Most banks that claim to finance routes will never make it to closing. If you’ve found a lender already, it’s still good to get a second quote. It may save you thousands in fees or at least provide you a backup.

If you pay cash for a business, you may never be able to get a loan on it to pull your money out later.

It’s not like you can qualify for any deal under a certain price. For example, a $900k deal may be easy to fund. But a cheaper $600k deal may be impossible to fund. This is because banks judge routes on many criteria (not just tax returns, fleets, or net income).

This is true regardless of asking price, net income, or fleet due to contractual aspects of the route. The only way to know for sure is to start digging into the specifics of a route. Sellers want you to believe all routes operate the same. But in reality, each operation can be VERY different from one to the next.

Many banks are clueless how upcoming contractual changes will affect profitability. They also don’t understand business aspects that are unique to FedEx routes. For example, most banks don’t know about things specific to routes that change the income AND risk. They don’t know technical methods to evaluate Upcoming ISP requirements, High vs low Variable Charges on the settlements, eCommerce vs Density Delivery payouts, and so on.

The banks I work with love to lend on routes. Many other banks think routes are “high risk.” But they’re high risk only when they’re evaluated like a typical business. Lots of banks blacklisted routes after many defaults years ago. This was because they gave loans on high-risk routes due to using a traditional (and ineffective) due diligence process. Don’t let a bank’s poor opinion of routes scare you.

Only you know your finances and risk tolerance when considering route loans.

Remember that I work with these banks, but I only receive payment if they SUCCESSFULLY fund your deal. So it’s in my best interest to only refer you to banks that ACTUALLY can get you funded.