Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA 7 CFR Part 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. 4,000+ engagements since 1998 covering $41.2 billion in evaluated project value. So far in 2026: 41 engagements and $1.54 billion evaluated — 17 SBA, 11 USDA.
An office or medical office project succeeds or fails on tenancy, not on construction. The feasibility question is whether the trade area's employment base, physician supply, payer mix, or corporate absorption trend supports the proposed rentable square footage at the underwritten rent, and whether lease-up reaches stabilized occupancy inside the loan's interest-carry window. For medical office, the analysis extends to provider demand by specialty, referral patterns, hospital affiliation economics, and the regulatory environment governing outpatient sites of care. Speculative office in a post-pandemic absorption environment receives particularly conservative treatment: the study tests the project against current sublease overhang and flight-to-quality dynamics rather than against pre-2020 absorption averages.
The market analysis is built from CoStar and county assessor inventory, employment and occupational data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, physician and provider counts from CMS and state licensing boards for medical office, and rent comparables verified against actual signed leases rather than asking rents. The financial model carries lease-up velocity, tenant improvement and leasing commission loads, rollover exposure, and a stabilized cash flow tested against the program's debt-service-coverage minimum across rate-stress scenarios.
Every Wert-Berater financial model is fully linked with no hardcoded values, so any reviewer can stress any input. Deliverables comprise a complete narrative report and the linked Excel model, with ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, and ratio analysis benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld data.
SBA engagements are prepared to SOP 50 10 8, including its debt-service-coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. USDA engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 across the Business & Industry, Community Facilities, REAP, and Value-Added Producer Grant programs. Conventional engagements are built to the lender's stated coverage standard, typically 1.20x. Office projects most often reach us through SBA 504 owner-occupied structures, where the 51 percent owner-occupancy requirement reframes the analysis around the operating business's capacity to carry the real estate, and through conventional construction-to-permanent lending for investor product.
Wert-Berater engagements in this category include medical office conversion and physician-equity prospectus work, including a $9,000,000 ambulatory surgery center conversion analysis in the Orlando corridor. Independence is non-negotiable: determinations follow the evidence and are not revised under pressure, and studies are built to pass lender, agency, and third-party review without exception items.
A feasibility study for an office or medical office project is not a market overview. It is a project-specific credit document that answers whether this building, at this rent, leases up fast enough to service this debt. The scope is calibrated to the asset type from the first page.
Every deliverable is produced as a bound narrative and a fully linked Excel workbook published to a secure client portal where the model recalculates when any input changes.
The competitive-supply and demand picture for office and medical office is assembled from primary and secondary sources that are specific to the asset class. No single database is complete, and the methodology accounts for that.
On the supply side, the inventory is built from CoStar rent rolls cross-referenced against county assessor parcel data and recorded lease abstracts where available. Building permits and certificate-of-occupancy filings from local planning departments identify pipeline supply that has not yet appeared in commercial databases. For medical office, state health department facility registration records and CMS provider enrollment files identify which buildings are already licensed for clinical use, a distinction that directly affects competitive positioning.
On the demand side, Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data provides employment counts by industry and county, disaggregated to the submarket level. For medical office, physician and mid-level provider counts are drawn from state licensing board registries and CMS National Plan & Provider Enumeration System records, then filtered by specialty and mapped to the trade area. Referral-pattern data from CMS Medicare claims files supplements the provider count where the proposed tenant mix depends on a particular specialty's patient flow.
Rent comparables are verified against signed lease data rather than asking rents. Where signed lease data is unavailable, broker-reported effective rents are discounted and documented. The study distinguishes between gross, modified gross, and triple-net structures before any rent comparison is drawn.
Four inputs move the debt-service-coverage ratio for an office or medical office project more than any others. Each is tested explicitly rather than held at a single point estimate.
SBA, USDA, and conventional lenders each approach office and medical office credit with a distinct set of concerns, and the feasibility study is expected to address all of them directly.
For SBA 504 owner-occupied office transactions, the central underwriting question is whether the operating business — not the real estate — generates sufficient cash flow to carry the debt. The 51 percent owner-occupancy requirement means the study must evaluate the business's revenue concentration, lease terms with any co-tenants, and the global debt-service-coverage position of the borrowing entity, not merely the property's stabilized net operating income. SBA SOP 50 10 8 coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global are the floor, not a target.
USDA Business & Industry and Community Facilities programs apply to medical office and rural professional office projects where private credit is unavailable or insufficient. These engagements require the study to address community need, the borrower's management capacity, and the project's consistency with the agency's rural development mission alongside the standard financial underwriting.
Conventional construction-to-permanent lenders for investor office product focus on lease-up risk during the construction and initial lease-up period, the creditworthiness and lease term of anchor tenants, and the project's exit value under a stressed capitalization-rate scenario. The study addresses each of these concerns with explicit sensitivity analysis rather than a single-point stabilized value estimate.
Wert-Berater's fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the reviewing agency. No fee is contingent on the finding, and determinations are not revised under pressure.
Every engagement begins with a fixed fee quoted within one business day of inquiry. The fee is stated before any work begins and does not change based on the study's conclusion. There are no contingent fees and no success-based pricing structures.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from receipt of a complete data room. The data room for an office or medical office project typically includes the rent roll or proposed lease schedule, site plan and floor plan with rentable square footage by suite, the operating business's financial statements for SBA owner-occupied transactions, any executed or letter-of-intent leases, and the lender's term sheet or program requirements. Incomplete data rooms extend the timeline; the engagement clock starts when the data room is complete, not when the retainer is received.
Rush delivery is available where the lender's commitment timeline requires it. The scope does not change under a rush schedule; only the internal resource allocation changes.
When the study is complete, the bound narrative report and the fully linked Excel workbook are published to a secure client portal. The workbook stays live: a credit officer, agency reviewer, or loan committee member can open the model, change any input — rent, occupancy, interest rate, lease-up velocity — and watch every downstream calculation update immediately. No values are hardcoded. The model is the same file the analyst used to prepare the report, not a locked summary.
An explicit statement of conditions accompanies every engagement, identifying the assumptions on which the conclusions rest and the circumstances that would require the study to be revisited.
The fee is fixed and quoted within one business day of inquiry. It does not vary based on the study's conclusion, and no portion is contingent on loan approval or a favorable finding. The quote reflects the project's complexity, the program requirements, and the data room's completeness. Contact Wert-Berater with the project summary and lender program to receive a specific quote.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from receipt of a complete data room. The clock starts when all required project documents are in hand, not when the engagement is retained. Rush delivery is available for transactions with compressed commitment timelines. Incomplete data rooms are the most common source of delay, so early assembly of the rent roll, site plan, financial statements, and lender term sheet shortens the overall timeline.
Three factors make this asset class harder to underwrite than most. First, post-pandemic sublease overhang has structurally altered absorption in many submarkets, making pre-2020 comparables misleading. Second, lease-up velocity is highly sensitive to tenant improvement and concession packages that are rarely disclosed in asking-rent data. Third, medical office demand is bounded by a finite provider pool in the trade area, so occupancy assumptions must be grounded in specialty-level supply-and-demand analysis rather than general office absorption trends.
Yes, provided the study is built to the more demanding standard from the outset. SBA SOP 50 10 8 imposes specific coverage minimums and global cash-flow requirements that exceed many conventional lender thresholds. A study prepared to SBA standards will generally satisfy a conventional lender's requirements as well, though the lender should confirm its specific underwriting criteria before the engagement begins.
Yes. Medical office demand analysis draws on CMS National Plan & Provider Enumeration System records, state licensing board registries, and Medicare claims data to establish provider-to-population ratios by specialty and map referral patterns. General office studies rely primarily on employment data and commercial lease comparables. The regulatory environment governing outpatient sites of care, including certificate-of-need requirements where applicable, is also evaluated for medical office and has no counterpart in general office underwriting.
No. A feasibility study is an independent analytical document, not a loan approval. Wert-Berater's fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the reviewing agency. The study's conclusions follow the evidence; if the evidence does not support the project, the study says so. Lenders and agencies make their own credit determinations. A well-prepared, fully documented study removes analytical uncertainty from the credit file but does not predetermine any agency's decision.
Qualify a project. Tell us about the project and the program. We will tell you the truth about it — scope, timeline, and fee confirmed before work begins.
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Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent provider of feasibility studies and other related services. The firm does not provide financing or equity investment advice, and does not arrange, broker, or place debt or equity capital of any kind.
All appraisal assignments are performed by Bruce E. Jones, MAI, ASA-GC, BCA, CMEA, a member of the Appraisal Institute since 2006, a staff member of Wert-Berater, Inc. and owner of Special Purpose Realty Valuation.