Feasibility Study Consultant in Detroit, MI: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Detroit is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company first, and the questions that reader asks of this metro are not the ones a national template answers. Metro Detroit, the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area, holds 4,400,578 residents on the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate across six counties, led by Wayne County with 1,771,063, Oakland County with 1,296,888 and Macomb County with 886,175. Inside that metro the City of Detroit levies an income tax of its own, at 2.4 percent on resident individuals, 1.2 percent on non-resident individuals and 2.00 percent on corporations, and it values every parcel within the city through its own Office of the Assessor for its own levy. Both stop at the city line. A study that applies one wage assumption and one assessment assumption to a site in the city and a site in a suburban member county has modelled the wrong projection for one of them, and an underwriter will notice. MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study company in Detroit serving borrowers, SBA 7(a) lenders, 504 CDCs, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and conventional banks across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, St. Clair and Lapeer counties. The Detroit work covers ten of the asset classes the firm studies, from hotels and motels to child day care, and each report is written so the lender, the CDC and, where the address qualifies, the USDA state office can read the same document. The market side rests on primary sources only: the City of Detroit's published income tax rates and assessor's mission, the federal rural definition in 7 U.S.C. 1991, the Census Bureau's estimates and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which the Detroit lending record on this page is computed by county membership rather than read from a district total. Michigan's own taxes and programs live on [the Michigan feasibility study page](/feasibility-study-michigan). 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 Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI metro is home to about 4,400,578 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Wayne County at 1,771,063; Oakland County at 1,296,888; Macomb County at 886,175; Livingston County at 196,976.

The city's own income tax, on residents, commuters and corporations. The City of Detroit publishes income tax rates of 2.4 percent for resident individuals, 1.2 percent for non-resident individuals and 2.00 percent for corporations, levied by the city on top of whatever Michigan levies. Three things follow for a feasibility model. The individual tax is levied on the employee and withheld by the employer rather than charged to the employer, so it does not enter the operating budget as a payroll expense; what it changes is the net pay a given gross wage delivers inside the city, which makes it a recruitment and wage-setting input rather than an expense line. A corporation operating in the city owes a city-level tax on top of the state's, so the after-tax cash available for debt service is lower than a template built on state rates alone would show, and the coverage test moves with it. And because the non-resident rate applies to work performed in the city, the staffing plan and the location of the payroll change the number. This is a metro variable in the narrowest sense: it is levied by the city, not by the state, and it stops at the city line inside a six-county metro, so a study says which side of that line the subject sits on before it writes the wage assumptions or the corporate cash-flow line.

A city assessor who values every parcel for the city's own levy. The City of Detroit's Office of the Assessor states that its mission is to discover, list and value at current market conditions all real and tangible personal property in the City of Detroit for the purposes of levying the tax lawfully imposed, and to warrant that levy to the Treasurer of the City of Detroit for collection. For an SBA, USDA or conventional file the consequence is procedural and material at once. Property tax is the largest fixed line in most operating budgets MMCG projects, and inside the city the assessed value behind that line is set by a city office, on real and tangible personal property alike, and contested through the city's own appeal calendar. A study that adopts the purchase price or the construction cost as the future assessed value without reading the assessor's treatment of comparable property has guessed at the tax line rather than derived it. The Detroit report therefore states the assessment basis it relied on, the office that sets it and the appeal route open to the borrower, and does the same for the county or township assessor when the site sits outside the city.

An SBA 504 feasibility study in the Detroit 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. A 7(a) study follows the same discipline for a single lender, and both carry the two Detroit variables through the model. 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 Detroit metro record is computed from the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, labelled as of June 30, 2026, by summing the six member counties, never from an SBA district total, although 1,214 of the 1,217 fiscal 2025 7(a) rows do carry the Michigan District Office. In fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 1,217 7(a) approvals for $497,621,000, a count down from 1,278 in fiscal 2024 on a dollar total up from $463,531,000, and 67 504 approvals for $77,356,000, up from 42 approvals for $54,566,000 in fiscal 2024. The most active 7(a) lenders in the metro in fiscal 2025 by approval count were The Huntington National Bank (505 loans for $96,985,700), Northeast Bank (84), Newtek Bank, National Association (59), Fifth Third Bank (49), Readycap Lending, LLC (45), Independent Bank (27), Celtic Bank Corporation (27) and Live Oak Banking Company (24 loans for $37,736,000). On the 504 side, Michigan Certified Development Corporation approved 31 loans for $29,020,000, Great Lakes Commercial Finance 22 loans for $36,291,000 and Oakland County Business Finance Corporation 13 loans for $11,429,000. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes in this record account for 1,610 7(a) loans for $992,627,000 with a 4.5 percent charge-off rate and 156 504 loans for $145,915,000 with a 0.0 percent charge-off rate, with restaurants (923 7(a) loans), fitness and recreational sports centers (198), child day care (141) and hotels and motels (103) the deepest 7(a) cohorts. The method and the full asset-class table sit in the Detroit feasibility market research post.

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. The City of Detroit and the urbanized area that runs with it are therefore out. What remains is the outer part of each of the six member counties, beyond that urbanized-area boundary, which the statute draws around the built-up area rather than around a municipal name. That is why no town is named here as eligible: a town with an eligible edge can have an ineligible centre. MMCG verifies eligibility at the address on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake, before any work on the study begins.

When the address qualifies, the study is written to the 7 CFR Part 5001 standard that USDA Rural Development and its guaranteed lenders apply. Because an eligible address is by definition outside the city, the Detroit income tax and the city assessor do not apply to it, and the study says so; the tax line is derived from the county or township assessor where the parcel sits, and the eligibility determination is recorded at the front of the report.

A hotel feasibility study Detroit lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Detroit MSA drew 103 SBA 7(a) loans for $234,982,200 with a 0.0 percent charge-off rate, the second-largest 7(a) dollar total among the ten asset classes after restaurants, and 21 SBA 504 loans for $40,397,000, a cohort under 30 loans and so too small for a charge-off rate to be shown. Against that history the study sets the two Detroit variables. For a hotel inside the city every employee who works there is reached by the city income tax, withheld at 2.4 percent for residents and 1.2 percent for non-residents, so the same gross wage delivers less net pay than at a suburban property and the wage assumptions behind the staffing plan are set accordingly, not as an expense line; a corporate operating entity owes the 2.00 percent corporate rate on top of the state's, which a suburban hotel does not. Property tax on a hotel inside the city rests on a value set by the city's Office of the Assessor for real and tangible personal property, which for a hotel includes furniture, fixtures and equipment, so the tax line is derived from the assessor's treatment rather than from the purchase price. The report then documents demand and competitive supply for the site and flag and tests debt-service coverage.

These are the points a Detroit underwriter checks first, each traced to a city publication, a federal statute or the SBA's own file.

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 one side or the other of the Detroit city line, checked against the USDA Rural Development eligibility map under 7 U.S.C. 1991 and matched to the member county whose SBA record applies. 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 loan committee date or a contract deadline requires it.

The report is formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional submission in one document, with the demand analysis, the competitive supply review, the projected operating statement with its wage assumptions and property tax line set to the subject's jurisdiction, the debt-service coverage test and a sources list that lets an underwriter check every figure against the publication it came from. The draft goes to the lender or CDC contact named at intake before the credit memo is written; the final report is prepared under USPAP and written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files.

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, Detroit and its six-county metro among them. 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: city publications, federal statute, Census Bureau records and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which every metro lending figure is computed in-house by county membership.