want to go into how hard it is to get money out of the whites and blacks and how hard it is to get them evicted when they won't pay but will if asked for those details.

Anyhow, there are factories in the area and I've found that I can rent 3 BR 2BA homes all day long to people and probably can get a better quality of people but I really need to totally revamp my main park that has 24 trailers as of current and get at least 15 of the homes replaced. I'm hoping to buy these homes from repo centers for $5-7000 each and with moving expenses I expect to have to about $10,000 in each home. I currently am in debt to one bank for $210,000 and barely making those payments and one other bank I owe $120,000 and making those payments on time. I have several tracts of land that these trailers are on but they are all secured. 4 of the tracts are at an Interstate 16 Interchange. I know my land is worth MUCH more than the bank is using for collateral as I have 24 mobile homes, 3 deep wells and 12 septic tanks on one tract at the Interstate that is on 10.9 acres of land surrounded by highways on three sides. They also have another 5.36 acres of land that has frontage on a corner near Interstate 16 that has about 600' of frontage on two state highways, plus they have my house on 21 acres of land with a deep well, 6 mobile homes, and seven septic tanks, and 10.9 acres of land with about 800' of state highway frontage with two ponds, two mobile homes, a deep well, and two septic tanks AND, a small house on one acre with deep well and septic tank AND 4.19 acres of land near the I-16 interchange with 2 mobile homes, a deep well, and 2 septic tanks. I KNOW that all that together is worth MUCH more than what I owe but the bank won't loan me anymore money for renovations.

I'm also behind in my tax bills to the tune of $15K with this years tax fast approaching. Where did all the money go you ask? Spent most of the money on labor to help me try to fix up all the rentals we have and for supplies, but apparently my park got a stigma with the Mexican rentals and people just don't want to live where Mexican's have lived. To be honest even though we've redone a whole lot of the floors and windows and doors and painted inside and out, the homes do still need a lot of work. I could probably go on and on about all of this but I need advice on what to do. I've even considered trying to sell the units to the tenants but have not gotten anywhere with that. I can't afford anymore to have anyone to help me and I'm about ready to just let the bank have it all if I can't come up with something. Anybody got any place to contact for help, financial as well as guidance in this matter? you can e-mail me direct at metterduder@yahoo.com. Thanks, David

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