Anyone have stats on how many deals are renegotiated post LOI?

searcher profile

May 13, 2025

by a searcher in New Jersey, USA

As we all know, with ETA becoming the hottest new trend on social media, we are in a red hot seller's market. I have seen brokers list businesses with <500K SDE at outrageous multiples (5x-10x in a few cases), and I see those deals eventually go under contract. How are searchers justifying these asking prices? I understand they could raise more equity or get a bigger seller note to close the SBA funding gap, but it just doesn't make sense to me. When I speak to brokers, many of them are complaining about searchers not having the money to close deals so I doubt they are raising more equity. And in regards to a seller's note -- it's still debt. If the business only has 250K-300K SDE, how are you paying yourself and affording 1.5-2M debt service? I suspect many searchers aren't properly modeling the numbers and just agreeing to the deal to lock it up, then anticipate re-trading post LOI. But I think that is a risky, and potentially, expensive strategy if you spend money on DD. Does anyone have insight into how these deals are getting done and if they are being renegotiated post LOI?
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commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from Yale University in USA
^redacted‌ maybe Searchfunder should fund some surveys for the things that are really hard to capture. Directional information for the community.
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Reply by a searcher
from The College of New Jersey in Monmouth County, NJ, USA
Unfortunately, I think some brokers fail to set expectations with their sellers and rely on the market to provide a reality check in the form of a retrade.
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+11 more replies.
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