For Matt Irvine, an Amagansett general contractor who has been unable to work for months because of the economic shutdown, and was turned down for a federal loan, the pandemic has caused financial disaster, and his story is one repeated across the country.
“I’m pretty much ruined. My bank account today is negative $600 because I have creditors doing automatic withdrawals,” he said. Since 2014, Mr. Irvine, who is married with a 6-year-old son, has been the sole proprietor of a business that does residential gut renovations here and in New York City. In February, he and his family became ill with what he now suspects was an early case of Covid-19. They have since recovered.
Prior to the pandemic, business had been good, he said. “I wasn’t killing it by any means, but I’ve been comfortable.”
Last April, with enough money coming in and jobs lined up, he decided to buy his first property to flip. He got a mortgage to purchase a house in East Hampton, and a construction loan that would provide money in stages as the building progressed.
He demolished the existing house, laid a new foundation, and ordered all the materials to build anew just before the lockdown started. “That’s when everything fell apart,” he said.
The jobs he had lined up were canceled, and, since he had to stop work on the East Hampton house, he couldn’t make it to the framing stage of the project, which would have elicited more funds from the construction loan.
Realizing that he was in a precarious financial position, he applied for a $20,000 loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program. “Chase Bank sent out an email saying the funds are going to be sent out starting tomorrow, get your paperwork ready, so I did and clicked send maybe six hours after the floodgates opened,” he said. Ultimately, he was turned down. “I was told by Chase Bank that they could not verify my monthly income,” he said. “I was like, ‘Guys this could not be more simple, there’s my 2019 tax return, just divide by 12, there’s your monthly salary.’ “
Meanwhile, he said, he had been reading news accounts about national restaurant chains, construction companies, and other large businesses that had been approved for millions of dollars in loans.
He applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan offered by the Small Business Administration, but to no avail.
“Going through banks takes too long and there’s too many opportunities for fraud and mismanagement,” he said. “Now I am out of money, and lenders are cancelling on me and increasing fees and interest rates.”
He also missed out on the stimulus check from the federal government as part of an economic relief package. “I didn’t get the $1,200 because I’d made too much money last year. That was another fist in the stomach,” he said.
And after spending nearly two months trying to sign up for unemployment compensation from the state (“It took me 30 days to speak to an individual,” he said), he received his first check last week. “I am now trying to find out about my six weeks of back pay, so back to calling the phone line with no success.”
“I was all for the shutdown. I don’t want people I know to get sick and die, but you can’t just tell people you’re not allowed to work without supporting them,” he said. “I’ve never had to live like this, this is crazy.”
The lack of income has forced him to max out his credit cards, he said, and American Express has been surprisingly understanding about his current predicament. “Because I’ve been with them for 16 years, I called them up and they said, ‘Yeah, use the cards, max them out, there’s no fees, no penalties or payments needed, just do what you got to do and call us when you can make a payment.’ ”
Now that construction can begin again on Long Island, he is ready to get back to work on the house he’s building and hopefully regain his financial footing. “I need to get my subcontractor to frame this house as fast as humanly possible so I can request another withdrawal from my construction loan,” he said.