State of the Business Sales Market 15th to 30th November 2012

As you will see in the graph below, my previous prediction that the enquiry rate would increase later in November has come true.  I believe it is a result of two main factors.

1. The upward trend is a continuation of the slowly improving market that was just briefly interrupted by school holidays and the Melbourne Cup weekend.  Keep in mind many of our prospective business buyers do have school age children and thus their lives do circulate around the holidays.  We haven’t quite got back to a level we would have liked but as I’m sure you are aware that we are getting to a time of year where most people have other things on their mind.
2. Historically we do see a downward trend in enquiries in late November.  Our data shows the ‘up-kick’ in late November is also a  result of our email campaign that is working at bringing people back to our website to see what businesses we have on offer.

Whilst some economists predict a rate cut in December, which will help, I would suggest this is too late in regards to Business Sales for 2012.  Whilst we’ll continue to push as much as possible, historical data shows that December is consistently the quietest month in regards to new enquiries.

I’d like to make you aware of a very clever tool the Australian Institute of Business Brokers (AIBB) have implemented on their website.  Each week all AIBB members all over Australia (myself included) are quickly polled by email in regards to whether they believe it is either a buyer’s or seller’s market.  My personal opinion is that business sales will always be a buyer’s market, there will always be more businesses for sale than there are buyers.  That been said there are various degrees of buyer’s market.  But as you will note from the graph below (click on the graph to go to the live website) it is almost as much of a buyer’s market as it could possibly be.

New BFBrokers Website

Our new website is up and running and already we have noticed a sharp increase in number of views and hits.  This has been assisted by our recent email campaign to everyone on our database which we will continue to send in order to communicate more effectively with our clients and prospective clients.

There are a few chinks in the website that we are working through with IT, and we see development as an ongoing process.