Deal Box Depth
Draw the Box
What Trades Inside It
Your box holds 16,264 businesses in the 5 to 99 employees band, and about 52 of them change hands a year with SBA financing. That is about one a week coming to market inside the whole box, before anyone else competes for it.
By Trade
| In the box | Buyable | Change hands a year | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors | 7,216 | 19 | 36.8% |
| General Automotive Repair | 3,906 | 18 | 34.5% |
| Landscaping Services | 5,142 | 15 | 28.7% |
52 a year across every row above.
By State
| In the box | Buyable | Change hands a year | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 8,402 | 27 | 52.9% |
| Florida | 7,862 | 24 | 47.1% |
52 a year across every row above.
What Widening Would Buy
The largest additions on each axis, measured against the box you drew rather than against the country. A trade you would not operate and a state you would not move to are still worth seeing, because they price what the box is costing you.
- Adding Full-Service Restaurants brings 48 more a year, adds 93%.
- Adding Limited-Service Restaurants brings 41 more a year, adds 79%.
- Adding Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores brings 26 more a year, adds 51%.
- Adding California brings 36 more a year, adds 69%.
- Adding New York brings 18 more a year, adds 34%.
- Adding Pennsylvania brings 14 more a year, adds 27%.
Where These Numbers Come From
Counts are Census County Business Patterns establishments for 2023, filtered to the 5 to 99 employees band that is big enough to have something to sell, small enough to finance. The rate each trade changes hands is the SBA loan-level file over FY2020 through FY2025.
The rate each trade changes hands is national and applied to each state's own count, because the loan file keeps only each state's busiest industries and a per-state rate would be thinnest exactly where a narrow box is drawn.
These are SBA-financed changes of ownership. Cash deals, seller-financed deals and conventional loans are absent, so every figure is a lower bound and is worth reading between boxes rather than as a count of sales.