The Truth About the SBA Guaranteed Loan
Posted By cls on May 18, 2009
Rarely a day goes by without an entrepreneur contacting CLS about funding their current business or starting a new venture. At least once a week, without fail, someone will say, “The SBA turned down my loan request”. This is probably one of the most inaccurate statements in Small Business Lending. SBA is not a lender. It can not turn down your loan request. The SBA guarantees the funds after the lending institution makes the lending decision.
If you need money for your business, your first thought is go to your local bank and speak with your favorite banker. The banker than takes your request to their loan officer. Once this person reviews your information, they will contact and advise you as to whether or not your request fits into their lending parameters. This is the key to securing funding for your business with any lending institution. Does your need fit their portfolio requirements?
Lending Parameters are very real and vary from lender to lender. For example, there are some lenders who prefer not to include hotels in their lending portfolio, which means a customer desiring to acquire or construct a hotel would not fit into their lending practices.
True story…. I received a referral from a lender who was unable to fund the construction of a hotel for one of her favorite customers. The project itself made sense. The borrower had bought and built over 14 hotels over a 20 year span. All of those hotels still in his portfolio are performing well even in this economy. He has already invested over $1.2 million of his own capital in this project and needs less than $3.0 million to complete it. His personal financial statement is stellar and experience level superb. So why on earth would a lender not do this project for one of their longtime customers? Because the property type (Hotel) no longer fits into their lending parameters. Simply put, the lender is not interested in hotels.
The beauty in this is there’s funding available with other lenders who actually have a taste for YOUR business. Whether it’s a restaurant, hotel, office building, industrial building, etc., the key is to find the right fit for both the lender and borrower. This is one of the values of working with a reputable commercial broker. For example, CLS has already made the upfront investment with dozens of funding resources to understand their lending parameters, their appetite for certain transactions and their tendencies for SBA guaranteed loans. Bridging the cause of borrowers and lenders, that’s what CLS does best. What’s your cause?
Erica Parker, Owner/Broker Commercial Lending Solutions www.clscause.com
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