Hotel Feasibility Study in Ohio

More than a billion dollars, mostly branded

Ohio lenders approved 472 SBA hotel and motel loans in FY2017 to FY2026 for $1.17 billion, enough to rank the state 6 of 53, and hotels place 6 of 39 among Ohio's classes. Yet the location quotient is only 0.77x: hotels hold a thinner slice of the Ohio SBA portfolio than of the country's. The typical deal is large, a median of $2.3 million at 1.07x the national hotel median, with the central half of approvals between $1.4 million and $3.5 million. Neither the Ohio median nor either outcome floor separates the cell from both its all-industry record and the hotel class elsewhere by our margin, so the cell is best read for its lenders and outcomes rather than as an outlier.

Who finances Ohio hotels

Brand affiliation is the norm, with franchise codes on 83.3% of loans. SBA 7(a) carried 396 loans and SBA 504 carried 76. GBank leads with 71 loans worth $222.3 million, followed by Shoreham Bank with 46 worth $143.2 million. Alloy Development Co., Inc. is the busiest certified development company, with 28 loans and $72.7 million. Franklin County has 53 loans, with Cuyahoga at 34, Hamilton at 33 and Montgomery at 30, a spread that follows the state's larger metros. Lending has climbed: FY2026 brought 63 loans and $190.1 million, the high on both counts for the decade.

What the record asks of a hotel study

Of Ohio hotel approvals made in FY2017 through FY2024, at least 8.1% were cancelled, and 9.0% with undrawn loans counted. Losses are light: 1.6% of the 190 Ohio hotel loans that funded during FY2017 to FY2021 have been written off, and 0.00% inside the five-year horizon, though both are floors. Low losses do not make a hotel study easy. A lender will expect occupancy and rate forecasts built from the specific submarket, the competitive set by brand and chain scale, and the new rooms already under construction nearby. The study has to test the construction or renovation budget and the brand's improvement plan, and show debt service coverage through the ramp to stabilisation, when a new hotel is most exposed. The appraiser will capitalise the same income, so the study should state its assumptions in a form the appraisal can adopt or challenge.

Coding note: hotels and motels are filed together under one code, so these figures cannot separate a roadside motel from a full-service hotel.