Businesses you can buy for £20,000


Find out the type of businesses you can snap up for £20,000

£20,000 will get you a pretty decent car, a handful of luxury holidays or about seven years’ worth of groceries. You could put it down as a deposit on property – the size of which is very much dependent on where you live in the country. If you’re somewhat risk-averse, you could always invest it in an ISA and get a whopping £300-or-so a year in interest! But for those of you with more of an entrepreneurial spirit, there’s an even better way to see a return on your twenty grand. And that’s taking on one of these businesses for sale that you can buy for £20,000 or less.


Thousands of businesses can be bought for £20,000

If you’ve had a craving for a café for some time now, there are dozens that you can snap up for £20,000. In fact, there are hundreds of food services businesses – from coffee shops to ice cream parlours, and several bars, restaurants and fast-food outlets – that you could own for twenty large. Or why not tap into the wellbeing zeitgeist with a health or fitness business? You can buy into more business sectors than you might have previously thought for £20,000 or under – even gyms, health-food shops and beauty salons.

At the time of writing this article, of the 26,000+ businesses for sale advertised on DaltonsBusiness, over 4,000 of them were listed as £20,000 or under. The lowest priced business opportunity is just a few hundred pounds. The highest, a 4-star hotel on the Spanish Costas, is yours for a cool €12.5Million. Admittedly, most business buyers’ budgets won’t stretch into the millions. But, remember, even if the liquid capital you have at your disposal is relatively modest – and £20,000 to buy a business is your absolute limit – there are plenty of good sources to finance a business.


Finance to help you buy a business for £20,000

Remember, when you buy a business you still need to budget for some working capital. With an existing operation you’ll be walking into immediate overheads and, while sales should cover these ongoing costs, you still need to err on the side of caution. You might be able to buy a business for less than £20,000, but you still need to make sure you can keep it running to recoup your investment. The good news is that, if you need a little more cash set aside, help can be found through the banks and other lenders.

Buy a franchise business for £20,000 or more

Lots of existing businesses for sale that have a high income will, of course, command a high premium. But what about franchising as an alternative? According to the 2018 British Franchise Association NatWest survey, the mean cost to start a franchise is about £100,000. But this includes resales and high-investment opportunities such as large-scale gyms and fast-food outlets. As such, the report goes on to state that more than half the franchisors interviewed said the initial costs to set up a franchise were less than £40,000. Considering most bfa-affiliated franchisors will be able to secure 70% of the total investment through bank funding, there should be plenty of franchise businesses available for less than £20,000.

From online businesses, through hairdressers and garden maintenance businesses, then, there are thousands of opportunities for less than £20,000. And if your budget, including any finance you can get your hands on, is around the £20,000 mark, you’ll be pleased to know you can definitely afford to buy a business today. But, if you really have your heart set on a particular business for sale, and it’s a little out of your budget, you should consider one of the several funding options available to you. Either that, or brush up on the dos and don’ts of negotiating and try to bag yourself a bargain.

 

 

Businesses you can buy for £20,000