Tampa Bay is about to find out what happens when a generation of business owners tries to sell at the same time the money dries up.
A new survey reported by Tampa Bay Business & Wealth found that 42% of local owners expect to transition ownership within the next five years. Just 28% of those planning a transition expect a family member to take over. Translation: most of these businesses will be sold to strangers, at market, or they won’t be sold at all.
Here’s the part nobody is saying out loud: the traditional exit ramp — a buyer with an SBA loan — is closing.
The SBA’s newest rulebook for its flagship 7(a) program, which took effect October 1, tightened nearly every screw. Buyers now need at least 10% equity injected on a complete change of ownership, and standby seller money can cover at most half of that. Deals are underwritten to a 1.25-to-1 debt service coverage ratio measured on historical earnings — projections don’t count. Personal financial statements go stale at 90 days. And acquisitions at $3 million and up now require a Quality of Earnings report before a lender will move.
Each rule sounds reasonable on its own. Stacked together, they mean fewer buyers qualify, deals take longer, and loans that would have sailed through two years ago now die in underwriting. For practical purposes, the SBA has slammed the door on the marginal buyer — and the marginal buyer was the market for most Main Street businesses.
So who fills the gap? The seller does.
Seller financing is no longer a concession weak sellers make to unload a problem business. It is becoming the mechanism that makes deals happen at all. When a seller carries a note, three things change at once: the buyer’s cash-to-close drops to something achievable, the lender’s coverage math gets easier because the bank debt is smaller, and the price the seller can defend goes up, not down — a financed deal at full price beats a cash deal at a discount, or no deal at all.
Tampa’s own numbers show what’s at stake. In 2025, 556 businesses sold here at a median price of $700,000. That volume was built in a friendlier credit environment. The owners now lining up to exit — that 42% — are heading into a market where the buyer’s bank may simply say no.
My advice to any owner thinking about selling in the next three to five years: stop planning around the buyer’s loan and start planning around your own terms. Get your financials clean enough to survive a lender’s historical-earnings test. Price the business knowing a seller note may be part of the structure. And treat the note as what it is — not charity, but the price of getting your price.
The boomer wave isn’t the problem. The problem is a wave of sellers all expecting a financed buyer who no longer exists. The ones who adapt — who become the bank when the bank won’t — are the ones who will actually get out.
Michael Shea, CEPA, CBI, CMAP — Partner, Transworld Business Advisors, Tampa