Free dataset · CC BY 4.0
The Buyer Demand
Index.
Reviewed by Rob Ismoilov · M&A Advisor150 tuples · four components
Where Main Street buyers are looking.
The Buyer Demand Score answers a specific question: how much buyer attention is a well-run business in a given metro + vertical likely to attract when it hits the market. It won't tell you your business's valuation — that's much narrower — but it shifts the range on the margin.
25 metros × 6 industries.
Range 36–90 across all 150 rows.
5% of the index in the top two buckets.
Individual-buyer markets — longer sales cycles.
Rankings
The hottest 10 (metro × industry) tuples.
Sunbelt HVAC + plumbing dominates the top of the index — the intersection of high metro growth, strong housing- permit intensity, and PE roll-up appetite for the trade. Click any row to see the full component breakdown.
| # | Metro | Industry | Score | Bucket | Vitality | PE density | Appetite | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Austin, TX | HVAC | 90 | VERY HOT | 95 | 80 | 92 | 90 |
| 2 | Austin, TX | Plumbing | 88 | VERY HOT | 95 | 80 | 88 | 82 |
| 3 | Austin, TX | Electrical | 87 | VERY HOT | 95 | 80 | 84 | 84 |
| 4 | Austin, TX | Landscaping | 85 | VERY HOT | 95 | 80 | 74 | 80 |
| 5 | Dallas, TX | HVAC | 82 | VERY HOT | 74 | 80 | 92 | 92 |
| 6 | Austin, TX | Auto repair | 82 | VERY HOT | 95 | 80 | 68 | 74 |
| 7 | Dallas, TX | Plumbing | 80 | VERY HOT | 74 | 80 | 88 | 86 |
| 8 | Dallas, TX | Electrical | 79 | HOT | 74 | 80 | 84 | 82 |
| 9 | Houston, TX | HVAC | 79 | HOT | 67 | 80 | 92 | 94 |
| 10 | San Antonio, TX | HVAC | 79 | HOT | 67 | 80 | 92 | 92 |
Deep dives
By industry.
Each industry's top-5 metros plus its national buyer- appetite score and typical multiple range. Every card is a full 25-metro table one click away.
National appetite · 92/100
HVAC & refrigeration services
2.5×–4.5× SDE · PE-backed platform roll-ups
National appetite · 88/100
Plumbing services
2.4×–4.2× SDE · PE-backed platform roll-ups + strategic acquirers
National appetite · 84/100
Electrical contracting services
2.5×–4.5× SDE · PE platforms + strategic acquirers (utility-adjacent)
National appetite · 74/100
Landscaping & lawn care services
2.0×–3.5× SDE · PE consolidators + regional strategics
National appetite · 68/100
Automotive repair & maintenance shops
2.0×–3.2× SDE · Individual buyers + regional strategics
National appetite · 42/100
Restaurants & food service
1.5×–2.6× SDE · Individual buyers + franchise operators
Every metro × industry tuple
The full index.
25 metros × 6 industries = 150 programmatic pages. Click any cell to see the per-tuple component breakdown and local narrative.
| Metro | HVAC | Plumbing | Electrical | Landscaping | Auto repair | Restaurants |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New York, NY 19,500,000 pop · -3.5% since 2020 | 58WARM | 58WARM | 57WARM | 52COOL | 51COOL | 47COOL |
Los Angeles, CA 12,800,000 pop · -2.8% since 2020 | 58WARM | 57WARM | 57WARM | 55WARM | 54COOL | 47COOL |
Chicago, IL 9,260,000 pop · -1.6% since 2020 | 59WARM | 58WARM | 57WARM | 53COOL | 52COOL | 47COOL |
Dallas, TX 8,100,000 pop · +4.9% since 2020 | 82VERY HOT | 80VERY HOT | 79HOT | 76HOT | 75HOT | 68WARM |
Houston, TX 7,500,000 pop · +3.7% since 2020 | 79HOT | 78HOT | 76HOT | 73HOT | 72HOT | 65WARM |
Washington, DC 6,400,000 pop · +0.9% since 2020 | 58WARM | 58WARM | 56WARM | 53COOL | 51COOL | 46COOL |
Miami, FL 6,260,000 pop · +2.2% since 2020 | 65WARM | 63WARM | 61WARM | 60WARM | 57WARM | 53COOL |
Philadelphia, PA 6,240,000 pop · -0.4% since 2020 | 57WARM | 57WARM | 56WARM | 52COOL | 51COOL | 45COOL |
Atlanta, GA 6,310,000 pop · +3.8% since 2020 | 73HOT | 72HOT | 71HOT | 69WARM | 66WARM | 60WARM |
Phoenix, AZ 5,070,000 pop · +5.4% since 2020 | 75HOT | 72HOT | 71HOT | 68WARM | 68WARM | 60WARM |
Boston, MA 4,910,000 pop · +0.1% since 2020 | 63WARM | 64WARM | 62WARM | 58WARM | 57WARM | 52COOL |
San Francisco, CA 4,570,000 pop · -3.2% since 2020 | 57WARM | 57WARM | 56WARM | 53COOL | 52COOL | 47COOL |
Riverside, CA 4,680,000 pop · +2.1% since 2020 | 71HOT | 68WARM | 67WARM | 65WARM | 64WARM | 56WARM |
Detroit, MI 4,340,000 pop · -1.1% since 2020 | 49COOL | 48COOL | 47COOL | 43COOL | 45COOL | 36COLD |
Seattle, WA 4,060,000 pop · +1.5% since 2020 | 60WARM | 61WARM | 60WARM | 57WARM | 55WARM | 49COOL |
Minneapolis, MN 3,710,000 pop · +0.4% since 2020 | 58WARM | 57WARM | 56WARM | 52COOL | 51COOL | 45COOL |
San Diego, CA 3,290,000 pop · -0.6% since 2020 | 63WARM | 62WARM | 61WARM | 59WARM | 58WARM | 52COOL |
Tampa, FL 3,290,000 pop · +4.9% since 2020 | 75HOT | 72HOT | 71HOT | 69WARM | 67WARM | 61WARM |
Denver, CO 3,010,000 pop · +2.0% since 2020 | 65WARM | 63WARM | 62WARM | 59WARM | 58WARM | 52COOL |
Austin, TX 2,470,000 pop · +7.6% since 2020 | 90VERY HOT | 88VERY HOT | 87VERY HOT | 85VERY HOT | 82VERY HOT | 77HOT |
Baltimore, MD 2,830,000 pop · -0.8% since 2020 | 53COOL | 53COOL | 51COOL | 48COOL | 47COOL | 40COOL |
Charlotte, NC 2,800,000 pop · +5.6% since 2020 | 78HOT | 76HOT | 75HOT | 73HOT | 71HOT | 64WARM |
Orlando, FL 2,820,000 pop · +5.1% since 2020 | 76HOT | 73HOT | 72HOT | 71HOT | 68WARM | 63WARM |
San Antonio, TX 2,650,000 pop · +4.2% since 2020 | 79HOT | 77HOT | 76HOT | 73HOT | 72HOT | 65WARM |
Portland, OR 2,510,000 pop · -0.3% since 2020 | 51COOL | 52COOL | 51COOL | 48COOL | 46COOL | 40COOL |
Downloads
Three formats. One source of truth.
All three formats derive from the same underlying data module. Update once, they all update together.
CSV
150 rows · UTF-8
Direct import into Excel, Google Sheets, or your analytics stack. Includes all four subscores plus final composite and bucket per row.
Content-Type: text/csv
JSON
RFC 8259 · pretty-printed
Machine-readable Dataset with in-band metadata (version, license, sources) so agents can verify provenance without a second fetch.
Content-Type: application/json
SVG heatmap
Embeddable
Colour-coded heatmap of all 150 tuples suitable for news articles, LinkedIn posts, and PDF reports. Includes yourexitpath.com attribution.
Content-Type: image/svg+xml
Embed the heatmap:
<a href="https://yourexitpath.com/buyer-demand"><img src="https://yourexitpath.com/buyer-demand/index.svg" alt="Main Street Buyer Demand Index — metro × industry heatmap" width="1000" height="640" /></a>
Methodology · four weighted components
How the score is computed.
Every component is public and citable. The formula lives in the data module — this page and the CSV / JSON stay locked to the same values.
Metro Vitality
40%Census PEP + HUD BPS
Population change 2020 → 2023 combined with residential building permits per 10K population. Sunbelt growth metros score high; declining Rust Belt metros score low.
PE / Investor Density
25%SBA SBIC + ACG
SBA-licensed SBIC private-equity fund count in the state, blended with ACG chapter density and recent LMM deal-flow signal. State-level, not metro-level — every metro in a given state shares the same subscore.
Industry Buyer Appetite
25%IBBA Market Pulse + BizBuySell
National appetite score per industry from IBBA Market Pulse practitioner survey + BizBuySell listing-to-close acceleration + recent PE roll-up press. HVAC + plumbing rank highest; sit-down restaurants rank lowest.
Local Industry Concentration
10%Census CBP 2022
MSA establishment count for the industry's NAICS prefix, adjusted for climate (HVAC in Phoenix), housing age (plumbing in Boston), car dependence (auto repair in Detroit), and tourism (restaurants in Miami).
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Use, adapt, and republish in any format — commercial or otherwise — with attribution back to yourexitpath.com/buyer-demand.
Cite as
Main Street Buyer Demand Index (Your Exit Path, 2026). Retrieved from https://yourexitpath.com/buyer-demand. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
Topic cluster
Business Valuation
How buyers actually price Main Street businesses — SDE and EBITDA multiples, industry benchmarks, and the eight factors that move the number.
Also in this cluster · 7 pages
Free exit calculator
Industry-calibrated valuation range in 5 minutes with no signup required.
Business sale multiples dataset
22-industry benchmark table with SDE + EBITDA multiple ranges, days-to-close, and primary buyer types. Free CC BY 4.0 with CSV / JSON / SVG downloads.
Predict My Buyer
Interactive probability model across the five Main Street buyer types (Individual, Strategic, Search Fund, PE Consolidator, PE Platform). Live results with per-factor transparency.
Sellability score
Score across the five factors buyers actually diligence — financials, management, concentration, structure, dependence.
Net proceeds waterfall
Headline price → cash at close after taxes, fees, and seller-note timing.
Market-wide multiple benchmarks
P25–P75 SDE and EBITDA ranges by industry, sourced from IBBA + BizBuySell.
Industry-specific multiples
Per-vertical valuation multiples, active buyers, and exit playbooks across 200+ Main Street industries.
Apply the index to your business
Get matched to a broker who's active in your market.
Buyer demand describes the room — you still need someone who knows the buyers. The match form takes 3 minutes and returns real, vetted brokers filtered to your industry, state, and deal size.