[bombcar]

The thing is those businesses can't really be "sold" because they make enough money to support a few families, but they can't do the same AND carry the debt-load necessary to buy it.

So they can only really be inherited or given away (and they often are).

But if it's not to kids on death, it's moderately difficult to give away a business that has "paper value".

[ryandrake]

Yea, I occasionally go to estate sales, and a machine shop going out of business popped up on my radar. Went down there to buy a few power tools, chatted up the elderly owner, and asked him why he was selling everything. The shop had everything, and would have been a really cool business to own and operate! He said 1. his adult kid had no interest in running the business, and 2. he couldn't find anyone willing and able to buy it for more than he could get by "parting it out" and selling all the assets.

I'm sure there are tons of people in my local area who could happily and successfully run such a business, but nobody can swing it financially. The initial financial hurdle of going from "not a business owner" to "a business owner" is real.

[bombcar]

Yep, and if you're starting on your own, you might as well get new equipment and such built and made for you.

Same thing happened with a restaurant - nobody wanted to buy the business so it shut down, even though you could have bought the whole business for the cost of the building, basically.

(There's a path for entrepreneurial "youngsters" - identify these businesses 10 years before, and become a valuable employee in such; I've seen them given away for a song to such. Of course, in some of them they also ended up with the daughter, so ...)