$35K SBA loans, anyone have any info?

[AZ-Tax]

Microloan intermediaries across the country are providing loans of up to $35,000 right now to start-up, newly established and growing small businesses.

What type of small business qualifies? Any other info would be helpful.

[S T]

Google search

AZ
I did a quick "google search" and found this, and seems to be a lot more

[http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/sbaloantopics/microloans/index.html[/url]

Google - microloan intermediaries or try microloans

Happy Googling!

Sandy

[JohnH]

Here's another link. I used "SBA" and "ARC" to find this info. There are numerous links to recent news articles about this program.

http://www.sba.gov/recovery/arcloanprogram/index.html

The loans are exclusively for operating, viable businesses which are experiencing hardships due to the current economic conditions. They are interest-free for the first year and repayment can be spread out over 5 years thereafter. They loans are obtained through banks that participate in the program, not directly from SBA.

[JohnH]

More info:

When I initially saw this post, it reminded me that I had alerted a client to the ARC program a few weeks ago because they seemed to be a prime candidate for it. Your question jump-started me into doing some more investigation. It doesn't look so good.

Today I spent about 20-30 minutes on the phone with the SBA specialist at a bank which does lots of SBA lending, and the gist of the conversation was that the program has so many unknowns that most SBA lenders aren't likely to touch it. Unless the program is clarified and it is shown that lenders can actually make money with it, there isn't a lot of incentive for them to participate. Maybe that won't turn out to be the case, but he wasn't very encouraging based on how things stand right now.

Anyhow, I also found a list of banks which are on the SBA list, so if anyone has a client needing this info I'm posting it below. (I did learn early on that many of the listed banks just have their name on the list but they don't actually do much with SBA at all. Not surprising, since I was immediately suspicious when I saw the most conservative, tight-fisted bank in NC on the list - probably the last bank I would have dreamed would even touch an SBA loan)

Here's the list:

http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_fa_plplist.pdf