SBA 7(a) Self Storage Feasibility Study in Indiana

Two holders, one of them with outsized tickets

Self storage in Indiana is lent by a pair of institutions. Bank Five Nine holds 8 loans worth $6.3 million, and Live Oak Banking Company holds 7 worth $16.3 million, so Live Oak's average loan is roughly three times the other's. SBA lists present holders. The 32 loans total $46.2 million. The midpoint of $758,000 is 0.78x the national 7(a) storage midpoint, with a lower quarter at $394,825 and an upper quarter at $2.2 million. Franchised loans are 3.1%.

Ranks and map

Indiana is rank 17 by count among states, and self storage holds place 18 of 39 at home, a middle standing. Madison County has 4 loans, Allen 3, and Hamilton, Howard, Johnson and Lake 2 each, so the lending is scattered over small and mid-sized markets. FY2020 was the peak, with 7 loans and $8.7 million, and FY2023 saw 4 loans carrying $10.0 million, a sign of larger projects that year.

A class that blurs

Vehicle and boat storage is not coded separately and lands in self storage or in other warehousing, so a loan counted here may finance a boat yard or a covered RV lot in place of climate-controlled units. Unfunded approvals and charged-off loans are both left unpublished for Indiana, because each cohort was smaller than SBA allows; no number appears and none should be assumed.

What an Indiana storage study has to test

Storage is a supply and rent question. The study should count competing storage within a few miles, measure the square feet per household already available, and show the rents and occupancy of those facilities from a source a lender can check. The site matters: visibility, access, and zoning that permits the use. Cost per square foot of the building, the doors, the security system and the paving must have a contractor basis, and a phased build should show what is built first and when the next phase starts. Lease-up is the key risk; show a slow fill beside the expected one, and the cash needed to carry the facility until it pays. Indiana's mix of farmland and fast-growing suburbs gives very different demand, so the study must say which setting applies. The appraisal rests on stabilised income, so reconcile it with the lease-up plan.