Car Wash Feasibility Study in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area

Seattle-area car washes: a thin class with mid-sized loans

Car washes carry a 0.47x location quotient in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area, less than half their national weight in local lending, and the class lands 18 of 39 locally. The metro still stands 27 of 458 nationally. The $542,000 median is 0.59x the nationwide median, so loans are smaller than usual. Across FY2017 to FY2026 there are 26 approvals totaling $24.5 million, and none is franchised (0.00%).

Programs, the Pierce County share and the year shown

The middle half of loans starts as low as $93,750 and ends at $1.3 million, a start that points to equipment-only deals. Program counts: 19 for 7(a), 7 for 504. Pierce County has 13 of the 26, exactly half. FY2017 is the one year that prints, with 6 loans and $3.8 million. Every other year is hidden, because 26 loans leave small yearly counts. No lender is named.

One code for every kind of wash

Truck washes and mobile services share the car wash code, so a conveyor tunnel cannot be told from a roaming operator. Seattle lacks cancellation or charge-off floors, as a rate from 26 loans misleads, and nothing is implied about performance.

What the low weight means

A location quotient under half the national share says lenders here see fewer wash files than elsewhere, so a borrower may find less local precedent to point to. The lender has less of a local benchmark and leans on the study. Because the metro spans several counties, a project should be judged against its own county's conditions, with Pierce County the only one named on this page.

What a Seattle-area wash study must test

Begin with traffic and the washes already within a short drive, then turn them into a cars-per-day ramp with a case that runs below plan. Price land, building and equipment separately and treat water, sewer and discharge approvals as schedule items that can add months. Membership share is the main driver of recurring revenue, so state the assumption and its basis. Show the labor plan, chemicals and utilities per wash. Lenders ask whether payment is covered when volume falls short, and an appraiser has to split property value from what a building few others would use can earn.