Time to buy a business?

In the Tampa Bay area there's more choice than ever for an entrepreneur to buy a ready-made company.

A new study from BizBuySell.com says the number of listings of businesses for sale in Tampa Bay jumped from 133 in the second quarter of 2014 to 870 listings now. It's a 554% increase, and trumps the meager growth in national listings, which climbed just 12% year over year.

The median amount of money to acquire a business in the region is $175,000, the study shows. The median annual revenue for local companies was a little more than $351,000, compared with $356,000 last year.

Service companies are the most popular kind of business sale, covering a third of the list. The median asking price there is a little less than $165,000, while median annual revenues are nearly $246,000.

Manufacturing businesses are the most expensive buy, and that sector accounts for just 5% of total listings. The median asking price there is $425,000 for companies that have median annual revenues of $468,000.

Of the more than 800 businesses for sale in the Tampa area, 10% cost less than $50,000. The amount of business listed for at least $1 million is less than that segment.

Things are looking good for business sellers, too: Of the 57 sales reported by brokers to BizBuySell locally in the last quarter, sellers were getting 96% of their asking price.