How to find a business to buy: 8 steps, tested on 48,800+ US listings

The short answer

The Main Street Index is BigIdeasDB’s census of 84,900+ businesses-for-sale listings from 29 sources, captured in late September 2026. This guide uses its 48,800+ de-duplicated US listings. Every price is an asking price and every earnings figure is owner earnings (SDE) as the seller states it: profit plus the owner’s pay and personal add-backs. None of it is a closed sale.

This page covers finding deals only. For the full process from offer to handover, use our step guide on how to buy a business, where sourcing is step 2.

Step 1: Size your buy box to the supply that exists

A one-industry, one-state search holds a median of 3 listings that state both a price and owner earnings (Main Street Index, 4,100+ industry and state combinations in the US). 72.7% of those combinations hold 5 or fewer such listings, and only 3.7% hold 30 or more. A box that narrow can look like an empty market.

A buy box is the short list of what you will buy: industry, region, price band and your role. Write it down before you search. Then count. The table below shows how many unique listings eight popular trades hold in five large states, and how many of them state SDE between $100K and $300K, a common range for a first SBA-financed purchase.

A buyer who wants a plumbing company in Ohio with $100K to $300K of SDE is looking at 3 listings. The same buyer open to plumbing, HVAC and electrical across Ohio and its neighbours is looking at dozens. Widen the box on the axis you care least about, usually geography or trade, before you start paying for outreach.

Size matters as much as trade. Owner-listed ads make up 22.9% of US listings under $100K but 14.3% above $2M, and price cuts run from 33.6% to 9.1% across the same range (table in step 5). The bands that suit SBA financing, and the industries that clear a loan in each, are set out in the best business to start or buy at each budget and in our ranking of the best businesses to buy.

“The best place to search can depend a lot on the industry. For example, restaurants, service businesses, laundromats, e-commerce, franchises, and construction companies may all be listed in different places or handled by different brokers.”r/smallbusiness

That reply, on a Google-ranked r/smallbusiness thread asking what list everyone looks through, is right, and the next two steps measure it. Count the supply for your own box in the US listings view, filtered by industry and state.

Step 2: Search both big marketplaces, not one

18.0% of unique US businesses for sale appear only on the second-largest US marketplace, BusinessesForSale.com, and not on BizBuySell (Main Street Index, 48,800+ US listings, templated look-alikes removed). Brokers cross-post, but not evenly. 6,400+ BizBuySell listings also appear on the second site, which is 41.7% of that site’s 15,300+ US listings. The other 58% appear on that site alone.

The gap depends on the trade, and service businesses are the ones a single feed misses most.

A buyer searching only the biggest site for a commercial cleaning company misses 38.2% of the market. For home care it is 30.9%, for HVAC 29.5%. For restaurants it is 11.1%, and for courier routes almost nothing (1.1%), because a handful of route brokers post everything to the largest site. If you are looking at cleaning businesses or HVAC companies, two feeds are the minimum. The same goes for home care agencies, where the gap is 30.9% and non-medical agencies ask 1.26x against 4.00x for Medicare-certified ones.

The screen matters here. HVAC has 41 templated look-alike listings and building maintenance 50: the same SDE and revenue repeated across states by one seller. Counted raw, they push the second-site share for HVAC to 31.7%. We removed them.

“The big players are BizBuySell, BizQuest, and LoopNet. Another popular site in CA is BizBen. Searching sites is only the tip of the iceberg. Networking with brokers and contacting off-market businesses directly will produce even more opportunities.”r/smallbusiness

That broker’s answer, on a Google-ranked r/smallbusiness thread from a buyer looking for a daycare, matches the data. Set saved searches on both sites for your box, or search them together, de-duplicated, in the Main Street Index listings view.

Step 3: Work the brokers who own your niche

77.7% of US listings name a brokerage, spread across 3,100+ firms, and the median firm lists 4 businesses (Main Street Index, US listings, October 2026). Nationally no broker dominates: the 10 largest firms hold 11.9% of brokered listings, and the 1,800+ smallest firms, each listing 5 or fewer businesses, hold the same 11.9% between them. What those brokers charge, and whether the fee shows up in the asking price, is covered in our guide to business broker fees.

By industry, the picture flips. In some niches five firms hold most of the supply. In others no shortlist exists.

Concentrated niches: call five firms. In courier routes the top 5 firms hold 78.7% of brokered listings, in accounting practices 68.5%, in insurance agencies 64.7% and in pool routes 59.1%. These are specialist brokers. Get on their buyer lists with proof of funds, a lender letter and a clear buy box, and you see most of the market before it is public. Our insurance agency buying guide breaks down what those agency listings ask on revenue and SDE. Courier concentration is understated: one route firm appears under two names.

Fragmented trades: search wide and go direct. In general contracting the top 5 firms hold 8.1% and 331 firms share 580+ listings. In auto repair the figure is 11.0% across 485 firms, in landscaping 13.6%. No broker relationship covers these trades. Our guides to buying an auto repair shop and buying a landscaping business cover what to check once you find one.

Restaurants sit in between. One firm holds 13.3% of brokered restaurant listings, but the next four add only 5.6 points, so 1,000+ firms share the rest.

Geography matters too. In Minnesota five firms hold 57.1% of brokered listings and in Louisiana 56.1%, so a handful of calls covers the state. In California 632 firms share the market and the top five hold 9.6%. In Oregon only 64.4% of listings name a broker, the lowest of any state with 400+ listings, so owner-listed ads matter more there. See which firms list most in your industry in the broker view.

“Reach out to a half a dozen local business brokers. Tell them your budget, the types of businesses you are interested in, or even just open to anything.”r/Entrepreneur

That is the top advice on the r/Entrepreneur thread Google ranks second for this search. Remember whose agent the broker is. The seller pays the fee, and brokers triage buyers. Brokers favour buyers who look ready to close: pre-qualified through an SBA lender (find one with the SBA’s Lender Match), cash for a 10% injection, and a buy box they can repeat back to you. Our down payment guide shows what that cash looks like by price band.

“Probably every 3rd ‘broker’ I speak to is actually selling franchises.”r/buyingabusiness

Step 4: Read “for sale by owner” listings with care

Owner-listed businesses ask the same price as brokered ones: a median 2.60x owner earnings across 4,800+ US listings with no broker named, against 2.63x across 22,600+ brokered listings (Main Street Index, US listings stating price and SDE). Within the same industry the gap is under 2%: across 58 industries with 30+ listings on each side, owner-listed asks were lower in 32 and higher in 26, a median ratio of 0.98.

So skipping the broker does not get you a cheaper multiple. It gets you a different kind of listing.

Smaller and younger. Owner-listed businesses state median SDE of $150K against $172K, sales of $552K against $770K, and were established a median of 2016 against 2007. They are newer businesses.

Less disclosure. Only 45.6% show an SDE figure and 50.7% show revenue, against 64.4% and 77.3% for brokered listings. Expect to ask for the basics before you can screen.

More franchises. 17.6% are flagged as franchises, twice the brokered rate. In some industries the no-broker column is mostly franchise selling: 41.7% of tutoring and education listings name no broker and 62.7% of those are franchises, 40.7% of gym listings name no broker and 47.8% of those are franchises, and for insurance agencies it is 34.6% and 42.6%. A franchisor advertising new territories is not an owner selling a business with history. Ask for the Franchise Disclosure Document required under the FTC Franchise Rule (16 CFR Part 436), and read our comparison of franchise vs independent businesses.

Slightly more flexible on terms. 24.4% of owner-listed ads offer seller financing against 19.2% of brokered ones (the all-US figure is 20.4%; see our seller financing guide). Owner-run share is the same, 53.6% against 53.1% where the role is stated.

Our “no broker” group means no brokerage is named in the listing. It is not proof the owner is selling alone, and 97.3% of it comes from one marketplace. Treat it as “listings that say so”. Browse owner-listed deals in the listings view with seller financing offered and compare each one to its industry on the buyer view.

Step 5: Use price cuts and stale listings

18.3% of de-duplicated BizBuySell listings carry a price-reduced flag (6,100+ of 33,500+), and reduced listings ask a median 2.24x their SDE against 2.76x for the rest (Main Street Index, September 30, 2026 snapshot). Within the same industry, reduced listings asked less in 26 of 27 industries with 30+ listings on each side, a median 16% lower.

A price cut tells you two things. The seller has already moved once, and the business probably sat. Both help you. Cuts are most common at the small end:

Do not assume a cut means a bargain. Reduced listings are smaller ($125K median SDE against $175K), and our buying mistakes guide shows the most overpriced listings are the least likely to have been cut. A cut listing still needs the comparison in our guide to valuing a small business. Filter cut listings in the price-reduced listings view.

Stale listings that disappear are a second source. Owners who list, get no serious offer and pull the listing often still want out.

“So, after 6 months, he takes a break. Does not renew the listing. He still wants to sell. If you approach him then you have a good chance to actually speak to him and he might be more open to different offers etc.”r/buyingabusiness

Keep a log of listings in your box. When one vanishes without a sale announcement, a polite letter three to six months later is a warm lead. Retiring owners cut less often than others, and when they do the reduced listing is a strong negotiating position; our guide to buying from a retiring owner has those numbers.

Step 6: Build an off-market target list

Off-market means a business whose owner has not listed it. Retirement is the main reason owners sell: 40.6% of stated reasons on US-dollar listings, and 42.3% of the 24,200+ brokered US listings that give a reason (Main Street Index). Those owners exist before they list, which is the whole case for going direct.

Start narrow. Pick one or two industries where your background helps and one region. Then build the list from public sources:

• Google Maps for established businesses with many reviews, several vans or crews, and a dated website.
• State licensing databases for licensed trades, childcare, home care and insurance. Licence issue dates show tenure.
• State business registries for owner names, formation dates and status. A sale price is not public, but who owns a business usually is.
• Trade associations and chambers for member directories and the events where owners meet.

“Pick one or two industries you understand, define your size range, geography, minimum employee count, and what operational characteristics you actually want. Then build a target list using sources such as Google Maps, PPP data, state licensing databases, industry directories, and local chamber records.”r/buyingabusiness

That reply, on an r/buyingabusiness thread from a laid-off tech worker sourcing deals in Northern Virginia, is the standard method. Use the listing data to choose where to aim. Industries where many listings are owner-operated and retirement-driven are where unlisted retirees cluster. Find them in the industry view or in why owners sell their businesses, and avoid trades where outreach is saturated.

“Owners are getting hammered with outreach in some subsets so it’s better to evaluate seller universe prior to launching outreach.”r/buyingabusiness

Home services are the obvious example. Our home service business data shows why buyers want them, which is also why owners there get the most letters.

Step 7: Make the approach: letters, calls and coffee

Cold email has stopped working: one buyer on r/buyingabusiness reports reply rates falling from over 30% to under 5%, and an owner in the same thread ignores the 8 to 12 “want to sell?” emails he gets every week. Phone calls, handwritten letters and in-person visits now beat email because they are harder to fake at scale.

“Cold email outreach has gotten so easy that it barely works. We used to get >30% reply rates and now it’s sub 5%.”r/buyingabusiness

“Yes - phone calls are ALWAYS better than email. I get 8-12 emails a week asking if I want to sell my business and I ignore 100% of them.”r/buyingabusiness

What works, from buyers who have closed:

1. Lead with succession, not sale. The question is whether they would ever consider a succession conversation if the fit were right, not “are you selling?”
2. Say why this business. Name what caught your eye, and that you plan to run it yourself and keep the staff.
3. Sequence the channels. Letter first, phone call a week later, a visit or coffee if they talk.
4. Ask for an hour, not the books. Financials come after trust: three years of P&L, balance sheets and tax returns.
5. Follow up for a year. Most yeses come from owners who said “not now”.

“The reality is that almost everyone I’ve bought a business from has told me they have a “1-3 year plan” and then end up selling within 8 months.”r/buyingabusiness

Expect low hit rates. One searcher in a Google-ranked r/buyingabusiness thread on finding off-market businesses built a list himself and paid a caller:

“I pay $100 for calling 100 companies. I had roughly 300 companies and I found 3 company will to sell to me using this.”r/buyingabusiness

That is 1 in 100. Plan your list size around it: to get five conversations with willing sellers, you need roughly 500 businesses on the list. The same thread offers the honest counterweight:

“Off-market can mean less buyer competition, but it also means more owners who are not actually ready to sell or have unrealistic valuation expectations.”r/buyingabusiness

The listing data agrees on price. Owners who sell without a broker ask the same multiple as those who use one, so the off-market edge is time and attention, not a discount. Bring your own comparison to the first meeting. The what is a business worth lookup tables give the asking range for businesses with the same sales or earnings.

Step 8: Build a referral network that hears first

Accountants, SBA lenders, attorneys and wealth advisers learn an owner wants out before any listing exists, and buyers in off-market threads name them again and again. Tell them exactly what you buy, in one sentence, with a price band.

“The smarter angle is building relationships with accountants and attorneys in your target industry. They know which clients are thinking about exiting before anyone else does. A CPA who does books for 30 small businesses probably knows which ones the owner is tired of running.”r/buyingabusiness

“Also hit up an SBA lender, they usually know what’s coming up for sale early.”r/smallbusiness

That second line is from a Google-ranked r/smallbusiness thread from a buyer looking for a semi-absentee laundromat or storage business. Other channels that work: local acquisition meetups, trade shows in your target industry, and free counselling at SBA resource partners such as SCORE and Small Business Development Centers, whose mentors know retiring owners.

“I connected with an experienced construction business owner with no succession plan through networking.”r/Entrepreneur

Where do people find businesses to buy? The best websites

Two marketplaces carry most of the visible US supply: BizBuySell with 39,900+ listings and BusinessesForSale.com with 15,300+ US listings, overlapping on 6,400+ (Main Street Index coverage, September 2026). Everything else is broker websites, industry specialists and owner ads. Ranked by how much of the market each shows you:

1. BigIdeasDB Main Street Index. Both big marketplaces in one de-duplicated search (48,800+ unique US businesses), with each listing compared to its industry and size, broker and price-cut filters, owner role and stated reasons for selling. See the feature.
2. BizBuySell. The largest single feed, about 82% of unique US listings, but it misses 18%, and up to 38% in some service trades.
3. BusinessesForSale.com (US). Smaller, but the only home for most of that missing 18%.
4. Specialist broker websites. Essential in concentrated niches such as routes, accounting and insurance, where five firms hold 59% to 79% of supply.
5. Your own outreach list. The only source for businesses that are not listed anywhere.

The best “for sale by owner” site is the same two marketplaces filtered for listings with no broker: 10,900+ US listings name none, 97.3% of them on one site. For online businesses, separate marketplaces exist, and our guide to analysing a listing with AI works for any of them. If you have the listings but need a shortlist of industries first, start with what business should I start or buy, or our local business ideas by region.

How to find failing businesses to buy

Labels for distress are rare: only 16 US listings carry a distressed flag and 178 are closed-business asset sales (Main Street Index). The real signals are price cuts (18.3% of BizBuySell listings, 33.6% under $100K) and earnings. Of the 29,400+ US listings that state SDE, 1.9% report zero or negative owner earnings.

A failing business is a turnaround. You pay for equipment, a lease and a name, not cash flow, so an SBA lender will struggle to fund it on earnings, and the price should reflect assets. Read our breakdown of the disadvantages of buying an existing business and the business success rate data before you take one on. The restaurant data is the clearest warning: our restaurant buying guide shows how often small restaurants report no earnings at all.

How long does it take to find a business to buy?

Expect months. A median one-industry, one-state search shows 3 priced listings at a time, a 1-in-100 cold-call hit rate means hundreds of contacts, and off-market owners who start talking often take 6 to 12 months to decide. Our how to buy a business guide puts a realistic first deal at 9 to 18 months from first search to keys, financing included.

“Many good off-market deals come from owners who are not ready today but become ready six or twelve months later.”r/buyingabusiness

Run it like a sales pipeline. Track every listing and every owner in one sheet: source, date, stage, next step. Listing alerts give you the steady flow, broker relationships the early look, and outreach the deals nobody else sees.

After you find one: the first screen

Before you call about any listing, run three checks in under five minutes: does it state SDE, is the asking multiple in line with its industry and size, and can the earnings cover an SBA loan plus your salary. Only about 12% of US-dollar listings survive those screens, per our how to buy a business funnel.

Our help guide to buying a business with the Main Street Index walks through those checks, and the due diligence guide covers what to verify next. If you work in Claude or another AI assistant, the Main Street Index MCP tools run the same comparisons in chat, and the Main Street Index documentation lists every field. For a quick sense of which industries suit a hands-off owner (absentee or semi-absentee, with or without a manager), see the easiest small businesses to run.

Thinking of starting one instead?

If your buy box keeps coming back empty, starting is the other route. It trades the 2.6x multiple for years of building earnings from zero. Our data on the most profitable small businesses shows which industries earn the most on the listings, and vending or laundromats show how the buy and build costs compare in two common first businesses.

What this data cannot tell you

• Listed businesses only. The off-market universe is unmeasured. We can say who lists, not how many owners would sell if asked.
• One snapshot. Listings were captured September 20 to October 1, 2026, once each. There is no time on market, sale outcome or relisting history. Price cuts are the marketplace’s own flag on that date, and only one site shows it.
• Asking, not sold. Every price and multiple is what the seller asks; SDE is the seller’s figure, not audited.
• “No broker” means none named. A listing without a named brokerage may still be represented. 97.3% of that group comes from one site.
• Firms, not people. Broker concentration counts listings per firm record on each site. A firm on both sites, or under two name variants, counts as two, so concentration is understated in places such as courier routes.
• Duplicate matching is conservative. Cross-posts are matched on state, asking price and earnings (or headline overlap when earnings are missing). Listings without a price cannot be matched, so a few duplicates remain and the second-site-only share is slightly overstated.
• Templates. Look-alike listings (same industry, SDE and revenue in 3+ copies across 2+ states) were removed from the second-site and buy-box tables, which moves the overall second-site share from 18.4% to 18.0%. Description-level clusters, such as contract courier routes, are not caught by this rule.
• Coverage. We captured 100% of the largest marketplace and 88% of the second site’s advertised US total, so a small part of the second site is missing.

Population. 48,800+ de-duplicated US listings in the Main Street Index, from two US marketplaces captured in late September 2026. Multiples and medians use the 27,400+ US listings quoted in US dollars on an SDE basis that state both price and SDE. Our other guides quote 2.63x across 27,500+ US-dollar listings worldwide; the US-only figure here is the same 2.63x for brokered listings. Medians throughout; cuts withheld below 30 listings; counts rounded.

Second-site share. For each industry, unique US listings minus all listings on the largest marketplace, divided by unique listings, after the template screen. Concentration. Brokered US listings per firm record; top firm and top five shares within each industry or state. Buy box. Unique listings per industry and state; the second figure counts those with an asking price and stated SDE of $100K to $300K.

Frequently asked questions