Here’s an interesting one. We’re looking at a laundromat in Marietta, Georgia that’s only about a year old. It has modern Electrolux equipment, a cashless operating system, three part-time employees, and is reportedly being operated on a semi-absentee basis. The seller reports average monthly sales of $25,858 and monthly operating profit of $13,747. Annualized, that gives us roughly $165,000 of operating profit. The asking price is $1.6 million. That’s where I think we need to separate two very different questions. What is this business worth based on what it produces today? And what could it eventually be worth if this relatively new location continues to ramp? At 6x current earnings, we’re around $990,000. At 7x, we’re around $1.155 million. To support the full $1.6 million at 7x, annual operating profit would need to reach approximately $229,000. Maybe it gets there. But if we’re the ones taking the operating risk required to get it there, should we also pay the seller upfront for that upside? Take a look at the Deal Review before reading everyone else’s comments. Then tell us how you would approach it. Not just whether you would buy it. What would your offer actually look like, and why?

This week’s issue gets into something every buyer should be thinking about right now: Does your deal still work when the financing gets worse? We break down a $1 million financing example across different interest rates, why seller financing can sometimes create more value than negotiating another $50,000 off the purchase price, and how to separate the value a seller has already created from the value you expect to create after closing. There’s also an interesting lesson from a recent car wash platform acquisition: owning multiple locations and actually building a scalable platform are two very different things. Here’s the question I’d put to the AON community: Take the deal you’re looking at right now and increase your interest rate by 100 basis points while reducing Year 1 cash flow by 10%. Would you still buy it at the same price? https://g1cgrp.com/g1c-insights/f/the-margin-for-error-is-shrinking Drop your answer below. I’m especially interested in what you would change first: price, seller financing, equity, working capital, or the deal altogether.

You receive a listing for a 6,930 SF office building in downtown Center, Texas. The asking price is $1.1 million, and the advertised cap rate is 8.18%. At first glance, the numbers are interesting. But office buildings introduce a different set of questions than self-storage, industrial, or single-tenant retail. A tenant leaving can mean months of downtime, leasing commissions, tenant improvements, and capital expenditures before the space produces income again. Before opening the spreadsheet, what are the first three questions you would ask to determine whether the reported income is sustainable? Share yours in the comments. Then we’ll work through the opportunity together from The Questions → The Underwriting → The Offer → The Decision. If these are the kinds of acquisition conversations that interest you, we'd love to have you join us.

This one has an interesting wrinkle. The listing advertises a 10.67% cap rate, but the same property also appears to be marketed as available for lease. Before doing any serious underwriting, what are the first three questions you would ask the broker? Drop yours in the comments. Then we'll work through the deal together: The Questions → The Underwriting → The Offer → The Decision

You receive this listing from a broker. The headline says 6.00% cap. Before doing any serious underwriting, what are the first three questions you would ask about the tenant and the lease? Drop them in the comments. Then we’ll work through the deal together: The Questions → The Underwriting → The Offer → The Decision