FALL 2025
SELLING WITH THE WRONG PRICE
The second listing I took was for a small mobile
home business which we valued at about $750,000.
This was the first time – and there have been plenty
since – I heard the refrain, “But I need more than
that.”
The seller wanted it listed for $1 million. I could not
dissuade him. But because I needed listings, I took it
at $1 million, knowing it would not sell.
Over the first couple of months, we received several
offers, all of which were within shouting distance
of our $750,000 estimate of value. But soon, traffic
tapered off.
By month 10, we were able to get the seller to
reduce the price – but only to $900,000. This move
– significant to the seller but modest relative to the
business’ value – excited no one. Traffic remained
flat. But a couple of months later, the seller agreed
to reduce the price a second time: to $825,000
Within 30 days we had a buyer for the business
– at a price slightly above the valuation number –
and the deal closed 60 days later. It took almost 16
months to get this one done and the main reason is
that the asking price was totally unrelated to value.
Once the price was reasonably close to value, we
had a buyer pretty quickly.
WHAT THESE FIRST TWO DEALS TAUGHT ME
During the long slog to get that second listing
sold, I discovered something that has been proven
true repeatedly over the past 25 years. It’s not that
the price has to reflect the value – although that’s
certainly true. The lesson was this:
Buyers don’t come back as the price drops
gradually to something close to market value.
They’ve moved on. Sure, we reached out to everyone
who had expressed interest in this business but the
reception we received was lukewarm at best.
Some of those potential buyers had found other
businesses to buy; businesses whose sellers
understood that the price has to reflect the value.
Others knew that a business that had been on the
market for more than a year probably had suffered
some reputational damage, a condition few buyers
want to tackle.
THE BOTTOM LINE
When selling a business, we’ve never had anyone
– buyer, seller, lender, baker, candlestick maker or
Indian chief – challenge our valuations.
We’ve had seller’s say, “I need more than that” and
we’ve had buyers say, “I’m not going to pay that
much”. But no one has ever said that our methods,
calculations or conclusions were wrong. We
provide too much data in such a clear and easily-
comprehended manner that, when logic is applied, our
conclusions are confirmed. This is what I mean when