Days on market
Days on market is the number of days a business has been publicly listed for sale without closing. It is a signal rather than a verdict: a long-listed business is not necessarily a bad one, but a listing that has sat for many months almost always has a specific, identifiable reason.
Selling a small or medium business in Canada is not quick. Brokers commonly describe a process running from several months to well over a year from listing to close, and much of that is diligence and financing rather than finding a buyer. So a listing that is a few months old carries no particular signal at all.
What a genuinely long listing usually means
- The asking price was set without a valuation and sits above what buyers or lenders will support
- Financial records are not in a state a lender can underwrite
- The business is heavily owner-dependent, so buyers cannot see what actually transfers
- A lease, licence or franchise consent is unresolved and blocking every offer
- Earlier deals collapsed in diligence and the underlying issue was never fixed
Sources
This definition is checked against primary sources. Links were last confirmed on the dates shown.
- 01Business Development Bank of CanadaIndustryHow to sell your business
- 02Canada Revenue AgencyGovernmentSelling a business
- 03Treadstone LawLegal commentaryHow Long Does It Take to Sell a Business in Ontario?
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