76 Million Retiring Boomers & You
March 7, 2026
There are 76 million Baby Boomers in the US and they have been retiring at an impressive rate. But only about 10% have retired. That’s a small number. In less than 5 years all Boomers will have reached the age of 65. Of course not everyone will automatically retire at 65. Some will never retire either by choice or out of necessity. This massive number of retirees creates an opportunity for younger buyers as well as for Boomers.
Uncertain Exit
Many Boomers are business owners. What does a retiring business owner do with their business? There has to be some type of exit. Leave it to their kids, sell it, or shut it down. Unfortunately the last option is happening all to often. Many retiring business owners don’t have kids that want their business. And they have no idea how to go about selling a business. So they take the easy way out. They shut it down and liquidate the assets. Unfortunately they also liquidate jobs along with the business.
The opportunity lies in buying the business from a retiring Boomer. Suppose you work for one of these owners and you’ve heard them mention how they would like to retire. But they don’t have a clue what to do with the business. You have the experience to run the business and you might might even been doing much of that job already. Or maybe you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve always thought you would like to own a business like theirs. But you don’t have the cash to buy the business.
Limited Choices
There are currently about three million businesses for sale. Unfortunately for the sellers, 70 to 80% of those businesses will never be sold. The supply of businesses for sale is far greater than the demand. That means most will go unsold and will shut down and the assets will be liquidated. Liquidation is never pretty. At least not for the business owner or their employees.
The Opportunity
How can this situation benefit you? Do you want to own a business? Now is the time to buy one. It’s great if you have cash and can arrange financing to take over an ongoing, profitable business. And if you don’t have cash don’t give up. I’m sure you’ve heard all the real estate gurus preaching about buying properties with no cash and making unbelievable deals with sellers for their properties. In a lot of cases that is true. But what about doing a no cash deal for a business? Yep!
Put yourself in the seller’s shoes. You have owned a business for 20 or 30 years. You started it from scratch, and built it up to a profitable operation. Now it’s time to retire and cash out of the business. But you have a problem. You can’t find a buyer. You don’t want to shut down and liquidate but you might not have a choice unless you want to keep on working. Maybe you can’t keep working. Maybe you have a life threatening illness. Or maybe you are just plain tired and can’t keep going.
Would you be willing to structure a sale where the buyer has no cash but can get partial financing from an SBA guaranteed lender and partial financing from a third party lender and partial financing from you the seller? Or maybe you would seller finance most or all of the deal and continue to get income in the form of principal plus interest for several years. You would probably prefer that to liquidating and laying off all your employees.
Make A Deal
That’s your opportunity as a buyer. Thousands and thousands of businesses are available to buy with little to no cash in the deal. Now is your time. The deals are out there. I’m a commercial real estate broker. I’m not normally in the business of selling businesses. But people are coming to me asking me to sell their business. I will take the listing if the business includes real estate. I currently have 2 businesses listed. One is a dessert franchise and the other is an HVAC company with millions of dollars in annual revenue. One is a retiring owner and both will do seller financing deals so I know the deals are out there. It’s an exciting time to become a business owner. If that’s a desire you have, don’t miss out!
That’s it for this week. If you have any questions about buying a business reply to this email. I would love to hear from you!
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