[tolzy82]

is £5500 a lot of money for £1000 of commercial work? Cheers

[LSB]

probably !
although it depends on the work !

[Tosh]

I'd be carefull at the moment, especially with spending 5K on commercial work, on premises which could go bust due to the credit crunch.

Why is the seller selling?

[tolzy82]

retiring, hes selling all hes domestic as well!

[seandyer2003]

I'd be carefull at the moment, especially with spending 5K on commercial work, on premises which could go bust due to the credit crunch.

Why is the seller selling?

Id be as conscientious as tosh says at this time, but the price is ok for legit work, you would pay that for residential round here if not more! But if they arent in contract or similar, or long standing stable work, id be tempted to think hard before i parted with that amount of dosh, you might be better spending half of it on some good advertising - telesales, mail shots, canvasser, you wouldnt be long getting your own work

But good luck either way, perhaps you know the guy and are only unsure  about price and weve started telling you what you already know

Ill shut up now

[seandyer2003]

retiring, hes selling all hes domestic as well!

There you go then - sounds a good offer- the question is will you be on the streets if they do cancel after you have spent all that money, if you can afford the small risk then have it!

[Tosh]

What's the breakdown of the commercial work that you're buying?

You say it's £1K, and I'm guessing that it's monthly?

What does that break down into per job?  What I'm wondering is if it were £800 on one job, and £200 on another; how will you feel if you lose the £800 job in three months time?

[Tosh]

Tolzy,

I've just read your backposts and see you're new to window cleaning.

If I were you, and wanted to play safe, why not buy the guy's domestic window cleaning work?

Personally, I reckon (in my humble opinion (and it is humble; I'm not and never claim to be one of the 'high flyers' here)), that domestic work is a safer bet than large commercial work.  In the past three months I've lost a large chunk of the small amount of commercial work I had; and I know there's other stuff I clean that's 'on the line'. 

[tolzy82]

cheers for the advice, appreciate it!

[foxy]

there is a site called window cleaning resources that has rounds for sale, what to be aware of how you can best safeguard yourself against fraud/being conned. the price of work varies around the country. in south yorkshire domestic goes for 10 x weekly earnings; retail and commercial goes for 13x weekly earnings. £5,500 is a lot of money. what you are buying really is goodwill, . unless there are binding contracts;(which will prove worthless if the business folds). best of luck, commercial cleaning can be very good but the overheads are nearly always higher than domestic. hope you make it pay.

[lovewindows]

Why not contact his contact for the commercial work and get some reassurance from them, or work out a deal where you pay a % of those takings until the full amount is paid.
Personly at this time i wouldn't dream of buying commercial work without some form of codicill .

[NWH]

Might be selling it cos he knows he`s gonna lose it.