SBA 504 Assisted Living Feasibility Study in California

First among states, eleventh at home

California leads every state in SBA 504 lending for assisted living without nursing care, yet the class sits 11 of 39 inside California, so the state's prominence is a national one. Across FY2017 to FY2026 the cell took 77 loans and $113.9 million in gross dollars. A $636,000 median puts California at 0.79x of the national 504 figure, with the central loans stretching from $379,000 to $2.0 million. None of the loans carries a franchise tie. The 504 structure pays for land, buildings and durable equipment with a certified development company working next to a private lender, which suits a licensed care home that owns its property.

The development companies

SBA's listing names development companies. The Mortgage Capital Development Corporation is shown with 19 loans worth $31.2 million, Capital Access Group, Inc. with 14 worth $13.4 million, and Bay Area Employment Development Company with 10 worth $6.0 million. CDC Small Business Finance Corp. has 9 worth $24.4 million, a high average, and California Statewide Certified Development Corporation has 7 worth $3.1 million. These are the organisations SBA records, and nothing here describes their policies. Sonoma County has 10 loans, Sacramento 8, San Diego 6, and Placer and Ventura 5 each. Approvals were 10 loans and $15.0 million in FY2018, only 4 loans and $1.9 million in FY2021, and 13 loans and $24.8 million in FY2022.

Floors

At least 7.7% of approvals through FY2024 were cancelled, but 13.8% under the broader reading that counts undisbursed loans, a wide gap that shows how many approved projects were still unfunded. None of the 31 early funded loans has been charged off: 0.00% to date, 0.00% across the opening years. A cohort this small, with open loans, gives only a minimum.

The classification isolates only homes that employ no nursing staff on site. No separate code exists for memory care, and operators with nurses are filed in other health categories, which means a project mixing acuity levels deserves a second look at those pages.

A California assisted living study has to show licensing and demand together. It should identify the licence category, the beds the building can carry and the state's staffing rules, then count older residents who can afford private rates inside a believable drive time, alongside the rival homes and how full they are. Construction or conversion costs in California are high, so the study should compare total project cost per bed with rate revenue at stabilised census, and show a slow lease-up with carrying costs. Labour is the main operating cost and caregiver turnover belongs in the case. A 504 loan finances real estate, so the appraisal will value the building as a licensed care home and the study's projections must reconcile with it. No approval is implied.