Dallas–Fort Worth · Industries
Which Dallas business brokers specialize in commercial construction companies?
How to tell a real construction specialist from a generalist, and which commercial trade companies MDR & Associates does sell.
By Michael D. Rubin, CEO & Founder · September 2026 · 898 words
MDR & Associates is not a commercial construction specialist: it does not represent general contractors or companies that live on project bids. It does sell trade and service companies, including HVAC, plumbing, roofing, landscaping, garage door and pest control businesses, whose revenue comes from repeat customers and maintenance work. We do not name or rank other firms, but we can show you how to test whether a broker truly specializes in your kind of company.
That test matters more in construction than in most industries, because a broker who does not understand contractor accounting can misstate your earnings to buyers without meaning to.
Why commercial construction needs a specialist
A commercial contractor's financial statements do not read like a distributor's or a service company's. Revenue is usually recognized as work progresses on each contract, so the profit shown in any year depends on estimates of cost to complete. Retainage, the money customers hold back until a job is finished, sits on the balance sheet for months. Over-billings mean you have collected cash for work not yet done; under-billings mean the reverse. A broker who recasts only the income statement and ignores these items can present a number that falls apart once the buyer's accountants look.
Buyers also care about bonding. Your surety line is partly backed by you personally, so a sale raises the question of whether the new owner can carry the same bonding capacity. A specialist raises that early instead of discovering it weeks before closing.
Customer concentration looks different in construction as well. A commercial contractor may do most of its work for a handful of general contractors or developers without any written promise of future jobs. A buyer will ask how long each relationship has lasted, how the work was won, and whether it depends on you personally. A specialist knows how to present that history so it reads as a track record rather than a risk.
Questions to ask any broker who claims the specialty
A broker who truly specializes in commercial construction should answer every question below without hesitation and with examples. If the answers are vague, the specialty is probably a marketing line.
- How many commercial contractors of our size have you closed, and may we speak with two of those owners?
- How do you present backlog, and how do you show that past backlog turned into profit?
- How will over-billings, under-billings and retainage be treated in the working capital peg, the amount of working capital the buyer expects left in the company at closing?
- Which buyers have surety relationships that can replace our bonding line?
- How do you keep estimators and project managers who hold key relationships from leaving during the sale?
- How will jobs that are half-finished at closing be handled: who earns the profit on them, who carries the risk of cost overruns, and how are warranty claims on past work shared?
- What is your fee, when is it owed, and is anything due if the company does not sell?
When a commercial company is in our scope
Plenty of companies that describe themselves as commercial construction are really commercial trade and service businesses. A commercial HVAC company with maintenance agreements on dozens of buildings, a landscaping company maintaining office parks under annual contracts, or a roofing company with repeat property-management customers all have revenue that recurs. Those are the companies our home services and trades practice represents. The difference looks like this:
| Project-bid contractor | Commercial trade or service company | |
|---|---|---|
| Where revenue comes from | New bids won each year | Service agreements, maintenance and repeat customers |
| What buyers study first | Backlog, WIP schedule, bonding | Customer retention, renewals, technicians |
| Main risk a buyer prices | Next year's bids and job margins | Customer concentration and key staff |
| Does MDR & Associates represent it? | No | Yes |
What buyers pay for in a trade company
Many trade companies do both kinds of work, for example an HVAC contractor that installs systems in new buildings and also services existing ones. Buyers separate the two streams and usually value the service side more, because it repeats. Showing them separately in the financial recast, with margins for each, keeps the stronger stream from being averaged down by the weaker one.
For the companies we do sell, value most often lands at three to seven times adjusted EBITDA for a business in the $3 million to $100 million revenue range. EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization; adjusted means owner-specific and one-time items are added back so a buyer sees the real earning power.
Within that range, a larger share of contracted or repeat revenue, a management team that runs jobs without the owner, and books that reconcile for three years push a company toward the top. Heavy dependence on one customer or on the owner's personal relationships pushes it down. More detail is in our long read on what a business is worth.
What we do if your company fits
MDR & Associates is based in Frisco and works with owners throughout Dallas-Fort Worth; see how we serve Dallas companies. A principal of the firm is in every negotiation, the fee is paid only if the company sells, and we decline engagements we do not believe we can sell for maximum value. If you are unsure which side of the line your company falls on, contact our Dallas team and we will tell you plainly.
Where this fitsDallas business brokers and M&A advisors →