What SBA's own loan files show about lending in the New Bern, NC Micro Area, every asset class together, and what a feasibility study for a project there has to test.
New Bern, NC logged 102 SBA approvals in FY2017 to FY2026, worth $89.5 million in gross dollars. New Bern differs most on loan size: a $498,500 median, 2.40x of the national median, and New Bern's gap clears our margin. New Bern ranks as a mid-table area, 464 of 928 by loan count. New Bern is read whole in New Bern, NC, every class counted. A slice of NC is not how New Bern is treated.
$150,000 to $884,750 spans the middle half of New Bern loans, and $498,500 is the median. New Bern sits well above the national level: its 2.40x ratio to the national median means New Bern requests sized nationally may look small. New Bern, NC has no program counts: New Bern's split is withheld, and New Bern never reads withheld as none. New Bern franchise loans reach 16.7%, so brand standards often shape a New Bern request there.
New Bern: hotel and motel (7 loans); full-service restaurant (7 loans) head the tracked-class list. Another 71 New Bern loans sit in no tracked class, so New Bern totals describe operating businesses, not only property. Craven County, NC (90 loans) lead by county; a New Bern study names which county it covers. New Bern 7(a) volume: Live Oak Banking Company ($14.9 million, 12 loans); Wells Fargo Bank National Association ($5.6 million, 8 loans); Truist Bank ($15.5 million, 7 loans). Live Oak Banking Company's 12 loans, like every New Bern lender figure, are an SBA record of New Bern loans held or once held. No New Bern lender is judged by these counts.
New Bern, between FY2017 (7 loans) and FY2026 (14), peaked at 14 in FY2024 and bottomed at 7 in FY2017. New Bern cancellations stand at 10.7%, a floor, for New Bern approvals in FY2017 to FY2024; New Bern's ceiling is withheld, never zero in New Bern. New Bern prints no charge-off floor: of 102 loans, the cohort is too thin. New Bern withholds it; withheld is not zero. New Bern, NC membership follows the July 2023 delineation; New Bern counties are matched by name, and a New Bern loan with no match is dropped, so 102 is a floor, and every New Bern rate is too.
A New Bern feasibility study begins with New Bern demand from the right counties: Craven County, NC leads the loan counts, though New Bern is wider. If a New Bern concept resembles hotel and motel, New Bern offers size and lender precedent; other New Bern concepts must rest on their own New Bern evidence. The New Bern cost section uses local quotes; run New Bern debt service coverage for loans near $498,500 and near $884,750. New Bern is micropolitan, so a New Bern appraisal should say how thin the New Bern comparables are. Nothing printed for New Bern predicts approval; each New Bern lender still reviews a study.
| Loans approved, FY2017 to FY2026 | 102 |
|---|---|
| Gross dollars approved | $89.5 million |
| Median loan | $498,500 |
| Middle half of loans, from | $150,000 |
| Middle half of loans, to | $884,750 |
| SBA 7(a) loans | withheld |
| SBA 504 loans | withheld |
| Franchise share of loans | 16.7% |
| Rank among metro and micro areas by loans | 464 of 928 |
| Median loan against the national median | 2.40x |
| Cancelled after approval, FY2017 to FY2024 approvals (a floor) | 10.7% |
|---|---|
| The same, counting loans still undisbursed as cancelled (a ceiling) | 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 loans approved in the New Bern, NC Micro Area, by fiscal year
| Fiscal year | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| FY2017 | 7 | $6.1 million |
| FY2018 | 11 | $8.8 million |
| FY2019 | 9 | $6.6 million |
| FY2020 | 8 | $9.3 million |
| FY2021 | 8 | $13.4 million |
| FY2022 | 7 | $4.6 million |
| FY2023 | 11 | $4.3 million |
| FY2024 | 14 | $17.1 million |
| FY2025 | 13 | $6.3 million |
| FY2026 | 14 | $13.1 million |
| Asset class | Loans |
|---|---|
| Not in any of the 39 asset classes | 71 |
| Hotel and motel | 7 |
| Full-service restaurant | 7 |
Classes with 5 or more loans; smaller ones are withheld, and more where a small one could be derived.
| Lender | Loans | Dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Live Oak Banking Company | 12 | $14.9 million |
| Wells Fargo Bank National Association | 8 | $5.6 million |
| Truist Bank | 7 | $15.5 million |
| First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company | 5 | $6.2 million |
| First National Bank of Pennsylvania | 5 | $2.1 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 |
|---|---|
| Craven County, NC | 90 |
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.
All assets: every 7(a) and 504 approval in the metro, including those outside the 39 asset classes.
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 MT-35100.
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 commercial project in the New Bern, NC Micro 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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