Why No One Is Looking at Septic… and How to Buy One Cheap

Buying a septic company is one of the highest-ROI moves in home-service M&A… if you know where to look.

In this episode of JackQuisitions, Jack breaks down exactly where real septic deals come from — from the obvious online marketplaces to the off-market gold mines almost no one talks about. If you’re serious about buying your first septic business (or adding one as a high-margin tuck-in), this roadmap will save you weeks of searching and tens of thousands of dollars.

Jack covers why septic is one of his favorite industries to acquire, why so many buyers overlook it, and the simple outreach strategy that consistently uncovers motivated sellers long before they hit BizBuySell.

Whether you're running an SBA search, building a route-based portfolio, or just trying to get into home-service acquisitions in 2026, this one gives you the playbook.

What You’ll Learn

• The 3 real channels for finding septic companies for sale (and which one beats the others every time).
• How deal aggregator sites really work—and why the “clean books” come with a premium price tag.
• Why local business brokers can be useful… and why they rarely have septic deals ready to go.

💼 Special Thanks to First Internet Bank!

Looking to buy or expand a business? First Internet Bank is a National Preferred SBA lender specializing in acquisitions for the skilled trades. Their SBA loan program offers up to 90% financing for business acquisitions, partner buyouts, and commercial real estate—plus optional lines of credit to fuel future growth. Unlike traditional lenders, they take a “how can we” approach, making deals happen for both first-time buyers and experienced operators.

👉 Special Offer: Mention Owned and Operated for a reduced good faith deposit and a complimentary deal review + buyside prequalification.
Connect with Alan Peterson from First Internet Bank here 

🔗 Connect

Jack Carr 

Keywords:

JackQuisitions, septic acquisition, route-based business, home service acquisition, off-market deal sourcing, SBA acquisition, residential service, trades entrepreneurship, business brokers, BizBuySell, deal flow, customer lists, route-based valuation, environmental services, well drilling, state permit lookup

Hashtags:

#JackQuisitions #HomeServices #BusinessAcquisition #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #Trades #HVAC #Plumbing #Septic #ServiceTitan #Nexstar #GrossMargin #RouteBasedBusiness #OffMarketDeals

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Transcript

 What's going on guys, today we are deep diving septic. Again, if you haven't watched my last video, go back, watch why you want to buy a septic video. And on that there was tons of comments about, well, where do you find these septic companies for sale? And we're gonna go through that today in depth to give you the truth about where to find them, and the biggest opportunities out there on the market today.

This industry is one of the prime industries for m and a and small acquisitions because the business is simple, but also it's a great business with amazing margins, and there's not a ton of people looking at these things. So it's a catch 22, but there's some real opportunity and a lot of people miss it.

So let's break down and look out for what we need to watch for. So there's really three ways to find a septic business. The first one is the most. Obvious one, it's gonna be you're gonna head on over to a deal aggregator, like Biz Buy, sell, BizQuest, LoopNet, Axios, any of these, these aggregators that sell businesses where you can scroll.

These are the platforms. Sometimes there's regional platforms depending on where you're from, but. Here's the great part about those. There's already motivated sellers. They want to sell you their business, so that's amazing because that's half the battle is somebody who wants to sell you that business.

That's what you're looking for. But the downside to that is it means it's also going to be the most expensive. They have their financials, it's super clean usually, but because of that, there's lots of people with their hands in the pot. Looking for a little bit, and who's paying for that? You are in the long run.

So that is gonna be the easiest way to find, uh, septic businesses for sale. Sometimes you're gonna wanna search plumbing, sometimes septic, sometimes those, they do both. So just keep that open. But again. This is probably the starting spot, but not the finished spot. So the next option is going and talking to your local business brokers.

These are your boots on the ground deal finders. You can, sometimes they'll look for you, but most of the time they just have a series of businesses. That are local to where you're at, and if you tell them specifically what you want, I would like a septic business that's over $300,000 in ebitda. They, when they find it, they have probably three or four people who would be interested in that business in your area, and they will reach out to you and let you know, making sure you talk to these business brokers and that you're going through the motions with them.

So that. If the perfect deal does arise, you're the first one that they're thinking of. The good news is that these are motivated sellers. Again, they want to sell you their business, so there's an incentive for the broker to bring you the business. 'cause they know you're a buyer and there's an incentive for the seller because they're selling their business.

They want to get out there, want to retire. They want their money now. So that's the good news. The bad news is business brokers probably don't have this sitting here. It's not just one of these things where you can scroll on their website, call 'em up and say, Hey, where's you got any septic companies for sale?

It's probably a very low likelihood at any point in time that they have a septic company. And then the other downside, again, it's probably gonna be more expensive because they have a broker. Who is helping them on what their valuation should be, and their valuation should be always higher when a broker is involved.

This is the second spot I would go to. I would get in there, I'd start talking to brokers. I'd start networking. Maybe they can introduce you to some septic guys. Who knows? It's always worth. The chance. Last but not least, the best way, in my opinion, to buy a septic business in 2026 is going to be you are going to go to your local state's, water permitting, septic permitting.

Website. Almost all states I know have this. I've done it in Idaho, I've done it in California, and now I've done it in Tennessee and I've done it for well drilling, and now I've done it for septic. This area of septic and well drilling and kind of the environmental services, if you will. They, they're always permitted and they always have data viewer where you can get a list of how many people do this specific task.

And so the next logical step, call every single one of them or email them whatever you feel more comfortable with. But call's gonna go much further. So I would call a team septic, and then I'd call A to Z septic, and then I'd call a b Har Harner construction. So obviously. A construction company is probably not going to be the correct one, but there's plenty of just septic companies in here that would potentially want to move to sell.

And there's a few options, right? It, maybe it's somebody who has their license but has shut down their business. That's still a good book of account that you can buy for really cheap. They shut down, they said, Hey, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm done. And they retired. They left their permit up, they left their book of business.

And the people that have used them in the past are now probably calling, trying to find someone else. And over the next two to three years when they need their system pumped. So it's a great method to see if people are still in business, but over overall, just to get a really big list of potential septic and and sewer people in your area.

So that's the first step. The second step is simple. Call 'em. Call 'em and email 'em. Call 'em and email 'em. You're gonna have to find email address, find phone numbers, but it's definitely possible. It's definitely possible and this is the best way to do it. Because A, it'll get you those off market deals and those off market deals a, are gonna be the cheapest, the most reasonable, the most affordable.

You're not gonna take on a ton of debt to grab these, and B um, even if you don't buy this company, you still get to network in the industry. So maybe it's somebody who you call and they say, Hey, don't buy a septic company. There's this regulation coming along, just trying to help a new person out. So what's nice about the home service industry is everyone.

Generally it's helping everyone. It's, it's very wonderful. It's a, all the ships in the harbor rise together type of industry and you'll get a lot of good stuff. So a lot of times, you know, they're these smaller outfits, they're, they're not overly, especially in septic, they're not overly exposed to private equity.

There's not a bunch of people calling them daily, asking if they're selling like you see in plumbing or electrical or hvac. So it's a great industry to just. Talk to people and get a lay of the land. So to recap, I would definitely look at deal websites, deal aggregator websites as the first place. Second place is I'd start calling my brokers, my local brokers call six to 10 of 'em.

Tell 'em what you're looking for, ask to be put on their list. And then lastly, off market outreach is going to be the key in 2026. It's time consuming, but. Putting in a little effort was go will go a long way. So if you're serious about buying a septic visit business, this is the roadmap and if you want to break down exactly how to value one, such as how to value those trucks and how to value the contracts and how to look at route based, that'll be the next video.

So tell me what you're looking for below, like, comment, share so that I can keep giving you guys this information. Subscribe to Jack Acquisitions and we'll see you on the next one.