USDA RV and Boat Storage Feasibility Study

A USDA RV and boat storage feasibility study is the independent study that 7 CFR Part 5001 requires before a Business and Industry guaranteed loan of more than $1,000,000 can be made to a new business, and that lenders request on smaller and existing-business loans whenever the project depends on projections. MMCG Invest prepares these studies for USDA lenders and borrowers nationwide, written to Appendix A to Subpart D of the OneRD rule and to the agency's reading of it. This page covers how the Business and Industry program treats rural RV and boat storage, where the eligibility test sits, what the fiscal 2026 terms are and what the study must contain. The RV and boat storage feasibility study page covers the asset class; the USDA regulatory spine carries the rule itself.

For most of the program's history self-storage was a named ineligible purpose. The OneRD Guaranteed Loan Regulation published on December 10, 2021 at 86 FR 70349 removed it. Seven commenters had objected that the ineligibility made no sense for a business whose owners control their lessees, and that storage facilities bring construction jobs, permanent jobs and tax base to rural communities; the agency agreed and struck the self-storage ineligibility from 7 CFR 5001.115. An April 2022 applicability notice extended the change to applications and conditional commitments already in process and to loans made since October 1, 2020. RV and boat storage, which the rule never named separately, became eligible with it. The test that remains is control. Section 5001.115(g) makes ineligible properties to be used for primarily commercial rental when the borrower has no control over tenants and services offered, with an exception for industrial site infrastructure, and section 5001.115(a) bars speculative real estate investment. An owner-operator that sets rental terms, screens and removes tenants, enforces its lien rights and runs the gate, lighting, cameras and any dump station or wash pad controls both tenants and services and sits outside paragraph (g). A ground lease of the site to a third-party operator, or a structure in which the borrower collects rent from a manager who runs everything, is exposed to both paragraphs. The study documents the operating structure as an eligibility finding and states which side of the line it falls on. Rurality is the second gate. Business and Industry loans serve areas outside any city or town of more than 50,000 people and the urbanized area around it, with a limited exception for projects in urbanized areas that meet specific criteria. A lake-country parcel outside a small city, which is where much of the demand for covered RV and boat storage lives, usually qualifies, and the study carries the eligibility map result for the parcel as an exhibit rather than an assertion. The lender must also certify that the borrower cannot obtain the credit elsewhere on reasonable terms, which a new business building a special purpose rural asset generally satisfies.

For loans approved in fiscal 2026, requests under $5,000,000 receive an 85 percent guarantee and requests of $5,000,000 or more receive 80 percent. The initial guarantee fee is 3 percent of the guaranteed amount, reduced to 1 percent for qualifying projects, and the annual retention fee is 0.55 percent of the guaranteed portion of the outstanding principal. Issuing the loan note guarantee before construction is complete adds a 0.50 percent fee. The interest rate is negotiated between lender and borrower, fixed or variable, and the term for real estate may run to 30 years within the program's 40-year ceiling. The agency's fiscal 2027 notice had not been published as of October 2026, and the study states the terms it applies and the notice they come from. Equity is measured on the balance sheet, not as a cash injection. An existing business with a full year of operations must show balance sheet equity of at least 10 percent. A new business must show at least 20 percent, or 25 percent where the lender wants the loan note guarantee issued before construction is complete. A ground-up RV and boat storage start-up is a new business and carries the 20 or 25 percent requirement. MMCG's model study on Table Rock Lake shows why the regulatory floor is rarely the binding constraint: at verified local rents, a 180-stall covered canopy facility costing about $2.1 million supports a Business and Industry loan of about $1.35 million at 1.25 times coverage, which puts the sponsor's equity near 36 percent. Coverage sets the capital stack, and the study sizes the loan to it rather than to the program minimum.

Section 5001.306 requires a feasibility study prepared by an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the agency for guaranteed loans greater than $1,000,000 to a new business. For loans of $1,000,000 or less, the agency may require one where the lender's analysis is insufficient or where the project significantly affects an existing business's historic cash flow. Section 5001.3 defines the study as an independent consultant's opinion evaluating the economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility of the project, with the factors enumerated in Appendix A to Subpart D. Lenders routinely request the study on existing-business expansions and on acquisitions whose price rests on projected rather than historical income, because the agency's reviewer reads the file to the same standard whether or not the threshold is crossed. MMCG's study follows Appendix A section by section. Economic feasibility places the project in its rural economy: the county's population and household trend, the retiree and recreation in-migration that drives lake-country storage demand, the labor pool and wage levels for a facility manager, groundskeeper and attendant, and the effect of the project on existing businesses, including whether it takes customers from an existing storage operator in the same trade area. Market feasibility builds demand from the installed base, registered boats by county, RV-owning households, lake and reservoir visitation and association covenant density, and sets it against a census of every competing facility checked at its own rate card, with the covered-canopy gap that lake markets typically show stated as a finding rather than an assumption. Technical feasibility covers the site, zoning and permits, the Missouri or state land disturbance permit threshold and fee, the electric provider and pedestal service, water and sewer or septic, and the construction cost by line in MMCG's standard format with a steel-price stress on the canopy structure. Financial feasibility carries the five-year pro forma, debt service coverage by year, break-even occupancy, the sensitivity table and the loan sizing at coverage. Management feasibility documents the sponsor's experience, the operating structure that satisfies the control test, and the staffing and systems plan. The study also states plainly what it could not verify from a primary source at the study date. On a rural storage study that list typically includes the certified local levy stack where the county's rate sheet is not yet published, competitors whose rates are quoted only by telephone, and the assessor's practice for canopy structures, and the lender sees each item as a condition rather than an estimate buried in a number.

The Business and Industry program suits the covered canopy facility on lake or reservoir land outside a small city better than any other loan program. Land in those markets is cheap, often $20,000 to $50,000 per acre on highway acreage, and the demand is structural: lake-lot housing with no room for a boat trailer, retirees arriving with motorhomes, and marinas whose dry stack and wet slips are full. Enclosed units in those markets rent at $145 to $280 per month and open lots at $40 to $78, and a covered canopy product priced between them fills a gap the existing operators have left open. The study tests that premise at the subject's own competitors and prices the canopy stall inside the verified band. The program also finances the acquisition of an existing rural facility, where the study reconstructs the seller's historical cash flow and the agency's 10 percent existing-business equity test applies, and the expansion of an existing storage business onto adjacent land. Rural Energy for America Program grants and guarantees can carry solar canopies over covered stalls where the project meets that program's energy criteria, which the study identifies where it applies. No USDA announcement of a Business and Industry loan to an RV or boat storage facility was located in MMCG's October 2026 research, and the study does not claim precedent transactions that cannot be shown. MMCG's model study for the program is a USDA Business and Industry covered canopy facility of 180 stalls on the Highway 13 corridor between Kimberling City and Branson West on Table Rock Lake in Stone County, Missouri, a county of about 32,500 people whose growth is entirely retiree and recreation in-migration, where the existing competitors post enclosed and open product only and no covered canopy facility publishes a rate. The study carries the parcel, the county's retained zoning, the state stormwater permit, the levy stack, the competitor census and the fiscal 2026 program terms, and sizes the loan to coverage.

Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Feasibility studies are prepared under USPAP discipline and aligned with 7 CFR Part 5001, Appendix A to Subpart D for USDA Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities financing. A senior analyst responds to proposal requests within 12 business hours from the firm's San Francisco office at 27 Maiden Lane, Suite 625.