What SBA's own loan files show about hotel and motel lending in the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC Metro Area, and what a feasibility study for a project there has to test.
Franchise flags cover 85.4% of the 48 hotel and motel loans in the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk record, the sort of brand dependence a study must treat as a central fact, because franchise agreements bring design standards, renovation cycles and territorial terms that a lender will want to see in the cash flow. Lodging holds fifth place locally, 5 of 39, the location quotient reads 1.33x, and the metro is 35 of 807 in the national hotel table. The loans total $135.2 million from FY2017 to FY2026. What does a normal Hampton Roads loan look like? Roughly $2.6 million, which is 1.22x of the class median nationwide, with the inner half spanning $1.6 million to $4.3 million.
Program use is 35 loans on 7(a) and 13 on 504. Lodging is coded as a single class, so economy motels and full-service hotels sit together in the figures, and the study should say which kind it tests. What the file leaves out for Hampton Roads hotels is any rate of loss: cancellation and charge-offs are suppressed, and suppression is not zero.
Business Finance Group, Inc. appears on the 504 side with 8 loans and $21.5 million; 504 Capital Corporation follows with 5 loans and $14.8 million. On 7(a), GBank has 7 loans and $20.1 million. Each holder entry comes straight from SBA's current-holder field and is neither endorsement nor criticism. York County, VA leads the counties with 10 loans, ahead of Chesapeake city, VA with 9 and Newport News city, VA with 6; Norfolk city, VA and Virginia Beach city, VA each show 5. It is notable that the resort city of Virginia Beach is not the leader.
The years that print are FY2018 with 7 loans and $16.9 million, FY2021 with 10 and $21.3 million, FY2023 with 6 and $18.7 million and FY2024 with 5 and $24.0 million. FY2024 carries the highest dollar total shown despite having the fewest loans, which signals a few large tickets. The other years print nothing. Counties are matched to the metro by name, and a county that SBA cannot place leaves its loans out of Hampton Roads altogether.
The study measures demand from the military, port, shipbuilding, leisure and event segments against room supply across the independent cities and counties, and tests the franchisor's property standards against the cost of the build or renovation, with the $2.6 million midpoint as a guide. Occupancy and daily rate have to carry debt service coverage, and valuation separates the operating hotel from the real estate. Daniel Smith, MAI, answers for the report, and nothing in the Hampton Roads record should be taken as a forecast of any lender's answer.
| Loans approved, FY2017 to FY2026 | 48 |
|---|---|
| Gross dollars approved | $135.2 million |
| Median loan | $2.6 million |
| Middle half of loans, from | $1.6 million |
| Middle half of loans, to | $4.3 million |
| SBA 7(a) loans | 35 |
| SBA 504 loans | 13 |
| Franchise share of loans | 85.4% |
| Rank among metro and micro areas for hotel and motel loans | 35 of 807 |
| Rank of hotel and motel among the classes in this area | 5 of 39 |
| Location quotient (share of loans against the national share) | 1.33x |
| Median loan against the national median for the class | 1.22x |
| 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 Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC Metro Area, by fiscal year
| Fiscal year | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| FY2017 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2018 | 7 | $16.9 million |
| FY2019 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2020 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2021 | 10 | $21.3 million |
| FY2022 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2023 | 6 | $18.7 million |
| FY2024 | 5 | $24.0 million |
| FY2025 | withheld | withheld |
| FY2026 | withheld | withheld |
| Lender | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Business Finance Group, Inc. | 8 | $21.5 million |
| 504 Capital Corporation | 5 | $14.8 million |
| Lender | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| GBank | 7 | $20.1 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 |
|---|---|
| York County, VA | 10 |
| Chesapeake city, VA | 9 |
| Newport News city, VA | 6 |
| Norfolk city, VA | 5 |
| Virginia Beach city, VA | 5 |
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-47260-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.
A worked example of the feasibility study a lender would read for a hotel project in Virginia, financed with an SBA 504 loan.
Loan Analytics prepares the feasibility study a lender reads before it commits: for a hotel and motel project in the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-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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