The numbers
As stated by the listing on September 16, 2026.
- Asking price
- $244,999
- SDE
- $201,539
- Gross revenue
- $1,352,611
- Multiple
- 1.22x
- Established
- 1983
- Employees
- 1
Why we like it
A cool-season lawn in central Ohio does not hold a color or a weed line on its own: skip a scheduled round of fertilizer and pre-emergent and the yard shows it within a couple of weeks, browning out or filling in with crabgrass before the next visit is due. That is the mechanism behind a recurring lawn care contract. Once a homeowner signs up for the season, roughly April through November, the visible cost of cancelling is a bad-looking yard, so renewal is the default rather than the exception. This company runs residential accounts only, with a single employee working alongside the owner, which for revenue this size means either unusually tight route density or a meaningful amount of subcontracted or seasonal labor actually doing the spraying and mowing. Start by finding out who holds the state pesticide applicator license the business operates under, and how the work actually gets done with so few people on payroll, because a buyer who cannot answer both questions is buying a route book, not a company. Growth here has less to do with winning new territory than with packing more stops into the same truck's daily loop, since every mile driven between yards is time the crew is not being paid to work.
You probably need a licence to run this
Ohio requires anyone applying fertilizer combined with pesticide, or pesticide alone, for hire to hold a commercial pesticide applicator license through the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The listing only says "residential lawn care services," which could mean mowing alone or could include the fertilization and weed control that most lawn care programs are actually built on. If it is the latter, the buyer needs to find out whether the seller holds that license personally, since it will not transfer with the sale, and whether the buyer can operate on day one by hiring a licensed technician while working toward certification, or must hold it themselves before closing.
What worries us
- Thin labor base for the revenue sizeOne employee is reported against $1,352,611 of stated revenue, which likely means the seller leans on subcontractors or seasonal help not captured in that headcount. A buyer needs to know exactly who does the spraying and mowing before assuming the current model runs without the owner's personal involvement or relationships.
- Seasonal, uneven cash flowOhio's lawn care calendar concentrates active work from spring through fall, so monthly revenue and cash are unlikely to be even across the year. The annual SDE figure can mask stretches where cash flow is thin, which matters directly against a fixed monthly loan payment.
- Seller-reported figures, not audited onesThe $1,352,611 revenue and $201,539 SDE are the seller's own numbers. With only one employee on record, the margin those figures imply is high for a labor-heavy trade, and it is worth confirming against tax returns and payroll records before relying on them.
The callSuits a buyer willing to get licensed and run routes personally at first; wrong fit for someone wanting a business they can step straight back from.
Our calculations
Our standard SBA 7(a) acquisition structure applied to the asking price. Assumptions below.
Sources
| SBA 7(a) loan | $231,809 |
| Seller standby note | $12,878 |
| Buyer cash at close | $12,878 |
| Total sources | $257,565 |
Uses
| Purchase price | $244,999 |
| Closing costs (est.) | $7,350 |
| SBA guaranty fee | $5,216 |
| Total project | $257,565 |
- Monthly payment
- $2,968
- Annual debt service
- $35,615
- DSCR
- 1.89xSTRONG
- Injection check
- Meets 10% ($25,756 against $25,756 required)
- Closing costs estimated at 3% of asking price
- Owner salary of $120,000, loaded
- Rate of Prime + 2.25% = 9.25%
- 10-year term, fully amortizing
- Injection split half cash, half seller standby note
How we would go about buying it
The order matters. Every step below is free until the last one, and each is a chance to walk away before it costs you anything.
- 1
Call the broker, not the bank
The listing is brokered, so the broker is the gate. Ask for the CIM and the last three years of tax returns, and expect to sign an NDA first. Do this before you talk to a lender: no lender will size a loan without the numbers, and the broker will not release them to a lender you have not engaged.
Open the listing - 2
Ask these before you spend anything
Specific to this business, from our read of the listing. The answers decide whether the numbers above survive contact.
- Does the seller, or an employee, currently hold Ohio's commercial pesticide applicator license, and is it registered to the seller personally or to the business?
- How many recurring seasonal customers are currently on the books, and what is the season-over-season renewal rate?
- With one employee on record, who actually performs the applications and mowing routes: is any portion of the work subcontracted, and on what terms?
- What equipment (spray rigs, mowers, trucks) is included in the sale, what condition and age is it in, and is any of it leased rather than owned?
- Can the seller provide a month-by-month revenue breakdown for the last two seasons to show how the work and the cash actually land across the year?
- 3
Take it to lenders who do this size
Talk to more than one. Rate is the least of it: the lender who has done fifty of these in Ohio will close, and the one who has done two will waste your quarter. Below are the lenders whose typical deal size actually fits this one.
- 4
Structure the offer around the coverage
Our structure clears the floor at 1.89x, and a lender will run its own version with its own add-backs. If the earnings come back lower than stated, the price has to come down or the seller note has to grow. Model both before you make an offer.
Model it yourself
Who we would call
Active Ohio acquisition lenders whose typical deal size fits this one.
- Huntington National Bank
226 loans in OHmedian $285,950median rate 9.25%~32 days to first disbursement
- Live Oak Banking Company
39 loans in OHmedian $720,000median rate 8.93%~20 days to first disbursement
- Fifth Third Bank
8 loans in OHmedian $647,000median rate 9.25%~27 days to first disbursement
Loan counts and medians are that lender’s change-of-ownership loans in Ohio, FY2025 to FY2026 Q3. Funding speed is the lender’s national median from approval to first disbursement. Names link to our data profile for each lender.
The fine print
The statements this write-up makes about the trade and its rules, as opposed to the figures, were checked against public sources on September 14, 2026. 5 claims were checked.
Worth verifying yourself
These are industry statements we could not confirm against an authoritative public source. They are not contradicted by anything we found, but treat them as leads to check rather than settled facts.
- A lawn that misses a scheduled treatment round typically shows visible decline, such as browning or weed encroachment, within a couple of weeks.
Run your own numbers
The deal analyzer models price, seller note, equity injection, and DSCR under current SBA terms, with every assumption adjustable.
Open the deal analyzerListing facts as stated by the listing on September 16, 2026, not independently verified. Structure, payment, DSCR, and injection figures are our own computation under the assumptions above, using the Prime rate as of September 28, 2026. Lender shortlist from the SBA 7(a) FOIA file, FY2025 to FY2026 Q3, as of June 30, 2026. Methodology. See an error? Email us and we will correct it.