Read the full deal writeup
Sign up for a free Accredited account to read the editorial writeup, financials, and broker contact for this deal.
Get Free AccessFull Editorial Writeup
This is a 25-year-old pet boarding business in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, sold together with approximately 42.8 acres of specialized real estate. The operation runs two purpose-built dog boarding facilities with 46 primary kennel runs, separate cat accommodations, outdoor exercise areas, ponds with documented water rights, and a three-bedroom on-site residence. It serves the surrounding mountain communities, including the affluent Steamboat Springs and Vail Valley/Eagle County resort markets, with a differentiated private-care model that exercises dogs individually rather than in group-play settings.
The financials are clean and durable: roughly $970,000 in trailing-twelve-month revenue and approximately $540,000 in normalized SDE, a 56% margin that signals real pricing power and efficient operations. The owner reports 70%+ repeat customer activity and minimal reliance on paid advertising, which tells you the customer base is sticky and acquisition costs are near zero. Peak demand during holidays, spring break, summer, and long weekends routinely exceeds capacity, generating waiting lists.
The combined $3.25M ask breaks down to $1.8M for the business and $1.45M for the real estate. On the operating business alone, $1.8M against $540,000 SDE is roughly 3.3x, which is a reasonable multiple for a two-decade operation with management in place. The seller is retiring and has already stepped back day-to-day through an experienced general manager and long-term staff, making this a rare semi-managed asset in a category most buyers assume is labor-intensive.
Why we like it
- Earnings quality is strong and proven: $540,000 of normalized SDE on $970,000 revenue is a 56% margin, and the listing states earnings have held consistently across multiple years. With 70%+ repeat customers and minimal paid advertising, the revenue base is sticky and the cost of acquiring the next customer is close to nothing.
- The moat is location plus reputation plus physical scarcity. Twenty-five years of operating history in a constrained mountain market where competitors have entered and exited, combined with 42.8 acres of purpose-built real estate with documented water rights, creates a barrier a new entrant cannot easily replicate. Waiting lists during peak periods confirm demand exceeds the supply any competitor could add.
- Market tailwinds favor this asset. It serves two affluent resort economies, Steamboat Springs and Vail Valley/Eagle County, where second-home owners and travelers generate steady boarding demand and are less price-sensitive than average. Pet spending has proven resilient and owners treat boarding as a need, not a luxury, when they travel.
- The operator advantage is unusual for this category: the business already runs through an experienced general manager and long-term staff, and the owner has materially reduced his involvement. A buyer inherits continuity rather than a job, with clear upside from pricing adjustments, added capacity, and a professional dog training program the current owner never built out.
How to improve it
- Launch a professional dog training program within the first 90 days. The current owner has deep retriever training and competition experience but never monetized it, and this high-margin ancillary service can be stacked onto an existing loyal customer base with near-zero acquisition cost.
- Implement modest, data-driven price increases, especially during peak periods where demand already exceeds capacity and waiting lists exist. When customers are being turned away at holidays and summer, raising rates 8 to 12% drops almost entirely to the bottom line.
- Modernize the reservation and customer-management system. Moving to an online booking platform with deposits, automated reminders, and upsell prompts will reduce no-shows, capture more peak revenue, and surface data to run targeted marketing.
- Evaluate a capacity expansion on the unused acreage. Only a small portion of the 42.8 acres is currently built out, and since peak demand already exceeds supply, adding kennel runs is a de-risked growth lever provided governmental approvals are obtainable.
- Build out ancillary services like grooming, daycare, and seasonal dog-swimming using the existing ponds. These services increase revenue per customer and deepen the relationship, making the recurring base even stickier.
- Deploy a modest, structured marketing push into the Vail Valley and Eagle County markets. The business has historically grown on word-of-mouth alone, so even basic digital marketing and realtor/vet referral partnerships could expand the catchment materially.
- Formalize the management structure and document SOPs to protect the semi-absentee model. Since the value here partly rests on the GM and long-term staff, locking in retention through incentives and clear processes preserves the hands-off nature a buyer is paying for.
Diligence notes
- Separate and verify the real estate value from the operating value. The $1,450,000 real estate ask should be supported by an independent appraisal of the 42.8 acres, residence, and improvements, and buyers should confirm the water rights are documented, transferable, and sufficient for current and expanded operations.
- Stress-test the SDE normalization. Confirm what add-backs were used to reach $540,000, whether the general manager's full market-rate salary is already expensed, and how the on-site residence and owner perks are treated, because a true manager-run margin may differ from the normalized figure.
- Validate the repeat-customer and demand claims. Pull booking and reservation data to confirm the 70%+ repeat rate, quantify the peak-period waiting lists, and understand revenue concentration tied to the resort/travel cycle and any seasonality risk in a mountain market.
- Assess staff and GM retention risk. Since the semi-absentee thesis depends on the existing general manager and long-term employees, review tenure, compensation, and willingness to stay post-sale, and model the cost if key staff must be replaced or retained with new incentives.
- Confirm expansion feasibility. The growth story relies on adding capacity on the unused acreage subject to governmental approvals, so check zoning, permitting history, environmental constraints around the ponds, and any county restrictions before underwriting that upside.
Source
Want the full analysis on every deal? Unlock the complete platform with Accredited Pro to screen live listings and read our operator-level writeups.