Auto Repair Shop Feasibility Study in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metro Area

Where Baltimore stands for this class

Baltimore supplies 96 SBA approved approvals to car and truck repair shops between FY2017 and FY2026, adding up to $31.7 million in gross dollars. The location quotient is 1.06x, so automotive repair shops make up a slightly bigger part of Baltimore lending than they do nationwide. Loan size here centers on $100,000; compared with the category's national median, as filed, that is a ratio of 0.43x, so approvals run smaller here. Smaller tickets cluster near $50,000; the larger end of the usual band reaches $472,950. By rank, Baltimore is 25 of 660 within metro and micro areas, and car and truck repair shops take 7 of 39 among this area's own lending classes.

Programs, franchises and lenders in Baltimore

No 504 lender appears for this cell. The franchise share of loans is 9.4%. Of the 96 approvals, 90 are 7(a) loans and 6 are 504 approvals, by SBA's count, which tells us which SBA program auto repair shops applicants tend to use around Baltimore. In the 7(a) table, by the file, Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company is first with 52 loans, in plain terms, trailed by Live Oak Banking Company with 7 and Truist Bank at 5. The three lenders named hold these loans today according to SBA, so the list shows where the paper sits, not how any bank lends.

Baltimore by county and fiscal year

Baltimore County, MD holds the most loans at 28, ahead of Anne Arundel County, MD at 24 and Howard County, MD at 14. The yearly record peaks in FY2025 at 17 loans and $6.2 million, and bottoms out in FY2022 at 5 loans and $2.5 million. FY2017 and FY2018 are blank for auto repair shops in Baltimore; Years built on so few loans stay unprinted at Loan Analytics; that is a gap, not a count of nothing.

Rates that can only move up for auto repair shops

Repair of trucks is filed with car repair, while body shops, paint, glass, interior or oil-change outlets are omitted from the Baltimore numbers. At least 15.2% of auto repair shops approved loans in Baltimore ended in cancellation after approval within FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, a lower bound; too few loans sit behind the paired ceiling, so Loan Analytics does not print it. Baltimore has too few disbursed automotive repair shops loans between FY2017 and FY2021 to print a charge-off rate, so nobody should read a loss figure into the gap. Baltimore is best read as a county-built figure: for a reader, SBA's project county, in this cell, matched by name to July 2023 boundaries, decides which approvals enter for auto repair shops.

Feasibility questions for Baltimore

Begin with demand when an auto repair project is planned for Baltimore: independents, dealers and chains nearby, plus vehicles in service near the shop. A file of 96 approvals is context, instead of evidence for one location. An appraiser for a Baltimore project has to deal with earnings that rest on a few technicians and soil and tank history of older sites. The coverage check should allow for a slow first period, since Baltimore reports auto repair shops loans that did not run as approved. Next comes cost, including technician pay, the scarce input and lifts, diagnostic tools and the building, measured against the Baltimore median loan of $100,000. An analysis does not promise an approval, but a study lets a bank and a borrower use the same SBA data for Baltimore.