Seamless Gutter Installation Specialist, 20-Year Myrtle Beach Contractor

$1.1M

Revenue

$618K

SDE

4.0x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a nearly 20-year-old seamless gutter installation business serving residential and commercial customers along the North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina coast. The operation is deliberately narrow: all they do is install seamless guttering, with no roofing or other add-on services layered on. The model runs lean with six employees, averages just over $1,000,000 in annual sales, and prints roughly 60% profit margins, which is exceptional for a trades business of this size.

Demand is referral-driven, supplemented by billboard, social, and Facebook advertising. The lack of a formal sales and marketing machine is both a red flag and an opportunity: the business has grown to this level almost passively, which suggests meaningful upside for an operator willing to actually sell. Trailing three-year discretionary earnings averaged $618,000, though 2025 dipped to $532,000 as the retiring owner eased off the gas.

The coastal Carolina market is a structural tailwind. Horry County is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country, with heavy new residential and commercial construction, and gutters are a non-negotiable spec on nearly every structure. The owner is retiring and will transition as needed, making this a clean hand-off for a buyer who wants a focused, high-margin trades business with obvious cross-sell and geographic expansion levers.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is unusually strong for a trades business, with roughly 60% margins and three-year average cash flow of $618,000 on about $1.1M in revenue. Even the softer 2025 figure of $532,000 reflects the owner coasting into retirement, not demand erosion, which means a motivated operator likely inherits room to recover.
The moat is operational focus and reputation: nearly 20 years in one niche, referral-driven demand, and a known brand in a growing market. Specialization keeps the crews fast and the overhead thin, which is exactly why the margins hold up where generalist contractors bleed.
Market tailwinds are real and quantifiable. Horry County and the North Myrtle Beach corridor are among the fastest-growing US housing and commercial-build markets, and gutters are mandatory on essentially every new structure, so volume follows the construction pipeline.
The operator advantage is glaring. This business has never been pushed: no add-on services, no real sales effort, no formal marketing engine. A buyer who simply adds roofing, screens, or soffit work and runs disciplined lead generation has multiple obvious levers the current owner never pulled.

How to improve it

Add adjacent service lines the owner deliberately avoided. Roofing, gutter guards/screens, soffit and fascia, and pressure washing all share the same crews, trucks, and customers, and each can lift average ticket and total revenue without new customer acquisition costs.
Build a real lead-generation system beyond referrals and billboards. Install Google Local Services ads, a conversion-focused website, and a reviews engine to capture the search demand a high-growth coastal market generates every day.
Lock in builder and GC relationships for recurring new-construction volume. Signing a handful of production homebuilders and commercial GCs as preferred gutter sub creates a repeatable backlog instead of relying on one-off homeowner referrals.
Rebuild the 2025 revenue dip immediately. The drop from $618k to $532k tracks the owner's disengagement, so re-engaging on bidding, scheduling, and crew utilization should recover earnings within the first year.
Implement job-costing and CRM software to tighten margins and capacity. Visibility into crew productivity, material waste, and close rates will protect the 60% margin as volume scales and identify where to add a second crew.
Formalize pricing and raise rates selectively. A referral-driven shop that has coasted often leaves money on the table; a disciplined pricing review in a supply-constrained market can add points of margin with minimal churn.
Add a second installation crew to capture backlog. In a high-growth area, the constraint is likely labor capacity, not demand, so recruiting and equipping one more crew directly expands revenue ceiling.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the 2025 decline to $532,000 and confirm it is owner-disengagement and not lost accounts or pricing pressure. Pull monthly revenue and job counts for the last three years to verify the trend is reversible rather than structural.
Verify the 60% margin and cash flow add-backs line by line. A 60% margin on a labor-and-materials installation business is high, so confirm how owner compensation, subcontractor costs, and material inputs are treated in the $618,000 SDE figure.
Assess customer and referral concentration. Because most work comes via referrals, map where leads actually originate and whether a small number of builders, agents, or repeat sources drive a disproportionate share of jobs.
Evaluate the team and key-man risk. With six employees and a retiring owner who still runs bidding and relationships, confirm who holds estimating, scheduling, and customer relationships, and what happens to the crews post-sale.
Confirm licensing, insurance, workers' comp, and employee classification. Trades businesses carry liability and regulatory exposure, so verify South Carolina contractor licensing transfers cleanly and that labor is properly classified as W-2 versus subcontractor.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →