The technician who knew my house is gone. Why service slips after a PE sale — and the two paths every home services owner is facing right now.
I'd trusted that pest control company for years. Then last year it was acquired by a national, PE-backed platform.
Nothing on my invoice changed. The price stayed the same. The truck still showed up on schedule. But the service did not feel the same. The technician who knew my house, who would point out the new problem by the back door before I noticed it, was gone. Visits got shorter. The attention to detail went with him.
So I did what a growing number of homeowners are quietly doing. I called around my personal network and found another family-owned and operated company. Same price. The attention to detail and level of service far surpass what I was getting.
That small decision at my kitchen table is a preview of a much bigger decision facing thousands of business owners right now.
The roll-up machine is running at full speed
Over the past 24 months, mid-size and large private equity firms have been buying family-run businesses across pest control, landscaping and lawn care, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and nearly every corner of what I call home services.
The scale is hard to overstate. Investors have acquired roughly 800 HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies since 2022, and PE now accounts for about half of all home services transactions. In May 2026, Apollo agreed to invest about $2 billion in Apex Service Partners, a residential HVAC roll-up, at a valuation near $10 billion. In pest control alone, one tracker counts 22 active consolidation platforms, about 10 of them explicitly PE-backed.
The logic is simple. Home services is huge and fragmented: in every major trade, the top 10 operators hold less than 20% of the market. Buyers purchase small, owner-run businesses at a lower multiple of earnings, combine them into a platform, and sell the platform later at a much higher multiple. That spread, plus shared back-office costs, is the business model.
None of that is sinister. It is math. But the math has consequences for customers, employees and the owners deciding what to do next.
Why service slips after the sale
I have seen this from every side of the table. I've worked directly for PE firms. I've worked for a SaaS company that took a large PE investment. And I've worked for family-owned and operated businesses. So let me be fair: private equity can bring real value. Better benefits, training, career paths, modern systems and capital a family business could never access on its own.
But once a family business becomes one line in a portfolio, the incentives change. Dispatch moves to a call center. Technicians get measured on average ticket and close rate. Sales scripts replace judgment. One recent industry guide notes that technicians at acquired companies often see pay increases, but cultures frequently shift from service-oriented to sales-oriented, and turnover tends to rise.
And the founder, the person who carried the customer relationships and the standards in their head, usually leaves within a year or two. When they go, the "personal touch" goes with them, because it was never written down, trained, or built into the system. It was a person.
Customers notice. Some complain. Many, like me, simply leave.
The decision every owner is facing
In these precarious economic times, with rates rising again and buyers flush with capital, most owners of a home services business land in one of two places.
You're deciding to sell, take your money, and move on.
Or you're trying to figure out how to stay competitive when the company down the street just got a surge of cash.
Both are legitimate choices. The mistake is drifting into one without deciding.
Path one: If you sell, sell on your terms
If you're a founder looking to sell, price is only one of the terms that matter. Before you ever take a buyer's call, decide how you want to leave the company and, if you have employees, what you want for them.
Start with your people. Retention bonuses, employment terms, and a share of the upside for key staff can all be negotiated, but only while you still have leverage, which means before the letter of intent is signed.
Diligence the buyer the way they will diligence you. Ask to speak with founders they've already acquired. Ask what happened to staff, pricing and service in the first year. A buyer who won't make those introductions is telling you something.
Then understand that in today's market, more of your price is showing up in earnouts and rollover equity rather than cash at closing. That means the first 100 days after the sale, how your brand transitions, which systems get switched, who stays, will shape what you actually take home. Integration terms belong in the deal, not in a handshake.
Path two: If you stay, compete on what they can't buy
If you want to keep running your company, the good news is that capital can buy trucks, ads and software. It cannot buy the technician who knows every customer's house, or the owner whose name is on the sign and whose phone number customers actually have.
The challenge is making that advantage repeatable. Personal service that lives only in your head doesn't scale and doesn't survive your vacation. Build it into the business: assign named technicians to routes, keep service notes on every home, make follow-up calls a habit rather than a favor.
Then go get the customers the roll-ups are losing. Homeowners like me are actively shopping. Reviews, referrals, local search, and plain "locally owned and operated" positioning are how they find you.
And think about capital differently. Selling 100% is not the only option. Minority investors, employee ownership, or even becoming the local consolidator by buying the neighbor who wants out can give you resources without giving up control.
What's next
Over the next several weeks on LinkedIn, I'll dig into both paths: how to plan an exit that protects your legacy and your people, and how to compete and grow when your competition has deeper pockets. I'll share ideas and strategies from both sides of the deal table so you can decide which road is right for you.
If you're weighing that decision right now, whether you're 12 months from a sale or committed to building for the next decade, I'd welcome the conversation. That is exactly the work we do at PLC Strategies.
Sources
• Private Equity in Home Services: We've Seen This Before (Publicly), Total Repair Pros • Who's Buying Home Services Companies in 2026?, Profitability Partners • PE in Home Services Statistics 2026, CT Acquisitions • Why Private Equity Is Buying Home Services Companies (2026), CT Acquisitions • Roll-Up Strategy 2026, CT Acquisitions • How Private Equity Consolidation Is Changing the Home Services Industry, Catalyst for the Trades