DeBoer: Ease Lending for Small Businesses

WASHINGTON, DC-Real Estate Roundtable CEO Jeff DeBoer testified in front of the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee last week on the seemingly perennial challenges facing small- and medium-sized businesses as they seek to access capital for real estate investment. The problems are well known–certainly the Roundtable has highlighted them before in their lobbying and educational initiatives.

Briefly, DeBoer recapped, aside from the money center banks, the banking system remains frozen for small business lending because most small banks do not have significant excess liquidity to make new loans and are in the process of deleveraging. Also, quality loan demand is considered weak as small businesses are not, for the most part, seeking growth capital because the economy is uncertain.