Fiscal Year 2025
352
Loans Approved
$386.3M
Total Value
Lenders approved 352 SBA 7(a) loans for nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and continuing care retirement communities in fiscal year 2025, worth $386.3 million. The year before, it was 297 loans and $326.0 million. Fiscal 2026, which closed on September 30, brought fewer approvals (284) but bigger ones: the average nursing home SBA loan rose to about $1.29 million. Fewer deals, larger checks, and more scrutiny on each file.
An SBA 7(a) nursing home loan is made and funded by an SBA-approved lender, such as a bank, credit union, or non-bank SBA lender. The SBA itself does not lend the money. It guarantees part of the loan for the lender: up to 85% on loans of $150,000 or less and up to 75% on anything larger. Under the SBA rules, businesses licensed as nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or a state-licensed equivalent are eligible. Residential homes that hold no such license and provide no health care services are not.
7aSavvy is an SBA 7(a) loan broker for nursing home and assisted living operators and buyers. You tell us what the money is for and what it costs. We take the deal to lenders that are funding nursing home loans right now, talk it through with them, and introduce you to the one that fits. A 120-bed skilled nursing facility with a Medicaid-heavy census and a 16-bed memory care home in a converted house are two very different credit conversations, and they rarely belong at the same lender.
Why Nursing Home Operators Start With 7aSavvy
Most operators call the bank that already holds their deposits. That is a risk. A banker works in the bank’s interest, and a bank that sees one care facility a year may not know how to read a census report, a payer mix, or a change of ownership filing. If you do not know 7(a) lending inside and out, there is a lot to watch for. We are the expert on your side of the table.
- Free to you, with no effect on your loan. The lender pays 7aSavvy a referral fee when your loan funds. That fee does not change your rate or your terms, and every top SBA lender pays referral fees to SBA loan brokers.
- Lender conversations every day. We talk with several lenders daily, on loans already in process and on new ones just starting. Before a lender is picked for your nursing home financing, we have already discussed the deal with them and confirmed it fits what they want.
- The right lane for the facility. Some lenders like stabilized assisted living with private-pay residents. Others will look at skilled nursing with Medicare and Medicaid revenue. A few will finance a ground-up memory care build. We match the facility type and loan size to the lender built for it.
- We have sat on the lender’s side. Our founders bring more than 35 years of SBA lending experience between them, including about 20 years bringing SBA loans into banks and getting them funded. We know the questions an underwriter will ask about licensing, occupancy, and staffing before they ask them.
How 7aSavvy Works for Nursing Home Deals
Step 1: Tell us about the facility. The Get Connected form asks for the purchase price or project cost, the location, the license type, and what the loan needs to cover. Requests under $350,000 and requests of $350,000 and up follow separate paths, and most owners finish in a few minutes.
Step 2: We review it the way a credit officer would. For an SBA nursing home loan that means the state license, recent survey results, occupancy and census trends, payer mix, staffing, cash flow, and how the money will be used. Weak spots get found and fixed before a lender sees the file.
Step 3: We prescreen with lenders, then introduce you. We discuss the deal with lenders that fund SBA 7(a) loans for nursing homes of your size and type, and only then connect you with a decision-maker at the one that fits, usually at Vice President level or above. Because the loan is prescreened, a decline only happens in extreme cases. When a deal does fall apart, the seller is the most common reason, so we press for complete seller records early.
Step 4: We stay on your team until funding day. Most SBA 7(a) loans take 45 to 90 days from first call to funding. On a nursing home purchase, state licensing and the change of ownership filings often set the pace, so we line those up alongside the loan instead of after it.
Our SBA 7(a) Lender Connections for Nursing Homes
Nursing home financing through the SBA is concentrated in a small group of lenders. In fiscal year 2025, 109 lenders made at least one SBA 7(a) loan to a nursing home, assisted living facility, or continuing care community. Only 34 of them made three or more. For most of the rest, a care facility was a once-a-year event, which is why a bank can sound unsure about a perfectly healthy facility.
Most active SBA 7(a) nursing home and assisted living lenders by number of loans (FY 2025):
| Rank | Lender | Care Facility Loans | Total Value |
| 1 | Live Oak Banking Company | 41 | $62.15M |
| 2 | Northeast Bank | 18 | $3.44M |
| 3 | Newtek Bank | 15 | $4.35M |
| 4 | Celtic Bank | 13 | $19.75M |
| 5 | Pinnacle Bank | 12 | $18.06M |
| 6 | Huntington National Bank | 12 | $5.11M |
| 7 | Readycap Lending | 9 | $14.91M |
| 8 | Harvest Small Business Finance | 9 | $12.55M |
| 9 | Bank of Hope | 9 | $9.61M |
| 10 | Gulf Coast Bank and Trust | 8 | $14.13M |
Source: SBA, 7(a) & 504 FOIA
The averages tell the real story. Live Oak’s care facility loans averaged about $1.52 million, and Celtic’s about the same. Northeast Bank’s averaged roughly $191,000, and Newtek’s about $290,000. Every name on this list is an active SBA lender, yet they are built for very different nursing home deals. The busiest lender is not automatically the right one for yours.
Choosing the right name on that list for your nursing home SBA loan is our job. Celtic Bank, Huntington, and Ready Capital (Readycap Lending) all appear in the table above, and they are among our lender relationships, alongside GBank and the rest of our 100+ SBA 7(a) lenders. We know who is taking assisted living requests this quarter, who will look at skilled nursing, and which loan officer inside each bank has closed a care facility loan before.
What SBA 7(a) Nursing Home Loans Pay For
One SBA 7(a) loan can cover several parts of a nursing home or assisted living project at once, with a single monthly payment. In fiscal year 2025, nursing home SBA loans went to:
- Facility purchases. 71 of the 352 loans financed a change of ownership, averaging about $1.35 million. Buying an operating facility, its license, its residents’ care, and its staff in one transaction in a classic business acquisition is a common 7(a) loan use in this industry.
- The building. 199 loans carried terms of 20 years or longer, the mark of real estate in the deal, and those averaged about $1.69 million.
- New facilities. 67 loans went to operators opening a facility that did not exist yet, averaging about $1.48 million. Ground-up builds, memory care additions, and conversions fall under construction.
- Renovations and equipment. Resident rooms, nurse call and life safety systems, kitchens, lifts, and vehicles.
- Refinancing. Eligible existing business debt can be refinanced into a longer, fully amortizing SBA term.
- Working capital. Cover any gaps in payroll or supplies.
Many owners who take out an SBA loan for a nursing home hold the building in a separate company and lease it to the operating company. The SBA allows that setup, called an Eligible Passive Company and Operating Company structure, when the property company leases to the business that actually runs the facility. A building leased to an unrelated operator is investment real estate, and 7(a) loan proceeds cannot pay for it.
SBA 7(a) Nursing Home Loan Terms and Eligibility
How Much Can You Borrow for a Nursing Home?
The SBA 7(a) maximum is $5 million. In fiscal year 2025, the median care facility loan was about $683,000 and the average about $1.10 million. Skilled nursing loans averaged about $1.08 million, and assisted living made up the bulk of the activity with 280 loans and $311.8 million. What you qualify for depends on historical cash flow, your down payment, how the money will be used, and the lender’s underwriting.
Loan Terms and Interest Rates
- Loan amounts up to $5 million
- Down payments commonly 10%
- Terms up to 25 years with real estate, up to 10 years without
- Fully amortizing payments with no balloon
- Prepayment penalty on loans with terms of 15 years or more: 5%, 3%, then 1% in years one through three
SBA 7(a) rates are set as prime plus a spread. For loans above $350,000, the SBA caps that spread at prime + 3.0, and most 7(a) loans price between prime + 1.0 and prime + 3.0. With prime at 7.00%, a loan at prime + 2.5 carries a 9.50% rate. Nearly nine in ten nursing home SBA loans approved in fiscal year 2025 were variable rate. Run the numbers on our SBA loan calculator, then let us put the request in front of the lender most interested in your facility, which is the most practical way to improve the spread. See current benchmarks on our SBA 7(a) interest rates page.
SBA 7(a) Nursing Home Loan Qualifications
The business must be a for-profit U.S. business that meets SBA size standards, shows a need for credit, and holds the state license for the care it provides. Since March 1, 2026, every direct and indirect owner must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. national who resides in the U.S. or its territories.
The SBA rules that took effect October 1, 2026 tightened nursing home financing for buyers. A buyer who is new to the facility must inject at least 10% of total project cost, and that 10% cannot be reduced. The facility’s historical earnings must cover the new debt payments at least 1.25 times, and projections cannot be used to meet that test. A quality of earnings report is required when the business purchase price, not counting owner-occupied real estate, is $3 million or more. An existing operator buying another facility in the same line of business may qualify for a lower 1.15 coverage test.
For an SBA 7(a) nursing home loan, lenders typically review:
- The state facility license, recent survey and inspection reports, and any plan of correction
- Recent monthly census and occupancy reports
- Payer mix: private pay, Medicare, Medicaid, and long-term care insurance
- Three years of business tax returns and profit and loss statements, plus a year-to-date P&L and current balance sheet
- Personal credit, three years of personal tax returns, and a personal financial statement for each owner of 20% or more
- The purchase agreement, price breakdown, and the change of ownership application with the state
- The licensed administrator and a management and staffing plan
- An appraisal and a business valuation when real estate or goodwill is involved
- Contractor bids and plans for any construction, conversion, or renovation
Every owner of 20% or more must sign a personal guarantee. A seller note on full standby for the life of the loan can count toward up to half of the equity injection. Our SBA 7(a) loan documents page has the full list, and the cash flow calculator shows how a lender will measure coverage.
About 7aSavvy
7aSavvy is an SBA 7(a) loan broker that arranges SBA 7(a) loans for nursing homes, assisted living, and memory care facilities for owners nationwide. We do not lend money and we are not a government agency. The lender decides approval and what rate and terms they’ll offer. Our job is to prepare your care facility file, prescreen it with the lenders most likely to fund it, and stay with you from the first call to funding day. Read more about the Savvy Difference.
