What SBA's own loan files show about hotel and motel lending in the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metro Area, and what a feasibility study for a project there has to test.
In Raleigh-Cary, hotel and motel loans land at 8 of 39 among Raleigh-Cary's classes, and the area is 57 of 807 on the national list for them. The 35 approvals, worth $102.5 million, include 26 in Wake County and cover FY2017 to FY2026. By location quotient (0.77x), SBA lending in Raleigh-Cary gives hotel and motel loans a smaller slice than the national one. The page labels no metric distinctive.
A median of $3.1 million is 1.41x the national median over hotels and motels, and most typical loans sit between $1.9 million and $4.0 million. Of the 35, 27 are 7(a) and 8 are 504. A franchise brand attaches to 77.1% of them, so brand standards will shape both cost and timeline for most borrowers. Everything above describes SBA loans in Raleigh-Cary; other money for hotel and motel projects in Raleigh-Cary lies outside these figures.
GBank holds 11 of the 7(a) loans, $40.8 million in SBA's records. That concentrates a large part of Raleigh-Cary's hotel dollars in one name, but it describes who holds the loans today; it does not describe GBank's credit practices or what it requires.
Three years are shown: 5 loans worth $12.8 million in FY2017, FY2023 at 5 loans and $10.0 million, and FY2024 brings 6 loans and $19.9 million, the largest of the three. We withhold Raleigh-Cary's two outcome rates given that the Raleigh-Cary FY2017-to-FY2021 pool contains under 30 loans, under our own threshold for Raleigh-Cary. A withheld rate in Raleigh-Cary does not mean none. Hotels and motels are filed together, which hides the difference between select-service and full-service.
A hotel plan for the Raleigh area needs room-demand evidence from the market around the site and a rate the market will pay, set beside building and brand-conversion cost on a loan near $3.1 million. Since these loans are large and chiefly flagged, the study should survive a sluggish stabilisation and a lower-rate case. The federal county grouping defines Raleigh-Cary; so loans from counties Raleigh-Cary cannot match are excluded from its totals.
A lender will read a class that ranks 8 of 39 in the area yet carries a median above the national one, so Raleigh hotel loans run big relative to a modest local weight. A sponsor should treat the narrow band from $1.9 million to $4.0 million as the span of hotel requests that were funded, and should expect questions about brand cost in particular, since 77.1% of the Raleigh-Cary loans carry one.
| Loans approved, FY2017 to FY2026 | 35 |
|---|---|
| Gross dollars approved | $102.5 million |
| Median loan | $3.1 million |
| Middle half of loans, from | $1.9 million |
| Middle half of loans, to | $4.0 million |
| SBA 7(a) loans | 27 |
| SBA 504 loans | 8 |
| Franchise share of loans | 77.1% |
| Rank among metro and micro areas for hotel and motel loans | 57 of 807 |
| Rank of hotel and motel among the classes in this area | 8 of 39 |
| Location quotient (share of loans against the national share) | 0.77x |
| Median loan against the national median for the class | 1.41x |
| Cancelled after approval, FY2017 to FY2024 approvals (a floor) | withheld |
|---|---|
| Charged off to date, FY2017 to FY2021 disbursed loans (a floor) | withheld |
Both rates are floors. SBA withholds the status of open loans, so a loan counts as charged off only once SBA reports it; a rate needs at least 30 loans in its cohort and is otherwise not reported.
SBA hotel and motel loans approved in the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metro Area, by fiscal year
| Fiscal year | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| FY2017 | 5 | $12.8 million |
| FY2018 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2019 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2020 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2021 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2022 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2023 | 5 | $10.0 million |
| FY2024 | 6 | $19.9 million |
| FY2025 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2026 | withheld | withheld |
| Lender | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| GBank | 11 | $40.8 million |
Lenders with 5 or more loans here; a lender with fewer is not listed, and loans SBA or a receiver holds are counted but never listed as a lender.
| County | Loans |
|---|---|
| Wake County, NC | 26 |
Counties with 5 or more loans; smaller ones are not listed.
Metro is the CBSA (metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area) of the loan's project county, July 2023 delineation (OMB Bulletin 23-01). The county is matched by name (manifests/ld2/county-cbsa-map.csv); a loan whose county cannot be placed in a 2023 CBSA is left out of every metro.
One code for hotels and motels; limited service and full service cannot be separated.
Shared code: Hotels and motels share 721110.
A value marked withheld rests on fewer than 5 loans, or is withheld so that such a figure cannot be derived from other published figures.
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, 7(a) and 504 loan-level FOIA files (data.sba.gov), as of 2026-09-30; areas from the U.S. Census Bureau CBSA delineation, July 2023 (OMB Bulletin 23-01); Loan Analytics metro cell MA-39580-C07.
A worked example of the feasibility study a lender would read for a hotel project in North Carolina, financed with a conventional bank loan.
Loan Analytics prepares the feasibility study a lender reads before it commits: for a hotel and motel project in the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metro Area, financed under SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA Business and Industry or a conventional bank loan. Tell us the project and the lender's deadline, and we reply with scope, timeline and fee.
Start with the data.
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