Counted from the crawl of August 19, 2026 across 2,089 active Florida listings. Computed when this page was built, using the same debt-service arithmetic the site's own filter runs — not typed in, and not a rule of thumb.
Every answer to this question online is a rule of thumb. This one is counted. Below is what each level of cash actually reaches across 2,089 active Florida listings, after applying both tests a lender applies: whether your cash covers the required equity injection, and whether the business earns enough to service the loan at its own asking price — after paying somebody market rate to run it.
| Cash you put in | Listings you could finance | With a seller note | Share of the market |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25K | 146 | 414 | 7% |
| $50K | 414 | 631 | 20% |
| $100K | 631 | 762 | 30% |
| $150K | 719 | 800 | 34% |
| $250K | 787 | 830 | 38% |
| $500K | 830 | 839 | 40% |
Going from $50K to $100K of cash opens up 217 more businesses. Going from $250K to $500K — twice as much money — opens up 43. Past roughly $150K the thing standing between you and a deal stops being your bank balance and starts being the businesses themselves.
Remove the cash constraint entirely — imagine a buyer who can cover any equity injection at any price — and the number only reaches 841 of 2,089 listings. That is the ceiling on this market, and it has nothing to do with how much money you have.
The other 1,248 listings fail the second test: at the price they are asking, their published earnings will not cover the loan payments. A bigger down payment shrinks the loan, but it does not make the business earn more, and past a point the price itself is what the earnings cannot justify. A lender looks at those and declines — not because of your file, but because of the business.
To be precise about what that does and does not mean: those 1,248 are not unbuyable. If you paid all cash you would never meet a lender and debt-service coverage would never come up. What the number says is narrower and more useful — for 1,248 of 2,089 Florida listings, no lender will agree the asking price is supported by the earnings. That is not a rule stopping you. It is a second opinion, from the one party in the transaction with money at risk and no commission to earn, and it is free.
Your cash sets the ceiling on price. An SBA lender expects an equity injection of roughly a dollar for every ten of purchase price. That part is simple arithmetic, and it is the part everyone quotes at you.
The business decides whether the deal happens at all. A lender wants the business's own earnings to cover the loan payment with room to spare. But before it runs that test it subtracts a market salary — we model $75,000 — for somebody to run the place, even though you plan to run it yourself for free. The lender will not count your unpaid labour as profit.
That deduction is worth borrowing even if you never take a loan, because it is the clearest test of whether you are buying a business or buying yourself a job. If the earnings vanish once someone is paid market rate to do the work, then the "profit" in the listing is mostly your future wages — and you would be paying a multiple of your own salary to earn it. This is the test that eliminates most of the market, and no listing site runs it for you.
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Every figure underneath is seller-reported and unaudited; the checks behind these statistics test arithmetic, not truth. Eligibility and coverage are modelled on the current SBA ruleset, are not a credit decision, and no lender has seen your file. How the screening works →
Published by Main Street Diligence. Screening tools for Florida business buyers. This is general information, not legal, financial or tax advice.