Child Care Center Feasibility Study in Nevada

Bigger tickets, thinner volume

Nevada child care lending is a smaller business than its size suggests, but each loan is large. SBA approved 83 loans for child care centers in the state between FY2017 and FY2026, carrying $88.4 million of gross approvals. The median loan, $671,000, is 1.48x the class benchmark nationally; the interquartile band stretches from $333,500 up to $1.4 million. Median loan size differs from both the Nevada lending record and the class nationally; the loan count and the loss floors do not. By count the class is ordinary: state by state it sits 28 of 53, and inside Nevada's own asset mix it holds position 9 of 39, while its location quotient of 0.79x puts child care centers a notch under their national weight in Nevada's SBA book.

Programs, lenders and geography

SBA 7(a) accounted for 60 of the loans and SBA 504 for 23. Franchise brands sit behind 15.7% of the loans. On the 504 side, Nevada State Development Corporation leads with 17 loans worth $14.8 million, while Live Oak Banking Company tops the 7(a) table with 7 loans worth $18.7 million. Geography is concentrated: Clark County has 59 loans and Washoe County 21, with Carson City, Douglas and Lyon each at 1. Annual volume ran from 3 loans in FY2022 to a peak of 14 in FY2025, which brought $16.0 million, and FY2026 shows 8.

What the floors tell a lender

Among Nevada child care approvals in the FY2017 to FY2024 years, at least 8.2% were cancelled before disbursement, or 9.8% on the strict reading that treats unfunded loans as dropped. Turning to losses, the 34 disbursed loans of the FY2017 to FY2021 vintages carry a clean tally: nothing charged off to date, nothing inside five years of approval. Both numbers are floors, not lifetime outcomes: a cohort of 34 is small, and child care loans made in the last few years have had little time to fail. A lender should treat the absence of losses as encouraging but unproven, and weigh it beside the higher loan size.

What a Nevada feasibility study must test

The work for a Nevada center has to start with demand in the specific submarket: licensed capacity already operating nearby, enrollment by age band, and the share of families who can pay the rate the center needs. Because tickets run well above the national median, cost deserves equal scrutiny, covering land or lease, build-out to licensing standards and playground and safety requirements. Debt service coverage should be run at a realistic ramp to full enrollment, with a slower case, since staffing ratios fix costs early. The appraisal will lean on the income the center can earn, so the forecast must survive an appraiser's questions.

What the code hides

The industry code behind these figures also covers in-home providers, which means a home-based operator and a classroom center sit in the same count. A center sponsor should read the middle-half range with that mix in mind.