Buying a child care center in South Florida
South Florida has 160 established child care centers by our count: companies in business at least 15 years that still file with the state every year and aren't part of a larger group. Of those, 62% have been in business 20 years or more. Most will never be listed for sale, and many of their owners have never been asked.
What it takes to own one
Child care centers in South Florida come in every size. Here's what owning one could look like at three levels, from a solid company to one of the leaders, with a small business loan covering most of the price.
- Earns about
- $126,000 a year
- Price about
- $392,000
- Your cash
- $55,000
- Could pay you
- up to $56,000 a year
- Earns about
- $206,000 a year
- Price about
- $640,000
- Your cash
- $90,000
- Could pay you
- up to $91,000 a year
- Earns about
- $324,000 a year
- Price about
- $1 million
- Your cash
- $141,000
- Could pay you
- up to $143,000 a year
Earnings are owner earnings: profit plus what the owner pays themselves, before loan payments and taxes. They and the prices are our estimates from public records, not the owners' figures, and we value companies like these at about 3.1 times a year's owner earnings. Your cash covers the down payment and closing costs, and what the business could pay you is what's left after the loan payments and the cushion lenders require. The more cash you bring, the further up you can go.
Age, size and location
Revenue is our estimate from public records, grouped into wide ranges.
| In business | Companies |
|---|---|
| Under 20 years | 61 |
| 20 to 29 years | 78 |
| 30 to 39 years | 15 |
| 40 years or more | 6 |
| Estimated yearly revenue | Companies |
|---|---|
| Under $1M | 92 |
| $1M to $2M | 33 |
| $2M to $4M | 5 |
| $4M to $8M | 1 |
| County | Companies |
|---|---|
| Miami-Dade | 92 |
| Broward | 39 |
| Palm Beach | 28 |
| Other counties | 1 |
| Town | Companies |
|---|---|
| Miami | 48 |
| Hialeah | 22 |
| West Palm Beach | 8 |
| Homestead | 7 |
What the best child care centers have in common
- Rooms full or nearly full, with a waitlist, especially preschool rooms, where each teacher can look after more children.
- A credentialed director who isn't the owner and plans to stay.
- Several years of clean inspections.
- A healthy mix of private tuition and VPK, so the center doesn't depend on state rates.
- Teachers who have been there for years, and pay that keeps them.
- Accreditation and the state's Gold Seal Quality Care designation, which brings higher School Readiness payment rates.
- A building, playground and kitchen in good shape, with a long lease or owned property.
- Tuition collected on time by autopay, with little owed by families who have left.
What to check before you buy
- Inspection reports. Read several years of them, and ask how each finding was fixed. Serious violations can also cost a center its Gold Seal.
- Enrollment. Compare each room's enrollment with its licensed capacity and actual attendance, and check unpaid tuition.
- Public funding. The state and the coalition set VPK and School Readiness rates, not you. Know how much revenue depends on them.
- Credentials. Find out who holds the director and staff credentials. If those people leave at the sale, you may be out of compliance on day one.
- Insurance and incidents. Review liability coverage (including abuse coverage, and vehicle coverage if the center transports children) and any claims or complaints.
- The building. The license is tied to the location. Check fire inspections, zoning, the playground and the lease term.
- Storms. Ask whether families kept paying through past hurricane closures, and what happened to VPK and School Readiness payments.
Questions to ask the owner
- How full is each room today, and how long is the waitlist?
- Who holds the director credential, and are your credentialed teachers planning to stay?
- What has come up in inspections over the last few years, and how did you fix it?
- How much of your revenue comes from VPK and School Readiness, and how much from private tuition?
- When did you last raise tuition, and how do your rates compare with centers nearby?
- How often do teachers leave, and how do you find new ones?
- Have there been any incidents, parent complaints or insurance claims involving children?
To learn what these companies do, which licenses they need and how ownership works, read our full guide to buying a child care center in Florida.
Owning a company in South Florida
The local economy
South Florida covers Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties: Miami, Hialeah, Doral, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Jupiter, and the Florida Keys down to Key West. It's the state's largest metro area and its most international. PortMiami, Port Everglades and Miami International Airport tie the region to Latin America and the Caribbean, which supports a deep base of wholesalers, freight forwarders and logistics firms, many of them near the airport. Tourism and cruises, finance and wealth management, health care, real estate and construction carry much of the rest. Palm Beach County adds wealthy seasonal residents and, out west near Lake Okeechobee, sugarcane and vegetable farms. In the Keys, nearly everything turns on visitors, fishing and boating.
Companies that serve homes, condo buildings and other businesses do well here: the building trades, property services, insurance agencies, medical and dental practices, and professional firms.
What's different about owning a company here
Costs run high: commercial rent, wages and, above all, property and windstorm insurance. Price the insurance before you make an offer, not after. Miami-Dade and Broward make up the Florida Building Code's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, with stricter rules for roofs, windows and structures. That raises building costs, and it also gives steady work to the contractors who know those rules well.
Much of the workforce and many customers speak Spanish as well as English, and a company that works well in both languages has an edge. The winter season matters more in Palm Beach County and the Keys than in Miami. In the Keys, the cost of housing makes hiring and keeping staff one of the hardest parts of running a company. Ask any seller there how they find workers and where those workers live.