State of the Business Sales Market 1st to 15th June 2013

This week I attended a meeting of the Australian Institute of Business Brokers Victorian Chapter.  I attend these meeting regularly as it is a great opportunity to meet fellow professional business brokers with whom one can discuss and exchange ideas, performances and general state of the market.  I attend these meetings with the intention of sharing my experiences in the market and thus find professional business brokers are brutally honest about their experience and thoughts on the business sales market in return.  During the meeting my previous opinions that the upcoming federal election has really put the brakes on business sales was widely agreed with.  Many brokers believed the remainder of the year is going to be a slog.  Whilst I agree that the remainder of this year will be tough in terms of business sales, I do believe there has been some underlining improvement in the market as the threat or destroyed confidence brought about by the GFC is fading in the distance, and that it’s the federal election that is now the issue creating the uncertainty in our economy, as most potential buyers take a wait and see approach.  The odd thing is that if anyone was looking to buy a business now is actually one of the best times to do it!  Yes you may have to ride some rough bumps initially, but when the economy and confidence improves business prices will most likely increase too.

I was quite surprised to see the graph of the level of enquiries for June higher than May as I was expected to see a continuing downward trend as we head into the end of the financial year.  I do believe however that, these results have been skewed due to the number of new business listings we have had in recent weeks.  None the less vendors should take confidence that there is still a market of people looking to buy.