North Florida & South Georgia Garage Door Service, 41-Year Family Operation

$3.0M

Revenue

$815K

SDE

4.8x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 41-year-old garage door business covering North Florida and South Georgia, operating out of two locations roughly 75 miles apart. Each location is run by one of two family-member owners, giving the business a natural two-market footprint anchored by a Tallahassee base with 18,000 square feet of company-owned facility. The revenue mix spans commercial doors (heavier, higher ticket) and residential doors (smaller ticket, higher volume), plus a repair line that the seller flags as a large and high-margin portion of the business.

Garage door service is a quietly durable home and facility services niche. Doors fail, springs break, openers die, and none of that waits for a good economy. The repair-heavy mix is the attractive part here: repairs are recurring, urgent, price-insensitive, and carry better margins than new-door installs that compete on quote. At $3.0M revenue and $815K SDE, the business runs at roughly a 27 percent owner-earnings margin, which is healthy for a trades service company and consistent with a repair-weighted book.

The deal is priced at $3.9M (4.79x SDE) with the real estate valued separately at $1.1M and NOT included in the asking price. That is an important distinction: a buyer is paying nearly 5x for the operating business alone, which is full for a two-owner trades company where both principals are hands-on and each anchors a location. The core question is how much of that $815K walks out the door when the two family operators leave, and what it costs to replace them with managers.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is anchored by a high-margin repair book rather than one-time installs. The seller explicitly calls repairs a large part of the business with high margins, which means recurring, urgent, price-insensitive demand rather than lumpy project revenue. A 27 percent SDE margin on $3.0M revenue is strong for a trades service company.
The service is genuinely recession-resistant and non-discretionary. Broken springs, failed openers, and off-track doors get fixed regardless of the macro because they are security and access problems, not nice-to-haves. Commercial customers in particular treat a stuck loading-dock or bay door as an emergency, which supports pricing power.
Forty-one years of operating history and a two-market footprint create real durability. A four-decade brand in North Florida and South Georgia carries referral flywheel, repeat commercial accounts, and local SEO advantage that a new entrant cannot buy quickly. The two locations 75 miles apart give geographic diversification within a single acquisition.
There is a clean operator upgrade angle because the business is currently run by two hands-on family owners with no evident modern sales or dispatch layer. A buyer who installs field-service software, structured scheduling, and a real commercial sales motion can lift utilization and ticket without adding trucks. This is a classic under-managed trades asset.

How to improve it

Install field-service management software (ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, or similar) in the first 90 days to capture call outcomes, technician utilization, and unbooked demand. Two family-run locations almost certainly run on paper or basic scheduling, so the immediate win is measuring close rates and technician revenue per day. You cannot optimize what you are not tracking.
Build a structured commercial service-agreement program to convert one-off commercial repairs into recurring maintenance contracts. Loading docks, storefronts, and multi-bay facilities value uptime and will pay for scheduled preventive service. Recurring commercial contracts smooth revenue and materially raise the exit multiple.
Layer in a residential membership or priority-service plan that captures repeat homeowners for annual tune-ups and opener replacements. Garage door hardware is on a predictable wear cycle, so an annual maintenance touchpoint keeps you top of mind for the eventual full-door replacement. This turns transactional customers into a recurring base.
Attack local digital demand aggressively with Google Local Services ads, review generation, and geo-targeted SEO across both service areas. A 41-year brand almost always under-invests here, leaving high-intent 'garage door repair near me' searches to newer competitors. This is the fastest lever to fill technician calendars.
Formalize the management layer so the business is not dependent on the two selling family owners. Promote or hire a general manager per location with documented pricing, dispatch, and sales processes before close if possible. De-risking owner dependence is both an operational necessity and a value driver.
Analyze and optimize the residential versus commercial mix and pricing. Commercial doors are heavier and higher ticket while residential is higher volume, so understanding true margin by segment lets you steer marketing spend toward the most profitable work. Small price increases on emergency repairs often flow straight to the bottom line.
Evaluate acquiring or negotiating the $1.1M real estate separately as a sale-leaseback or direct purchase. Owning the 18,000 square foot facility can be an inflation-protected asset, but only if the rent economics pencil against a pure operating buy. Model both scenarios before committing capital beyond the business itself.

Diligence notes

Quantify exactly how much of the $815K SDE depends on the two family owners personally. Each anchors a location and likely carries key customer relationships, sales, and technical oversight, so you must understand what a replacement management structure costs and whether SDE holds after they exit. This is the single largest risk in the deal.
Verify the repair versus install revenue split and the actual margin on each. The seller's claim that repairs are large and high-margin is the core thesis, so demand a revenue breakdown by service type and confirm gross margins hold up in the financials. If installs dominate, the earnings quality and pricing power are weaker than advertised.
Break out revenue and profitability by the two locations and by commercial versus residential. A 75-mile-apart two-site structure can hide one strong location subsidizing a weak one, and commercial and residential have very different economics. Understand concentration risk in both large commercial accounts and the geographic split.
Scrutinize the 4.79x multiple against comparable trades service deals given the real estate is excluded. Paying nearly 5x SDE for an owner-operator-dependent, two-family trades business is at the high end, so pressure-test the earnings normalization and confirm no owner add-backs are inflating SDE. Reconcile whether the price reflects the brand and repair mix or simply optimistic seller framing.
Confirm technician headcount, tenure, licensing, and wage structure at both locations. Skilled garage door technicians are the delivery engine, and a thin or aging crew tied to the departing owners is a serious continuity risk. Understand recruiting difficulty in these North Florida and South Georgia markets.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →