Feasibility Study Consultant in Houston, TX: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Houston is written for a lender's credit file, and the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro gives that file more to check than a national template allows for. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 population estimates put the ten-county metro at 7,796,182 residents, 5,009,302 of them in Harris County, and behind every operating budget in it sit five structural variables, each documented by a government publisher or by the port authority. Houston is the only major U.S. city without city zoning regulations, so use and density rest on recorded deed restrictions and Chapter 42 platting rather than on a zoning map. The city draws power from ERCOT, an interconnection that carries about 90 percent of Texas electric load and has few connections to grids outside the state. Since September 1, 2018, Chapter 19 of the city code has regulated to the 0.2 percent, or 500-year, floodplain and required new construction to elevate its lowest floor to that flood elevation plus 2 feet. Houston studies start at $4,900, delivery runs 9 to 16 business days with a 5 business days rush option, and a project address sent today receives a scoped proposal within 12 business hours.

The Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX metro is home to about 7,796,182 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Harris County at 5,009,302; Fort Bend County at 958,434; Montgomery County at 749,613; Brazoria County at 413,224.

A national underwriting template assumes a zoning map that proves the use, a regulated utility inside an interconnected grid, a flood line drawn at the 100-year map, a diversified tenant base and a property tax line softened by a state income tax. Houston breaks each of those assumptions, and each break is documented by a government publisher or by the port authority itself. A Houston feasibility study that ignores any one of them overstates net operating income, understates construction cost or misses a risk the credit committee will find on its own. The five variables below are carried in every Houston file MMCG writes.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas records that Houston is the only major U.S. city without city zoning regulations and ranks Texas the 49th most restrictive state for zoning and land use. With no zoning map, an underwriter cannot rely on a use classification or an as-of-right entitlement to prove that a use is permitted or shielded from an incompatible neighbor. Development runs instead through Chapter 42 subdivision and platting, citywide standards for lot size, setbacks, parking and access, and recorded deed restrictions the City is authorized to help enforce. A Houston study proves the use at the parcel, through its plat, its deed restrictions and its adjacent-use risk.

Houston draws power from ERCOT, which the U.S. Energy Information Administration says covers about 75 percent of the state's territory and 90 percent of its electric load, with few connections to grids outside the state. The Lower 48 has three interconnections that operate largely independently, with limited transfers of power between them, so when supply falls short ERCOT cannot readily import power, as Winter Storm Uri showed in 2021. For an operating budget this makes electricity a market-priced, volatile expense rather than a regulated tariff, and it adds reliability and business-interruption risk that a national template built on a regulated interconnected utility does not price.

After Hurricane Harvey, Houston amended Chapter 19 of its Code of Ordinances, effective September 1, 2018, to define the Houston special flood hazard area by the 0.2 percent, or 500-year, flood rather than the 1 percent base flood. The minimum flood protection elevation is the 0.2 percent flood elevation plus 2 feet, and at least 3 feet above it for critical facilities, and new construction and substantial improvements must elevate the lowest floor and all utilities to that level. Pad, fill, foundation and design costs rise, fill-mitigation rules limit site coverage, and flood insurance and reserve assumptions run well beyond a template keyed to the 100-year map.

Port Houston reports the Port of Houston as the first-ranked U.S. port in foreign waterborne tonnage, at 220.1 million short tons in 2024, and as the nation's largest port for waterborne tonnage, while the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas describes Houston as the energy capital of the U.S. That base concentrates demand for industrial, warehouse, logistics and office space in oil, gas, refining, petrochemicals and trade. A Houston study weights the cyclicality that follows energy prices and global trade, together with the tenant-industry and counterparty concentration that a geographically and sectorally diversified national template never assumes.

Texas levies no state income tax and no state property tax. Property tax is set and collected by local taxing units, the county, city, school district and special districts, and the Texas Comptroller calls it the largest single funding source for community services. Taxing units must generally tax all property at its current market value, and appraisal districts revalue annually. The single largest operating expense in a Houston pro forma therefore reprices with market value and with each jurisdiction's rate stack, so the study models reassessment on sale, protest outcomes and overlapping-district rates rather than the flat, income-tax-offset line a national template carries.

MMCG prepares SBA 504 and SBA 7(a) feasibility studies for Houston projects under SBA SOP 50 10 8, the standard operating procedure lenders and Certified Development Companies underwrite the guaranteed loan against. The study is written for the credit memorandum: it establishes market need, tests the borrower's revenue assumptions against the metro's demand base and sets out a financial analysis the lender can carry into its own model. An SBA 504 feasibility study Houston lenders can rely on also carries the five Houston layers set out above. The use layer states the parcel's plat and deed-restriction status, because no zoning district protects it. The flood layer places the site against the 0.2 percent floodplain Chapter 19 regulates and its minimum flood protection elevation of that flood elevation plus 2 feet. The power layer prices ERCOT retail electricity, the tax layer stacks the county, city, school and special-district rates on a market-value appraisal with no state income tax offset, and the demand layer weights the cyclicality of the Port of Houston and energy base.

The Houston SBA market is large enough that the record itself matters. Nationally, the SBA closed fiscal year 2025 with 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion, split between 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. Within the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro, the fiscal year 2025 record computed from the SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA release is 1,685 7(a) approvals for $1,042,411,600 and 101 504 approvals for $168,357,000, up from 1,423 and 83 in fiscal year 2024. By approval count, the most active 7(a) lenders in the metro that year were Zions Bank, with 164 loans; Northeast Bank with 163; and Newtek Bank, National Association, with 145, and the most active 504 Certified Development Company was Capital Certified Development Corporation with 30 loans for $52,047,000. Those figures are summed over the metro's ten member counties from the FOIA file, never read from an SBA district total, even though all 1,685 of the metro's fiscal year 2025 7(a) rows carry the HOUSTON DISTRICT OFFICE label. The full lender and CDC lists, the method behind the computation and the asset class table for fiscal years 2010 to 2026 are set out in the Houston feasibility market research post.

USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities guaranteed loans run under 7 CFR Part 5001, and the first question in any USDA feasibility study Houston borrowers commission is geography. The rural test at 7 CFR 5001.3 covers any area not in a city or town of more than 50,000 inhabitants and not in the urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town, using the latest decennial census. On that definition Houston and its continuous suburbs are out, and the program's geography in this region is the outer counties, Waller, Austin, Chambers, Liberty, Brazoria and outer Fort Bend, where small incorporated towns sit below the 50,000 line. The small incorporated towns in those outer counties are the kind of places where a project can qualify for USDA support that an inner Houston site cannot. Because the test turns on the address and the urbanized area around it, not on a county line, MMCG verifies eligibility at the subject address on the USDA eligibility map at intake, before any work on the study begins. Once eligibility is confirmed, the report carries the Texas property tax line, which reprices at market value with no state income tax offset at any address in the state, together with the power, flood and use rules read at the parcel rather than assumed from the city, and it is formatted for the USDA Rural Development underwriter and the participating lender and aligned with 7 CFR Part 5001 throughout.

A hotel feasibility study Houston lenders will accept starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the SBA FOIA release shows 413 7(a) loans to hotels and motels in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro for $1,013,629,700, the largest 7(a) dollar total of the ten asset classes MMCG tracks in the metro, with a charge-off rate of 3.7% against 10.3% across all ten classes, and 44 504 loans for $104,545,000, a 504 cohort under 30 loans and so too small for a published charge-off rate. A Houston hotel study documents demand generators at the level a primary source supports, and in this metro that begins with the Port of Houston, which Port Houston reports as the first-ranked U.S. port in foreign waterborne tonnage at 220.1 million short tons in 2024, and with the energy complex the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has in mind when it calls Houston the energy capital of the U.S., a demand base that moves with energy prices and global trade. The study then carries the site's plat and deed-restriction status in a city without zoning, the Chapter 19 requirement that a new building in the Houston special flood hazard area elevate its lowest floor and all utilities to the 0.2 percent flood elevation plus 2 feet, ERCOT power costs and the market-value property tax line into the operating projection the lender or CDC will test under SBA SOP 50 10 8.

A defensible Houston study is one a credit committee cannot pull apart on a local fact. These are the points MMCG checks on every Houston file, each drawn from a government publisher, from the port authority or from the SBA FOIA file.

A Houston feasibility study engagement begins with three things: the project address, the asset class and the name of the lender or Certified Development Company the study is going to. From the address MMCG confirms the county and its taxing units, the plat and deed-restriction status of the parcel, its position against the Chapter 19 floodplain for a City of Houston site, whether it draws power on the ERCOT market and, for a rural file, USDA eligibility at the parcel on the USDA eligibility map. From the asset class it pulls the metro's own SBA lending record for that class from the FOIA file. From the lender or CDC contact it learns which submission format and which credit questions the report has to answer. A scoped proposal follows within 12 business hours. Studies start at $4,900, delivery runs 9 to 16 business days from engagement, and a 5 business days rush option is available when a loan committee date is already fixed. The finished report is formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional submission, so one document can go to a 7(a) lender under SBA SOP 50 10 8, to a 504 Certified Development Company, to a USDA Rural Development underwriter under 7 CFR Part 5001 or to a bank's conventional credit committee without being rebuilt, and every figure in it traces to a named publisher, to Port Houston or to the SBA FOIA file. To start, send the address, the asset class and the lender or CDC contact through the proposal form on this page.

MMCG Invest, LLC specializes in SBA and USDA feasibility studies for commercial real estate and operating business projects, prepared for lenders, Certified Development Companies and borrowers. The practice is led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Studies are prepared under USPAP discipline and written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities files, and every figure in a Houston study traces to a named government publisher, to Port Houston or to the SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA release computed by county membership. The metro record MMCG maintains covers ten asset classes: hotels and motels, car washes, self-storage, RV parks and campgrounds, assisted living and continuing care, gas stations and convenience stores, restaurants, fitness and recreational sports centers, marinas and child day care services. Houston work covers Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria, Galveston, Liberty, Waller, Chambers, Austin and San Jacinto counties, with the USDA rural test checked at the address for the outer-county towns.