Market Performance Overview: Occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR The U.S. hospitality sector enters 2026 in the middle of a quiet but consequential reversal. In 2025 the industry recorded something it had never before posted outside of a recession: a full-year decline in revenue per available room. RevPAR slipped roughly 0.3% as occupancy gave back about 1.2%, and the air went out of a recovery that many operators had assumed would carry through the decade (1)(3). The cause was not a

How Throughput, Recurring Revenue, and Capital Structure Determine Bankability under SBA 7(a), SBA 504, and USDA Loan Programs Executive Summary The express exterior car wash has become one of the most actively financed small-business real estate assets in the United States, and one of the most exposed to a single analytical question: can the revenue line clear debt service through stabilization? For a low-labor, high-throughput tunnel, feasibility is almost entirely a revenu

The one-in-five problem Roughly one in every five dollars the Small Business Administration guarantees flows to a franchise (1). That is a remarkable concentration for a single business form, and it explains why the franchise question sits close to the center of small-business credit. It also sets up a contradiction that most loan files never resolve. Franchising is large and, by its own accounting, healthy. Heading into 2026 the sector is on track to produce about $921 billi

A newly delivered Class A warehouse. In 2026 industrial sits at or just past peak vacancy near 6.7 to 7.3 percent, with deliveries at their lowest since 2017 and absorption forecast to overtake new supply. For a build like this, the feasibility conclusion turns on the lease-up: how fast comparable space filled, and when the ramp crosses the occupancy that covers debt service. 1. Why the Gap Is the Conclusion A feasibility study does not answer whether there is demand. It answ

1. Why Demographics Decide the Conclusion Demographic analysis is the load-bearing input of a feasibility study. Every figure a lender ultimately underwrites, the demand projection, the capture or penetration rate, the absorption schedule, the stabilized revenue line, the debt service coverage ratio, is derivative of a population picture drawn around the subject. A defensible demographic foundation produces a defensible conclusion. A borrowed or stale one invalidates everythi

In fiscal year 2025, the U.S. Small Business Administration guaranteed roughly 84,400 loans under its two flagship credit programs, the 7(a) and the 504, channeling about $44.8 billion into small business borrowers and the commercial real estate they occupy (1). It was the largest combined volume in the agency's history. Read alone, that figure tells a story of abundance: federally backed capital is flowing, and it is flowing at record scale. That reading is incomplete. The s

Most multifamily borrowers approach feasibility work as a single deliverable. One market study, one rent comp set, one absorption schedule, sized to whichever lender happens to be in front of them at the time. This is the wrong frame, and it produces the wrong file. A feasibility study built for an SBA-financed senior living conversion has almost nothing in common with the deliverable an EB-5 Regional Center needs for a garden apartment build, and neither resembles the apprai

Methodology, multipliers, and asset-class benchmarks for SBA 504 and 7(a) feasibility analysis On October 1, 2025, the Small Business Administration recalibrated the 504 program's central compliance test. The per-job debenture threshold climbed from $90,000 to $95,000 on the standard track, and from $140,000 to $150,000 for small manufacturers and projects meeting an energy public-policy goal. The change, codified at 90 FR 47117, was administrative, a routine inflation adjust

1. Why PMA Decides Feasibility The Primary Market Area is the single most consequential analytical decision in any feasibility study. Every other input — demand projection, capture rate, competitive supply, absorption schedule, achievable rents — is derivative of the geographic boundary the analyst draws around the subject. A defensible PMA produces a defensible feasibility conclusion. An indefensible PMA invalidates everything downstream. The PMA carries this much weight bec

The line item used to be predictable. It is not now. For two decades, tobacco sat at twenty to thirty-five percent of c-store inside revenue, declined gently each year, and required no analytical justification beyond a NACS benchmark. Lenders rarely asked questions. Feasibility consultants rarely raised them. That regime ended in 2022. The replacement is a different problem entirely. The category is bifurcating. Regulation is moving state by state in ways that change unit eco

Executive Summary A single underwritten Debt Service Coverage Ratio is no longer a defensible decision variable for institutional commercial real estate lending. The empirical record of the last three years has settled the question. CMBS surveillance through the first quarter of 2026 shows office delinquency at an all-time high of 12.34% in January 2026, lodging delinquency rising 137 basis points in a single month to 7.31% in March 2026, and multifamily delinquency reaching

1. Executive Summary Labor is no longer the residual line on a special-purpose pro forma. It is the lever. Across the five asset classes that dominate SBA 7(a), 504, and USDA B&I special-purpose paper, namely limited-service hospitality, express car washes, self-storage, laundromats, and unattended fueling, the operators with the lowest full-time-equivalent count per revenue dollar are not just generating higher EBITDA margins. They are clearing debt-service coverage threshol

A loan officer at a community bank reviewed the file on her desk in late 2024: an SBA 7(a) request for a ground-up Hampton by Hilton in a secondary metro, $14 million total project cost, 60 keys, single-asset entity, two-sponsor team. The appraisal had landed that morning. USPAP-compliant, MAI-signed, three approaches reconciled, prospective value upon stabilization at $14.5 million against a $10.5 million guaranteed loan request. The numbers worked. LTV was 72 percent at com

How institutional demand analysis is constructed for traffic-driven retail under SBA SOP 50 10 8 and USDA 7 CFR 5001, illustrated through gas stations, express car washes, and truck stops. The number that everything else hinges on In every feasibility study, one number propagates through the entire model. Capture rate. Whether the project services its debt depends on whether the analyst can defend that single figure to an SBA underwriter or USDA reviewer. Demand analysis is t

The chapter that decides the deal Most feasibility studies are decided in one chapter. Not the executive summary, and not the financial model. The competitor analysis. Capture rate, achievable rent or ADR, stabilization curve, DSCR, and the equity injection conversation with the lender all sit on top of how the analyst defined the competitive set and how honestly the numbers coming back from it were read. The standards have tightened sharply. Since SBA SOP 50 10 8 took effect

Hotels and lodging facilities represent the single largest category of SBA 504 borrowers by loan count, accounting for approximately 14% of all 504 originations in peak years. Executive Summary When SBA Standard Operating Procedure 50 10 8 took effect on June 1, 2025, it did not simply update a few paragraphs in a technical manual. It reversed the fundamental philosophy that had governed SBA-guaranteed lending since November 2023, when SOP 50 10 7.1 introduced the so-called "

The U.S. wedding services market reached an estimated $65–100 billion in 2025, with venues capturing the single largest share of wedding budgets at 24–40% of total spend (1)(2)(3). Roughly 2 million couples married annually at an average cost of $34,000–$36,000, directing $8,500–$14,300 per wedding to venue rental alone (2)(3). Grand View Research projects the U.S. wedding services market will reach $95.35 billion by 2030 at a 6.8% CAGR, driven by rising per-wedding expenditu

RV Park nearby Zion National Park - Photo by Michal Mohelský (2025) The sudden closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in modern history, sending shockwaves through every fuel-dependent sector of the American economy. With WTI crude briefly touching $119.48 per barrel on March 10 — a 75% surge from its 52-week low of $54.98 — and diesel spiking to $4.86 per gallon , entire industries face margin compression not seen since the 2008 oil

Introduction to SBA Feasibility Reviews When seeking an SBA loan, one crucial hurdle is the feasibility review – an analysis of whether the proposed business venture or project is truly viable. Both lenders and the SBA carefully scrutinize the business plan and financial projections to ensure the venture can generate enough cash flow to repay the loan. This feasibility analysis often involves a deep dive into market conditions, financial forecasts, management capabilities, a

Financial Performance and Multi-Year Trends McDonald’s Corporation has demonstrated resilient financial performance over the past several years, rebounding from a pandemic slump to reach new highs. In 2019, before the pandemic, McDonald’s posted roughly $21 billion in revenue. The disruptions of 2020 saw sales dip (consolidated revenues fell to about $19 billion that year), but the company quickly recovered. By 2021, revenue was back above $23 billion , and growth continued