Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors: SBA business acquisition loan data

Reading this industry's numbers

• Deal size. The loan excludes the buyer's equity and any seller note and may include working capital. A loan request far above $1,545,000 would be in the top quarter of SBA acquisition loans in this industry.
• Share of all acquisitions. This industry is 1.9% of all SBA-financed business purchases, ranking #7 of 300 industries tracked.
• Geography. Florida leads with 102 loans; the top five states account for 37% of the industry's acquisitions.
• Jobs. Lenders reported 13,065 jobs supported across these loans, about 14.2 per acquisition, a rough proxy for the size of business changing hands.

How the Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors industry compares

The median for Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors acquisition loans is $734,000, slightly above the $645,250 median for all SBA-financed acquisitions nationally.

The middle half runs $293,300 to $1,545,000, against $283,000 to $1,465,000 nationally; the median term is 10 years, the same as the national median; the average initial rate is 8.01%, above the 7.76% national average.

Seasoned loans were charged off at 2.5%, below the 3.5% rate for all acquisition loans.

Loan size distribution

Most Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors acquisition loans (60%) were under $1M, and the largest single band is $350K to under $1M at 31%, against 33% of all acquisition loans.

Bands are fixed dollar ranges chosen for comparison. They are not SBA program limits.

Lender concentration

Live Oak Banking Company made 20% of Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors acquisition loans, and the top three lenders together made 30%. 87 of the 244 lenders involved made three or more. Repeat experience is spread across many banks. That is a rough guide to how many banks have seen this kind of deal before.

Recent activity

In FY2025 and FY2026 combined, 268 Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors acquisition loans were approved. That is 14% more than the 235 approved in FY2023 and FY2024. The median was $867,500, above the $734,000 median across all years.

Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors acquisitions by year

How often do these acquisition loans fail?

Of the 327 Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors acquisition loans approved from FY2018 to FY2021 (the seasoned cohort, every loan at least about five years old), 8 have been charged off by the SBA, a rate of 2.5% by loan count and 1.6% by dollars. 175 have already been paid in full.

For comparison, the charge-off rate across all SBA 7(a) acquisition loans in the same cohort is 3.5%, so Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors is 30% lower than the acquisition-loan average. Non-acquisition 7(a) loans (every other stated purpose) approved FY2018 to FY2021 charged off at 6.2%.

"Charged off" is the SBA's final loss action on a defaulted loan after collection efforts. It lags default by a year or more, which is why only older cohorts are measured. It is not the same as a delinquency rate, and loans still outstanding can still fail. See charge-off in the glossary.

Franchise brands in Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors

2% of acquisition loans in this industry involved a franchised unit. Brands with the most SBA-financed resales:

Related

• Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors in Florida
• Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors in Texas
• Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors in California
• Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors in Colorado
• Live Oak Banking Company
• The Huntington National Bank
• First Internet Bank of Indiana
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