Episode 260: You Probably Qualify for More Than You Think | Anne Mino

Announcer (00:03):

This is the Self Storage Podcast with the original self-storage expert, Scott Meyers.

Joe Downs (00:12):

Over the years in self-storage, we’ve talked about creative financing, seller financing, seller carry, wraparound mortgages, mez debt, bridge loans, JV deals, master lease options, and they’re all trying to solve one problem. You don’t have enough money. But there’s one tool that’s always been there. It gets talked about sometimes, sometimes negatively, sometimes almost mysteriously, as if we all know it exists but we dare not go near it. Yet it solves the same problem that all those creative options solve without a bunch of complex legal documents and high-powered attorneys and hidden risks. It lets you get into deals with 10% down. It lets you spread whatever capital you have across multiple deals. It lets you finance your expansion without going back to the well or using any of the aforementioned creative financing tools. And it’s been sitting right here in front of us this whole time.

(01:03):

Folks, I’m talking about the SBA. The SBA is creative financing. It just doesn’t get all the street cred. Today I want to dive into this incredible “I don’t have a ton of money” solution, a.k.a. the SBA, and in particular highlight what an amazing and often overlooked tool it is for the self-storage industry. So for today’s guest, I brought in someone who’s going to change how you think about financing your next deal, whether it’s your first one or your 15th. Now I could read you Anne’s bio — Senior Loan Officer, Live Oak Bank, extensive experience in commercial lending, risk assessment, relationship management, Bachelor of Arts from James Madison University, yada, yada, yada — and you’d nod and politely zone out for 30 seconds. So let me skip to the part that matters. Our guest today, Anne Mino, sits on Live Oak Bank’s self-storage lending team, a team that has done more self-storage loans by dollar volume than any SBA lender in the country. And she’s not just a lender, she’s a self-storage investor herself. She’s got skin in the game. So when she’s underwriting and understanding your deal, she’s not just looking at it as a banker, she’s looking at it as someone who has her own money in this asset class and understands what it takes to make a storage investment pencil. And Anne, what an honor and privilege it is to have you today on the Self Storage Investing Podcast. Welcome.

Anne Mino (02:17):

Hello. Thank you. Thank you for the intro. It’s great to be here.

Joe Downs (02:22):

Did I prop you up enough there? Did I give you all the cred that you deserve?

Anne Mino (02:26):

That was fantastic.

Joe Downs (02:27):

I know. Live Oak is the largest lender in the country, right? The number one lender in the country for self-storage loans.

Anne Mino (02:34):

By dollar volume, correct. Yes.

Joe Downs (02:36):

By dollar volume.

Anne Mino (02:37):

Yes.

Joe Downs (02:38):

Cool. And for the folks listening who understand conventional financing — they’ve talked to a bank, they get the concept, they’ve maybe borrowed for their house, right — give us the 60-second version of what SBA lending is and how it’s different than conventional.

Anne Mino (02:53):

Sure. So SBA loans in general — it’s a government-guaranteed program. So the government’s guaranteeing a portion of the debt. It’s a very large portion of the debt most of the time, and it allows banks to do loans that other conventional lenders are not going to do. So you already mentioned 10% equity injection. A typical conventional bank is going to ask for anywhere from 25 to 35, sometimes 40% down. So this is the number one shining star of SBA — is 10% down, sometimes 15, sometimes zero. That’s the number one differentiator. And then number two differentiator is experience. A conventional lender is going to want you to have experience in the business. They’re going to want to see a track record that you know what you’re doing running this business. And SBA allows us to do loans for people that don’t have experience.

Joe Downs (03:46):

Which is huge. We’re going to come back to that in a second. So when we’re talking about self-storage specifically, what do these loans actually look like? Are we talking acquisitions, construction? What’s the menu of items available to us in self-storage?

Anne Mino (04:01):

Good question. So really, sky’s the limit. We can do everything. We do acquisition, we do ground-up construction, we do expansion lending, we do boat, RV, anything storage related — you name it, we can do it, we can build it.

Joe Downs (04:16):

And you said we were looking at 90% loan to value on acquisitions?

Anne Mino (04:19):

Yes.

Joe Downs (04:20):

And I read somewhere, I think in construction up to — is it $14.5 million? Is that right? Of expansion financing?

Anne Mino (04:29):

Yes. A typical SBA loan’s largest project size is maybe $14.5 million. My Live Oak will let me go a little bit higher than that, actually. And the typical down payment for that is 15%. So you put in 15%, we’re going to do the balance of it. SBA is going to guarantee a portion of it.

Joe Downs (04:51):

So 10% on maybe the value-add, maybe expansion — I’m not sure if expansion falls into the 15%.

Anne Mino (04:58):

Yes. Your equity injection is really determined by the loan size. So anything over $5 million, we’re going to be in a 504 program that’s going to have a 15% equity injection, unless you already own storage, and then it can even come down to 10%. So there’s some rules and regs there that an educated lender is going to pay attention to. And then of course, it’s a debt service coverage loan, so the leverage also depends on how much debt the facility can support.

Joe Downs (05:29):

But I don’t need to know all that as a borrower. Got you. I just come to you and you can steer me — whether it’s 7(a), 504 — those are details that are unimportant in this moment, I think, right?

Anne Mino (05:39):

That’s right, yes.

Joe Downs (05:39):

So let’s unpack some of this though. Starting with — because I want to start with — I think the person that needs to hear this the most is the first-time buyer. They’re listening right now. Maybe they’ve been to an event or two about self-storage. Maybe they’ve been watching my Storage 100 series on YouTube. Maybe they’ve analyzed some deals and they’re sitting on the sideline because they’re convinced no lender is going to take them seriously. They’ve got no experience, they’ve never owned a storage facility. Maybe they’re a W-2 employee or they have W-2-like income, right? Just regular recurring income — every month they make a decent living, whatever that means. Can that person actually get an SBA loan?

Anne Mino (06:18):

Absolutely. We take it all. So we are looking at historical cash flow coming into your home. It does not have to be W-2 income, does not have to be 1099. We’re used to working with real estate investors, non-real estate investors. You can be retired and have pension income. And if you are independently wealthy and have no income, and we can see there’s enough capital there to get us comfortable — that’s sitting in a stock account or in a trust or something like that — that can make us comfortable as well.

Joe Downs (06:52):

Okay. I hear this a lot. We coach and mentor and train a lot of students, and they’re all first-time buyers. And the thing I hear constantly from them, directed at me or Jack or whoever’s on my team, is, “Well, sure, you guys can get financing — you’ve bought 20 facilities. What about me?” How do you answer that? Because you’ve said yes as long as you have income, or you’ve even given a scenario where you don’t even need income. But I’ve never bought one before, I don’t have experience. How do I qualify?

Anne Mino (07:30):

Yeah, good question. So this is really important for people to understand. When a bank is qualifying a deal, we are looking at — 50% of our decision is you as a loan candidate. Do we feel you have the “eye of the tiger”? Do we feel you’re going to pay us back? Are you over-leveraged personally, or do we feel like you have the right amount of debt and the right amount of assets to be a good loan candidate? And then 50% of our decision is: does this facility actually pay us back? Where does experience come into this? There’s a lot of really good self-storage education materials out there. I encourage everybody to educate themselves as much as they can. I do want you to underwrite the deal yourself. I want you to come to me with your underwriting and tell me what you’re planning on doing with this facility and how you’re going to do it.

(08:24):

So for my first-time buyers, your business plan is really important. And I offer a lot of resources. I don’t think that’s everybody’s best — that’s not the thing that they do best, myself included when I had to do it many, many years ago. So I give out resources. But we want to know that you have a really good understanding of what you’re buying, and then we want to know that you have a really good understanding of how you’re going to be successful running it. It doesn’t take self-storage experience. And this is something my company does — lending to all sorts of industries — and the no-experience allowance is a unique part of self-storage lending, because quite frankly, it’s not hard to run. You put some processes in place, and one could argue that it’s pretty simple to get tenants in and to retain your tenants. I’ll tell you this, it’s a lot easier than multifamily.

Joe Downs (09:21):

I’m going to defer on that — it’s still a business — but I am picking up what you’re putting down, and yes, it’s not the most complicated business to run. But you’ve said some things in the last two answers you’ve given that I want to make sure the listener understands. And I’m going to say it out loud so that I make sure I understand it too. So you tell me if I’m wrong. This sounds like something that should blow everybody’s mind, and you and I were talking recently about this. The SBA — is this true? True or false: the SBA doesn’t care how much you make or where it comes from, as long as it’s legal — I’m assuming. Good distinction. It sounds like they care more about — so on the personal side, not the business side — you said it was almost 50/50. Did I hear that? 50% the business, 50% you?

Anne Mino (10:22):

Well, the bank is looking at each deal — 50% guarantor strength, 50% deal strength.

Joe Downs (10:28):

Okay.

Anne Mino (10:29):

It’s equal. We care about both.

Joe Downs (10:31):

So yeah, let’s assume the deal checks out — the deal’s perfect. So we’re just looking at the 50% guarantor side. Now this is the part that I think is what people need to lean into and listen to. So they don’t care — I’ll say it again — they don’t care how much you make.

Anne Mino (10:51):

Correct.

Joe Downs (10:53):

They care about how you manage it.

Anne Mino (10:55):

Correct.

Joe Downs (10:56):

I’m going to give you an example. You said correct to that, right?

Anne Mino (11:00):

Yes. With some caveats, but I think we’re going to make it work.

Joe Downs (11:03):

Okay. Alright. So I ran the numbers on this and I want you to tell me if this is technically true.

Anne Mino (11:11):

Hold my feet to the fire.

Joe Downs (11:13):

Well, I’m not going to hold your feet to the fire. I’m going to give you plenty of room to talk about how there’s plenty of dials and knobs and levers to turn here, or whatever. But could they land on this scenario? This is what blows my mind. A person earning $80,000 a year — if what you said is true, this scenario could exist — a person earning $80,000 a year could potentially, potentially — there’s your out — qualify for a million-dollar acquisition. Which, if you’ve been listening so far, if I put 10% down, that means it’s a $900,000 SBA loan. And I’m going to use an interest rate that, in my scenario, it works. Alright, so suspend disbelief — which is not far off from probably a real scenario. So let’s put the interest rate at 7.5%. So I’ve got an SBA loan, $900,000 loan, at 7.5%. That’s a 20-year term.

Anne Mino (12:14):

25.

Joe Downs (12:15):

25-year term. Which is —

Anne Mino (12:17):

Fully amortizing. No balloon payments.

Joe Downs (12:19):

Right. Fully amortizing — perfect. Because that means then my principal and interest payment on that $900,000 loan at 7.5% is $6,650 a month, which annualized is right around $80,000 a year. Now if I made $80,000 a year, I could not buy a house to live in where the debt service was $80,000 a year.

Anne Mino (12:46):

That’s right.

Joe Downs (12:47):

But you’re telling me — again, in my perfect scenario there, and you can have all the outs you want — I could qualify to buy that facility with an $80,000 income and an $80,000 debt service.

Anne Mino (13:03):

Absolutely. All day long. We do it every day.

Joe Downs (13:06):

I still don’t believe it.

Anne Mino (13:10):

So the key distinction here —

Joe Downs (13:12):

Mind-blowing.

Anne Mino (13:13):

The key distinction is when we’re evaluating — like I said, it’s 50% the facility, 50% you personally. When I’m evaluating the facility, I want to make sure that I’m not saddling you with so much debt that this facility can’t pay back the debt. And also — guess what — I’m not expecting you to pay back this debt out of your pocket. I will actually want the business to pay it back. There is a personal guarantee, so you do have to pay it back personally if the facility for some reason doesn’t perform the way you believe it’s going to perform. But it’s storage, so we’re going to come in and help you if you haven’t been able to figure it out. On the personal side, your actual income doesn’t really have a bearing on how much money you can borrow. What I care about — what a bank cares about — is that you can meet your own personal debt obligations, put food on the table, and gas in the car. So I’m looking at —

Joe Downs (14:08):

That’s managing my debt responsibly. That’s what that means.

Anne Mino (14:12):

It’s managing your debt. You got it. It’s like — what is your credit report? How long have you been working, how many years? We typically look for three years of personal tax returns to see a recurring income number. Your income can be lumpy. A lot of real estate agents, for example — they have a good year, they have a bad year, maybe they have two bad years and one good year. I’m looking at trends, and then I’m looking at debt. If you come to me and you have a huge salary but you also own a vacation home, a regular home, a boat, an RV, student debt, credit card debt, everything under the sun — then we’re going to have to have a harder, more difficult conversation.

Joe Downs (14:56):

That’s so fascinating. So someone who makes a lot of money but — in that regard, you’re basically saying doesn’t manage it responsibly, meaning they have high debt-to-income ratios —

Anne Mino (15:06):

Yes.

Joe Downs (15:07):

Is maybe less of a quality —

Anne Mino (15:10):

Weaker candidate.

Joe Downs (15:11):

Weaker — I don’t want to use the wrong words.

Anne Mino (15:13):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (15:13):

Weaker candidate than somebody who makes less money but has a demonstrated track record of managing it.

Anne Mino (15:19):

Being responsible. Well, it’s —

Joe Downs (15:20):

Like you’re profiling me — I’ll make it me — it’s almost like you’re profiling me, as in how I carry my affairs in life,

Anne Mino (15:33):

To —

Joe Downs (15:33):

Determine whether or not I’m going to be a good borrower. And then I get the green check mark there, and then it’s about the facility. The facility is really what’s going to pay you back, not me.

Anne Mino (15:42):

That’s right. Exactly. But on the personal side, we’re looking at: can they pay it back? Will they pay it back?

Joe Downs (15:50):

Yeah.

Anne Mino (15:50):

So if I get nervous — if you’ve already taken everything you have and borrowed against it —

Joe Downs (15:55):

Well, and that’s my point. So folks, I used the $80,000 — the way I backed into that whole example was I just wanted to use a million-dollar purchase. And I backed into the debt service and said, okay, that’s 80 grand a year. Could someone making 80 grand a year buy this? And the answer is yes, if they look great in your profile — how you assess them. The reality is most of the students we talk to and people listening make a lot more than that, but don’t realize it.

Anne Mino (16:23):

Some make less.

Joe Downs (16:25):

Okay, fair point. But plenty make that or more and still don’t think they qualify for an SBA loan. And that’s why I wanted to use a sub-hundred-thousand-dollar income scenario to say, folks, if you’re listening, this is not off the table for you.

Anne Mino (16:39):

Not at all.

Joe Downs (16:40):

This is very — if you are a responsible manager of your financial affairs, what I just heard from Anne is: bring me your loan and we’ll get it done for you, as long as it’s a great deal.

Anne Mino (16:50):

Absolutely. And cash is king. We want to see that you have the ability to save what you make. So that’s where this debt comes in. If you’re a low-debt person — no matter what your income is — but you’ve been able to save money, squirrel it away in checking, savings, and stock accounts, or buy real estate with it — if I can see where that money’s gone, that looks like responsible money management. That is responsible money management. Cash is important in these transactions. We want to see that you’ve got your equity injection to put into it, even though it’s low — you still have to come up with it.

Joe Downs (17:22):

And —

Anne Mino (17:23):

Then we want to see some cash left. I don’t want to take everything you have. So you can use a home equity line of credit to come up with your equity injection, as long as it doesn’t push you over your ski tips in debt. But I still want to see cash.

Joe Downs (17:36):

Everything just points back to being responsible. It all just points back to being responsible. So I don’t think we ever — no, this is eye-opening for me. I don’t think in all of the circles I travel in — and I’m always usually talking about how you should look at the SBA — I never talk about the SBA in this way. I never thought about it in that way. So this has already been an amazing interview.

Anne Mino (17:58):

The money’s here for everybody. And I will say the program was put in place to put money in the hands of people that couldn’t walk into a traditional bank and put 30 to 40% down. That is exactly what the SBA is here for. And the fact that my bank enables me to do it the best —

Joe Downs (18:17):

And it’s really incredible.

Anne Mino (18:18):

Yeah, I’m very proud of my —

Joe Downs (18:19):

Company. It’s an incredible tool. And this is one of the things when I go on other podcasts as a guest — I talk about the SBA, although we just drilled down further than I ever have. I always talk about it as an incredible tool for someone getting into real estate for the first time, or for going from the 2, 3, 4, 5 single families — or 10 single-family rentals — and trying to elevate to the next step. Usually they go multifamily. But the SBA allows you to go storage and get into commercial, because you can’t use it for multifamily.

Anne Mino (18:51):

So do you want me to tell you something else that’s going to blow your mind?

Joe Downs (18:55):

I’m not sure I can handle all this in one podcast, but go ahead.

Anne Mino (18:58):

So as we’re talking about qualifying for a loan — it is as easy to qualify for a construction loan as it is to qualify for an acquisition loan.

Joe Downs (19:08):

Well, this is my next question, actually, because I wrote some scenarios I wanted to ask you about, and these are real-life scenarios I see and talk to students about. So here’s my next scenario. I think this stops a lot of people from pulling the trigger. Someone finds a facility — maybe it’s 30,000 square feet, decent occupancy. Again, let’s say the deal checks out. Comes with an extra acre or two, and the market has a low supply deck. So it’s a no-brainer to expand this thing, add another 10, 15,000 square feet.

Anne Mino (19:39):

Absolutely.

Joe Downs (19:39):

Here’s the mindset of the first-time buyer — or even a multiple-time buyer-owner. The brain freezes in this regard. So I want you to help unfreeze it. They look at their bank account, how much cash they have, and they go, “I can afford to buy the facility, or I can afford to expand it, but I can’t do both” — unless they go get some sort of JV creative financing, seller carry, everything. And if they can’t work that out, they pass on the deal. What do you say to them?

Anne Mino (20:13):

This is another aspect of SBA that’s so great. You can skin this cat a couple of different ways. You can do an acquisition and expand right away with this sweet little thing that I can bake into the deal called working capital. So I can bake in working capital. It could be just for improvements — new concrete, painted doors, updated technology, new website. Fine. That’s one way to do it. Or if there’s extra — let’s say it’s grass on the property and you really want to pave that and turn it into boat and RV parking — no problem. Again, working capital. If you want to add a construction component onto the loan, that’s just called an acquisition loan with a construction component. And then I will definitely talk to you about — if you can really only afford the 10% down on the acquisition today, but it does include room for expansion on the property — you can come back to me in 12 months, and as long as your ownership has stayed the same for those 12 months, your business is healthy, debt service coverage looks good — 1.25 or better — I can do 100% financing for your expansion, which is then a construction loan. Okay, so now we can add construction on. We’ve not put any more money into the project. You could also pick up a facility down the street and do an acquisition with 100% financing.

Joe Downs (21:36):

Well hold on. I asked one question.

Anne Mino (21:40):

So now we’re talking about — but now we’re talking about building a portfolio using the SBA.

Joe Downs (21:46):

I asked one question and I got three answers. “The SBA is creative financing” — I can buy that. Yeah, the SBA is creative financing. I can buy a facility, and what I just heard you answer — I didn’t even ask, but I’m so thankful you answered it — was: I can wrap my CapEx project in. I don’t need to reserve for CapEx. I can wrap that into the loan.

Anne Mino (22:06):

You don’t need to reserve for it. That’s right. We can include everything you need.

Joe Downs (22:10):

I didn’t even ask that, but thank you. Two: I can buy it and expand it day one.

Anne Mino (22:17):

Yes.

Joe Downs (22:18):

Assuming I have enough cash for — maybe it’s a little more than 10%, whatever, we could look at that. Or if I don’t —

Anne Mino (22:25):

It’s probably still going to be 10%, but now it’s 10% of a bigger number.

Joe Downs (22:30):

But you could do it.

Anne Mino (22:30):

Absolutely.

Joe Downs (22:32):

Three: let’s say I don’t want to expand right away, I just want to get in here and operate this thing. And I heard you say wait 12 months, expand it later, and when I expand it later, it’s 100% financing.

Anne Mino (22:45):

Yeah, absolutely. As long as you meet the three criteria we talked about. So you have to have owned it for at least 12 months. It needs to be cash-flow positive, at least 1.25 on the debt that you already have. And then your ownership has to match identically — so no changes. So if you buy it, if you start out with partners, whenever you do a future expansion — whether it’s via acquisition or construction — you are stuck with those partners, essentially. Ideally, because you’re doing SBA, you’re by yourself, you don’t have partners, right?

Joe Downs (23:14):

Yeah. Alright, so wow — folks, you’re probably going to want to listen to this episode twice, or at least rewind it, because there’s a lot happening here. You mentioned something about building a portfolio. Let’s unpack that. So let’s say a borrower gets their first deal — maybe they own two deals, whatever — and they want to grow. You laid out something, or you were talking about something I thought was compelling about building your portfolio using SBA financing.

Anne Mino (23:41):

That’s right.

Joe Downs (23:42):

Unpack that for us. What are the different ways that can work?

Anne Mino (23:45):

So let me start by saying this. I have some savvier investors that will come up to me and say, “Anne, why do I want your SBA dollars? I can put 30% down on a facility.”

Joe Downs (23:56):

Yeah, good point.

Anne Mino (23:57):

And this is how I answer the question. You’ve got a chunk of money — if you preserve it and put the least amount into your first project, or it could be your fifth project, you now have cash to go deploy elsewhere. You don’t have to sink it all in whatsoever. And you can continue building, or you can continue adding onto your self-storage portfolio with the least amount of money. So you’re going further, faster, inside storage. And if you can do it with 100% financing, you are winning the game. And I have customers —

Joe Downs (24:35):

Let’s use a real example because I like numbers. Million dollar — let’s say I’ve got three — I was going to say 300, but there’s closing costs involved. So let’s say I’ve got —

Anne Mino (24:46):

Which we’ll include — we’re going to include all your closing costs, your SBA guarantee fee, and your working capital. And your total project equity injection is 10% of that total.

Joe Downs (24:57):

Okay, I’ve got 300 — this keeps getting better. I’ve got 300 grand. I could put that — you used an example of, “I’ve got 30% down, why do I need your stupid SBA loan?” I’m that guy who says, “Why do I need your stupid SBA loan?” You say, “Joe, how much money do you have?” I’ve got 300 grand. I’m going to buy this million-dollar deal. To which you say, “Why would you put 300 grand into that million-dollar deal? Why not put 100 grand in, and then what?”

Anne Mino (25:19):

Then go buy two more, and/or —

Joe Downs (25:21):

Buy two more.

Anne Mino (25:22):

Go invest the extra 200 someplace else, and just do 100% financing and slowly build a storage portfolio. If you want to grow within 12 months, you are going to be putting more equity into new deals.

Joe Downs (25:36):

So break the 300 up over three deals. Now I’ve got three deals. 12 months from now, what can I —

Anne Mino (25:40):

And you have three properties. Guess what? You just diversified your investments.

Joe Downs (25:45):

And am I right in assuming that I can then go and use an expansion loan for all three?

Anne Mino (25:51):

Absolutely.

Joe Downs (25:52):

And I don’t mean — when I say that, so we’re clear — I heard it doesn’t mean I need to expand that facility with another building on the same lot.

Anne Mino (26:00):

That’s right.

Joe Downs (26:01):

Correct me if I’m wrong — can I go buy another completely different facility, let’s say in the same market or nearby or something like that? You can with 100% financing. So I can turn 300 grand after 12 months — if I’m successful at buying three facilities with 300 grand — I could turn that into six facilities?

Anne Mino (26:24):

Yes. You can turn it into 10 facilities. Yes. Now if you’re doing it via acquisition, we want your portfolio to be somewhat like-size-and-kind properties, right? So if you have 100 doors and you find a facility that’s 500 doors, the bank could say, “Well, we want you to put a little skin in the game.” But that’s a bank-by-bank choice at that point.

Joe Downs (26:48):

These are all acceptable to me. It’s like when I’m on AI — which I use a lot — and it’s taking minutes, not seconds, and I get frustrated. It’s like you have to catch yourself. Go, “Wait a second, this is doing some amazing stuff here. Slow your roll.” To that regard, before you get all defensive about what you have to do and the rules — like, oh, it’s okay. What you’re providing is incredible. You can’t get it anywhere else.

Anne Mino (27:11):

You can’t get it anywhere else. It’s incredible. And I have witnessed — and all the lenders on my team have witnessed — people creating huge portfolios with very little money into it. And nothing makes me more proud.

Joe Downs (27:26):

Just by following the rules, staying within the rules of the game, and playing the SBA game. It’s —

Anne Mino (27:32):

Not that hard. The rules aren’t that hard to follow.

Joe Downs (27:34):

Alright, this has been incredible, but —

Anne Mino (27:38):

Oh gosh, now you’re going to ask me hard questions.

Joe Downs (27:40):

Well look, there’s an elephant in the room that has to be talked about. Because I promise you, if I go into any real estate room with an “I love SBA” shirt on, for instance, someone’s going to walk up to me and say, “Yeah, but it takes forever to close. They suck. It takes six months to close your deal. You lose your deal before you can even close a loan.” And I’m not making this up — I don’t have an “I love SBA” shirt, but I have been — everything else I’ve said has happened to me. So what do you say to that? To the folks that tell me how much the SBA sucks.

Anne Mino (28:21):

Okay, my number one thing I’m going to say is: work with a lender that knows self-storage. Because a deal can die on the vine — whether it’s conventional or SBA — if your lender doesn’t understand storage. Okay, so that’s the number one thing I say: find a lender — please, call me — find a lender that understands storage, whose credit team understands storage, whose underwriters and closers understand storage. How do you know? You ask questions. If you’re going to a local lender — if you’re going to a credit union — you ask: “How many self-storage deals have you ever done? How many have you closed? What’s the dollar volume you’ve closed?” Those are really important questions. If they’ve done one, I wouldn’t have a lot of faith in that. You really want somebody that knows what questions to ask, knows how to present your deal to credit, knows what debt service coverage we should be looking for, knows what the red flags are.

(29:15):

I can look at a seller return and say, “This is beautiful. I would make an offer on this myself.” Or, “Run as fast as you can away from this deal.” So that’s really important — you don’t want your deal to die months into the process. So that’s number one. Number two: Live Oak prides itself on doing SBA loans better and faster and smarter. We’re going to get you through that paperwork slog by asking you for everything upfront. So as long as you can sit down, take a couple hours, and give us the documents we need — we have a lot of integrity around our application process. We’re not going to just keep asking for things indefinitely. I’m going to give you a list upfront of everything I need, and it’s a matter of how quickly you can get that to me. And then similarly in closing — closing — people always complain about closing. And this goes for conventional, because we do conventional as well. People complain about closing and they say, “How fast can I close?” And my answer is: we can close as fast as you can get us all the documents, right? It’s a commercial loan; attorneys are involved. So have the right expectations going into it. It’s not a residential loan.

Joe Downs (30:27):

Let me ask — if I’m a good borrower, sticking to commercial conventional or SBA or whatever, if I’m a good borrower, checks all the boxes, I’ve got my docs ready, I respond to you when you ask — what is a realistic timeline? For the guy who says six months, does it take any longer than conventional?

Anne Mino (30:51):

It should not. My company — I cannot speak for other SBA lenders — I can close your SBA loan in 60 days. That’s a very normal timeline.

Joe Downs (31:02):

That’s absolutely a normal timeline.

Anne Mino (31:03):

You and I both know — because you knew the borrower — I closed an SBA loan in 2025 in 15 days.

Joe Downs (31:13):

Which is unheard of.

Anne Mino (31:13):

That’s not the norm. But that person had all their ducks in a row, and then their bank left them at the altar. And if they didn’t close in 15 days, they were going to be out — their money that they had put down. We were structured in such a way that I was able to make that happen for this borrower. So I was the hero. It felt so good. 15 days — please don’t everybody call me and ask for a 15-day closing. 60 is what we like to ask for on the 7(a) side. 504 loans — so there are really two products under the SBA loan program, 7(a) and 504 — on the 504 side, we are working in conjunction with the SBA, so I would allow an extra 30 days at a minimum. So 90 days on 504, 60 days on 7(a). And I would say this too: ask your lender — if you’re not calling me and you’re working with a credit union or something like that — ask them what they think it’s going to be and get it in writing. And if they’re not willing to give it to you in writing or make any kind of commitment to you, that’s probably not the right bank for you. Because time does kill deals.

Joe Downs (32:23):

Folks, I don’t know about you, but this has been one of the more mind-blowing podcasts I’ve had the pleasure of hosting. If you’ve been sitting on the sideline because you didn’t think you had enough capital to get in, or you found the right facility but talked yourself out of it because you couldn’t fund the expansion, or you’ve been so busy engineering complex deal structures that you forgot to look at what’s right in front of you — I hope today was a wake-up call. The SBA isn’t sexy. Nobody’s building a brand around it on social media.

Anne Mino (32:52):

It’s sexy. What are you talking about? Tell you what’s sexy about the SBA — being able to buy a deal by yourself instead of having to have partners.

Joe Downs (33:00):

You’re not wrong. That is sexy.

Anne Mino (33:02):

That’s sexy.

Joe Downs (33:03):

Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder — that’s what I was about to say. But it’s very quietly reliable, and for a lot less complexity than most of the alternatives. It’s the original, in my opinion, creative financing.

Anne Mino (33:18):

Yes.

Joe Downs (33:19):

It just — again — doesn’t get the street cred.

Anne Mino (33:21):

Oh.

Joe Downs (33:21):

Anne, thank you so much for being here. How can people reach you? Because frankly, if I’m listening, I don’t want to find out how experienced another bank is — I probably just want to call the number one lender for SBA loans for self-storage. So —

Anne Mino (33:36):

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Joe Downs (33:37):

How do I go straight to you?

Anne Mino (33:38):

Email is the best way. And even if I’m on the road — which I am a lot — I just give out a link to my calendar, and you can book a meeting with me. It’s that simple. So it’s Anne — A-N-N-E, make sure you don’t forget the E — Mino — M-I-N-O. Very simple. At Live Oak — just like a live oak tree — it’s liveoak.bank.

Joe Downs (34:08):

annemino@liveoak.bank. Very important. Live Oak Bank. We’ve got to get that down. Amazing. And to everyone listening, go run the numbers on your next deal with what you learned today — you just might surprise yourself. And before I let you go, is there anything — if I reach out to you via email, is there anything I should have ready to go to help make the call more productive, or will you email that to me?

Anne Mino (34:36):

Yes. And let me add — I will email you exactly what I need. I’ll make it very simple. And let me say this too: our minimum loan amount is $500,000. So if you’re under $500,000, we’re just not built for that. I can go up to $20 million. So that’s our sweet spot — $500,000 up to $20 million. And we do consider turnaround acquisitions. A lot of — most of the acquisitions I’m doing right now are considered turnarounds. If you don’t know what that is, call me. We’ll have a conversation about it.

Joe Downs (35:08):

I’m afraid to ask. Alright, perfect. We’ll leave a little intrigue. Anne Mino, Live Oak Bank — thank you so much for being a great guest today and sharing just incredible wisdom for folks that are probably listening and trying to figure out how they get into their first self-storage deals. So thank you again for being here.

Anne Mino (35:26):

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Joe Downs (35:27):

And we’ll see you next time.

Anne Mino (35:28):

Sounds great. Thank you.

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