How to Find a Salon Business for Sale

Opening a salon business can be a long difficult process. One of the best ways to open a salon business is to find one currently for sale and to start from there! Searching for a salon business for sale however can be difficult, so here is how you can find a salon business for sale. 

To find a Hair Salon business for sale:

1. Know what you want in a hair salon business
2. Work with real estate agents 
3. Keep up with business social media sites
4. Check out local newspapers

Know what you want in a hair salon business. 

Before moving forward and actively looking for a salon business for sale, you should have an idea of what you want for your business. 

Decide how you want it to look. Would you rather have a specific theme to build your salon around or do you want a simple and classic salon that everyone will be comfortable with?

You should also decide what type of area you want your salon business to be in. Would you rather operate in a busy downtown center or in a smaller town where everything will be less busy?

Moreover, you also must decide what you want to offer in terms of services at your salon so you can look for salons that already have this equipment available. 

All of these are decisions that you must make before you look for a salon business for sale because they are going to help you narrow the search greatly.

• Speak with the current owner!

Speaking with the current owner of any hair salons you are looking into purchasing is going to be an important step. 

When doing so, you are going to try and get as much information as possible about the business you are looking into purchasing. 

Ideally, you are going to want to obtain the following information: 

• • How many customers do they see per week? 
  • The cost of utilities 
  • What equipment is going to be included? 
  • Any information on the area 
  • Local competition 
  • Any other information you can think of 

Obtaining this information is going to prove crucial in deciding whether to purchase a salon business, and the owner is the perfect person to ask. 

Work with real estate agents

Real estate agents are experts at finding homes or commercial businesses to perfectly fit your needs. 

Hiring real estate agents is a fantastic way to help you find a hair salon business for sale that would be exactly what you need. 

Real estate agents will often have access to listings that you may not be able to find and know exactly how to search efficiently and effectively through thousands of listings to find what you are searching for. 

• What should you look for in a real estate agent? 

The very first thing you should look for in a real estate agent is an agent who has a commercial real estate license, as it’s what allows real estate agents to sell commercial businesses. 

The next thing you should look for is a real estate agent who has experience selling businesses. 

Some real estate agents have a commercial real estate license but focus more on the residential side of things. 

Ensuring that you find a real estate agent who has experience on the commercial side of things can make the process of purchasing a hair salon business much easier.

The third thing I would recommend looking for in a real estate agent when looking to buy a salon business is an agent who has experience in other regions outside of where you currently reside. 

This is especially important because your local area may not have any salon businesses for sale at the time you are looking, other local towns, however, may.

Having connections to or experience in other local towns can help in your search and quicken the process quite a bit. 

Keep up with business social media sites 

Keeping up with business social media sites may allow you to find salon businesses for sale that you may not see otherwise. 

This may mean keeping up with social media sites for specific towns or neighborhoods, or it may also mean keeping up social media sites for specific salon care businesses that you are interested in. 

Either way, keeping with business social media sites may give you an advantage that you were lacking previously, which of course is a positive thing in itself.

The best sites to do this on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

All three of those sites are made for sharing to a wide audience which makes it more likely that a site dedicated to businesses in a local town is going to be on one of these three sites.

If this site happens to be hosted on Facebook, you should request to join the group which will allow you to see everything that is posted. It will also allow you to meet any other local business owners in the area which may prove to be incredibly helpful in the future. 

If the site is on Instagram or Twitter, you should follow the page or person in charge, and if you are interested in learning more about the town or local businesses, direct message the owner of the page and see what they say. 

You should also keep an eye out for any local pages dedicated to hair salons. 

Although they can be a bit uncommon in some areas if you do find one following the page or join the group will allow you to get a foot inside the door. 

Being a part of these types of groups of social media means you will be more likely to find a salon for sale when they happen to pop up, as they often appear on these sites.

Check our guide to starting a salon HERE!

Check out local newspapers 

Although newspapers are dying out in most parts of the country, many local newspapers are transitioning into a more digital form. 

This new digital format makes it that much easier for you to access local newspapers, especially those that are from towns where you don’t actively live. 

Many local newspapers hold information on what is going on in the local area, which will more than likely include a section on any local businesses for sale. 

Some newspapers may even have sections dedicated to news surrounding local businesses. 

Either way, however, local newspapers are a great place to look if you are actively searching for a salon business for sale. 

• What newspapers should you look for?

Because of the digitalization of most newspapers today, you can access thousands of newspapers from all across the United States.

So which ones should you look for or at exactly?

The best way to spend your time so you’re not trying to comb through thousands of newspapers every day is to identify a list of towns or areas that you are interested in opening your salon business in and identify the newspapers for that town. 

Now, you can simply digitally monitor the newspapers from these towns to give you an idea if there are any salon businesses for sale that you may be interested in. 

Related Questions

How much do salon businesses cost?

Buying a salon business is not a small feat by any means, it is going to cost some money. 

How much, however, is the price tag on a salon business? 

Purchasing an existing salon is going to cost you less than it will build a salon from the ground up. 

Purchasing an existing salon business is going to cost you between $40,000 and $250,000. 

If you are looking to build a salon business from the ground up, however, it is going to cost you between $100,000 and $500,000. 

• Why does it cost more to build a salon compared to purchasing an existing one? 

Purchasing an existing salon is going to give you access to the physical space you need, and in most cases, will include most of the appliances and equipment you will need to run your business. 

With that in mind, you may be questioning why it would be less expensive to purchase one of these salons which are much more convenient instead of purchasing a blank lot and building it up from the ground where you purchase all of your equipment. 

Purchasing an existing salon means you don’t need to buy a significant amount of equipment you would need to operate. 

It’s essentially as if you are buying used equipment, compared to when you build a salon from the ground up where you would need to purchase all new equipment, which will be much more costly. 

With an existing salon, you also don’t need to pay anyone to have your space built. 

With a new salon, not only do you have to pay for the lot and the physical building material, but you also have to pay for labor which can be incredibly costly. 

• Do salon businesses make worthwhile profits?

The short answer to this question is yes, most salons do make worthwhile profits with many owners bringing home salaries in the six-figure range. 

While salon owners from all over the country do make between $14,500 and $385,000 a year, most salon owners fall in the $70,000 to $175,000 range. 

The average salon also has a profit margin that hovers around 8.2%. 

The profitable salons however do enjoy profit margins upwards of 15% to 20%. 

As profit margins increase, salons make more money and can continue to be successful by putting more money back into their business by doing things such as advertising and offering newer more expensive services that have a higher startup cost. 

These profits are fantastic, however, it is important to remember that a salon business does require some investment, so some of that profit may go toward paying back loans that you took out to open in the first place. 

But overall, opening a salon business can be very profitable and can allow you to make a great living throughout your work life.

Looking to start your own Salon? Get the documents you need to get organized and funded here.

Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult a legal expert to address your specific needs.