I am in the process of trying to start up a skate park / skate shop and was wondering how hard it was to get loans on this type of business. I am looking at a total start up of approx $300,000 for the size and style of skate park. I am planning on opening it in Louisiana, I am also a Insurance Broker so I know what the cost of insurance is and you can limit your liability by having your riders sign waivers and purchase the insurance individually. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for any input in this matter.

Well you have two types of loans. Loans based on Real Estate and Business Loans (Which may or may not incude real estate). From a real estate lenders prespective you are looking at what we call a special purpose property and we would typically lend 55-60% of the appraisal value of the real estate. Your best bet would be to talk to a current park owners (Which are not your competition ofcourse) and askem where they got financing and how they got started. Someone will def be willing to show you the startup ropes.

Startup financing guaranteed by the SBA or similar would be your best bet.

This does not mean 100% financing, and requires a substantial equity contribution {think 25%}.

The guarantee should help mitigate the “special use” characteristic of the real estate allowing for higher loan-to-value.

The fact that you have an insurance background is great since the first thing that occurred to me was a kid falling and breaking his kneecaps {something that I am sure will cross the minds of every credit analyst}