Buying a Comfort Inn franchise: SBA acquisition loan data

What this tells a buyer

• Price range to expect. Loan size tracks purchase price. Half of Comfort Inn resale loans landed between $3,118,000 and $5,000,000.
• Lender experience exists. GBank alone has financed 28 Comfort Inn resales.
• Guaranty. The SBA guaranteed 75% of the dollars lent here.
• What the file leaves out. The SBA file does not record franchisor transfer terms or fees.

How Comfort Inn compares

The median for Comfort Inn resale loans is $4,254,250, well above the $2,621,250 median for hotels and motels and well above the $645,250 median for all SBA-financed acquisitions nationally.

The middle half runs $3,118,000 to $5,000,000, against $283,000 to $1,465,000 nationally; the median term is 25 years, longer than the national median of 10 years; the average initial rate is 7.10%, below the 7.76% national average.

Seasoned loans were charged off at 2.6%, well above the 0.8% rate for hotels and motels and below the 3.5% rate for all acquisition loans.

Loan size distribution

Most Comfort Inn resale loans (99%) were $1M or more, and the largest single band is $2M and over at 96%, against 17% of all acquisition loans.

Bands are fixed dollar ranges chosen for comparison. They are not SBA program limits.

Lender concentration

GBank made 35% of Comfort Inn resale loans, and the top three lenders together made 48%. 5 of the 32 lenders involved made three or more. Repeat experience is spread across many banks. That is a rough guide to how many banks have seen this kind of deal before.

Recent activity

In FY2025 and FY2026 combined, 22 Comfort Inn resale loans were approved. That is 120% more than the 10 approved in FY2023 and FY2024. The median was $4,889,500, slightly above the $4,254,250 median across all years.

Financing a Comfort Inn resale: what lenders financed

The median SBA 7(a) loan for a Comfort Inn resale was $4,254,250 across 80 loans (FY2018 to FY2026). GBank, First Western SBLC, LLC d/b/a Peachtree Group and United Midwest Savings Bank National Association have financed the most Comfort Inn resales. Of 38 seasoned loans (FY2018 to FY2021), 2.6% were charged off, 25% lower than the 3.5% average for all SBA acquisition loans.

Comfort Inn acquisition loans by year

How often do these acquisition loans fail?

Of the 38 Comfort Inn acquisition loans approved from FY2018 to FY2021 (the seasoned cohort, every loan at least about five years old), 1 have been charged off by the SBA, a rate of 2.6% by loan count and 2.0% by dollars. 27 have already been paid in full.

For comparison, the charge-off rate across all SBA 7(a) acquisition loans in the same cohort is 3.5%, so Comfort Inn is 25% lower than the acquisition-loan average. Non-acquisition 7(a) loans (every other stated purpose) approved FY2018 to FY2021 charged off at 6.2%.

"Charged off" is the SBA's final loss action on a defaulted loan after collection efforts. It lags default by a year or more, which is why only older cohorts are measured. It is not the same as a delinquency rate, and loans still outstanding can still fail. See charge-off in the glossary.

Related

• All Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels acquisitions
• Texas acquisitions
• North Carolina acquisitions
• Indiana acquisitions
• GBank
• First Western SBLC, LLC d/b/a Peachtree Group
• United Midwest Savings Bank National Association
• All franchise brands

Brand name as recorded by lenders in the SBA file: "Comfort Inn, Comfort Inn & Suites & Comfort Suites" (franchise code S0410). Figures are aggregates of public SBA data and are not provided or endorsed by the franchisor.