SBA close rate

March 18, 2026

by a searcher from Stanford University - Graduate School of Business in San Francisco, CA, USA

For those who've been through SBA 7(a) closings with ETA-focused lenders: once a credible bank issues a term sheet, what's your experience with close rates? Would you recommend parallel-processing underwriting with multiple lenders? I understand there is generally a ~$1-2K underwriting fee per bank and am willing to absorb that cost for certainty to close. Trying to calibrate how many lenders to run simultaneously. Thank you.

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Reply by a lender
from University of Chicago in Indianapolis, IN, USA

Hi, full disclosure, I'm a lender. I discourage concurrent underwriting. It is best to identify the right lender during the pre-qualfication/term sheet portion of the process. There are plenty of data points during that process to help you identify a good partner. Examples of data points: did the lender ask questions or just crank out terms? A term sheet is only as good as the information that went into it. Did you ask the lender how well their term sheets convert to loan approvals? Do you like the style of the bank contact? Happy to chat further if you like!

Reply by a searcher
from Columbia University in New York, NY, USA

I'll go out on a limb here. I think in cases where you have a lender that you have not worked with, for whom you cannot get a solid vouch in-network, I would parallel path. The lenders here are correct that lenders will find this distasteful, and you'd run a risk of it costing you fidelity in a lender relationship. However, some lenders have different levels of polish on the BD level than they do at underwriting. I have seen them make false promises, retrade during underwriting, or go dark for weeks. I've lost months to this process, which can be waved away by 'thats how we do things' or 'thats how long it takes'. Having a couple horses in the race will increase your certainty, as well as your leverage position. And to the available counterargument that a good counterparty will come through - they will still do so if there are poor counterparties in your mix and you're unable to tell which is which.

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