Florida Financeability Report, August 2026

Computed from the crawl of August 25, 2026 · published August 27, 2026 · 2,081 active listings on the Business Brokers of Florida MLS · every figure recomputed, none typed in

Of the 2,081 businesses actively listed for sale across Florida on August 25, 2026, 373 — 18% — could carry the debt at their asking price on what they earn after paying the owner a $75,000 wage, under the lender screen a deal starting now would close under. This report is that number, how it moves under other assumptions, where it is high and low, and eight things behind it that the listings do not say.

On August 25, 2026, 373 of 2,081 businesses for sale in Florida (18%) could carry their own debt at asking after a $75,000 owner wage, by Main Street Diligence’s screen; the share sits between 12% and 23% under alternative wage, leverage and down-payment assumptions.Counted from every active listing on the Business Brokers of Florida MLS; the screen is the same predicate the site’s “Clears the SBA screen” filter applies. Definitions are at the end of this page.

Where the other four in five fall out

Among the 860 that clear the wage but not the leverage cap, the typical listing is priced at 4.77× the earnings that remain — it would need roughly 27% off its asking price to reach a lender’s ceiling.

Sensitivity: the same listings under other assumptions

The assumption that moves the result most is the wage, not any SBA rule. That is why the headline is published as a range as well as a point.

Cheap is not financeable

On August 25, 2026, 6% of Florida businesses listed at $150,000 or less could carry their own debt at asking after a $75,000 owner wage, against 23% of those listed above $500,000 (Main Street Diligence).

Median asking price, all listings: $330,000. Median asking price of the listings that pass: $459,000. The businesses a first-time buyer can afford are the ones least able to pay for themselves, because a wage consumes most of a small business’s earnings before any debt is served.

Eight things behind the number

Each of these was computed from the same crawl, then handed to a second, adversarial pass whose job was to break it. What survived is here, with the caveat it has to travel with. None of it is a recommendation; all of it is a question to take to the broker.

1. Bought at asking and worked full time, one in six of these businesses pays its new owner less than $15 an hour

Take every listing that publishes a price, a positive owner’s cash flow (SDE) and the hours the seller says the job takes (1,590 of them). Subtract the annual payment on a 90% SBA 7(a) loan at 9.5% over ten years — 14.0 cents a year per dollar of asking price — and divide what is left by the hours. That is the wage the buyer is actually buying.

On August 25, 2026, 152 of the 879 Florida businesses for sale whose owner works 35–50 hours a week (17%) would pay a buyer who financed the asking price with a 90% SBA loan less than $15 an hour, before tax; the median is $41.8/hr (Main Street Diligence).

The median is respectable, which is what makes the tail worth reading: at the asking price, a sixth of these are a job that pays worse than the one the buyer left, before tax and before any return on the 10% they put down. Caveat. Hours are broker-typed round numbers — 41% say exactly 40 — and the figure uses the seller’s own cash-flow claim, so it is the generous case. Across all 1,590 owner-operated listings the median is $51.8/hr, pulled up by listings reporting under ten hours a week.

2. A 20% price cut fixes almost nothing

Since price history began on August 1, 2026, 144 listings have cut their asking price; the median cut was 20%. Of the 136 still on the board:

Of 144 Florida business-for-sale listings that cut their asking price between August 1 and August 25, the median cut was 20% and 6 moved from above a lender’s 3.5× leverage ceiling to under it; the 52 still above it would need a further 41% off (Main Street Diligence).

The number that moves a deal is the seller’s earnings, not the seller’s price. A buyer waiting for the reduction is waiting for the wrong thing. Caveat. One month of history; most of these cuts were observed against the 1 August baseline rather than watched week by week.

3. “Lender pre-qualified” carries no information about whether the deal cash-flows at asking

207 active listings carry the flag (176 distinct businesses once duplicate listings are merged). 52 pass the screen; 142 fail on leverage and 12 cannot cover the wage. Among listings that do cover the wage, the pass rate is 27% with the flag and 31% without it. The flag is also concentrated: one brokerage office applies it to 64% of its own listings, against 10% market-wide.

On August 25, 2026, 155 of the 207 Florida business-for-sale listings marked “lender pre-qualified” (75%) would not clear a 3.5× leverage screen at their asking price after a $75,000 owner wage (Main Street Diligence).

Caveat. Pre-qualified listings skew larger (median asking $782,000 against $299,000), and inside the $250,000–$500,000 band they screen better than unflagged ones. Pre-qualification is real; it is just not a statement about the asking price.

4. Growth is not in the price

Among listings publishing two or more fiscal years, the asking multiple barely responds to which way revenue is going — and where it does, it goes the wrong way for a buyer who wants to be paid for decline:

On August 25, 2026, Florida businesses for sale whose revenue grew more than 30% in the latest published year asked a median 2.52× owner’s cash flow and cleared the financeability screen 27.3% of the time; those whose revenue fell more than 20% asked 2.71× and cleared it 17.6% of the time (Main Street Diligence).

Caveat. The effect is small overall and partly a matter of timing: asking prices are usually set on an average of years and do not move when the latest year does. That still leaves the buyer’s conclusion intact — recent growth is not priced, and recent decline is not discounted.

5. The retirement wave is a third of the market; recent owners getting out are a fifth

On August 25, 2026, 36% of Florida business-for-sale listings gave retirement as the reason for sale and 20% had been owned for under three years; the under-three-year businesses covered a $75,000 owner wage 39% of the time, against 72% for those held twenty years or more (Main Street Diligence).

Tenure is the strongest single predictor of wage coverage in the data. Restaurants are the extreme: 30% of those listed have changed hands or opened within three years. Caveat. On 75% of listings “years established” equals “years owned”, so the split between a young business and a re-sale of an old one cannot be trusted; the tenure count itself is a smooth distribution, not a form default.

6. Seller financing is the cheaper rate and the more expensive loan

341 listings (16%) offer a seller note, at a median 8% over a median 36 months, for about 33% of the price. Cheaper than the 9.5% assumed for the SBA loan — but because the term is a fraction as long, $100,000 of seller note costs about $3,134 a month against $1,294 on the SBA loan. For cash-flow coverage, the friendlier note is the harder debt to carry. Only 31 notes run seven years or longer; 90 cover half the price or more.

On August 25, 2026, 341 of 2,081 Florida business-for-sale listings (16%) offered seller financing, at a median 8% over 36 months; at those terms $100,000 of seller note costs $3,134 a month against $1,294 for the same amount on a ten-year SBA 7(a) loan at 9.5% (Main Street Diligence).

Caveat. Terms cluster at 36 and 60 months and at 6, 8 and 10% — listing templates, not negotiated terms. 1,496 of 2,067 listings show a down payment equal to the full price; that is the listing form’s default, not a seller’s demand.

7. In more than a third of listings there is nothing behind the cash-flow figure to check

Of 1,493 listings publishing a positive owner’s cash flow for their latest fiscal year, 554 (37%) show net income equal to that figure with every add-back line at zero — one number was entered. Where a breakdown exists it reconciles to the cent (0 of 925 are off), which is the tell: the form computes the total, so a blank breakdown means nothing was itemised. 142 listings show a net loss on the books and a positive cash flow; in 514 the add-backs exceed net income.

On August 25, 2026, 554 of the 1,493 Florida business-for-sale listings publishing a positive owner’s cash flow (37%) published it as a single figure with no add-back detail behind it (Main Street Diligence).

Caveat. A blank owner-salary line means no breakdown was entered, not that the owner takes no salary. A listing labelled “tax return” on this board means a broker chose that label from a list; many of those rows also have no breakdown.

8. The absentee listing is the least financeable thing on the board

The same pattern holds by headcount: 342 listings (16%) have no employees at all — the owner is the business — and pass at 14.6%; businesses with 26 or more staff pass at 29% and cover a manager’s wage 97% of the time. The listings promising the least work ask a higher multiple (2.88× under 20 hours a week, against 2.67× at 21–40).

On August 25, 2026, Florida businesses for sale listed with an owner working zero hours a week cleared the financeability screen 10.8% of the time, the lowest of any hours band; those listed at 21–40 hours cleared it 22.0% of the time (Main Street Diligence).

Caveat. “0 hours” is often a blank rather than a claim — most listings say nothing about absentee operation — and the 51-plus band is 50 listings.

What a rate cut would change

The screen above is a leverage test. Under the coverage test lenders apply on top of it (1.25× debt-service coverage, 90% loan-to-value, ten years, SOP 50 10 8.1), this is how many listings clear at each assumed loan rate:

On August 25, 2026, a full percentage point off the assumed SBA 7(a) rate (9.5% to 8.5%) would let 24 more Florida businesses for sale clear a 1.25× debt-service coverage test at asking — about 1% of the board — while the $75,000 owner wage alone rules out 838 (Main Street Diligence).

Rates get the headlines; the wage floor is what gates this market.

By county

Share is of all active listings in the county. Percentages are suppressed under ten listings.

On August 25, 2026, 45 of 279 businesses for sale in Broward County (16%) could carry their own debt at asking after a $75,000 owner wage; Miami-Dade 19%; Palm Beach 17%; Orange 21%; Pinellas 19% (Main Street Diligence).

“Location needs review” means the broker’s stated location did not resolve to one of Florida’s 67 counties.

By category

The same categories by who is selling: Restaurants — 25% retiring, 30% owned under three years; Construction — 50% retiring, 6% owned under three years; Beauty/Personal Care — 23% retiring, 24% owned under three years; Medical Related Biz — 50% retiring, 13% owned under three years; Automotive — 43% retiring, 11% owned under three years; Lawn/Landscaping — 44% retiring, 6% owned under three years.

The week to August 25

Between August 19 and August 25, 50 listings appeared, 9 came back, 67 were delisted, 34 asking prices were cut and 4 raised; the median cut was 19.9%.

In the week to August 25, 34 Florida business-for-sale listings cut their asking price and 4 raised it; the median cut was 19.9% (Main Street Diligence, from listing history).

What left the board in the month looks like what stayed: median asking $300,000 against $326,000, median multiple 2.64× against 2.74×, 45.9% clearing debt-service coverage against 44.2%. Whatever takes a listing off the board — a sale, a withdrawal, an expiry — it is not visibly related to whether a lender would fund it at asking. So nothing here, and nothing anywhere, can read “sold” from “gone”. Caveat. 198 listings can only rule out large differences.

What this is not

• Seller-reported. Every earnings figure is the broker’s or owner’s, as published. The screen tests whether the claim would carry the debt; it does not verify the claim. 292 of the 373 passing listings cite a tax return or P&L; the rest cite trailing, annualised, estimated or unstated sources.
• One source. Business Brokers of Florida members’ listings via bizmls.com. Businesses marketed only on other marketplaces, only by non-member brokers, or privately are not counted. 160 brokerage offices are represented; the ten largest hold 37% of the listings.
• Florida only. Nothing here generalises to another state without that state’s data.
• No lender overlay. Real lenders often require 1.25–1.50× coverage on top of the leverage cap; the screen is the floor, not a promise of approval.
• Listing-side only. Nothing about the buyer — citizenship, credit, experience, prior losses — is tested here.
• Not a recommendation. Main Street Diligence never says what to buy; it says which listings fail which checks. Every listing counted here can be inspected, with each failed check shown, on the screener.

How this is measured

Earnings. The most recent fiscal year the broker published on the listing’s detail page, rebuilt as adjusted EBITDA: net income + interest + depreciation + owner salary + benefits. Not the card’s “cash flow” figure. Then minus $75,000, a standardized wage for the manager the buyer is replacing — a convention applied to every listing alike, not the market rate in any particular trade.

Debt. 90% of the asking price (10% down), the SBA 7(a) minimum equity injection.

The screen. Debt ÷ earnings-after-wage ≤ 3.5×. This is a conservative first-pass leverage cap of our own, in the range acquisition lending tends to converge on — it is not an SBA threshold, and it is not an underwriting decision, which turns on debt-service coverage at a lender’s own rate and term. The 10%-down equity injection above is the SBA’s; this ceiling is not. Moving it to 3.0× and 4.0× is the first two rows of the sensitivity table. This is the same predicate the site’s financing filter and the mission page finding use.

Rules. SOP 50 10 8.1, effective for closings on or after 1 October 2026; a deal beginning diligence today closes under it. The coverage table assumes a 7(a) rate of 9.50% (WSJ prime plus a typical acquisition spread, as checked on the date in the site’s rate assumptions) over ten years.

The wage after the loan. (Card cash flow − 13.98% of asking price) ÷ (owner hours × 52). Before tax; no return on the equity injection.

Multiples are asking price ÷ card cash flow, filtered to 0.1–20×. Duplicate listings (the same business listed more than once) are counted as rows unless stated.

The full screen, step by step, is on how it works; the data behind every check is on the data; county and industry detail is on market data. Corrections to info@mainstreetdiligence.com — if a figure here is wrong, we would rather hear it than not.

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