I did not know why at the time, but my bank seemed more than willing to continuously refinance my house if I fixed up parts of it enough to move the needle on the appraisal even slightly. Once I got the hang of it, I would purloin a few thousand dollars from the brewery to fix up a bathroom, have it reappraised, slip the appraiser a couple of cases of beer, yuck it up a bit with him, get the appraisal up by $50,000, borrow back the revised maximum loan to value metric, and—presto!—$3,000 in diverted cash flow became $40,000 in new working capital for the brewery.
