Given the current state of affairs, there really is no downside to doing so. Lower costs will decrease the pressure to find something immediately. The longer the runway, the more optionality and hopefully better results :) Also, given that the Bay Area is the most expensive place to live in the country, coupled with a now, more accepted virtual process, I’d highly encourage the move. Best of luck!

Grapevine Texas. Free office space and help if you want it. 10 minutes from DFW Airport (that matters). No state tax. When I searched I would sublet my apartment and lived in Florida because the more you can be in front of owners the better. Of course I was single and it was the financial crisis, so my thought pattern was a little different to the period we were just in.

Maybe you can correlate this with some of your industry research. If you happen to find an area of the country is a hotspot for some of your targets, it could increase your ability to take in-person meetings and be in the community. This obviously does not work for all industries, but it may provide some insight. Beyond that, I would target COL and a good hub airport so you can get decent flights wherever you need to go.

If you are game for living somewhere else then this makes a lot of sense for many reasons. A wise man once said the secret to getting rich is to spend less than you make.

Make a plan for when you get to your new location to establish a team (attorney, accountant) and start networking with local business groups. Build the first month into your plan for this. Common sense 101, I know, but local contacts will open doors.

Good luck on your search!

I'd recommend it. I moved from Manhattan to Jersey City and found that not only was COL cheaper by almost 50%, so was pretty much everything else (coworking, virtual office, shipping, healthcare, taxes, accountants, etc). Another benefit is that most sellers will find it easier to relate to you if you aren't from "the city." Also agree with the others that you should consider proximity to airports (hubs with direct flights), trains, etc. You can gain a lot even from moving 20 min from where you currently live.

We are thinking of re-locating to the midwest to be closer to my family before beginning a search. Any tips on understanding whether a particular location is a good one from which to search?

My initial thoughts were to:
1) Check here to see if there were threads about the location we're considering ( :) , Ann Arbor, MI)
2) Google business brokerages to see if the local area had enough activity to support that kind of thing
3)???

What am I missing?

Being willing to move is a big advantage in buying a business since you won’t have to constrict your search to location. Hence I would recommend finding the business first and moving second or at least be willing to move again if you find the business you want. I work with searchers all the time who want to buy a biz 30 minutes from their house. Those people rarely succeed

After 5 years of living in Barcelona, I recently returned with my wife and kids to the U.S. to set up my traditionally-funded search. Knowing that we could end up pretty much anywhere post-acquisition, I chose to search from Minneapolis because I had:

1.) A personal support network. Entrepreneurship in general, and search funds more specifically, can be a lonely, isolating, up-and-down experience. I wanted to be close to friends and family who could be emotionally supportive (including to my wife and children).

A few other reasons in no particular order:

- Low cost of living. This is always comparative, but in general my search budget can stretch further here than in many other big cities.
- A place I could imagine myself living, working, and owning a business long-term. While I'm DEFINITELY geographically agnostic, the statistics are pretty clear that searchers have a higher likelihood of acquiring a company within or near their "home" search location. Which means I also wanted that home market to be reasonably big enough to potentially be a source of decent opportunities too, so...
- An attractive business environment. Minneapolis is home to many international headquarters across a variety of sectors, which means that it also has many SMEs that support those businesses. Plus universities, R&D, a broker/PE/M&A/IB community, diverse population, etc.
- A decent airport, and a location in proximity to that airport, that could get me anywhere in the country fairly easily for face-to-face meetings with sellers, diligence, etc.
- A place I wanted to live short-term (to juxtapose the long-term answer). I knew I'd be happy to live here for 6 months or 36 months, and it wouldn't be that hard to get settled in quickly (not a "complicated" place to live).

While I'm early in my search and COVID has made the airport unnecessary for now, I think the others have more or less played out to my expectations.

^[redacted]‌ recently wrote a piece that might be helpful on this question. Here's the link to get to it: https://www.searchfunder.com/post/launching-a-search-outside-your-home-market

I would say to choose location wisely. It may be wise to search out of city you would not mind living in. In my personal experience, I definitely have a higher response thus far in my local market and it allows me to meet with owners more frequently.

Just one anecdote and maybe we got lucky: my wife and I launched self-funded search and moved from NY to Nashville. We hoped to find a business in Nashville but also searched opportunities in other cities where we would potentially want to live, to cast a little wider net.

Just be aware that deal flow will be much lower - maybe only one or two real opportunities a day. Could of course find more by soliciting in the area but we also wanted to close on something quick so felt it best to look at businesses already ready to sell. Being local probably helped close the deal as we had some in-person meetings with seller and broker that were helpful

I think being self funded helped a lot to let us take this approach and we also knew that there would be potential deal tradeoffs. For example, there were some concessions we might have demanded from the seller but we felt it wasn't worth the discount versus potentially having seller walk away from the deal. Just knowing there is limited deal flow means you have to be more comfortable you won't find the "perfect" deal - but that might be helpful in the end.