SBA 504 Assisted Living Feasibility Study in Wisconsin

Wisconsin ranks 4 among states for 504 assisted living loans, though the class is 10 of 39 inside the state, and the lender table tells why that rank is possible: WBD, Inc. holds 33 loans and $29.9 million, nearly all of the cell's 38 loans and $34.9 million. That dominance by a single company is this cell's defining feature, and it means a borrower's choices are effectively narrower than the state's national rank suggests. SBA's holder records give the counts, and they imply nothing about WBD's standards.

Size and ownership

Wisconsin's $791,000 median is 0.98x the national 504 figure for homes without nursing, a near match for the national scale. Half of loans fall between $257,250 and $1.5 million. No franchised loan appears, which leaves independent owners as the whole borrower pool. Milwaukee County has 9 loans, Dane 4, Columbia and Washington 3, and Brown, La Crosse, Outagamie, Price and Waukesha 2.

The record by year

Approvals were 5 in FY2017 with $7.1 million, 3 in each of FY2018 and FY2019, a single loan in FY2020 at $599,000, then 6, 3 and 5. FY2024 shows 2 loans and $612,000, followed by 4 loans and 6 loans in the last two years, with $5.4 million in FY2026. No trend stands out beyond year-to-year noise, and with annual counts this small a single project can change a year. A lender weighing a request should therefore look at the borrower's own plan, the building and the operator's record, and not at the direction of the totals.

Rates not printed

Wisconsin's cancellation and charge-off rates for this program are not printed, because the cohorts behind them are tiny. A reader should not turn either gap into a zero or into evidence of a clean record.

Coding and the Wisconsin study

The code at work here is for assisted living without on-site nursing; memory care is not coded and homes providing nursing are tallied in other classes. Any report should therefore state the licence category and the care level, then test private-pay demand from older residents in the trade area, nearby competition, staffing by acuity, and winter operating cost. Since the building is the collateral, show what it is worth as senior housing and in other uses, and test coverage while units fill slowly.