Beauty Salon Feasibility Study in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area

Where Boston stands for this class

Between FY2017 to FY2026, applicants starting or acquiring salon businesses in Boston took 342 loans with $51.8 million in gross dollars. The midpoint ticket in Boston is $60,000, below the nation's class median at 0.60x. The middle half of applicants received amounts between $28,000 and $137,250. On the location quotient, 1.66x, salon businesses take a larger slice of loans around Boston compared with the whole nation. Among all US metro and micro areas, Boston is 2 of 546 for this class; inside the area, the class itself ranks 3 of 39 across the asset classes recorded locally.

Programs, franchises and lenders in Boston

Under 7(a) the file shows 301 loans and under 504 program for 41, so a borrower in Boston can see which program has carried beauty salons. Franchise-affiliated borrowers make up 3.8% of beauty salon loans in Boston. The 504 holders in Boston are led as follows: Granite State Economic Development Corporation leads at 15 ($2.8 million); next are Bay Colony Development Corporation (13). For 7(a) loans in Boston, 123 approvals sit with Eastern Bank, 28 with TD Bank, National Association and 14 with Salem Five Cents Savings Bank. The lender rows for beauty salons in Boston come from SBA's current-holder records, so each count sits with whoever holds the loan today.

Where in Boston and when

98 approvals sit in Middlesex County, MA, 69 in Essex County, MA and 45 in Suffolk County, MA. The yearly record peaks in FY2017 at 53 loans and $3.9 million, and bottoms out in FY2021 at 10 approvals and $1.2 million.

Floors and limits behind the Boston figures

Cancellation after approval reached 9.7% for Boston hair and beauty salons loans of FY2017 to FY2024; that is a lower bound, as reported, and Loan Analytics prints no ceiling here, since the cohort is too small. A caution: area totals for salon businesses follow the recorded county, using 2023 boundaries and a name match, so a loan in an unplaceable county never reaches Boston. Among funded loans of FY2017 to FY2021 (170 in Boston), 5.9% are written off to date, a floor, and 2.9% within five years of approval.

What a hair and beauty salons study must settle in Boston

Any feasibility work on hair and beauty salons in Boston starts with demand: chairs rented or employed, and clients and return visits. The 342 loans print that lenders have funded the category in Boston; they say nothing about whether a single site clears the same bar. An appraiser for a Boston project has to deal with lease and buildout terms and client lists in a sale. None of this promises an approval; what it gives a lender and a borrower in Boston is a common baseline drawn from the same SBA data. On cost, product stock and commissions and retail shelf stock belong in the budget for hair and beauty salons, which can then be judged next to the $28,000 to $137,250 range lenders in Boston have used. The coverage test should allow for a slow first period, because Boston shows beauty salon loans that did not go as approved.