More small businesses in Houston were sold in 2009 than in any other city in the U.S. Why? Because buyers are positioning themselves for the future.
We have been bragging about Houston’s economy and the engine behind it for a long time. Pick your industry, we’ve touted it.

Houston Business Journal last week reported, “Houston-area small business sales outpace nation,” which is the message we’ve been delivering and the trend we’ve been experiencing for years.

Here’s the HBJ article:

Small business owners in the Houston area who wanted to sell their companies in 2009 were more successful in finding buyers than entrepreneurs elsewhere in the United States.

Local owners also got more money for their businesses than sellers nationwide, according to statistics from BizBuySell.com, a large online marketplace for selling businesses.

A total of 107 companies in the Houston area were reported sold by business brokers in 2009, down by 7 percent from 115 sales reported to BizBuySell in 2008. In comparison, BizBuySell reports sales were down 28 percent year-over-year for the country as a whole.

The median sales price for a local business in 2009 was $155,000, up 19.2 percent from the previous year’s median price of $130,000. The median sales price nationwide was down 16 percent.

“Prices didn’t fall,” says Mike Handelsman, general manager of BizBuySell. “That’s the most surprising thing to me.”

Houston companies also outperformed those in other parts of the nation in revenue and cash flow, he says.

Local businesses sold in 2009 had median revenue of $366,954, as compared to $287,000 in 2008. And the companies’ cash flow increased to $101,949 from $85,668.

“That’s a really unusual result,” Handelsman says. “That’s different from what we’ve seen in the total United States.”

Here’s a partial list of our economic posts over the last few years: