The USDA wrote down what the study must contain. Acceptance is a matter of addressing the list — completely, in order, with evidence.
Federal lending programs differ in how much they specify. The SBA states principles and trusts the lender’s judgment; the USDA, in 7 CFR Part 5001, enumerates. Appendix A to Subpart D sets out the individual factors a feasibility study must address across five dimensions — economic, market, technical, financial, and management — thirty-seven in all, and agency reviewers work from that list. A study that is brilliant on thirty factors and silent on seven is a returned study.
The discipline this imposes is healthy. The economic dimension forces the analyst to place the project in its regional economy — employment base, demographic trajectory, cost-benefit synthesis. The market dimension demands demand quantification, competitive analysis, and capture-rate justification. Technical covers site, design, construction cost validation, and commissioning. Financial carries the pro forma, coverage, and stress work. Management asks whether these people can run this business — a question credit files are chronically too polite to press.
Every Wert-Berater Reg 5001 study includes a factor-compliance matrix mapping each enumerated requirement to the report section that satisfies it, with the factor’s rating and the evidence relied upon. The matrix is not decoration — it is the reviewer’s reading guide, and in our experience it is the difference between a clean acceptance and a correspondence cycle. A recent marina engagement under this framework carried a FAVORABLE cost-benefit synthesis at a net present value of $7,320,000, documented factor by factor.
Reg 5001 consolidated several older program regulations into a single guaranteed-loan framework, so the same structural discipline now serves B&I and related guaranteed programs — one list, mastered once, applied consistently.
President, Wert-Berater, Inc. — independent feasibility study consultants since 1998. More than 4,000 feasibility studies completed across all 50 states and internationally, evaluating $40.2 billion in project value for SBA, USDA, EB-5, conventional, and institutional financing decisions. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and agency in every engagement.
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