You can now borrow twice as much to buy a business.
One loan buys the business. A second buys the building. They no longer share a ceiling.
Illustrative capacity under the July 2026 SBA program changes, up to $10M combined, generally $5.0M from each program, subject to program, project, and lender requirements. Not a loan offer. Source: the SBA announcement. Reviewed July 17, 2026.
Free 30 minutes. We tell you if the numbers hold before a bank does. Prefer to look first? Read a one-page deal teardown (PDF), browse the Buyer's Toolkit, or scope the work in five questions.
Everyone else gets paid either way.
A business changes hands across a table of professionals. You are usually the only first-timer at it, making the biggest purchase of your life, often with your house behind the loan. We take the seat next to yours. Tap or hover any seat to see how it gets paid.
On the far side of the table: the seller who wants the highest price, the broker who works for the seller and earns a percentage of the price, the lawyer and the accountant who bill by the hour, and the bank that protects the bank. All five get paid whether you win or lose. On your side: you, the only first-timer, and ClarIQ, the seat that is paid by you alone.
Across from you
Your side
Five seats get paid whether you win or lose. One seat only does well if you do.
Every dollar you spend makes it harder to walk away.
Deals do not collapse on day one. They collapse in week nine, after the lawyers and accountants have already invoiced. Below: an illustrative look at what a deal costs as the weeks pass, and the common deal-breakers mapped to the week they usually show up. We check the whole list on every deal.
Wrong loan order
Run the 504 before the 7(a) and the old $5M ceiling quietly rebuilds itself.
Seller note terms
Written on terms the bank will not accept. One missed clause reopens everything.
Vanishing profit
Claimed profits that fall apart when the bank's accountants check them, taking your price with them.
Down payment source
Where the money sits gets checked line by line. The wrong source sinks the approval.
License transfer
Permits, lease, or franchise approval that do not transfer with the sale.
The landlord
Nobody asked for consent. It arrives late, angry, or with a rent increase.
No working capital
Nobody modeled it, so the company starts life broke on day one.
And it keeps going
Seven outright flags are chapter 8 of the book. On a live deal, the teardown checks every line.
See the teardown →Does your deal hold together?
Move the sliders to your numbers. The sheet updates live: how the two loans split, the cash you put down, the monthly payment, and whether the business earns enough to satisfy the bank.
Set your deal parameters
7(a) modeled at about 8.5% over 10 years, the 504 at about 5.5% over 25 years, each loan at 90% of its piece of the deal. SBA's own minimum coverage is 1.15x; most banks underwrite to 1.25x or better. Illustrative only, not a loan offer.
Buying, selling, or buying on repeat.
Whichever seat is yours, we sit beside you on the numbers, from the first look at a deal to the keys in your hand. Each seat gets its own read, its own file, and its own path through the bank.
Buying a business
SBA-funded, first deal or fifth.
- A 48-hour written read on any deal, deal-breakers named
- Both loans mapped and put in the right order
- A lender-ready file, organized to survive underwriting
An HVAC services company at $6.8M, building included. Our read found $85K of claimed profit that would not survive inspection, and the building loan was set to run ahead of the business loan. We fixed the price before the offer went in, resequenced the loans so the business loan led, and documented the down payment cleanly. Funded on day 62 with $300K of operating cash intact.
Composite engagement drawn from real work with identifying details changed. Not a guarantee of outcome.
Selling your business
Your buyer's bank has to say yes too.
- Your business scored the way a bank would score it
- A 90-day fix list, worked with your accountant
- Paperwork ready before the first buyer calls
A distribution company heading to market with books that would have quietly ended the sale at the bank. The audit scored it 54: profits claimed but not documented, statements that did not match the tax returns. Ninety days of fixes with the owner's accountant took it to 86, the paperwork was ready before the first buyer, and the sale closed with the buyer's SBA loan on schedule.
Composite engagement drawn from real work with identifying details changed. Not a guarantee of outcome.
Buying on repeat
Franchise owners, rollups, repeat buyers.
- A standing deal file, always current
- A borrowing map across every company you own
- Closings that get faster with every deal
A plumbing operator on deal three. We kept the bank file current and the borrowing map ahead of the pipeline, so when the next target surfaced, the bank started work the same week. Ninety-six days on deal one, sixty-four on deal two, forty-seven on deal three.
Composite engagement drawn from real work with identifying details changed. Not a guarantee of outcome.
Start free. Step up when the deal gets real.
The staircase is the natural path of a buyer. Most start at step one and step up as the commitment grows. It costs nothing to find out what your deal looks like.
Learn the rules
Nine plain-English guides and the Stack Check calculator. See what the July 2026 caps make possible.
Get the playbook
The Guide Book and the Buyer's Toolkit: the whole path with worksheets, priced on their own pages.
Pressure-test it
The Deal Teardown: a written read of your deal within 48 hours, credited toward an engagement.
We structure it
The buy-side engagement, quoted on a free call: the stack, the sequence, and the file, handled with you.
What buyers and sellers ask first
Can you use a 7(a) and a 504 loan on the same acquisition?
What are the new SBA loan caps?
What DSCR do SBA lenders want to see?
How much cash do I need to buy a business with SBA financing?
Do you broker SBA loans?
30 minutes.
You leave knowing.
No retainer required to talk. hello@clariqadvisory.com. On your phone a lot? Install the ClarIQ app and the free deal tools ride along, even offline.
- Bring a live deal or a plan to sell. We read both.
- We tell you what breaks the deal before a bank does.
- You leave with a written answer, not a sales pitch.