Feasibility Study Consultant in Charlotte, NC: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Charlotte is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else reads it, and the first thing that reader wants settled is which side of the state line the parcel sits on. The Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area holds 2,883,370 residents on the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate across eleven counties in two states: Mecklenburg County with 1,206,285, York County in South Carolina with 303,001, and nine more running from Union and Cabarrus out to Anson and Chester. The two states tax differently and are both cutting their rates on their own timetables and their own instruments, so which revenue department the operator answers to is decided by the parcel, and neither side's trajectory can be read off the other. A Charlotte study that treats the metro as one tax jurisdiction, or holds a single rate flat for a decade, is wrong before its demand analysis begins, and an underwriter will find the error on the first pass. MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study company in Charlotte serving borrowers, SBA 7(a) lenders, 504 CDCs, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and conventional banks across all eleven member counties. The Charlotte work covers ten of the asset classes the firm studies, from hotels, self-storage and car washes to restaurants, fitness centers and child day care, and each report is written so a credit officer, a CDC analyst and, where the address qualifies, the USDA reviewer read the same document. The market side rests on primary sources only: the published rate tables of both Carolina revenue departments, the federal rural definition at 7 U.S.C. 1991, the Census Bureau's population files and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which the Charlotte lending record on this page is computed by county membership across both states. Fees start at $4,900. Standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days, a rush track is available at 5 business days, and every intake request receives a response within 12 business hours.

The Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC metro is home to about 2,883,370 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Mecklenburg County at 1,206,285; York County at 303,001; Union County at 263,386; Cabarrus County at 244,925.

A corporate income tax on its way to repeal. The North Carolina Department of Revenue publishes a corporate income tax rate of 2.00 percent for tax year 2026, after 2.25 percent for 2025 and 2.50 percent for 2019 through 2024, and the schedule keeps stepping down toward repeal. For a North Carolina parcel the study applies that published schedule year by year rather than a flat rate; the schedule, its earlier years and what sits beside it are on the North Carolina feasibility study page.

A franchise tax on the capital base, owed in a loss year. For C corporations, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, the Department of Revenue sets the franchise tax at $1.50 per $1,000 of the corporation's tax base, with a maximum of $500 for the first $1,000,000 of that base and a minimum of $200, a charge measured on capital rather than on earnings, so it lands in the ramp-up years when an SBA 7(a) or 504 project has no taxable income. The publisher sets out a separate schedule for S corporations and an entity not taxed as a corporation is outside it altogether, so the study establishes the entity type before it carries the line at all; the full treatment is on the state page.

Two revenue departments, both cutting, inside one labour market. Both instruments above are North Carolina law and reach only the North Carolina side of a metro whose eleven counties, Anson, Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Rowan and Union in North Carolina and Chester, Lancaster and York in South Carolina, form one commuting market. Across the line the South Carolina Department of Revenue publishes an individual income tax whose top rate has fallen every year on its own schedule, 7 percent for 2021 and prior, 6.5 percent for 2022, 6.4 percent for 2023, 6.2 percent for 2024 and 6 percent for 2025, and which becomes a two-bracket structure for tax year 2026 at 1.99 percent below $30,000 and 5.21 percent at $30,000 and above, less $966. Most SBA borrowers are pass-through entities, so for a South Carolina parcel that individual schedule is the operative one and a corporate schedule is not. Both states are cutting, on different instruments and different timetables, and neither trajectory can be read off the other; an operator can draw staff and customers from one state and be taxed by the other. A study that names the metro and applies one state's regime to all of it has not answered the file's first question.

An SBA 504 feasibility study in the Charlotte metro is written for two readers at once: the Certified Development Company that packages the debenture and the third-party lender that holds the first lien. Both underwrite under SBA SOP 50 10 8, and whether a study is required on a given file is their call under that SOP; when one is requested, MMCG writes it to that standard, with every input traceable to its source. A 7(a) study follows the same discipline for a single lender, with the same Charlotte variables carried through: the state the parcel sits in, how the borrowing entity is taxed, and that state's published schedule applied by tax year. Nationally, the SBA closed fiscal year 2025 having guaranteed 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion, comprising 77,600 7(a) loans for $37 billion and 6,750 504 loans for $7.8 billion, per SBA News Release 25-83 of September 30, 2025.

The Charlotte record is computed from the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, labelled as of June 30, 2026, by summing the eleven member counties on both sides of the state line; never from an SBA district total, which could not work for a metro split between two district offices. In fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 711 7(a) approvals for $411,631,300 and 37 504 approvals for $62,910,000, up from 518 7(a) and 29 504 approvals in fiscal 2024 and 442 7(a) and 22 504 in fiscal 2023. The most active 7(a) lenders in the metro in fiscal 2025 by approval count were The Huntington National Bank (79 loans), Northeast Bank (75), Newtek Bank, National Association (40), Pinnacle Bank (34 loans for $41,999,700, the largest dollar total listed) and Live Oak Banking Company (33 loans for $33,676,000). On the 504 side, Business Expansion Funding Corporation approved 25 loans for $41,413,000 and Carolina Business Capital, Inc. approved 8 loans for $14,322,000, with four further CDCs at one loan each, among them Certified Development Corporation of South Carolina. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes covered here account for 873 7(a) loans for $927,716,000 and 109 504 loans for $140,859,000 in the metro, with restaurants (349 7(a) loans), fitness and recreational sports centers (155), hotels and motels (128) and child day care (122) the deepest 7(a) cohorts. The method and the full asset-class table sit in the Charlotte feasibility market research post.

USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities credit runs on a statutory geography, not a county line. Under 7 U.S.C. 1991(a)(13)(A) the terms rural and rural area mean any area other than a city or town with a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town, and the USDA Rural Development eligibility map is the authoritative test for any address. The urbanized core that runs with Charlotte, Concord and Gastonia is therefore out. What remains is the outer reaches of the member counties on both sides of the state line, beyond the urbanized-area boundary. No town is named on this page as eligible, because the test turns on the subject address and the boundary drawn around it, not on the town's name. MMCG verifies eligibility at the address on the USDA map at intake, before any work begins, because an address just inside the boundary changes the program, the lender and the report.

When the address qualifies, the study is written to the 7 CFR Part 5001 standard that USDA Rural Development and its guaranteed lenders apply. The state line weighs here too: a rural-fringe address on the South Carolina side answers to a different state tax regime from one in Anson or Lincoln County, and the study settles which law governs before it turns to demand.

A hotel feasibility study Charlotte lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Charlotte MSA drew 128 SBA 7(a) loans for $316,490,300 with a 0.0 percent charge-off rate, the largest 7(a) dollar total among the ten asset classes covered here, and 18 SBA 504 loans for $46,182,000, a cohort under 30 loans and so too small for a charge-off rate to be shown. Against that lending history the study sets the state the parcel sits in and the entity that will own the hotel, because together they decide which revenue department's schedule the tax line follows and whether any state tax is owed in the ramp-up years before the property stabilises. The report then documents demand and competitive supply for the specific site and flag and tests debt-service coverage without a national hotel template.

These are the points a Charlotte underwriter checks first, and each one traces to a statute, a revenue department table, a Census Bureau file or the SBA's own release rather than to a market report.

An engagement begins with three things: the project address, the asset class and the name of the lender or CDC contact who will read the report. At intake the address is placed on its side of the state line, which fixes the tax regime the model answers to; it is checked on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map; and it is matched to its member county's SBA record. MMCG sends a first response within 12 business hours. Fees start at $4,900. Standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days from engagement, and a rush track at 5 business days is available when a committee date requires it.

The report is formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional submission in one document: the market and demand analysis, the competitive supply review, the site and jurisdiction findings, the projected operating statement with the state tax lines built year by year, the debt-service coverage test and a sources list that lets an underwriter check every figure against the table, statute or file it came from. The draft goes to the lender or CDC contact named at intake so that questions are answered before the credit memo is written, and the final report is prepared under USPAP to the SBA SOP 50 10 8 and 7 CFR Part 5001 standards. Where a project has two readers, for example a 7(a) lender and a CDC on the same 504 structure, the one file serves both without a second study.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study consultancy that specializes in SBA and USDA feasibility studies for lenders, Certified Development Companies, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and the borrowers they serve, with Charlotte and its eleven-county, two-state metro among the markets it covers. The practice is led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Reports are prepared under USPAP, written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files, and built on primary sources named in each report: the rate tables of the North Carolina and South Carolina revenue departments, the federal rural definition in the United States Code, Census Bureau population files and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which every metro lending figure is computed in-house by county membership. Every figure on this page traces to one of those sources, and each report names its sources the same way.