Island Business & Commercial Brokerage

Just a reminder that the SBA's PPP program ends Tuesday, 6/30. There are still a few bankers processing the loans. I have helped two clients apply in the past two days. The process is simple and no cost to you to apply. Aloha!

A month ago I created a post which showed the Big Island as the safest of the main Hawaii islands with Kauai a close 2nd. With Covid claiming only 1 or 2 victims each day at this time throughout the State of Hawaii, I thought you might want to know the updated "score" for the safest islands: in first place, Kauai which has gone more than a month without a Covid case and only 21 total. In 2nd place, the Big Island of Hawaii. Third, Honolulu/Oahu!!! and lastly, Maui. But, let's give Maui some credit as their Covid rate was only 20% of that for the entire United States.

Rather than assume... included in the relief package approved by Congress a month ago is the SBA Debt Relief Program. Under this program, the SBA will pick up 6 months of payments for any business buyer who closes their 7A loan prior to Sept. 27th. Depending on the terms of your purchase and loan, that is effectively a 5% - 10% discount in the business purchase price. But given the amount of time it takes to execute the business purchase selection and due diligence and complete the purchase financing, a buyer needs to start the process prior to the end of June in order to complete the process by 9/27/20.

One of the determining factors when the State of Hawaii (and all other states) will further loosen/open up is the Health Department's capacity to respond to any subsequent surge in Corona virus cases. Anecdotally, Kauai (and probably the remainder of Hawaii) is more than ready in terms of testing. My daughter heard early yesterday that one of the large testing services on Kauai now has the ability to do Covid testing. As she believed she had been exposed early this year ei...ther in San Francisco or London, she called her doctor, got her approval and called the lab to get the test done yesterday afternoon. When I saw her early this morning, she was disappointed to announce to me that the testing showed that she had NOT been exposed to Covid. So, while disappointing to my daughter, good news that at least on Kauai, we do have excellent Covid testing services. ($50). See more

CBRE just came out with a "Special" newsletter of commercial property valuations. Excepting a large portion of the retail market, the key take-away is that while only a few sellers think the value of commercial properties has dropped as the result of Covid, an easy majority of commercial real estate buyers think values have dropped. As a result, negotiations will probably be a bit stronger in the coming 6 months or so. I side with the Sellers as I am still finding tenants my office and industrial properties without having to drop "prevailing" lease prices.