Auto Repair Shop Feasibility Study in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX Metro Area

Houston auto repair at a glance

SBA files record 247 auto repair loans around Houston and The Woodlands for FY2017 to FY2026, with gross approvals of $172.4 million. The area is 6 of 660 nationally for the class, while the class holds 9 of 39 places among local classes. The location quotient of 1.10x is only slightly above the national share, but the dollar scale is not: the median loan is $350,000, and its ratio to the national class median is 1.49x. Harris County provides 175 loans, Fort Bend 31, Montgomery 20, Brazoria 9 and Galveston 7.

Almost every loan here is 7(a): 239 against only 8 under 504. That is the cell's clearest departure from auto repair records elsewhere, where 504 plays a larger part. With so little 504 lending, a study should be ready to examine inventory, bay equipment and lease terms instead of a real-estate purchase. The lower quartile is $127,500 and the upper quartile $921,000.

A code shared with truck repair

The class code is shared, with truck repair filed under the same index as car repair. Heavy-duty shops may be part of the Houston book, and we cannot separate them in the data, so a study must say whether the subject is a passenger-car shop or a fleet and truck operation before it leans on the class figures. The franchise share is 19.4%.

Holders and outcomes

Bank holders: The Huntington National Bank (22 loans, $30.9 million); JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association ($3.6 million across 13 loans); PNC Bank, National Association (18 loans, $3.0 million); Wells Fargo Bank National Association, 18 loans and $5.9 million; Zions Bancorporation, National Association (12 loans, $1.9 million). No development company is listed. These entries describe loans held now or in the past and never the terms an institution would offer.

Cancellations after approval sit at 11.6% or higher. Left blank on purpose are a cap on cancellations and the charge-off rate at the five-year mark; each is withheld, and withheld never means zero. Charge-offs so far have a floor of 9.0% across a cohort of 122 loans. A study should test technician supply, repeat-customer share, lease cost, equipment age and the coverage ratio on a $350,000 request, with Harris County volume treated separately from Fort Bend and Montgomery. A Houston repair shop in Harris, Fort Bend or Montgomery County is counted when its county name matches the July 2023 delineation, whereas a shop loan with no county match belongs to no metro, so 247 understates the area to a small degree.