Auto Repair Shop Feasibility Study in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN Metro Area

Cook County and its collar

Chicago's auto repair record is built around Cook County, which holds 188 of the 380 loans SBA approved for mechanical repair here between FY2017 and FY2026. Kane County follows with 49, Will with 43, DuPage with 37, Lake in Illinois with 26, McHenry with 15 and Lake in Indiana with 11. Nationally the area comes in at 3 of 660 for mechanical repair; locally the class sits mid-table at 5 of 39. The location quotient of 1.10x and a median that is 1.08x the national figure make this a market near the national norm, only larger.

Program mix, tickets and franchising

The median loan is $254,350, while the interquartile band stretches from $100,000 to $500,750. SBA 7(a) accounts for 296 loans and SBA 504 for 84, a 504 presence that fits shops buying or building premises. Franchising is limited to 7.1% of loans. Gross dollars totalled $171.9 million, with approvals jumping to 66 in FY2025 from only 23 in FY2022. For 504, Small Business Growth Corporation holds 44 loans worth $19.7 million, SomerCor 504, Inc. holds 26 and Regional Development Company holds 8.

Who is on the books

The Huntington National Bank has 49 loans for $9.9 million, U.S. Bank, National Association holds 35 for $10.3 million, Live Oak Banking Company holds 22 for $22.9 million, Byline Bank 17 for $15.7 million and Newtek Bank, National Association 16 for $2.9 million. Live Oak Banking Company's average ticket is the largest of the five. SBA says who holds a loan today, and that is all this table says; it is not an account of how any bank treats a repair shop applicant.

Cancellations and charge-offs

Cancellation is the larger loss signal in this cell: the FY2017 to FY2024 approval years show cancellations of at least 18.1%, and 20.0% marks the top of the range once loans that never paid out are lumped in. Charge-offs have taken at least 4.3% of the 139 loans that were approved in FY2017 through FY2021 and funded. Loan Analytics withholds the five-year charge-off rate, so the page carries no figure for it, and none should be guessed. A shared code also applies: the code that covers car repair also indexes truck repair shops, which puts heavy-vehicle garages inside these totals.

Testing a Chicago-area repair shop

A cancellation floor this high suggests that many projects fall apart between approval and closing, so a feasibility study should document site control, zoning for service bays and environmental condition before it documents anything else. It should size the bay count against vehicle traffic in the specific county, price equipment and any building purchase against a $254,350 median, and show coverage on technician payroll and parts margin. Whether a project is a car shop or a heavy-truck garage changes demand and equipment, and the study has to say which. The record covers only loans whose county maps to a July 2023 statistical area.