Asking prices for local small businesses stagnant, report finds

If you are trying to sell a small business in South Florida, here’s some data to consider: Asking prices haven’t nudged upward in a year. That is one of the findings of a report from BizBuySell, an online marketplace for businesses for sale.

The company’s annual and fourth quarter Insight Report provides data on sales of small businesses in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and nationally. Nationally, the number of small businesses changing hands in 2015 fell 3.6 percent from 2014, which was a record high. This year's small dip in transactions suggests the market is stabilizing, despite predictions that a tidal wave of retiring baby-boomers would flood the market, the report said. BizBuySell's December survey of business brokers also pointed to a shifting market: Fifty-two percent of surveyed brokers believe the market still favors buyers, down from 59 percent in 2014.

Statistics tracked in the report include the number of businesses that changed hands, median sale price in 2015 and average selling price multiples. A few key local findings:

▪ If you want to buy a business in Miami-Fort Lauderdale, the median asking price of businesses for sale at the end of 2015 was exactly $225,000, compared to $225,000 at the end of 2014.

▪ Businesses listed in South Florida at the end of 2015 had a median revenue of $386,711, up from $371,685 at this same time last year in 2014.

▪ The median cash flow, meaning the money that comes out of the business over the course of a year, is $100,000, versus median cash flows of $101,573 last year.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Asking prices for local small businesses stagnant, report finds."