Navigating Commercial Construction Financing
Written by: G. Geoffrey Longstaff
Today, the development and construction of commercial facilities entails a wider range of financial options than anytime in the past quarter century.
Thanks in large part to continued low interest rates and significant liquidity in lending institutions, financing of well-considered speculative projects is available. Having learned the lessons of the tumultuous 1980s, however, such financing is generally considered conservative and follows the precepts of responsible investment.
These precepts include significant borrower equity and responsible management available to sponsor the debt.
From a financing perspective, development of commercial facilities falls into two general categories: owner occupied facilities, and investment facilities. The latter can be speculative for lease, include some pre-leasing, or it can be a wholly-occupied build-to-suit project.
Financing of owner occupied facilities typically involves commercial banks and similar short term lenders and entails rather standard pro forma proposals that enumerate the market scope, past performance, revenues, capital costs, and potential for future expansion. Since the owner occupant has business cash flow it is easy to determine his ability to repay. Responsibly generated, those numbers will reveal whether and how much an enterprise can afford to build.
In an effort to nurture small businesses, the U.S. Small Business Administration offers a highly advantageous SBA-504 loan program aimed at small business owners who want to develop or acquire their own facilities.
SBA-504 loans are not as well known as conventional financing, although the benefits they offer to the business owner are enormous and significant. SBA-504s require a skill set most commercial banks offer but usually reserve for portfolio transactions that are of greater benefit to them as a lending institution. Mercantile Commercial Capital, which focuses on SBA-504 loans almost exclusively, rose quickly to prominence based on superior skills, dedication and services only enhanced by the severe dearth of SBA-504 specialized lenders in Florida.SBA-504s offer business owners below market interest rates with a capital investment of as low as 10 percent of project costs. That advantage, of course, frees valuable capital for business operations and substantially reduces the risk to the business owner. Typical commercial loans require at least 20 percent capitalization — the amount the business owner contributes. In addition, terms range from 20 to 25 years with the SBA rate fixed for the life of the term.SBA-504s can be used to finance development and construction of new facilities or acquisition of existing facilities in the $500,000 to $6 million range.
Development of for-lease facilities entails a larger set of requirements and developer commitments. Measuring the feasibility of an owner-occupied facility is much more reliable than assessing the market, distributing risk and determining feasibility for a “for-lease” facility.“Capital”, in this case, is the money that owners or developers contribute toward land acquisition, planning, development, construction and marketing a project. read
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