Research Notes
Working notes from our analytical desks, on feasibility methodology, the credit standards each capital program applies, and the demand mechanics of individual asset classes. Each note is written to the same test our studies are: what a lender, agency, or credit committee will actually check before it relies on the number.
Analytical pieces published from our desks. Each is a working read on a methodology, a program standard, or an asset class, sourced and written for the reviewer, not the brochure.
Acquisitions now close on trailing EBITDA at 1.25x, the 504 program has a 1.15x floor, and the fee schedule reset. What the October 1, 2026 edition means for the market work a lender orders, asset type by asset type.
Read note →Deriving a defensible absorption pace from comparables, pipeline, and capture math, then testing it through the reserve and coverage timeline.
Read note →Why underwriting to asking rent breaks pro formas, and how to read the concession gap between quoted rent and what actually clears.
Read note →A taxonomy of rejection: the recurring defects that send studies back, and what a review-ready file looks like instead.
Read note →The regulation says ‘may require.’ The SOP mandates an appraisal. Credit mechanics do the rest: what actually forces a study onto an SBA file.
Read note →What 1.28 million SBA loan records reveal about single-use collateral, and how special-purpose risk reshapes the equity stack and the study.
Read note →When higher rates size the permanent loan to debt coverage instead of value, and which asset classes hit the coverage wall first.
Read note →The five components a USDA feasibility study must satisfy, worked through a rural project from economic feasibility to technical support.
Read note →Inside the input-output models (RIMS II, IMPLAN, REMI) that convert spending and revenue into the job counts USCIS will accept.
Read note →Why the STR report is an input, not the analysis, and what a lender-grade hotel feasibility study must add on top of it.
Read note →Why a project can clear stabilized underwriting yet fail in ramp, and how to size the occupancy cushion that protects debt service.
Read note →Most rejections trace to a badly drawn trade area. How the boundary is defined, and why it governs every demand number downstream.
Read note →Charge-off and loss rates across industries, states, and loan structures: what the SBA record shows about where credit actually fails.
Read note →A lender-grade field guide to office conversions: which buildings convert, at what basis, and where the value reset makes the math work.
Read note →How franchise and independent operations diverge in feasibility and lender underwriting: the brand as a risk variable, not a binary.
Read note →State-by-state fuel ratios, stations per capita, and inside-sales economics: the demand baseline a fuel-and-c-store study is measured against.
Read note →Where fuel demand has outrun modern supply, reading station density and gallons-per-station to find genuinely underserved forecourt markets.
Read note →Convenience-store franchising as its own category: going-concern versus net-lease value, and how the franchise model reshapes underwriting.
Read note →The grant and loan-grant deadlines, scoring windows, and feasibility triggers across USDA RD programs, mapped to the calendar a rural deal runs on.
Read note →A methodology briefing walks through the demand mechanics for your asset class, the deliverable your capital source requires, and the review standard your file will be judged against.
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