Successful SBA transactions require thoughtful structuring, accurate cash-flow analysis, appropriate lender selection and disciplined transaction management. We handle all four before the file is submitted.
SBA lending runs on a single rulebook, which leads borrowers to assume the outcome is fixed — that a file either qualifies or it doesn’t, and the lender is just processing. It isn’t how the system works.
SOP compliance is the floor. Above it sits credit appetite, and appetite varies enormously between institutions: by industry, by transaction size, by geography, by how much collateral shortfall a credit committee will tolerate this quarter. The same acquisition can be declined by one SBA lender and approved by another on better terms, with nothing about the deal having changed.
Add to that the problems that are genuinely in the file — add-backs that won’t survive underwriting, an equity injection structured so it can’t be counted, a standby note with the wrong terms, no working capital, a buyer whose industry experience is never explained — and most declines are decided long before a committee meets.
Those are solvable problems. They’re just not solvable in month three.
Choosing the Program
The two programs solve different problems. Choosing wrong costs money for the life of the loan — or makes a transaction that could have been financed impossible to close.
The flexible program. One loan, one lender, one closing — which is why it handles transactions that mix asset types.
Best suited to
Trade-off Typically variable rate, and the interest cost over the term is usually higher than a 504 structure on comparable real estate.
The real-estate and heavy-equipment program. Two loans — a bank first mortgage and a CDC debenture — with a long-term fixed rate on the CDC portion.
Best suited to
Trade-off Two closings, more coordination, and a narrower scope — 504 can't fund working capital or most business acquisitions.
Some transactions are best served by both programs together — a 504 on the building alongside a 7(a) for the business and working capital. And some are better financed outside SBA entirely. We'll tell you which situation you're in before an application is written.
Our Process
An SBA file that arrives complete, correctly structured and at the right institution moves differently than one that doesn't. This is the sequence.
Business type, size standards, use of proceeds, ownership and citizenship, affiliation. Confirmed before anything else is built on it.
How the transaction should be assembled: what SBA funds, what the seller carries, what the buyer contributes, what sits outside the loan.
Earnings recast on the basis a lender will accept. Coverage calculated against the actual proposed structure, not a favorable one.
What the borrower must inject, what sources qualify, and where a standby seller note can count toward it — which depends entirely on how the note is written.
Sources and uses, historical and projected cash flow, collateral analysis, borrower background and the credit narrative, assembled the way an underwriter needs to read it.
Two or three institutions whose appetite fits the industry, size, structure and borrower profile. Not a mass submission.
Forms, financials and supporting documentation submitted complete, so the file starts in underwriting rather than in document collection.
Conditions worked through directly with the credit team as they arise. Weekly updates whether or not there's news.
Third-party reports, licensing, landlord agreements, insurance, entity documents and funding coordination through to close.
Send us the basics — what you’re financing, purchase price or project cost, revenue and EBITDA or SDE. We’ll tell you whether SBA is the right structure and what it will take.
