What USDA Means by Sensitivity Analysis in Feasibility Study

One federal loan guarantee regulation names sensitivity analysis as part of a feasibility study. It puts the words in an appendix that was published as a picture. Here is where they came from, what surrounds them, the one number USDA wrote down, and the section a reviewer is actually reading when they get to yours.

Open the eCFR to 7 CFR Part 5001, the rule that governs USDA's Business and Industry, Community Facilities, Water and Waste Disposal and REAP guaranteed loans, and search the page for "sensitivity analysis." You will get nothing. Search the Subpart D appendices, where the feasibility study requirements live. Still nothing. A consultant who stops there concludes, reasonably, that USDA does not use the phrase, and writes the sensitivity section of the study the way everyone writes it: a table of revenue down 5, 10, 15 and 20 percent, a break-even line, a paragraph saying the project survives.

The words are there. They are the last item in a list of twelve, in Appendix A to Subpart D, and the reason the search returns nothing is that when the Agency published the appendix in the Federal Register on July 14, 2020, it published it as two scanned images (1, 2). The text-identical list exists as searchable text in two other places in the Code of Federal Regulations, one governing REAP grants and one governing biorefineries, which is how we found it. It does not exist as text in the rule that governs the loans most of our USDA clients are seeking.

This matters for a practical reason. Of the federal guarantee programs a feasibility study is written for, SBA 7(a) and 504, USDA B&I, Community Facilities, REAP and Water and Waste, USDA's regulation is the only one that names sensitivity analysis as a component of the study. The SBA's operating rules, SOP 50 10 8, never use the words (3). Bank supervisors use them, in the 2006 interagency guidance on commercial real estate concentrations and in the OCC's 2012 community bank stress-testing bulletin, but those govern the lender's portfolio, not the consultant's report (4, 5). So the one place a study author is told, in a regulation, that the section must exist is a place almost no study author has read. What follows is what it says, what it does not say, and what we think the reviewer is looking for when they turn to that page.

Where the words came from

The lineage is short and slightly embarrassing for anyone who has described the requirement as long-standing.

The first time USDA codified sensitivity analysis as a feasibility study component was June 24, 2015, and the program was not B&I. It was the Section 9003 Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical and Biobased Product Manufacturing Assistance program, at 7 CFR 4279.261. The feasibility study table in that section lists, under financial feasibility, "Sensitivity analysis, including feedstock and energy costs and product and Byproduct prices," and a separate paragraph requires the lender's own credit analysis to include a "Financial and sensitivity review using a financial modeling software program or a banking industry software analysis program with industry standards, when appropriate" (6). That is the only place in USDA regulation where the Agency says which variables to vary. For a biorefinery the answer is feedstock, energy, product and byproduct. For a hotel, a travel center or an assisted living community, the regulation is silent, and the analyst decides.

The second appearance is the one that governs B&I, Community Facilities, Water and Waste and REAP guaranteed loans. The OneRD consolidation, published July 14, 2020 and effective October 1, 2020, created a single enumerated feasibility appendix for all four programs, Appendix A to Subpart D of Part 5001 (1, 7). Its financial component ends with "Sensitivity analysis." Because the appendix went into the Federal Register as images ER14JY20.008 and ER14JY20.009, the eCFR renders it as a picture and search engines cannot see it (2). The appendix has not changed by a word since: the substantive OneRD amendments of September 30, 2024 and the technical corrections of December 11, 2025 left it alone (8, 9).

The third appearance is a copy. On April 27, 2021, the REAP grant rule added Appendix D to Subpart B of Part 4280, with the identical five components and the identical twelve financial factors, and the preamble explains the whole reason in one sentence: "Added appendix which conforms to feasibility study component appendix found in 7 CFR 5001" (10). That appendix is machine-readable text, which is why anyone searching for the phrase lands on a REAP grant appendix and assumes, wrongly, that it is the origin.

And B&I itself never had its own list. The legacy B&I feasibility rule, 7 CFR 4279.150, said everything it had to say in four sentences: a study by "a qualified independent consultant acceptable to the Agency" is required for new businesses; the Agency may require one for an existing business when the project will significantly affect operations and existing cash flow cannot service the new debt; the study "must include an evaluation of the economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility and an executive summary that reaches an overall conclusion as to the business' chance of success"; and, in a line worth keeping, "The income approach of an appraisal is not an acceptable feasibility study" (11). No factors. No sensitivity. The five prongs and a conclusion. The operative list for a B&I study today is the OneRD appendix, incorporated through the definition of "feasibility study" in 5001.3, which reads: "a report including an opinion or finding conducted by an independent qualified consultant(s) evaluating the economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility of the proposed project or operation in terms of its expectation for success as outlined in appendix A to subpart D of this part" (12).

What the appendix actually says

Appendix A is a table. Each of the five components gets a one-sentence definition under the heading "What is it?" and a column of "Factors to consider." The financial definition is worth quoting in full because it is the closest thing to an instruction the regulation gives: "Analysis of the operation to achieve sufficient income, credit, and cashflow to financially sustain the project over the long term and meet all debt obligations" (1, 10).

The twelve financial factors, in the order the Agency lists them, are commercial or project underwriting; management's assumptions; accounting policies; source of repayment; dependency on other entities; equity contribution; market demand forecast; peer industry comparison; cost-accounting system; availability of short-term credit; adequacy of raw materials and supplies; and, last, sensitivity analysis (1, 10).

Read as a list, the twelve are not twelve separate exhibits. They are the inputs to one question, the one in the definition: can the operation sustain itself over the long term and meet all debt obligations. Sensitivity analysis is placed last because it is the test applied to the other eleven. "Management's assumptions" is the second factor; sensitivity analysis is what you do to them. "Market demand forecast" is the seventh; sensitivity analysis is what happens when the forecast is wrong. "Dependency on other entities" is the fifth; sensitivity analysis is what the project looks like when the entity it depends on has a bad year. The regulation does not say any of this. But it is the only reading under which the list makes sense as a list rather than as a checklist, and it is the reading we apply.

What the appendix does not say is equally important. It does not say how far to move any input, in which direction, or against what threshold. It does not name a debt service coverage ratio. It does not distinguish a new business from an expansion, a hotel from a grain elevator, a fixed-rate note from a floating one. Every one of those decisions is left to the consultant, and every one of them is where a sensitivity section either earns its place in the file or becomes the ritual table that a reviewer skips. We walked through the full enumeration of what USDA does and does not prescribe in our piece on the 37 factors of 7 CFR Part 5001; this article is about the twelfth financial factor alone.

The requirements around the word are what define it

Since the appendix does not define the test, the definition has to come from the provisions the appendix sits inside. There are five, and together they say more than the word does.

The first is the assumptions rule. The application content section, 5001.303(b), requires projected balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements "through a minimum of two years of the project performing at full operational capacity or stable operations," allows the Agency to require projections through the end of the loan term, and then states the sentence that gives the sensitivity section its object: "Financial projections must be supported by a list of assumptions showing the basis for the projections" (13). A sensitivity analysis is a test of that list. If the list is not in the study, or is in the study but not sourced, the sensitivity section is testing nothing, however many scenarios it runs.

The second is the global coverage rule. The lender's credit evaluation under 5001.202 requires a global historical and projected debt service coverage analysis, which consolidates the borrower with affiliates and guarantors rather than looking at the project entity alone, and it sets no numeric minimum (14). Two things follow. The sensitivity that matters to USDA is the sensitivity of global coverage, not project coverage; a downside case that leaves the project at 1.10x but takes the guarantor's outside cash flow to zero is a different downside from one that does not. And the threshold the sensitivity is measured against is the lender's, not the regulation's. In practice B&I lenders underwrite to something near 1.25x at stabilization, and the reviewer will read the sensitivity section against whatever number the lender's credit memo commits to. A study that stresses to 1.00x when the lender's covenant is 1.25x has stressed the wrong line.

The third is the standard of approval. Under 5001.315 the Agency "will only guarantee loans that are sound and that have a reasonable assurance of repayment" (15). "Reasonable assurance" is the phrase a sensitivity section exists to support. It does not require certainty and it does not accept a base case alone. It asks whether repayment survives the range of conditions a reasonable person would expect the project to meet, which is a question about the downside, not the forecast.

The fourth is the trigger. For B&I, a feasibility study by an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency is required for guaranteed loans above $1,000,000 to a new business, with the Agency determining the scope "dependent on the complexity of the project and the borrower"; below that line, and for existing businesses, the Agency may require one where the lender's analysis does not establish a basis for successful repayment (16, 17). The scope language is the Agency's lever. Where a project is unusual, large for its market, or in an industry the Agency knows less well, the state office can and does ask for more downside work than the appendix's two words would suggest, and a consultant who has built a sensitivity section that anticipates the request is the consultant whose study is not sent back.

The fifth is specific to Community Facilities, and it is the only place the regulation gets concrete. Under 5001.304, "all projects financed under this section must meet the financial feasibility requirements of this section and must be based on projected taxes, assessments, revenues, fees, or other sources of revenues in an amount sufficient to provide for project operation and maintenance, debt payments, and compliance with lender reserve requirements, when applicable." The section then names three sensitivities without using the word. "The financial feasibility report must take into consideration any interest rate adjustment that may be instituted under the terms of the promissory note." "Other sources of revenue or existence of payment guarantors are particularly important in considering the feasibility of eligible recreation projects." And "if the primary use of the essential community facility is by a business and the success or failure of the facility is dependent on that business, then the economic viability of that business must also be assessed" (18). Rate reset, revenue dependency, tenant dependency. Those are sensitivity tests, written into the regulation for one program, and they are a reasonable description of what the reviewer expects for the others.

The one number USDA wrote down

Then there is the sentence that every assisted living and skilled nursing study written for a Community Facilities guarantee has to obey, and it is the closest USDA comes to codifying a stress: "Financial projections for projects that are assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, or similar types of eligible residential facilities must be based on no more than 90 percent occupancy" (18).

Ninety percent is a cap on the base case. Whatever the market study supports, whatever the comparable communities are running, the projections and the coverage derived from them cannot assume more. It is a pre-baked haircut, and it is the only one in the rule: there is no parallel ceiling for hospital census, hotel occupancy, or community facility revenue, and the absence is worth stating plainly, because the 90 percent line gets quoted as if it were a general USDA rule and it is not.

The more interesting question is whether 90 percent is a stress at all. Nationally, it is not. NIC MAP's data for the 31 primary markets put assisted living occupancy at 84.9 percent before the pandemic, at a low of 75.4 percent in the first quarter of 2021, and at 87.9 percent in the first quarter of 2026, the highest reading in the series; senior housing as a whole, independent and assisted combined, reached 89.5 percent that quarter, also a record (19, 20). The cap sits above the level the national assisted living series has ever reached. It binds only the optimistic. A study that projects 90 percent because the regulation allows 90 percent has not run a sensitivity. It has taken the ceiling as the forecast.

Here is what the ceiling looks like against the record, on a community of the kind we underwrite for CF guarantees. Eighty assisted living units at a $5,800 monthly rate, a 27 percent operating margin at the cap, variable costs at 30 percent of revenue and the rest fixed, debt sized to 1.35x coverage at the cap. At 90 percent occupancy the community produces $5.01 million of revenue, $1.35 million of net operating income and 1.35x. At 87.9 percent, the national level this spring and the best year in the series, coverage is 1.27x. At 84.9 percent, the pre-pandemic national level, 1.15x. At 80 percent, 0.96x. At 75.4 percent, the 2021 national low, 0.78x. Break-even occupancy for 1.00x is 81.0 percent; for a 1.25x covenant it is 87.4 percent, which is to say the covenant breaks about half a point below the best national year on record. And in the first year, at an average occupancy of 55 percent across an eighteen-to-thirty-six-month lease-up, the community does not cover at all, which is what the interest reserve and the working capital line are for.

None of those numbers is in the regulation. All of them are what the regulation's one number implies once you place it next to the industry's own record, and that placement is the sensitivity analysis. Our assisted living feasibility work runs exactly this table for every CF and B&I senior housing engagement, because it is the table the reviewer would build if they had the data.

Program by program

The four OneRD programs share the appendix, but the provisions around it differ, and the differences tell a consultant which sensitivities the reviewer for each program is trained to look for.

For Business and Industry the codified structure is the trigger and the global test. The independent study is mandatory above $1,000,000 to a new business, the Agency sets its scope, and coverage is measured globally under 5001.202 (14, 16). Nothing in the B&I sections names a variable. The reviewer's sensitivities come from the credit memo: the lender's covenant, the guarantor's outside cash flow, and the note's rate mechanics, which for most B&I loans means a base rate plus a spread with quarterly adjustment. A B&I sensitivity section that does not test the reset and the global number has left out the two things the B&I reviewer will ask about first.

For Community Facilities the regulation is the most specific, and every specific is a sensitivity. The 90 percent cap for residential care. The instruction that the financial feasibility report "must take into consideration any interest rate adjustment that may be instituted under the terms of the promissory note." The requirement that utility projects dependent on user fees "base their income and expense forecast on user estimates supported by either a State statute or local ordinance requiring mandatory hookup or signed and enforceable user agreements," which is a revenue-certainty test written as an eligibility condition. The instruction that "other sources of revenue or existence of payment guarantors are particularly important in considering the feasibility of eligible recreation projects," which tells the consultant that a recreation facility's base case is not expected to stand alone. And the rule that where a facility's primary use is by a business, "the economic viability of that business must also be assessed," which makes the tenant's downside part of the study (18). A CF study that runs a revenue-down table and stops has answered none of these.

For Water and Waste Disposal the same user-fee logic applies, and the sensitivity that matters is the one between projected connections and enforceable connections. The number of signed user agreements or the terms of a mandatory hookup ordinance is the base case; the sensitivity is what coverage looks like at the connection count the documents actually support rather than the count the engineer's report hopes for.

For REAP the structure is different in kind. The guaranteed loan is underwritten under Part 5001 with the shared appendix, but the technical report and energy audit that support it live in Part 4280 Subpart B, and the screen those documents apply is simple payback: the years required for the projected energy savings to recover the project cost (10). Payback is a sensitivity in disguise. It turns entirely on the savings assumption, and a REAP study that does not show payback at a lower production estimate or a lower energy price has not tested the one input the program's own scoring rewards.

Read across the four, the pattern is consistent. The Agency never says "run a sensitivity on X." It codifies the condition it worries about for each program, occupancy, rate reset, connections, savings, dependency, and leaves the consultant to notice that each condition is a variable. The twelfth factor is the instruction to vary them.

What a sensitivity section has to show

Given all of that, here is the standard we apply to the twelfth factor, and the regulatory hook for each part of it. It is our reading, not the Agency's, and we set it out so that a lender or a state office can argue with it line by line.

The assumptions register comes first, because 5001.303(b) makes it the object of the exercise. Every input the projections rest on, with its source: the occupancy from the market section's supply and demand work, the rate from the comparable survey, the payroll from the staffing plan, the tax from the assessor, the insurance from a quote, the interest rate from the term sheet. An assumption without a source is not an assumption. It is a guess, and a sensitivity analysis of a guess is theater.

One-variable tables on the drivers the market section named, not on an arbitrary list. If the market section says demand turns on two employers and a highway, the sensitivity section moves those. Revenue down 10 percent is a legitimate row; it is not a legitimate row if the study never says what would make revenue fall 10 percent.

Break-even distance, stated in the unit the lender uses. The revenue decline, and for occupancy-driven assets the occupancy level, at which global coverage reaches 1.00x and at which it reaches the lender's covenant. Two numbers, because they answer two different questions: how far the deal can fall before the borrower cannot pay, and how far it can fall before the lender is in default of its own policy.

A named downside anchored to the industry's own worst year, not a round percentage. Lodging has a 2009 and a 2020 on the STR record. Assisted living has a 2021 on the NIC record. Self-storage's worst quarter on the public REIT record was a revenue decline of a few points. The named case says: here is what happened to this asset class the last time things went wrong, and here is the project's coverage under that year. We set out the record for seven asset classes, and what it implies for the shape of the downside, in our companion piece on what Monte Carlo simulation can and cannot do for a feasibility study; the deterministic version of that argument belongs in every USDA study.

Ramp and stabilization timing, tested rather than assumed. The projections run "through a minimum of two years of the project performing at full operational capacity or stable operations," and the sensitivity section should show what coverage looks like if stabilization takes a year longer than the base case says. For most ground-up projects this is the sensitivity that sizes the interest reserve.

Rate reset on variable-rate notes. Section 5001.304 requires it in words for Community Facilities, and B&I notes routinely float at a published base rate plus a spread with quarterly adjustment, which is where the requirement bites hardest. An anonymized workpaper from a recent B&I travel center engagement shows why. Stabilized base coverage was 1.18x. A 200 basis point move at the first reset took it to 1.02x. Revenue down 10 percent, with the rate unchanged, took it to 0.87x, and down 20 percent to 0.56x; break-even sat at 94 percent of stabilized revenue. Global coverage, adding the guarantor's outside cash flow and personal debt service, was 1.03x. Every one of those figures is a sensitivity the regulation contemplates, and the last of them is the one the lender's credit memo turns on.

And global coverage under every case above, not project coverage alone, because 5001.202 is written that way and the reviewer reads it that way.

What we could not find

An article about what a regulator means owes the reader an account of what the regulator has not said. We looked for three things and did not find them, and the article is written so as not to pretend otherwise.

We did not find any published USDA guidance below the regulation that defines the sensitivity section: no OneRD program guide passage, no Community Facilities financial feasibility report template, and no state office feasibility guideline that names break-even, worst case or adverse-condition testing. The RD Instruction that reproduces Part 5001 carries the appendix as text, which at least makes the twelve factors searchable inside USDA's own manual, but it adds no definition (21). We did not find an Inspector General or GAO finding that faults a B&I or CF feasibility study for its downside work, and we did not find an appeal determination that turns on one. Those may exist. If they do, they would sharpen this piece, and we would rather say we have not located them than invent a consequence the record does not show.

What that absence means in practice is that the twelfth factor is defined by the reviewer who reads it, informed by the five provisions above and by the lender's own policy. That is not a weakness in the regulation so much as an allocation of judgment. The Agency told the consultant the section must exist and told the lender the loan must be sound with a reasonable assurance of repayment. It left the connection between the two to be made in the study. The standard in the previous section is our attempt to make it, in the open, and it is the standard our USDA feasibility study practice delivers whether or not the state office asks.

The section a reviewer is reading

A last observation, from the side of the table where we spend most of our time. When a study comes back from a state office with questions, the questions are almost never about the sensitivity table. They are about the assumptions the table rests on: where did the occupancy come from, does the rate tie to the comparables, is the guarantor's cash flow in the global number, what happens at the first rate reset, why does stabilization arrive in month eighteen. Every one of those is a sensitivity question asked about a specific input, which is precisely what the appendix's twelfth factor, read in the context of the other eleven, tells the consultant to have answered before the question is asked.

USDA put the words in the regulation, in an appendix published as a picture, copied into a grant rule, borrowed from a biorefinery program, without a definition. The definition is the rest of the rule. Our methodology page sets out how we apply it across the thirty-plus asset classes we write for, and we are glad to walk a lender or a state office through a live study. Request a feasibility study when the deal calls for one.

Frequently asked questions

Does USDA require sensitivity analysis in a feasibility study? Yes, by enumeration. Appendix A to Subpart D of 7 CFR Part 5001 lists "Sensitivity analysis" as the twelfth financial feasibility factor for studies prepared under the OneRD guaranteed loan programs (B&I, Community Facilities, Water and Waste Disposal and REAP guaranteed loans). The regulation does not define the analysis, name the variables, set a magnitude, or specify a coverage threshold. The Section 9003 biorefinery rule at 7 CFR 4279.261 is the only USDA provision that names the variables (feedstock and energy costs, product and byproduct prices).

Why can I not find "sensitivity analysis" when I search 7 CFR Part 5001? Because Appendix A was published in the Federal Register on July 14, 2020 as two scanned images, and the eCFR renders it as a picture. The identical text is searchable in Appendix D to Subpart B of Part 4280 (the REAP grant appendix, copied from Part 5001 in 2021) and, in a variant, in the Section 9003 table at 4279.261.

Did the old B&I regulation require sensitivity analysis? No. The legacy rule at 7 CFR 4279.150 required a study by a qualified independent consultant covering economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility with an executive summary, and stated that the income approach of an appraisal is not an acceptable feasibility study. It never enumerated factors and never used the phrase. B&I inherited the twelve financial factors, including sensitivity analysis, from the 2020 OneRD appendix.

What is USDA's 90 percent occupancy rule? Under 7 CFR 5001.304, financial projections for assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities and similar eligible residential facilities financed under a Community Facilities guarantee must be based on no more than 90 percent occupancy. It is a cap on the base case, and it is the only asset-class-specific ceiling in the rule. There is no parallel cap for hospitals, hotels or other community facilities. Nationally, assisted living occupancy has never reached 90 percent in NIC MAP's primary-market series, so the cap constrains only optimistic projections; the sensitivity work below 90 percent is the consultant's.

What DSCR does USDA require? Part 5001 sets no numeric debt service coverage minimum. Section 5001.202 requires the lender's credit evaluation to include a global historical and projected debt service coverage analysis, consolidating affiliates and guarantors, and 5001.315 requires the loan to be sound with a reasonable assurance of repayment. The coverage threshold is the lender's, and in practice B&I lenders underwrite to something near 1.25x at stabilization. A sensitivity section should be measured against the lender's covenant, not only against 1.00x.

Does the sensitivity analysis have to consider interest rate changes? For Community Facilities, yes, explicitly: 5001.304 states that the financial feasibility report must take into consideration any interest rate adjustment that may be instituted under the terms of the promissory note. For B&I, the regulation does not say so in words, but B&I notes commonly float at a base rate plus a spread with quarterly adjustment, and a study that does not test coverage at a reset is not testing the note the borrower signed.

What should the sensitivity section of a USDA feasibility study contain? A sourced assumptions register; one-variable tests on the drivers the market section identified; break-even distance to 1.00x and to the lender's covenant; a named downside anchored to the asset class's worst recorded year; a stabilization-delay case; a rate-reset case on variable notes; and global coverage, not project coverage, under every case. That is MMCG's reading of the twelfth factor in the context of the eleven before it and of 5001.202, 5001.303, 5001.304 and 5001.315.

September 7, 2026 by Michal Mohelsky, principal of MMCG Invest, LLC, a national SBA and USDA feasibility study consultancy

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Michal Mohelsky, J.D. | Principal | mmcginvest.com 

Contact: michal@mmcginvest.com

Phone: (628) 225-1125

Disclaimer: This report is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice. Data presented herein is derived from proprietary MMCG databases and third-party sources believed to be reliable; however, MMCG Invest makes no representation as to the accuracy or completeness of such information. Figures from third-party industry databases have been independently verified and, where appropriate, adjusted to reflect MMCG's proprietary analytical methodology. Statutory and regulatory references are provided for context and must be verified with counsel before reliance. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Sources

(1) 7 CFR Part 5001, Subpart D, Appendix A, Feasibility Study Components, as published at 85 FR 42518, July 14, 2020, Federal Register images ER14JY20.008 and ER14JY20.009. (2) Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, rendering of Appendix A to Subpart D of Part 5001 as image content, consulted September 2026. (3) U.S. Small Business Administration, SOP 50 10 8, Lender and Development Company Loan Programs, effective June 1, 2025; text searched for sensitivity and simulation terms, none found. (4) Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Concentrations in Commercial Real Estate Lending, Sound Risk Management Practices, 71 FR 74580, December 12, 2006. (5) Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Bulletin 2012-33, Community Bank Stress Testing: Supervisory Guidance, October 18, 2012. (6) 7 CFR 4279.261(e), Table 1, and 4279.261(k)(6)(ii), Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical, and Biobased Product Manufacturing Assistance, 80 FR 36425, June 24, 2015, as amended at 81 FR 11051 and 89 FR 34959. (7) OneRD Guaranteed Loan Regulation, final rule, 85 FR 42494, July 14, 2020, effective October 1, 2020. (8) OneRD Guarantee Loan, final rule amendments, 89 FR 79698, September 30, 2024, effective November 29, 2024. (9) OneRD Guaranteed Loan Regulation, technical corrections, 90 FR 57351, December 11, 2025. (10) 7 CFR Part 4280, Subpart B, Rural Energy for America Program, including the definitions of simple payback and technical report, and Appendix D, Feasibility Study Components, added by the REAP final rule, 86 FR 22304 (codified from 86 FR 22309), April 27, 2021, effective July 26, 2021, including the preamble statement "Added appendix which conforms to feasibility study component appendix found in 7 CFR 5001." (11) 7 CFR 4279.150, Feasibility studies, 61 FR 67633, December 23, 1996, as amended at 81 FR 36005, June 3, 2016; residual provision for pre-OneRD Business and Industry loans. (12) 7 CFR 5001.3, Definitions, feasibility study and qualified consultant. (13) 7 CFR 5001.303(b), Applications for loan guarantee, content of applications, financial projections and assumptions. (14) 7 CFR 5001.202, Lender's credit evaluation, global historical and projected debt service coverage analysis. (15) 7 CFR 5001.315, Agency approval standard, reasonable assurance of repayment. (16) 7 CFR 5001.306(a)(3)(i), Specific application requirements for B&I projects, feasibility study for guaranteed loans greater than $1,000,000 to a new business. (17) 7 CFR 5001.303(c)(4), Agency authority to require an independent feasibility study where a basis for successful repayment cannot be determined. (18) 7 CFR 5001.304, Specific application requirements for CF projects, financial feasibility requirements, interest rate adjustment, recreation projects, business-dependent facilities, and the 90 percent occupancy provision for assisted living and skilled nursing facilities. (19) NIC MAP Vision, senior housing market fundamentals for the 31 primary markets: pandemic low of 77.8 percent in the second quarter of 2021; assisted living low of 75.4 percent in the first quarter of 2021 against a pre-pandemic level of 84.9 percent. (20) National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care, first quarter 2026 release: assisted living occupancy 87.9 percent, independent living above 91 percent, senior housing 89.5 percent, inventory growth 0.4 percent year over year. (21) USDA Rural Development, RD Instruction 5001, revised July 10, 2025 (PN 648), Appendix A, reproducing the Part 5001 feasibility study components as text.