Elmgate Lending in Opelika, Alabama helps Lee County, AL landscaping and hardscape companies describe an equipment purchase or a crew payroll gap and passes the request to funding partners who decide on approval and terms.
At a glance
- Landscaping services
Landscaping services in Lee County, AL: 75 employers, 651 paid employees (CBP 2023)
- Landscapers in ZIP 36801
Landscaping services with a ZIP 36801 address: 12 (ZBP 2023)
- Landscapers without employees
Landscaping businesses without paid employees in Lee County, AL: 384 (Nonemployer Statistics 2024)
- Landscaping payroll
Landscaping services payroll in Lee County, AL: $29.1 million (CBP 2023)
Landscape Equipment Financing: Compact Track Loaders and Truck Upfits
A compact track loader is one of the larger purchases a landscaping company makes, and one of the clearer ones to finance: the loader secures the agreement, and its resale value supports the term. Illustration only, invented figures: a $72,000 track loader with a bucket and a grapple, financed at an annual rate of 9.5% over 60 months, would carry a monthly payment of about $1,512 (our arithmetic).
Truck upfits, the dump bodies, toolboxes, racks and lift gates added to a crew truck, can be financed with the truck or on their own. A company buying a truck and an upfit from different vendors can bring both quotes and ask for one agreement.
Landscaping Equipment Loan: Skid Steers and a Bigger Crew
A skid steer lets a crew take on grading, hardscape and cleanup work that hand tools cannot. Buying one can come with growth: more jobs, and more crew to run them. The skid steer fits an equipment loan; the added crew fits working capital or a credit line until the new contracts pay.
A partner reading the request wants to see the jobs the machine will work: signed contracts, bids accepted, or a customer list with recurring maintenance work.
Hiring ahead of the work is the riskier half. A company can lay out the new crew's weekly cost next to the jobs already signed, week by week, and show how long it takes for those jobs to cover the extra wages. Partners read that schedule more favorably when the signed work alone covers most of the new crew's time, with bids still out as upside rather than as the plan.
Landscaping Equipment Financing Options: What Opelika, AL Landscapers Should Know
A landscaping company in Opelika has several financing options for equipment: a loan from a bank or another lender, a lease, or the equipment dealer's own financing program. Dealer programs sometimes carry promotional terms on new machines; outside lenders can finance used equipment and machines from private sellers. Compare the total of payments, the down payment and the end-of-term options.
- Equipment loan: you own the machine from the start, and it secures the loan.
- Lease: lower payments in some cases, with a buyout or return choice at the end.
- Dealer financing: tied to that dealer's machines; read the fine print on promotional terms.
Landscaping Equipment Financing for Sod Cutters and Dump Trailers at a Lee County, AL Company
Sod cutters and dump trailers are smaller purchases but just as specific. A company adding sod installation buys a cutter, a trailer and sometimes a loader to move pallets. Bundling them in one agreement gives one payment; the trailer's title and the cutter's serial number go on the paperwork.
Lee County, AL had 75 landscaping services employers in 2023, twelve of them in ZIP 36801 (County Business Patterns and ZIP Code Business Patterns).
A new service line changes the request. A partner reading it wants to know who the sod and installation customers will be, whether builders or homeowners, and whether any of that work is already lined up. A company that has subcontracted sod work in the past can show those invoices as evidence that the demand exists and that bringing the work in-house saves the margin it was paying out.
Landscaping Services in Lee County, AL: Employer and No-Payroll Counts
County Business Patterns counted 75 landscaping services employers in Lee County, AL for 2023, with 651 paid employees and $29.1 million in annual payroll; 36 of the 75 had fewer than five employees. By establishment count, landscaping services were the fourth-largest six-digit industry in the county, behind limited-service restaurants, full-service restaurants and religious organizations.
A separate Census program, Nonemployer Statistics, found 384 landscaping businesses with no paid employees in the county for 2024, taking in $13.3 million in receipts. The two counts are never added together here.
Payroll for a Larger Crew While Commercial Contracts Pay Net 30
Commercial contracts, for apartment complexes, offices or homeowner associations, can pay 30 days after invoice. A crew still has to be paid every week. Illustration only, invented figures: four crew members at $18 an hour for 40 hours a week cost about $12,343 over a 30-day wait (our arithmetic: 30 days is 30/7, or about 4.29 weeks). A credit line drawn for those wages and paid down when the contract pays covers that gap.
Construction business loans covers the building trades, how credit line draws work walks through a draw cycle, and equipment financing, working capital loans, the Opelika, AL business page and the other industry pages add more.
By Elmgate Lending · Updated