Buying a school or training business in South Florida

• Students who come back: high re-enrollment at a school, renewing memberships at a tutoring center, steady class starts at a career school.
• Results you can show, such as test score gains, where graduates go next, and completion, job placement or licensing exam pass rates.
• Teachers and a director who run the place without the owner in every class.
• More than one source of tuition, so a change in one scholarship program or employer contract isn't fatal.
• A building zoned and approved for the use, with room to add classrooms.
• A clean record with the state, scholarship organizations and any accreditor.
• Written enrollment contracts with clear refund and withdrawal terms.

• Prepaid tuition. Tuition already collected for terms not yet taught is a debt you'd pay off by teaching. Make sure the price accounts for it.
• Enrollment trend. Look at several years by term or grade, not one good fall.
• Scholarship reliance. Find out how much tuition comes through scholarships, how promptly it's paid, and whether the school has had any compliance notices.
• Career school outcomes. Completion and placement rates, student complaints, refund obligations and accreditation status all carry over to you.
• The owner's role. At many tutoring centers and small schools, the owner is the main teacher or the reason families come.
• Background checks and insurance. Confirm that every employee has been screened and that liability coverage includes abuse claims.
• The building. Check fire code and occupancy approvals and the lease term.

• How has enrollment changed over the last three years, and how many students return each year?
• How much tuition comes from scholarships, employers or student aid compared with families paying directly?
• Who teaches most of the classes, and which teachers would stay through a sale?
• How much tuition have families or students already paid for terms you haven't taught?
• Have you had any site visits, audits or complaints from the state, a scholarship organization or an accreditor?
• What would you change about the building or schedule to grow enrollment?
• For career programs: how many students finish, and how many find work in the field?

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.