Financing
Industrial Property Loans in California
The largest industrial lending market in the country, from the San Pedro Bay ports to the Inland Empire to the Central Valley. Financing for warehouses, distribution, manufacturing and flex space anywhere in California.
California is the largest industrial lending market in the country, and it is not close. About one in five industrial SBA 504 approvals nationwide lands here, 20.7 percent in the loan-level data. The demand starts at the ports. San Pedro Bay moves more container volume than any other gateway in the hemisphere, and everything that comes off a ship needs a building: transload space near the harbor, big-box distribution in the Inland Empire, infill last-mile everywhere in between, food processing up the Central Valley.
The desk arranges financing across all of it. An owner-user buying the building in Vernon that the business already occupies. An investor repositioning 1980s product in Orange County. A developer taking down entitled land in Riverside County. The executions differ: bank, SBA, CMBS, life company, bridge. The mechanics do not. Your deal goes to the whole market and the lenders compete for it.
California deals carry California questions. Land basis is high, entitlements are slow, and a lot of the standing stock is 1970s and 1980s tilt-up that can carry seismic retrofit obligations a lender will underwrite. None of that kills a deal. It changes which lender you should be talking to, which is exactly the reason not to shop one bank at a time.
Who actually lends on California industrial
These are the banks writing first mortgages on industrial SBA 504 deals approved in California, FY2021 to FY2026, from SBA's public loan-level file: 965 approvals, $2.07B in first mortgages, average about $2.1M. SBA is one execution among several, but it is the one that publishes loan-level data, which makes it the honest sample of who shows up for deals like yours.
What this sample is not. SBA 504 requires the borrower to occupy the building, so every row is an owner-user deal: investor-owned industrial is absent, and so is the bank, CMBS, life company and bridge debt that funds most of the market. SBA publishes no property type, so the borrower's industry code stands in for what the loan bought. Rows rank on dollars, so one large deal can sit above a steadier lender. Full method and source.
| # | Lender | First-mortgage $ | Approvals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company | $226.4M | 96 |
| 2 | Bank of America, N.A. | $194.4M | 79 |
| 3 | Wells Fargo Bank N.A. | $116.0M | 48 |
| 4 | City National Bank | $103.2M | 35 |
| 5 | JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. | $95.1M | 54 |
| 6 | Harvest Commercial Capital, LLC | $82.8M | 48 |
| 7 | U.S. Bank, N.A. | $75.2M | 35 |
| 8 | CalPrivate Bank | $65.9M | 43 |
| 9 | Everbank N.A. | $50.1M | 11 |
| 10 | Poppy Bank | $44.9M | 20 |
These institutions appear because SBA published their loans. None is a Janover lending partner and nothing here implies one.
Most California industrial deals never touch this program at all. Send us the property and we will size it against every execution that fits, SBA included.
Where the deals are
Los Angeles County leads the state in industrial SBA approvals, with Orange County and the Inland Empire counties of San Bernardino and Riverside behind it, which matches what anyone who has driven the 60 already knows. The Bay Area counties price differently than the logistics belt: smaller buildings, higher basis, more owner-users. The table below shows the most active counties in SBA's loan-level file, not an estimate.
| County | Approvals |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 306 |
| Orange | 96 |
| San Bernardino | 81 |
| Riverside | 71 |
| San Diego | 62 |
| Santa Clara | 58 |
| Alameda | 44 |
| Sacramento | 27 |
Top counties shown; the statewide totals above cover every county.
California approvals by fiscal year
| Fiscal year | Approvals | Not yet drawn | First-mortgage $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2021 | 229 | 3 | $378.8M |
| FY2022 | 215 | 8 | $425.3M |
| FY2023 | 144 | 21 | $305.1M |
| FY2024 | 133 | 25 | $295.4M |
| FY2025 | 140 | 33 | $367.4M |
| FY2026 (partial) | 104 | 69 | $297.8M |
FY2026 is partial: the extract runs through 30 June. These are approvals, and 159 of the 965 here have not drawn yet, concentrated in the newest years. Counting only disbursed loans would show a collapse the raw data does not support.
Frequently asked questions
Do you finance older tilt-up buildings with seismic retrofit exposure?
Yes. Retrofit exposure is an underwriting item, not a disqualifier. Lenders will want the retrofit status documented and may size reserves around outstanding work. Deals like this are a reason to go wide: individual banks treat retrofit risk very differently.
Which California markets does the desk cover?
All of them. Most of the flow is Southern California and the Inland Empire because that is where the buildings are, but the lender network prices deals in the Bay Area, Sacramento, the Central Valley and San Diego the same way: NOI, basis, borrower, exit.
What loan sizes fit California industrial?
In the SBA data on this page, the average first-mortgage approval in California runs about $2.1 million, and conventional executions go well above that. Below roughly $1 million, see our small balance page; those loans place differently.