If 2009 sees slow sales for Orange County’s office and industrial condominiums, it shouldn’t be because of a lack of loans available for small businesses.
While the ongoing credit crisis has dried up funding for conventional loans in much of the commercial real estate world, deals are still being made for Small Business Administration loans,one of the biggest sources of funds for condo projects in OC, according to bankers and developers.
Financing is readily available for the SBA’s 504 program, which funds the acquisition of long-term fixed assets, including real estate, according to Melanie Smith, vice president for the Irvine office of Bank of America Corp.
“Even with the credit markets in as much flux as they are, borrowers can obtain these government-backed loans for up to $10 million,” Smith said.
There should be plenty of SBA money still available for local deals in 2009. According to Smith, next year’s SBA budget includes $8 billion for SBA 504 financing nationwide. The loan program is funded by the monthly sales of long-term bonds.
Whether all that money is doled out by banks remains to be seen. Loans in the 504 program are down 36% from a year ago, according to data from the Federal Reserve. The other big SBA loan type,the 7(a) program,has seen lending drop even more, by 55% year over year.
Many Loans
Smith still has seen a number of SBA loans for real estate projects that her bank has been a part of.
Smith’s Bank of America office is the main lender for a number of local condo developments, including the recently completed Koll Center 3 office and research and development project in the Irvine Spectrum.
The 33-building, 188,374-square-foot project is about two-thirds sold out,a little more than three months after construction completed. A majority of sales of Koll Center 3 used SBA financing, brokers said.
Using the 504 program often requires small businesses to only put down 10% or so for a new building.
In general, banks view the condos-for-sale as less risky than other real estate or business loans, since the users of the property are also the owners, bankers said.
There’s still risk for the lenders, though, which has caused many banks to tighten underwriting guidelines for the program during the past year. The default rate for the 504 loans ran about 2.2% as of December, which is up more than 30% from a year ago.
For the other big Spectrum-area office condo developer, Irvine-based Bacchus Development, similar funding trends are being seen.
About two-thirds of buyers at new projects built by Bacchus are using SBA loans to finance the deals, said Jeffrey John Bitetti, executive vice president for the company. That figure has remained consistent even during the market turbulence of the past year, he said.
The loan program “offers buyers an easy in,” Bitetti said.
Going the SBA route does add some challenges to a deal. The loans have different prepayment issues and more upfront fees than other loans, Bitetti said.
Jeffrey Office Park
Bacchus’ latest for-sale project is the 338,000-square-foot, 50-building Jeffrey Office Park, near Jeffrey Drive and the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway. Sales there and at other Bacchus projects are running near $600 per square foot in some cases.
In Fullerton, about 80% of early sales at the new Kimberly Business Center have used SBA financing to complete deals, according to Jason Krotts, vice president for the Irvine office of developer Lowe Enterprises Real Estate Group.
Wells Fargo & Co. is the main lender for the industrial park, which wrapped up construction this summer.
“SBA lenders are still lending,” Krotts said.
Lowe built the 285,399-square-foot, 15-acre park in a venture with General Electric Co.’s GE Real Estate. The $46 million, 19-building project is approaching 50% sold.
Smaller properties at Kimberly Business Center,which are being offered from $172 per square foot to $200 per square foot,are taking a little longer to sell than the larger buildings, Krotts said.
Among for-sale condo types, the larger properties in the county,25,000 square feet to 35,000 square feet,are the most active these days, said Louis Tomaselli, executive vice president for the Orange office of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP. Those large buildings are typically sold to businesses that have more than $100 million in annual sales.
The slowdown in the market is more noticeable among buildings running 10,000 square feet or less, Tomaselli said.
These properties are the ones that in previous years were often financed by equity taken out of a mom and pop business owner’s refinanced home. That source of funding now is gone.
Tomaselli estimates that the for-sale condo deal volume is about 30% of what is was a couple years ago, at the peak of the market.
“The market’s still active. It’s not where it was, but it’s not dead,” said Tomaselli.
