HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO SELL

Grow Your Business

Over the years I have seen the best businesses take 12-15 months to sell and on other occasions business that I thought were very specialised or could be hard to sell, be sold within months.

What you the seller and the broker can do is have a conversation about the business, the current market, competition, and what might be a likely scenario.

I have had on numerous occasions really well prepared and presented businesses with a good return on investment sit on the market for 9-12 months with hardly any enquiry. All of a sudden two good enquiries and both parties make full price offers. This has happened many times. Buyers come and go from the market daily.

I have had buyers on my database be told of a new listing from day 1 but the actual settlement be 6 months later. Why? Delays between information, accountants reports, bank and finance requirements, bank valuations, due diligence etc.

As a very general guide we could say it takes between 6-9 months for a business to sell. There are many examples either side of this.

At the time of writing this I have a $3.9M business exchange un-conditionally yesterday that was on the market just 5 weeks ago. I have another one exchanged un-conditionally last week and the buyer made a full priced offer of $2.2M late January and it is now the first week of June.

Every business and every experience is different. There are so many people and circumstances that need to be managed and this is why an experienced business broker is essential.