Established Florida Plumbing & HVAC, 18-Year Treasure Coast Contractor with Real Estate

$3.0M

Revenue

$879K

SDE

8.0x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is an 18-year-old residential plumbing and HVAC contractor operating out of Port Saint Lucie on Florida's Treasure Coast. Founded in 2007, the business does roughly $3.0M in annual revenue with $878,544 in seller's discretionary earnings, running on eight service vehicles, 11 full-time employees, and ServiceTitan as its operating backbone. The customer base is the real asset here: nearly 18,000 residential accounts built over almost two decades of service in one of the fastest-growing regions of the country.

The asking price of $7.0M includes $2.93M of owner-occupied real estate, a roughly 7,000 square foot facility on three-quarters of an acre. That matters for the multiple math: back out the building and you are paying closer to $4.07M for an operating business throwing off $878K in cash flow, which is a materially more reasonable 4.6x on operations while the buyer also stops paying rent and builds equity in the dirt.

The strategic story is clean. Residential plumbing and HVAC is non-discretionary demand in a hot Florida market, the ServiceTitan install means the data and dispatch are already systematized, and there is an obvious playbook to layer maintenance memberships, cross-sell HVAC into the plumbing base, reactivate dormant accounts, and expand toward northern Tampa Bay. Seller financing is on the table, which signals confidence and eases the equity check.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is solid for a home-services operation: $878K SDE on $3.01M revenue is roughly a 29 percent margin, with a large residential book that generates repeat break-fix and replacement work. The TTM SDE of $772K is lower than the headline number, so the buyer should anchor to the trailing figure and understand what drove the gap.
Durability comes from the 18,000-customer base built since 2007 and the essential nature of the work. People do not stop fixing broken plumbing or dead AC in a Florida summer during a recession, and the switching cost of a trusted local contractor with your service history is real. ServiceTitan captures that relationship data, which makes the moat portable to a new owner.
The market tailwind is Florida population growth on the Treasure Coast plus explicit expansion room into northern Tampa Bay. HVAC replacement demand in Florida is structural given climate and aging equipment, and residential density keeps rising in these counties. That is organic revenue growth without heroic marketing spend.
Operator advantage is strong for a hands-on buyer: the ServiceTitan install, eight vehicles, and trained technicians mean the platform exists to bolt on memberships and cross-selling. A buyer who owns the real estate eliminates rent, controls the headquarters, and compounds equity in the building alongside the operations.

How to improve it

Launch a paid maintenance membership program immediately. Recurring service agreements convert one-time break-fix customers into predictable annual revenue, smooth seasonality, and raise the exit multiple by giving the next buyer contracted revenue rather than transactional demand.
Aggressively cross-sell HVAC into the plumbing base and vice versa. With nearly 18,000 residential accounts and two trades under one roof, a structured campaign to convert single-service customers into dual-service households can lift revenue per customer without any new customer acquisition cost.
Run a dormant-customer reactivation campaign using the ServiceTitan history. Nearly two decades of accounts means thousands of lapsed customers whose equipment is now aging into replacement cycles, and targeted email, direct mail, and SMS outreach is among the cheapest revenue available.
Build out the northern Tampa Bay expansion deliberately with one or two additional trucks and a local dispatcher rather than a full branch. Test demand and route density before committing capital, so the expansion adds margin rather than overhead.
Tighten pricing and technician-level gross margin tracking in ServiceTitan. Home-services shops routinely leave 3 to 5 points of margin on the table through soft pricing and inconsistent flat-rate books, and the data infrastructure to fix this is already installed.
Implement a booked-call and membership-attach scorecard for every technician and CSR. Small improvements in close rate, average ticket, and membership attach compound quickly across an 11-person, eight-truck operation and directly increase SDE.
Formalize recruiting and a technician apprenticeship pipeline. The binding constraint on growth in this trade is licensed labor, so building a repeatable hiring and training system is what actually unlocks the expansion opportunity the listing describes.

Diligence notes

Reconcile the SDE figures. The listing headlines $878,544 in cash flow but the description cites $772,853 SDE on $2.97M revenue for the trailing twelve months, so demand monthly financials and identify whether the higher number is a peak year, an add-back-heavy figure, or a normalization. This gap directly changes the effective operating multiple.
Value the real estate independently. With $2.93M of the $7.0M price attributed to the building, get an appraisal and confirm market rent, because the operating business is only worth what its cash flow supports and the buyer needs to know they are not overpaying on both sides.
Assess customer and revenue concentration between plumbing and HVAC, and between service, repair, and new-install work. Confirm the 18,000-customer count reflects active accounts, not the lifetime database, since active repeat customers and dormant records are very different assets.
Examine the technician and licensing situation closely. Verify which licenses are held by the owner versus employees, whether a qualifying agent transfers with the sale, and how dependent revenue is on any single key technician. In Florida contracting, the license holder is often the real linchpin.
Review the ServiceTitan data for margin, membership count, and true seasonality. Pull average ticket, gross margin by trade, and any existing membership base so you can validate the recurring-revenue upside rather than take the narrative at face value.
Clarify the transition and non-compete terms. The seller offers relationship support but no defined training period is stated, so negotiate a specific transition window, a meaningful non-compete radius, and an earnout or seller note given that seller financing is already on the table.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →