Montana Feasibility Study: Lender-Grade SBA and USDA Studies

MMCG Invest, LLC prepares feasibility studies for Montana projects where the underwriting questions reach past the national checklist. Montana is the state where the 2025 Legislature's graduated homestead property tax, enacted under House Bill 231 and Senate Bill 542, replaces a flat residential rate with tiers the Montana Legislative Services Division states run from 0.76 percent to 1.90 percent for an enrolled principal residence or long term rental beginning in tax year 2026, so a lender cannot carry one flat rate forward into a pro forma; where the CSKT water compact and closed basins, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to Montana Compact that the U.S. Department of the Interior calls the largest water rights settlement in state history, authorizes a $1.9 billion trust fund under the Montana Water Rights Protection Act while Montana Code Annotated 85-2-343 closes the entire upper Missouri River basin to a new water permit until every subbasin's decree issues, so water availability for a Flathead basin or central Montana site is a named legal question rather than a regional assumption; where the Montana Renewables SAF expansion, a $1.67 billion U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee to Montana Renewables, LLC's Great Falls plant, is projected by the agency to supply about half of all North American SAF and about 12 percent of global SAF through 2030, setting a federal floor under Great Falls area construction and workforce demand; and where the Colstrip Plant consolidation, NorthWestern Energy's acquisition, at no cost, of Puget Sound Energy's 370 megawatt share and Avista's 222 megawatt share of the plant, takes the utility's own ownership to 55 percent, concentrating Rosebud County's power and tax base in one Montana utility's hands. Every engagement is calibrated to the project address, the program of record, and the specific lender, CDC or USDA office carrying the deal.

Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Delivery in 9 to 16 business days. A complimentary preliminary Montana market overview within one business day of submission.

The U.S. Small Business Administration serves Montana through a single Montana District Office in Helena, at 10 West 15th Street, Suite 1100, with a second office in Billings, covering all 56 counties statewide.

MMCG's own cut of SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, as of June 30, 2026, restricted to Montana project state loans, shows the state's fiscal year 2025 7(a) approvals ran to 265 loans for $143,932,500, up from 214 loans for $101,936,900 in fiscal year 2024, with 120 loans for $90,425,700 approved through the first three quarters of fiscal year 2026; on the 504 side, fiscal year 2025 carried 52 approvals for $34,604,000, against 44 for $36,704,000 in fiscal year 2024. On the fiscal year 2025 7(a) rows this cut reads by district office, 264 carried the Montana District Office and one carried the North Dakota District Office, the only cross border reading this release shows for the state.

On SBA's FY2025 FOIA release, the ten most active 7(a) lenders in Montana by count were Northeast Bank with 28 loans for $4,869,200, Glacier Bank with 26 loans for $14,119,100, U.S. Bank, National Association with 22 loans for $1,572,600, Newtek Bank, National Association with 15 loans for $7,967,000, First Interstate Bank with 15 loans for $982,500, Live Oak Banking Company with 14 loans for $12,699,500, Readycap Lending, LLC with 12 loans for $4,057,000, Bravera Bank with 9 loans for $2,446,700, The Huntington National Bank with 8 loans for $4,790,500 and Wallis Bank with 7 loans for $4,773,000. Montana's own research names First Interstate Bank, Stockman Bank and Opportunity Bank of Montana among the state's active in-state 7(a) lenders, and Live Oak Banking Company among the national lenders competing for the same Montana files; on the list above, Live Oak's $12,699,500 across 14 loans carries the largest average loan size of the ten.

On the 504 side, Capital Matrix, Inc. led Montana's fiscal year 2025 approvals with 20 loans for $14,146,000, Big Sky Economic Development Corporation followed with 15 loans for $7,863,000, Dakota Business Lending approved 13 loans for $9,049,000, High Plains Financial, Inc. approved 2 loans for $340,000, and Mortgage Capital Development Corporation and East-Central Idaho Development Company each approved 1 loan, for $2,339,000 and $867,000, the state's six active Certified Development Companies that year.

The table below is MMCG's own cut of SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release as of June 30, 2026, restricted to loans whose project state is Montana, disbursed, approved in fiscal years 2010 through 2026, and grouped by the NAICS codes of the asset classes this firm studies. The charge-off rate is the share of loans with a terminal outcome that ended in a charge-off, on a count basis, shown only where that resolved cohort holds at least 30 loans. Across all industries, Montana's 3,842 disbursed 7(a) loans for $1,302,791,500 resolved 2,845 at a 4.0 percent charge-off rate, and its 446 disbursed 504 loans for $288,932,000 resolved 145 at 0.0 percent. Three asset classes clear the 30 loan resolved threshold on the 7(a) side: fitness and recreational sports centers, 60 loans for $21,598,800, resolved 40 at a 0.0 percent charge-off rate, the cleanest rated class in the state's own record; hotels and motels, 68 loans for $97,119,200, resolved 35 at 2.9 percent, below the state's own average; and restaurants, the state's largest count at 208 loans for $67,558,900, resolved 136 at 8.1 percent, the highest rate of the three. No individual asset class clears the 30 loan threshold on the 504 side, where only the statewide total, 145 resolved loans at 0.0 percent, carries a rated cohort. Self storage carries the largest average loan of the classes with disclosed dollars, 8 7(a) loans for $15,847,800, near $2.0 million each, though its 4 resolved loans are too few to rate. Marinas are suppressed under 5 loans on both program sides, with no dollar figure released. The caution that travels with every rate: the June 2026 release collapses every open loan, current or stressed, into the single status EXEMPT, so the rate reads the resolved cohort only.

USDA Rural Development serves Montana from the Montana State Office at 2229 Boot Hill Court, Bozeman, under State Director Bill Warden, through area offices in Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell and Missoula. Business and Industry Guaranteed, Rural Energy for America Program and Community Facilities financing are all active statewide, and REAP is now governed under 7 CFR 5001.

By the Treasury's own USASpending.gov record of place of performance obligations, Montana carried 42 Rural Energy for America Program awards in fiscal year 2025 for $2,150,137 in obligated dollars, up from 32 awards for $809,517 in fiscal year 2024. Community Facilities obligated 13 awards for $3,260,336 in fiscal year 2025, against 11 awards for $1,863,515 in fiscal year 2024. Water and Waste Disposal, the rural utilities program the same record tracks, obligated 22 awards for $24,074,711 in fiscal year 2025, against 4 awards for $1,735,357 in fiscal year 2024. USDA's own program listing names individual Montana Rural Energy for America Program awards, including a solar award of $132,964 to Owenhouse Hardware in Bozeman, $343,254 to a ranch in Twin Bridges and $181,206 to Lewis and Clark Brewing in Helena.

The Montana Board of Investments runs INTERCAP, a variable rate loan program for local governments, at a statutory rate of 4.50 percent for the period from February 16, 2026 to February 15, 2027. The Department of Commerce's Big Sky Economic Development Trust Fund pairs a coal severance funded job creation grant, 75 percent of the fund, with a planning grant, the remaining 25 percent. Montana's State Small Business Credit Initiative 2.0 allocation is deployed as loan participation through certified regional development corporations including MoFi, Prospera, Sweetgrass, Snowy Mountain, SEMDC, Montana West and MBAC. A new or expanding industry also qualifies for a state property tax abatement taxing its new value at 50 percent for the first five years, phasing to 100 percent.

Montana is one of the few states with no general statewide sales tax; the closest a room or a purchase comes to one is a local resort tax, capped at a 3 percent base rate plus up to 1 percent more for infrastructure, levied only in a qualifying resort community or resort area such as West Yellowstone, Big Sky, Whitefish and Red Lodge, alongside a statewide lodging and accommodations tax. The resort tax is a locally optional tool: a qualifying community adopts it by a vote of its own registered voters, and the revenue is dedicated to property tax relief, infrastructure or public safety within that community rather than flowing to the state's general fund, a structure a hospitality file in an adopting community should carry alongside the statewide lodging tax. Montana's corporate income tax is a flat 6.75 percent, 7.0 percent under a water's edge election.

Assisted living and residential care in Montana are regulated through licensure in Categories A through D rather than a certificate of need; Senate Bill 516 of 2025 revised the state's own assisted living admission criteria. A certificate of need still applies to a long-term care (nursing home) bed, administered by the Licensure Bureau within the Department of Public Health and Human Services since 1975; Senate Bill 88, signed April 3, 2025 and effective July 1, 2025, moved the certificate of need program's letter of intent legal notices onto its own website. The Montana Facility Finance Authority, a conduit issuer attached to the Department of Commerce in Helena under Executive Director Adam Gill, has issued more than $4 billion in healthcare bonds over 40 years; Senate Bill 104, signed April 16, 2025, expanded its eligible borrowers beyond healthcare to a broad range of 501(c)(3) and public benefit entities and tripled its biennial issuance cap from $500 million to $1.5 billion, with an automatic 3 percent increase each biennium.

Montana is a prior appropriation water rights state. Beyond the CSKT Compact and the upper Missouri River basin closure, the state began closing basins to new surface water permitting in 1981, starting with the Milk River, and now carries five types of closure; House Bill 831 of 2007 created the mechanism for applying to appropriate water inside a closed basin. A new water right permit issued after 1973 requires the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to find availability, beneficial use, no adverse effect on an existing right and the public interest, a process that can run 6 to 18 months with no guarantee of approval, especially in a fully appropriated basin such as the Gallatin, the Bitterroot, the upper Missouri or the Clark Fork. The Montana Supreme Court's 2016 decision in Clark Fork Coalition v. Tubbs narrowed the combined appropriation exemption for an exempt well, and the February 2024 decision in Upper Missouri Waterkeeper v. DNRC held that every phase of a multi phase subdivision counts as one combined appropriation, a standard that reaches subdivision, multifamily, hospitality and any other water intensive project in a closed or fully appropriated western basin. The CSKT Compact itself was ratified by the state in 2015, approved and funded by Congress through the Montana Water Rights Protection Act in December 2020, and became effective September 17, 2021, with the Montana Water Court's own final decree expected May 12, 2026, a timeline a Flathead basin project's own water availability opinion is dated against.

Roughly 29 to 30 percent of Montana is federal land, most of it under the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, and seven federally recognized Indian reservations cover roughly 18.8 million acres statewide, so site control, jurisdiction and a financing overlay are material considerations on and near reservation land beyond the Flathead Reservation itself. Western and southwestern Montana also lie in the Intermountain Seismic Belt near the Yellowstone volcanic system, the region of the 1959 magnitude 7.2 Hebgen Lake earthquake, so a construction file there carries a seismic design and insurance line a similarly priced deal across most of the Great Plains to the east does not.

A Montana credit committee reads the study in the order of the programs above. For a 7(a) or 504 file it wants the market area drawn to the parcel, the demand case built from public series the underwriter can check, the stabilized year cash flow at the required coverage, and whether the county's loans have carried the Montana District Office or, at the margin, a neighboring state's office. For a Business and Industry, REAP or Community Facilities file the Bozeman office reviews, it wants the rural area determination at the address, the guarantee percentage and fee the current OneRD notice sets, and a market study to the standard in 7 CFR Part 5001. For every Montana file it wants the state layer set out above in the lender's own vocabulary: which side of the 2026 graduated homestead line the property's own value and use fall on, whether the parcel sits inside the Flathead basin or the closed upper Missouri River basin and what that does to a water dependent asset's site control, the Department of Public Health and Human Services licence or certificate of need threshold the project does or does not clear, and the resort or lodging tax the project's own community levies where one applies. Where the project sits inside the Sentinel program's own footprint at Malmstrom or within the Montana Renewables expansion's own Great Falls campus, the credit memo also wants the construction phase and post expansion workforce figures folded into the demand case directly, not assumed from a generic regional trend. A study that carries each of those with the source named in the sentence is the study a Montana underwriter can lift into the memo without a second round.

Montana's underwriting file runs past the standard district office and reassessment checklist. A statute that resets every commercial and residential tax bill on a two year cycle, a tribal water settlement and a river basin closure that gate site control before a lender can call water settled, a federally financed sustainable aviation fuel expansion, and a coal plant's ownership consolidated into one Montana utility's hands each move a Montana deal in a way no national template accounts for, ranked below by the size of the exposure or the demand each one attaches to the deal.

Montana's 2025 Legislature restructured how commercial, agricultural and residential property is taxed. Under House Bill 231 and Senate Bill 542, the Montana Legislative Services Division states that beginning in tax year 2026 an enrolled principal residence or long term rental is taxed at a graduated homestead rate of 0.76 percent to 1.90 percent, running from the statewide median residential value, estimated at $395,400 for the 2025 to 2026 reappraisal cycle, at the low end to four times that median at the high end, while a second home or short term rental that is not enrolled pays a flat 1.90 percent; commercial and industrial property moves to its own graduated structure over the same two years. A lender cannot carry one flat rate forward into a Montana pro forma: a multifamily or hospitality asset's tax line depends on whether its units are enrolled long term rentals or short term rentals and second homes, and a commercial asset's rate depends on its value against a statewide median that itself resets at every reappraisal.

The U.S. Department of the Interior states that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to Montana Compact and its enabling federal legislation, the Montana Water Rights Protection Act, authorize funding of $1.9 billion for the Flathead Indian Reservation, including improving the Federal Flathead Indian Irrigation Project and constructing and maintaining community water distribution and wastewater facilities. Away from the reservation, Montana Code Annotated 85-2-343 closes the entire upper Missouri River basin to a new water appropriation permit or reservation until final decrees issue for every subbasin, with exceptions limited to domestic and stock use, nonconsumptive use, municipal surface use, high spring flow storage and a named Muddy Creek drainage exception. A site in the Flathead basin has to be checked against the compact's permitting regime before a lender can treat water availability as settled, and a project in the upper Missouri River basin, which reaches across central and south central Montana, cannot get a new surface or groundwater permit at all outside those exceptions until every subbasin is decreed, so a water dependent asset there is underwritten against a named legal closure rather than a general regional water supply assumption.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office closed a $1.67 billion loan guarantee, $1.44 billion of principal and $233 million of capitalized interest, to Montana Renewables, LLC, whose Great Falls facility has produced about 140 million gallons a year of biofuels, mostly renewable diesel, since late 2022. DOE states the guarantee funds an expansion to about 315 million gallons a year, most of it sustainable aviation fuel, and that once the facility reaches full capacity Montana Renewables is expected to produce about half of all North American SAF and about 12 percent of all global SAF through 2030. A lender underwriting industrial, workforce housing or hospitality product in the Great Falls area is underwriting against a single, federally financed facility whose own expansion sets a floor under construction phase labor demand, feedstock trucking and rail demand, and post expansion permanent employment, a floor a smaller unguaranteed private expansion would not carry.

NorthWestern Energy states it is acquiring, at no cost, Puget Sound Energy's 370 megawatt share and, under the same terms, Avista's 222 megawatt share of the Colstrip Plant, effective January 1, 2026, taking its own ownership to 55 percent; the utility states an equivalent natural gas plant would cost more than $700 million to build and would take longer to bring online. Colstrip and Rosebud County carry a concentrated exposure to one power plant, and a lender underwriting a commercial or community facility project there needs to model the plant's operating horizon against NorthWestern Energy's own no cost, majority ownership consolidation rather than against the plant's earlier multi owner structure, under which several of the departing co-owners were exiting coal on their own home states' faster timeline.

A Montana study runs to the sections a lender's file expects, each calibrated to the state. The engagement letter and scope name the program of record, the lender or CDC, and, for a USDA file, the Bozeman state office and the area office nearest the project. The site and market area section places the parcel in its county, states the rural area determination where USDA is the program, and notes whether the parcel sits inside a closed river basin or the Flathead Reservation's own permitting regime. The demand section builds from the public series this page cites: population and migration figures, Department of Labor and Industry employment and wage data, the SBA FOIA release for the state's own lending record, and the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research's own visitor and spending series where a hospitality or short term rental file is gateway facing. The competitive set section names the operating properties, their scale and their position. The regulatory section carries the licence and permit sequence with the statute cited: the Department of Public Health and Human Services licence and certificate of need threshold, the resort or lodging tax the project's own community levies, and the water right permitting posture of the basin the parcel sits in. The financial section runs the stabilized year, the ramp, operating expenses, reserves and discounted cash flow at the lender's coverage, with the property tax line built from the graduated homestead structure or the property's own commercial tier. The risk section names what could move the numbers, the reappraisal cycle, the basin's water permitting posture, and, where the project sits near Great Falls or Colstrip, the federal or utility investment that anchors or concentrates local demand, and says what the sponsor has done about each. The lender package closes with the comparable loan evidence from the FOIA release and a statement of the standards the study was prepared under. The valuation approach follows USPAP, with the income, sales comparison and cost approaches reconciled to a supportable value, and every comparable sale or lease cited to its own recorded or reported source. Every section carries the source named in the sentence, the pattern this page follows throughout, so a Montana credit committee can trace a figure back to its publisher without a second request.

Montana's own research base put the state's population at 1,137,233 in 2024, with 32 of the state's 56 counties growing between 2023 and 2024, concentrated in the west, while the eastern counties that lost population did so by only about 1,000 residents combined, a slow drift rather than a collapse. The Office of Management and Budget's own July 21, 2023 delineation, Bulletin 23-01, names five Montana metropolitan statistical areas, Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls and Helena, while Kalispell in Flathead County carries micropolitan status instead. The balance of the state outside these five metros and Kalispell's own micropolitan core is overwhelmingly non-metro, the rural geography this page's USDA Rural Development section addresses directly, and a Montana feasibility study is written to name which of these environments, metro, micropolitan or rural, a subject property actually sits in.

Montana's Department of Labor and Industry reported a full year 2025 average unemployment rate of 3.3 percent, record wage growth and net in-migration, and more than 560,000 Montanans working in 2024, a record for the state. Beyond the metros below, Montana carries a childcare gap the study can name directly: the Department of Public Health and Human Services' own licensing count and the Department of Labor and Industry's state economist put licensed capacity at only about 44 percent of estimated statewide demand, with 59 percent of counties qualifying as childcare deserts and four counties, Wibaux, Treasure, Golden Valley and McCone, carrying no licensed provider at all; in 2023 more than 66,000 Montana parents could not fully engage the labor force for lack of childcare, a gap that supports USDA Community Facilities financing for a childcare project in an eligible rural area of the state.

Eastern Montana also carries its own single employer concentration risk: Sibanye Stillwater Limited's own SEC filing reports a planned reduction of approximately 200,000 2E ounces in 2025 platinum group metal production from its Stillwater and Sweet Grass county operations, targeting an all in sustaining cost of approximately US$1,000 per 2E ounce after the restructuring, a material fact for a community facility or industrial file sited near either mine. The U.S. Energy Information Administration put Montana crude production at about 78,000 barrels a day as of mid-2026, concentrated more than 80 percent in Richland and Roosevelt counties, the Bakken adjacent counties this page's gas station and truck stop corridor analysis follows.

Kalispell carries the Montana condition tied most directly to one river basin. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to Montana Compact, the U.S. Department of the Interior's own largest water rights settlement in state history, authorizes a $1.9 billion trust fund for the Federal Flathead Indian Irrigation Project and for community water and wastewater facilities on the Flathead Reservation that reaches Kalispell's own Flathead County; any site there relying on groundwater or surface water has to be checked against the compact's permitting regime before a lender can treat water availability as settled. Kalispell is also the gateway to Glacier National Park, whose own National Park Service fact sheet lists 1,012,837 acres, established May 11, 1910, sitting entirely inside Montana; the Park Service's own count shows the park drew 3,208,755 visits in 2024, its second highest year on record. The Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana puts the state's 2025 nonresident visitor spending at $5.64 billion, generated by 13.24 million nonresident visitors, supporting an estimated 52,620 jobs and $360.4 million in state and local tax revenue, the demand base a gateway market hospitality, short term rental or RV park file should be underwritten against rather than a generic regional tourism trend.

Flathead County's own unemployment rate ran 2.8 percent in May 2025, Montana's Department of Labor and Industry's own county series shows, and the county grew fast enough that Kalispell itself added an estimated 6,218 residents from 2020 to 2024, a gain of about 24.8 percent that Montana's own research base ranks 39th nationally among cities over 20,000 people. Logan Health, the region's major hospital system, anchors Kalispell's own senior care and medical office demand, and Kalispell is also home to one of USDA Rural Development's five Montana area offices, placing Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities review close to the Flathead basin itself. Whitefish, in the same county, is one of the handful of Montana communities that has adopted the local resort tax named above, a detail a hospitality or short term rental file in the Kalispell market should carry alongside the CSKT Compact's own permitting posture.

Great Falls carries the Montana condition with the largest single federal capital commitment behind it. Montana Renewables, LLC's Great Falls plant, in operation since late 2022 and now producing about 140 million gallons a year of biofuels, closed a $1.67 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office to expand to about 315 million gallons a year, most of it sustainable aviation fuel; DOE projects that once the plant reaches full capacity it will supply about half of all North American SAF and about 12 percent of the world's SAF through 2030, a federal floor under the area's construction and permanent employment that a smaller, unguaranteed private expansion would not carry.

Cascade County also hosts Malmstrom Air Force Base and the 341st Missile Wing's Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile modernization, which the Air Force's own Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Sentinel Deployment and Minuteman III Decommissioning and Disposal describes as a 13,800 square mile missile field across eight counties, Cascade, Chouteau, Fergus, Judith Basin, Lewis and Clark, Meagher, Teton and Wheatland, with more than 1,200 miles of new utility corridors and easements with 1,288 landowners, and two regional workforce hubs of up to 3,000 workers each; a 2024 Department of Defense review put the program's own cost growth at 81 percent, to $140.9 billion. Cascade County's own unemployment rate ran 2.7 percent in May 2025, Montana's Department of Labor and Industry's own county series shows, and Benefis Health System anchors the region's hospital and senior care demand alongside the state's own Montana Facility Finance Authority bond financing. Great Falls also hosts one of USDA Rural Development's five Montana area offices, placing Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities review close to the Golden Triangle's own agricultural processing and industrial base.

Bozeman sits in Gallatin County, whose own basin the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation counts among Montana's fully appropriated basins, alongside the Bitterroot, the upper Missouri and the Clark Fork, where a new water right permit can take 6 to 18 months to process with no guarantee of approval; that constraint compounds the metro's own growth pressure, since a project needing a new water right cannot assume approval on a fixed timeline the way a project outside a fully appropriated basin can. Montana State University anchors the metro, whose own commercial airport is the state's busiest for scheduled service by Montana's own research base. Gallatin County's own unemployment rate ran 2.5 percent in May 2025, Montana's Department of Labor and Industry's own county series shows, and Prospera Business Network is the certified regional development corporation deploying the state's Small Business Credit Initiative 2.0 loan participation allocation in the Gallatin Valley.

Montana's 2025 Legislature's graduated homestead property tax reaches every Bozeman area residential, commercial and agricultural parcel alike: the Montana Legislative Services Division states an enrolled principal residence or long term rental is taxed from 0.76 percent of the statewide median residential value, $395,400 for the 2025 to 2026 reappraisal cycle, up to 1.90 percent at the top of the scale, while a second home or short term rental that is not enrolled pays a flat 1.90 percent, a distinction that reaches directly into a Big Sky or Bozeman area short term rental pro forma. The National Park Service's own count shows Yellowstone National Park, reached from Bozeman through the Big Sky corridor, drew 4,744,353 visits in 2024, its second highest year on record, and Big Sky is itself one of the local resort tax communities named above.

Missoula sits at the center of the Clark Fork basin, one of the basins the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation counts as fully appropriated alongside the Gallatin, the Bitterroot and the upper Missouri, where a new surface or groundwater right permit can take 6 to 18 months with no guarantee of approval; the Montana Supreme Court's Clark Fork Coalition v. Tubbs decision and the 2024 Upper Missouri Waterkeeper v. DNRC decision both narrow how a multi phase project can rely on an exempt well in a basin like this one. University of Montana anchors the metro's economy alongside a healthcare cluster the Montana Facility Finance Authority has financed, including Providence St. Patrick Hospital.

Missoula County's own unemployment rate ran 2.5 percent in May 2025, Montana's Department of Labor and Industry's own county series shows, and MoFi, headquartered in Missoula, is the state's dominant regional CDFI and a New Markets Tax Credit allocatee, a gap financing partner Montana's own research base names as material given the state's rural bank branch coverage. Missoula is also home to one of USDA Rural Development's five Montana area offices, placing Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities review close to the western counties' own fully appropriated basins. Missoula's own western position places it closest to Montana's timber and forest products base, concentrated in the northwest, and to the Bitterroot basin's own fully appropriated status, both factors a multifamily or industrial file in the Missoula market should carry alongside the CDFI financing named above.

Billings is Montana's largest city and the seat of Yellowstone County, the state's most populous, and carries a second SBA office alongside the Helena headquarters of the same Montana District Office territory. Big Sky Economic Development Corporation, the Billings based Certified Development Company, led all Montana 504 CDCs but one in fiscal year 2025 SBA approvals, 15 loans for $7,863,000, and the Big Sky Economic Development Trust Fund the Department of Commerce administers is funded from the same coal severance base that anchors much of eastern Montana's own development finance.

Yellowstone County's own unemployment rate ran 2.6 percent in May 2025, Montana's Department of Labor and Industry's own county series shows. Billings Clinic, a Mayo Clinic Care Network member, and Intermountain Health's St. Vincent Regional Hospital anchor a regional medical hub Montana's own research base describes as serving a catchment stretching roughly 500 miles, supporting the senior housing and medical office demand a Yellowstone County feasibility study should be built against. Billings also anchors a three refinery petrochemical complex in and around Lockwood and Laurel, a concentrated industrial tax base for Yellowstone County alongside the medical hub named above.

Read against the SBA record above, fitness and recreational sports centers resolve cleanest, 60 7(a) loans for $21,598,800 at a 0.0 percent charge-off rate, and hotels and motels follow at 2.9 percent across 68 loans for $97,119,200, the class Montana's own gateway markets, Kalispell and the Bozeman to Big Sky corridor among them, support most directly. Restaurants carry the state's largest loan count, 208 7(a) loans for $67,558,900, at the highest rated charge-off rate in the table, 8.1 percent. Child day care services, 26 loans for $9,357,500, sit against the childcare gap named above, a Community Facilities case for a nonprofit operator in a county the state's own licensing count and labor economist call a childcare desert. Self storage, 8 loans for $15,847,800, carries the largest average loan size of any class with disclosed dollars despite too small a resolved cohort to rate, and assisted living and continuing care, 13 loans for $16,219,900, follows the licensure track set out above rather than a certificate of need, easing the entry test the study still has to document. Car washes and gas stations and convenience stores, 18 and 31 loans respectively, follow the interstate corridors, Interstate 90 east to west, Interstate 15 north to south and Interstate 94 toward the Bakken, that this study's site suitability work maps against traffic and competitive position rather than a single statewide figure. A gas station or truck stop file along Interstate 94 is also written against the U.S. Energy Information Administration's own count of about 78,000 barrels a day of Montana crude production, more than 80 percent of it concentrated in Richland and Roosevelt counties, the traffic driver behind that corridor's own commercial fueling and trucking demand. Medical office and retail files follow the Montana Facility Finance Authority's own hospital financing footprint and the county level population, wage and employment figures named for each metro above, rather than a single statewide retail or office figure this page does not carry.

Beyond the classes above, MMCG produces SBA, USDA and conventional grade feasibility studies for the full range of commercial property types financed in Montana. Marinas, suppressed under 5 loans in the state's own FOIA record, follow Flathead Lake and the state's other boating waters rather than a statewide figure. Multifamily and workforce housing files follow the western counties Montana's own research base names as fastest growing, Gallatin and Flathead among them, and the graduated homestead tax's own distinction between an enrolled long term rental and an unenrolled short term rental. Industrial and flex files follow the Golden Triangle and central Montana feedstock, trucking and rail demand the Montana Renewables expansion sets a floor under, and the Sentinel program's own construction and workforce hub footprint at Malmstrom. Community Facilities Program files for a hospital, clinic, water system or childcare borrower follow the Montana Facility Finance Authority's own conduit bond track record, more than $4 billion over 40 years, and the childcare desert figures named above. Glamping and short term rental files carry the resort tax a project's own community levies, from West Yellowstone, Big Sky, Whitefish and Red Lodge, and are underwritten against the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research's own statewide visitor spending series named above. Montana's own agricultural base, about 23,800 farms on 57.4 million acres in 2024, wheat planted on about 5.33 million acres for roughly 173 million bushels valued at more than $1 billion, and the nation's largest lentil and dry edible pea production, about 6.21 to 7.04 million hundredweight on about 720,000 acres worth about $226 million, supports Business and Industry and Community Facilities financing for grain handling, processing and rural infrastructure, and malt barley underpins the state's own craft brewing and distilling supply chain, an agritourism angle this firm's brewery and winery adjacent engagements follow.

Montana's own public records carry a market layer a lender reads alongside the traveler-spending figure above. The Montana Department of Revenue's Biennial Report puts fiscal year 2024 Lodging Facility Use Tax collections at $62,408,137, the bed-tax base that funds the state's Glacier and Yellowstone gateway tourism promotion. The U.S. Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey recorded 5,258 new housing units authorized statewide in 2025, 2,675 of them single-family, a residential pipeline that bears on the light-industrial and flex demand tied to growth in the Bozeman to Kalispell corridor. The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns count 1,393 manufacturing establishments statewide in 2023, a comparatively small but stable industrial base a Great Falls or Billings file is underwritten against.

Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days from data receipt, and rush turnaround is available from 5 business days. The seven steps below are what happens in that window, from the project brief to lender review.

MMCG delivers Montana feasibility studies in 9 to 16 business days from data receipt, with a complimentary preliminary market overview within one business day of submission. Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Reports are formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional lender file submission and incorporate the analytical layers Montana credit committees expect: the state's own FOIA cohort by asset class, the Bozeman state office's guarantee terms and the rural area determination on a USDA file, the graduated homestead property tax's own tiers and enrollment distinction, the Department of Public Health and Human Services licence or certificate of need threshold, the resort or lodging tax a project's own community levies, and the water right permitting posture of the basin the parcel sits in, from the CSKT Compact to a fully appropriated basin's own permit timeline. Sponsor inquiries that involve a site inside the Flathead Reservation's own permitting regime, a certificate of need file, or a gateway market short term rental near Glacier or Yellowstone typically require the upper end of the standard range.

Engagements typically begin with the project address, asset class, capital stack, sponsor experience, and the specific lender, Certified Development Company or USDA office carrying the deal. From there, MMCG calibrates scope to the program of record, whether SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA Business and Industry, REAP, Community Facilities or conventional.

Send the project address. Receive a free Montana market overview within one business day. Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Delivery in 9 to 16 business days. A senior analyst responds within 12 business hours.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a commercial real estate feasibility consulting firm specializing in SBA and USDA feasibility studies across asset classes including hotels, assisted living, car washes, self storage, RV parks, gas stations, restaurants and agritourism. Our analyses serve lenders, CDCs, investors and developers seeking institutional quality market intelligence for underwriting and investment decisions. Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Feasibility studies are prepared under USPAP discipline, aligned with SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 loans and with 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities financing. Engagements start at $4,900 with fixed fee scoping. Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days, with rush turnaround available from 5 business days. A senior analyst responds to proposal requests within 12 business hours from the firm's San Francisco office.

Every state page MMCG publishes is listed on the state index; the neighbouring states are linked at the end of this page. The Montana cities and counties served:

Billings and Yellowstone County: Billings, Laurel, Lockwood.

Bozeman and Gallatin County: Bozeman, Belgrade, Big Sky, Three Forks, Manhattan.

Missoula and the western counties: Missoula, Lolo, Frenchtown, Hamilton.

Kalispell and Flathead County: Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Polson.

Great Falls and the Golden Triangle: Great Falls, Havre, Lewistown, Choteau.

Helena and Lewis and Clark County: Helena, East Helena.

Butte and Silver Bow County: Butte.

Eastern Montana: Sidney, Glendive, Wolf Point, Miles City, Colstrip.

Counties this page's research names: Yellowstone, Gallatin, Missoula, Flathead, Cascade, Lewis and Clark, Silver Bow, Ravalli, Rosebud, Sweet Grass, Stillwater, Richland, Roosevelt, Sheridan, Daniels, Madison, Chouteau, Fergus, Judith Basin, Meagher, Teton, Wheatland.

The firm's engagement team works from the district and area office network named above, the Montana District Office's own Helena and Billings locations for an SBA file, and the Bozeman state office and its Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell and Missoula area offices for a USDA file, so a Montana sponsor's file is scoped from the start to the office that will actually underwrite it.