SBA 7(a) Assisted Living Feasibility Study in Minnesota

Minnesota's 7(a) assisted living cell comes in at 0.67x the national 7(a) middle for senior housing without nursing, so the typical loan here is about two thirds of the national one: $502,500, with half of the 49 loans between $209,000 and $1.1 million. The cell adds up to $43.5 million over FY2017 to FY2026. Minnesota is 13th when loans are counted nationally, but the class is only 18 of 39 inside Minnesota, a state where this kind of care is a smaller slice of lending than a ranking by loan count suggests.

One lender stands out

The lender table holds one name, Hiawatha National Bank, at 8 loans and $5.0 million, so the cell is not widely shared across institutions. SBA's holder records give that count and it measures volume, not method. Hennepin County leads with 15 loans, then Anoka and Dakota with 4, Itasca, Ramsey and Saint Louis with 3, and Beltrami, Benton, Cass and Chisago with 2. Franchise share is 4.1%.

Uneven years

The pattern by year is jagged: 3 loans in FY2017, 4 in FY2018 with $8.5 million, 3 in FY2019 with $350,000, then 11 loans and $10.2 million in FY2021, 5 in FY2022, 6 and $11.8 million in FY2023, 2 in FY2024, 9 in FY2025 and 1 in FY2026 at $350,000. A few large projects move the dollars, and a lender should not read a trend into any one year. Cancelled projects were no fewer than 15.4% of approvals made up to FY2024, and counting undisbursed loans adds nothing to that share.

Loss rate and the class boundary

The charged-off rate is withheld since too few funded loans exist to publish one. On scope, the code in use covers assisted living that has no nursing on site; memory care is not coded separately, and any home that does offer nursing are tallied elsewhere, under skilled nursing and continuing care. These totals therefore exclude nursing-based projects.

A Minnesota study has to prove the following

Reports here should settle the licence category and unit count, then test whether older residents in the trade area can pay privately, since independent operators, not chains, make up the cell. It should compare rival communities within a realistic drive, model staffing by level of care, and run coverage through a slow fill. Winter operating cost and building systems deserve their own line. For appraisal, the building must be valued as senior housing and as an alternative use.