Auto Repair Shop Feasibility Study in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA Metro Area

Ninth of 660 areas, in a two-county market

The Inland Empire is a two-county market for SBA auto repair lending: Riverside County has 113 of the area's loans and San Bernardino County 95. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario places 9th among 660 areas for mechanical car and truck repair, and the class sits third in the area's own ranking. Behind that rank are 208 approvals worth $100.8 million, and a location quotient of 1.27x that makes repair shops a bigger slice of Inland Empire loans than of loans in the nation.

Median size is $255,000, or 1.09x the national median; half the loans range from $100,000 to $682,175. The mix leans on 7(a), at 171 loans, yet 37 loans are SBA 504, a sizeable presence that points to shops owning their buildings. Franchise flags are rare, at 2.4% of loans, so independent garages are the main borrowers.

The holders of record

The 504 holders named by SBA's tables are Business Finance Capital with 10 loans worth $4.6 million, CDC Small Business Finance Corp. at 6 loans and $3.2 million, So Cal CDC with 6 worth $2.8 million, and, bringing up the rear, The Mortgage Capital Development Corporation, 5 loans, $3.1 million. For 7(a), the leader is U.S. Bank, National Association with 46 loans worth $9.6 million and Harvest Small Business Finance, LLC 14 worth $14.0 million, a book of much larger loans. Lower down are Wells Fargo Bank National Association (10 loans, only $874,300), Enterprise Bank & Trust (9 loans, $8.6 million) and Newtek Bank, National Association (8 loans, $4.5 million). Each figure describes what a lender holds, not what it will do next.

Cancelled approvals came to 11.3% or more of those made in FY2017 to FY2024. Withheld for this cell are the upper bound that adds undisbursed loans and the loss rate so far, so the page shows no figure for either, and an empty cell makes no claim of zero. Approvals sank to 9 in FY2020, the low point of the series, and reached 31 in FY2024, worth $11.6 million.

What an Inland Empire repair-shop study must test

Demand for repair is tied to the number and age of vehicles registered near the site, so the study should count households, commuters and fleets within the trade area and the competing shops, dealerships and chains already serving them. Bay count and technician capacity set revenue, so labor availability and wage costs deserve a close look, along with the cost of diagnostic equipment, lifts and compliance with air-quality and waste-oil rules. Where the borrower buys the building, the appraisal separates real estate from the business and weighs environmental history, as petroleum products have been handled on the parcel. One data limit matters: trucks and cars are repaired under one industry classification, so the class cannot isolate either, and collision, glass, lube and other automotive repair lie outside it. Counts also need each loan's county to match the July 2023 list; any that do not are missing, which keeps the totals on the low side.