Case Study · Florida · RV & Boat Storage · SBA 504
RV & Boat Storage Feasibility Study, Florida — An SBA 504 Worked Case
This is how our independent feasibility study company and consultant team analyzed a ground-up, ~500-space covered-and-canopy RV and boat storage facility underwritten to an SBA 504 credit, from installed-fleet storage demand through the debt-service coverage a lender and its Certified Development Company must document. It is an anonymized composite of a typical engagement of this type — not a specific client deal — set in a fast-growing boating-and-RV submarket on Florida’s Gulf-access coast.
A covered-canopy toy-storage yard behind Florida’s gated rooftops.
A sponsor came to our feasibility study company with a ground-up RV and boat storage project and an SBA 504 structure — a bank first mortgage, a Certified Development Company debenture, and a borrower equity injection — that the bank and the CDC needed independently tested before either would commit. The subject is roughly 500 rentable spaces on about 11 acres in a fast-growing boating-and-RV submarket on Florida’s Gulf-access coast, ringed by HOA-governed master-planned communities that prohibit storing a coach or a hull at home. The build program is format-led: 320 covered-canopy spaces, 120 open and uncovered spaces, and 60 enclosed drive-up units.
Because owner-operated RV and boat storage is treated by the SBA as an active operating business rather than passive real estate — the owner controls entry, exit, and services — both the 7(a) and 504 programs apply, and a long-dated, fixed-rate 504 fits a long-term hold.10 The lender’s question is therefore not “what is the dirt worth” but “can this specific site, in this format, lease up and cover this specific debt.” Our scope was the independent demand, format-fit, competition, absorption, and debt-service analysis that supports that credit — the work a feasibility consultant is retained to do precisely because it carries no stake in the outcome.
Installed-fleet demand, not a per-capita saturation shortcut.
Storage demand for RVs and boats tracks the durable installed fleet, not annual sales, and RV and boat owners will drive to reach it. We read the market on a wide catchment — roughly a 25-mile ring — because owners routinely travel 20 to 50 miles between home and a stored rig.
The base is large and sticky. Industry researchers converge on roughly 25 million U.S. households owning an RV, a boat, or both;3 RVIA counts about 8.1 million primary RV-owning households plus 16.9 million more expressing strong five-year purchase intent, and NMMA counts roughly 11.8 million registered and documented boats.23 Because an RV sits idle for roughly 93 percent of its life, storage demand follows this installed base rather than the shipment cycle, which insulates a storage pro forma from the swings in new-unit sales.2 Florida is one of the densest RV and boat ownership states in the country, and the submarket sits inside that concentration.
What converts ownership into off-site demand is where those rigs are allowed to sit. Roughly 65 percent of new single-family homes are HOA-governed, and a widely cited estimate holds that about 85 percent of HOAs restrict RV parking; Florida’s HB 1203, effective July 1, 2024, and comparable municipal ordinances push storage off the driveway.8 The subject sits behind exactly that kind of rooftop growth: master-planned, deed-restricted communities whose residents own coaches and hulls they cannot keep at home. On the installed fleet, the drive-time catchment, and the density of restrictive communities, the demand read supports the ~500-space program at the format mix below, and the stabilized ~93 percent economic occupancy the pro forma carries.
| Demand driver | Basis | Supported figure |
|---|---|---|
| Installed fleet (25-mi catchment) | Dense FL RV and boat ownership within a ~25-mile ring3 | Large captive base |
| Owner drive tolerance | Owners travel ~20–50 miles to a stored rig5 | Wide, not 3-mi, catchment |
| HOA & municipal push-off | ~85% of HOAs restrict RVs; FL HB 1203 (2024)8 | Structural off-site demand |
| Supportable program | Format-led: 320 covered / 120 open / 60 enclosed | ~500 rentable spaces |
| Stabilized economic occupancy | Undersupplied submarket, pre-reservations1 | ≈ 93% (Year 3) |
Demand logic grounded in RVIA and NMMA installed-fleet data and in HOA and municipal restriction estimates; see sources 2, 3, 5, and 8. Program figures are an anonymized composite of the engagement type.
Full lots and waitlists, but thin covered supply.
Dedicated RV and boat storage is chronically undersupplied nationally — roughly 1,937 completed stores against an installed base near 25 million households — and the competitive set here reads the same way, with the standing facilities running near capacity and covered product especially scarce.1
| Competitor | Format | Spaces | Distance | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Competitor A | Open lot | ~220 | 6 mi | Nearest; ~96% full, waitlist; no covered product |
| Competitor B | Open + covered | ~300 | 11 mi | ~93% full; covered wing leases first |
| Competitor C | Covered + enclosed | ~180 | 14 mi | Newest; thin vacancy, strongest comp |
| Competitor D | Self-storage + small RV yard | ~60 RV | 8 mi | Price-led overflow; no boat depth |
| Competitor E | Enclosed / climate premium | ~120 | 19 mi | High rate; serves high-value coaches |
| Competitor F | Open lot (older) | ~140 | 22 mi | Dated gravel; trailing-edge |
Competitive set surveyed for the engagement; anonymized. Under-construction, permitted, and planned supply was scanned, along with informal peer-to-peer listings (for example Neighbor.com) that do not appear in Yardi or Radius+ data.1
The standing set is close to full, and the occupancy is the signal that matters — achieved rates and physical occupancy at real competitors are a far better supply-demand read than a per-capita square-footage metric.5 The nearest facility runs near 96 percent with a waitlist and offers no covered product at all; the only genuinely comparable covered-and-enclosed operator sits fourteen miles out and carries thin vacancy. A rigorous study does not stop at the standing set: we scanned under-construction, permitted, and planned facilities so the absorption forecast is not quietly overstated by supply the trailing data cannot yet see, and we netted out informal peer-to-peer supply that the dedicated databases miss.1 Two announced projects were identified in the catchment; even crediting both, the submarket stays short of covered canopy — the exact format the subject leads with — rather than splitting a saturated trade area.
Florida macro: a tailwind, with two cautions we underwrote.
The state backdrop favors RV and boat storage — dense ownership, relentless in-migration, no personal income tax, and communities engineered to push rigs off-site — but two Florida-specific realities separate a study that survives review from one that does not: localized overbuild and the nation’s most expensive insurance.
Florida reached an estimated 23.37 million residents as of July 1, 2024 and remains a premier boating and RV state, with snowbird and year-round demand layered on a deep resident fleet.9 Seasonality is real and must be modeled monthly, not annually: December-to-April peaks understate summer troughs if a study averages them.7 The funding backdrop is favorable too — Florida ranks third nationally in SBA 7(a) dollar volume across two district offices, the commercial-rent tax was repealed effective October 1, 2025, and the combined 7(a)-plus-504 ceiling rose to $10 million on July 4, 2026, enlarging bankable deal size.1112
The first caution is supply. National scarcity does not immunize every Florida submarket: Southwest Florida leads the state in new RV and boat storage construction, and overbuilt suburban nodes in parts of Texas and Florida already show localized rate weakness as the broader storage sector normalizes.13 That is precisely why the study is submarket-specific and format-specific rather than thesis-driven — the subject sits in a documented-undersupply, waitlist-heavy corridor away from the most overbuilt node, and the absorption forecast leans on competitor occupancy, not the national headline. The second caution is cost: Florida property insurance runs roughly 2.8 times the U.S. average, with premiums up 49.5 percent from 2020 to 2025 even after the post-SB 2-A stabilization.12 We price insurance from current Florida carrier quotes and carry the operating-expense ratio at the top of the asset class’s 25-to-37-percent band, which is why the stabilized model runs a 37 percent expense load rather than the national midpoint.5
Why the format fits this corner.
Household income, water proximity, and the density of deed-restricted rooftops all point the same direction, and they decide the format — which, for this asset, is the whole game.
The catchment carries a median household income comfortably above the level at which covered and enclosed uptake strengthens; affluent owners of $150,000-plus coaches and wrapped center-consoles pay for protection from Florida sun and weather rather than parking on gravel. Gulf access within about an hour supports a boat-owner premium — proximity to a ramp typically carries a 20-to-40-percent rate advantage — and the surrounding master-planned communities, which prohibit home storage, supply a captive, renewing base of demand rather than a one-time absorption pop.68
The site does the rest. About 11 acres is enough to lay out 320 covered-canopy spaces, a 120-space open lot, and a 60-unit enclosed building with the wide drive aisles a 40-foot fifth-wheel or a tandem-axle boat trailer needs to maneuver, while keeping paving and stormwater efficient. The format mix is deliberate: an open-only lot would underprice the affluent, HOA-heavy demand this corner commands, while a climate-only build would overshoot what the submarket will pay and risk a special-purpose designation. A covered-canopy-led, mixed-format program is the fit the market signals — and getting that fit right is the single most common place RV and boat storage feasibility fails.5
The SBA 504 structure.
Total project cost lands at $5.80 million. Because the owner operates the facility, the SBA treats it as an active business, and the fixed-asset 504 program — a bank first mortgage, a CDC/SBA debenture, and a 10 percent equity injection — fits a long-term hold on ground-up, owner-occupied real estate.10
| Cost component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Land (~11 acres) | $1.35M |
| Site work, paving, stormwater & utilities | $1.18M |
| Covered-canopy structures (320 spaces) | $1.47M |
| Enclosed drive-up building (60 units) | $0.69M |
| Open-lot improvements (120 spaces) | $0.15M |
| Security, access technology, lighting & fencing | $0.27M |
| Office / kiosk build-out | $0.12M |
| Soft costs, permits & impact fees, contingency | $0.33M |
| Lease-up reserve, working capital & SBA/CDC fees | $0.24M |
| Total project cost | $5.80M |
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Bank first mortgage (50%) | $2.90M — ~9.5%, 25-yr amortization |
| CDC / SBA 504 debenture (40%) | $2.32M — ~6.5%, 25-yr amortization |
| Borrower equity injection (10%) | $0.58M |
| Annual debt service — bank | ≈ $304k |
| Annual debt service — debenture | ≈ $188k |
| Combined annual debt service | ≈ $492k |
Structure per SBA 504 conventions under SOP 50 10 8; owner-occupancy 60% for new construction; 50/40/10 bank/CDC/equity split. See source 10.
The 504 stack splits the $5.80 million into a $2.90 million bank first mortgage at an illustrative 9.5 percent, a $2.32 million CDC/SBA debenture at an illustrative 6.5 percent, and a $0.58 million equity injection — the canonical 50/40/10. The injection holds at 10 percent rather than escalating: a single-use climate-controlled facility can draw a special-purpose designation and a higher equity requirement, but a mixed-format, covered-canopy-led site is less likely to, which is one reason the format decision has a capital cost, not just a revenue effect.10 On 25-year amortization the two tranches carry a combined debt service near $492,000 a year — the number the projected coverage has to clear. Because break-even for this asset class sits near 40-to-50-percent occupancy, and because the 504 structure carries a financed lease-up reserve, the first-year ramp is bridged while the facility fills; the SBA also requires the project to reach break-even within 24 months of the certificate of occupancy, which makes absorption realism an eligibility question, not just an underwriting one.510
Feasible and bankable, on coverage the credit can document.
The stabilized model builds effective income from three format lines, nets a Florida-heavy operating expense, and carries coverage through a graded lease-up to a stabilized 1.45x — above the ~1.20-to-1.25x floor lenders size RV and boat storage to.5
| Line | Basis | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Covered-canopy rent | 320 spaces × ~$195/mo6 | $748,800 |
| Open / uncovered rent | 120 spaces × ~$115/mo6 | $165,600 |
| Enclosed drive-up rent | 60 units × ~$325/mo6 | $234,000 |
| Gross potential rent | Sum of the three format lines | $1,148,400 |
| Less vacancy, credit & concession loss | ~7% at stabilization (street vs. achieved gap) | ($80,400) |
| Plus ancillary income | Protection plans, admin/late fees, dump & wash, power | $63,000 |
| Effective gross income (EGI) | Effective rent plus ancillary | $1,131,000 |
| Operating expenses | ~37% of EGI: taxes, FL insurance, security, mgmt, R&M, G&A12 | ($418,000) |
| Net operating income (NOI) | EGI less operating expense | $713,000 |
Format rates within the covered ($125–$250), open ($75–$150), and enclosed ($150–$400) ranges; NOI margin ~63% sits within the asset’s 60%+ norm, with opex at the top of the 25–37% band for Florida insurance. See sources 5, 6, and 12.
| Year | Stage | Economic occupancy | NOI | Debt service | DSCR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Lease-up (reserve-supported) | ~58% | ~$444k | ~$492k | 0.90 |
| Year 2 | Building | ~74% | ~$567k | ~$492k | 1.15 |
| Year 3 | Stabilized | ~93% | ~$713k | ~$492k | 1.45 |
DSCR computed as NOI divided by the combined bank-plus-debenture debt service. NOI holds a constant ~63% margin, so coverage tracks the occupancy ramp. See source 5 for the ~1.20–1.25x sizing convention.
The stabilized 1.45x coverage is the figure the lender and the CDC document, and it clears the roughly 1.20-to-1.25x floor RV and boat storage is sized to with real headroom.5 The path there is a graded lease-up, not a switch: economic occupancy runs about 58 percent in the opening year, about 74 percent as the covered wing fills, and about 93 percent at stabilization, and because the NOI margin holds near 63 percent, coverage tracks that ramp from 0.90x to 1.15x to 1.45x. Debt-service break-even — DSCR 1.0 — is crossed near 64 percent economic occupancy, reached inside Year 2 and comfortably within the SBA’s 24-month gate, while the deeper operating break-even for the asset class sits lower, near 40-to-50-percent occupancy.510 The Year 1 figure of 0.90x is intentionally below 1.0 — it is the ramp year — which is exactly why the 504 structure carries a financed lease-up reserve: the reserve bridges the opening shortfall, and permanent coverage is measured once the yard fills. Crediting pandemic-era, day-one absorption is the single most common way these storage pro formas fail review; the ramp here is deliberately graded to documented competitor occupancy.1
On the equity side, the $0.58 million injection earns a growing levered cash flow — thin and reserve-supported in the opening year, then building as the yard fills toward a stabilized cash-on-cash on stabilized NOI of about $713,000 against $492,000 of debt service. That stabilized NOI is roughly a 12 percent unlevered yield on the $5.80 million cost, which sits well above prevailing stabilized cap rates for dedicated product — Class A near 6.0 to 7.5 percent — so the study deliberately does not capitalize it at a thin market rate.5 Instead the exit is disciplined against replacement cost, flagging any income value more than about 15 percent above the cost to rebuild, which caps terminal value rather than crediting a full build-to-core spread. Net of the outstanding bank and debenture balances and selling costs, and holding rents to a conservative through-cycle path, the blended result is an illustrative levered equity IRR of about 16 percent over a 10-year hold.
Verdict: financially feasible and bankable. On independently derived installed-fleet demand, a stabilized 1.45x DSCR, and a ~16% levered equity IRR, the projections support the SBA 504 credit.
Independent demand, format-fit, competition, and DSCR stress.
The engagement was scoped the way a credit committee and a CDC read it. As an independent feasibility consultant, our role is to test the sponsor’s projection against the market, not to restate it — the value of the deliverable is precisely that it carries no stake in the outcome. We derived demand from the installed fleet, registrations, and the density of restrictive communities on a drive-time catchment, rather than a per-capita saturation shortcut, and we resolved the format question first, because building the wrong product — open where the market pays for covered, or climate where it will not — is the dominant failure mode for this asset.
Rates were modeled on achievable, not advertised, terms, so economic occupancy trails the street rate; absorption was graded to the 24-month SBA break-even gate and anchored to documented competitor occupancy and waitlists; and the competitive scan reached under-construction, permitted, planned, and informal peer-to-peer supply. The coverage was then stress-tested — run at roughly 85 percent occupancy with no credit for forward rent growth — and the exit disciplined against replacement cost. One scope boundary is worth stating plainly: as the feasibility consultant, we reference, but do not perform, the Phase I environmental site assessment, which is a separate environmental professional’s engagement running in parallel.5
Underwriting a Florida RV or boat storage project for an SBA 504? Start with the feasibility study.
Feasibility Study Company prepares independent RV and boat storage feasibility studies for SBA 504 and 7(a) credits, built to the coverage and format-fit standard your lender and CDC must document. A methodology briefing walks through the installed-fleet demand, competitor occupancy, the format the submarket will actually pay for, and the DSCR ramp behind a case like this one, calibrated to your trade area.
Request a methodology briefingData sources and dates.
The deal figures are an anonymized composite of a typical engagement of this type; the market data that grounds each dimension is real and sourced, drawn from our standing Florida, RV & Boat Storage, and SBA 7(a) & 504 analyses and the primary authorities they cite. RV and boat storage is rarely tracked separately from general self-storage, so several readings are point-in-time and provider-dependent, as noted throughout.
- Yardi Matrix, Q2 2025 National RV & Boat Storage Report (data as of April 10, 2025): 1,937 completed dedicated stores within a 2,186-store database and a 249-project pipeline; same-store advertised rents $5.99/SF, +1.1% YoY (March 2025); effectively the single dominant supply provider for the niche. As compiled in the firm’s RV & Boat Storage analysis.
- RVIA, 2025 Go RVing Demographic Profile (conducted by IPSOS): 8.1 million primary RV-owning households and 16.9 million more expressing five-year purchase intent (~11.2 million on the broader ownership definition); because an RV sits idle roughly 93% of its life, storage demand tracks the installed fleet rather than the shipment cycle.
- NMMA, U.S. Recreational Boating Statistical Abstract (2024): roughly 11.8 million registered and documented boats; industry researchers converge on approximately 25 million U.S. households owning an RV, a boat, or both.
- Toy Storage Nation / Modern Storage Media / Inside Self-Storage (2024–2025): supply-gap estimates (“~5× supply needed,” roughly 70 new projects per month), operating economics, and format cost commentary. Industry estimates, not audited.
- analytics.loan and MMCG (2025–2026): format rate ranges; operating-expense (25–37%) and NOI (60%+) benchmarks; break-even occupancy; dedicated cap-rate spreads (Class A ~6.0–7.5%, Class B ~7.5–8.5%); DSCR sizing (~1.20–1.25x) and the replacement-cost cross-check discipline (flagging income value more than ~15% above replacement cost). Proprietary single-provider estimates.
- Extra Space Storage and HomeGuide (2025–2026): advertised rate ranges by format — open/uncovered ~$75–$150, covered canopy ~$125–$250, enclosed drive-up ~$150–$400, and climate-controlled ~$300–$500 and beyond per space per month.
- StorageCafe (2025): national all-type average monthly rate (~$171); Sunbelt and Florida RV and boat rate and search-demand readings (including Tampa RV ~$223 / boat ~$262 and Fort Myers among search-demand leaders); snowbird and seasonal demand context.
- Foundation for Community Association Research (2023–2024): ~65% of new single-family homes (2023) HOA-governed and the industry estimate that ~85% of HOAs restrict RV parking; Florida HB 1203 (effective July 1, 2024) and comparable municipal ordinances reinforcing off-site storage demand.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates (Florida 23,372,215 as of July 1, 2024), as compiled in the firm’s Florida market analysis; Florida boating- and RV-registration context.
- U.S. Small Business Administration, SOP 50 10 8 (effective June 1, 2025) and 13 CFR 120.160(b): owner-operated storage eligible for 7(a) and 504 as an active operating business; ~10% equity injection; owner-occupancy of 60% for new construction; a feasibility study discretionary but expected for special-purpose and start-up or ground-up projects; break-even required within 24 months of the certificate of occupancy; Small Loan threshold reduced from $500,000 to $350,000.
- SBA Florida district data and Policy Notice 5000-879058 (effective July 4, 2026): Florida third nationally in 7(a) dollar volume (~$3.8 billion, FY2024) across two district offices, with 504 credits routed through statewide Florida CDCs; combined 7(a)-plus-504 ceiling raised to $10 million. As compiled in the firm’s Florida analysis.
- Insurance Business America, citing LendingTree and Insurify (2026): Florida property insurance roughly 2.8× the U.S. average, premiums up 49.5% from 2020 to 2025, stabilizing after SB 2-A; Florida Department of Revenue TIP 25A01-04 and HB 7031, commercial-rent-tax repeal effective October 1, 2025.
- USDA Rural Development, OneRD Guaranteed Loan Program final rule (December 10, 2021; 86 FR 70356): removal of the self-storage B&I ineligibility; B&I up to $25M, 80% guarantee, terms to 30 years, rural population ≤50,000, with ~73% of Florida land USDA-eligible. Yardi Matrix self-storage normalization commentary (February 2026: national street rates −1.1%; localized overbuilt Texas and Florida nodes) informs the submarket overbuild caveat.