Flex Space Feasibility Study in New Jersey

A thin, shrinking record in a large state

New Jersey shows only 34 approvals of this kind across FY2017 to FY2026, together worth $21.4 million in gross dollars. The state ranks 19 of 51 for this class, and the class 21 of 39 among the asset classes SBA recorded in New Jersey. The location quotient of 0.67x means flex and its neighbours form a lighter slice of New Jersey approvals than of approvals across the country.

What the loan size shows

What marks this cell out is its median. At $250,000 the New Jersey median loan stands at 0.42x of the class median nationally; a New Jersey flex borrower typically asks for well under half of what a counterpart elsewhere asks. Half of the loans fall between $128,625 and $533,700, a band that reads as small-owner purchases and fit-outs of modest buildings rather than large investor acquisitions. All 34 were SBA 7(a) loans and none were SBA 504, which matters because 504 is the program built around fixed-asset real estate. Franchising plays no part, at 0.00% of loans.

Lenders, counties and the trend

Trenton Business Assistance Corporation is the lender SBA lists most often for the 7(a) loans, with 7 loans and $1.0 million; the figures describe loans it holds or held according to SBA, and say nothing about how it underwrites. Bergen County leads with 7 loans, then Middlesex with 6 and Camden with 4. The yearly count peaked at 10 loans and $9.6 million in FY2019, and the record then thins steadily: 1 loan in FY2022, 2 in FY2023, 1 in FY2024 and none in FY2025 or FY2026. Because most lessors are now judged passive and ineligible by SBA, from FY2024, lessor lending nearly stops and the latest years say nothing about whether demand has fallen.

Cancellations and the coding limit

Cancellation reached at least 23.5% among New Jersey flex approvals from FY2017 to FY2024; counting loans still undisbursed as cancelled leaves it at 23.5%, so the floor and ceiling agree. No charge-off rate is printed for New Jersey flex, because Loan Analytics prints a rate only when its cohort has at least 30 loans, and we give no figure for it and do not treat the absence as a clean record. Because one industry code covers it, a project an owner calls flex may be filed next to offices, retail strips and banquet halls.

What a New Jersey study has to test

A New Jersey flex study must prove the tenant demand block by block, because 34 loans cannot substitute for local evidence. It should test whether the achievable rent supports a purchase price in a loan band near $250,000, how long the building sits vacant between leases, and whether debt service coverage holds with a vacancy period built in. The appraisal is the final test: lenders will value the building on income from the leases in place, so the study must show that the stabilised rent is one the appraiser can verify.