Buying a painting company in South Florida

• Repeat commercial relationships: property managers, associations and businesses that call the company for every repaint. An association that repaints every several years is a customer for decades.
• An estimator other than the owner who wins bids at good margins.
• Crew leaders who run a job, manage quality, protect landscaping and cars, and talk to residents and customers.
• Experience with the coating systems that large exterior jobs often call for, and a record of honoring the warranties that come with them.
• A balance of residential and commercial work.
• Lifts, sprayers and scaffolding in good shape, and safety training for work at height.
• Strong recent reviews that keep homeowner leads coming.

• Revenue by customer type, and the share from the largest few customers, especially associations and property managers.
• How jobs are estimated (by square foot, by day) and the actual margins on recent jobs.
• Who does the work: employees or subcontract crews, how they're paid, and proof of their insurance.
• Warranties promised on exterior and coating jobs, and how often crews are called back for peeling or failing paint.
• EPA lead firm certification and records for any pre-1978 work.
• The condition of sprayers, lifts, scaffolding, pressure washers and vehicles.
• The workers' compensation claims history, especially falls and ladder injuries.
• Any roof coating jobs, and whose roofing license they were done under.
• Signed work not yet started, and association repaint bids still awaiting a decision.
• Paint supplier accounts, contractor pricing and any rebates tied to the owner.

• Who are your main commercial and association customers, and how long have they used you?
• How does your work split between residential, commercial and new construction?
• Who does the estimating and selling today?
• Are your painters employees or subcontractors, and how are they paid?
• What warranty do you give on exterior work, and how often are you called back?
• Is the company EPA lead-safe certified, and how often do you work on older homes?
• When are your slow months, and how do you keep crews busy then?

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.

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.