Landscaping business acquisitions sit in a 2.0×–3.5× SDE band. Top-of-band placement requires maintenance-contract revenue dominance and demonstrated year-round operational continuity.
of deals co-mingled installation/enhancement revenue with recurring maintenance. Install revenue is episodic; maintenance is the recurring foundation.
SDE band stable. Peak installation year used as baseline is the most common pricing failure in Q2 2026.
Seasonal DSCR failure window for northern-climate operations. Lenders require monthly DSCR modeling — annual average masks the trough.
of deals had H-2B visa dependency with no documented renewal pipeline. Visa program continuity is a post-close operational cliff.
The most common pricing error in landscaping deals this quarter is using a peak installation year as the SDE baseline. Installation revenue is episodic — it follows housing starts, commercial construction, and owner relationships that are unlikely to transfer at the same volume. The correct underwriting approach is to isolate recurring maintenance revenue, apply a maintenance multiple (typically 2.8×–3.5×), and treat the installation book as a forward opportunity, not a multiple justification.
H-2B visa dependency is underpriced in most deal structures. A landscaping business that sources 35% of its seasonal labor through H-2B with no documented backup plan is carrying operational discontinuity risk that the SDE multiple does not reflect. Require the seller to produce prior-year H-2B application history, allocation dates, and slot counts before the LOI stage.
Read the full Q2 2026 Atlas →The landscaping research stack.
Atlas for the numbers. Playbook for the framework. Scored Listings for the evidence.
Q2 2026 Industry Atlas
Trailing-12-month band, structural conditions, sources, and methodology. Quarterly. Dated. Citable. Built to be forwarded by lenders.
Underwriting Playbook
The four-pillar lens applied to landscaping business acquisitions. Structural failure modes. Pre-LOI verification priorities. Master spoke for the vertical.
Scored Listings
Anonymized observations from real landscaping deals evaluated against the framework. Updated as deals warrant. Each listing its own citable URL.
Three recent landscaping deals.
Commercial landscaping contractor, 74% maintenance revenue, H-2B operational
OutcomeSigned at 3.2× SDE on maintenance-only recurring base. Closed without repricing. Lender confirmed DSCR at 1.34× on normalized earnings.
Residential and light commercial landscaping, 48% maintenance, northern climate
OutcomeInitial ask 3.1× blended SDE including installation project. After installation normalization and seasonal reserve discussion, buyer repriced to 2.6× on recurring maintenance base. Lender required a $60,000 seasonal line of credit as a condition. Closed at 2.6× with seasonal line structure.
Landscaping contractor, installation-dominant revenue, equipment at end of service life
OutcomeBuyer submitted LOI at 2.9× blended SDE. After installation normalization, equipment capex reserve, and maintenance-base-only SDE calculation, adjusted SDE dropped 54%. Deal terminated — repriced multiple on adjusted basis was not financeable.
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- Q2 20262026 Multiples Band, Structural Conditions, and the Underwriting LensMay 2, 2026Read →
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