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Thanks so much for the help. I am in Southwest Indiana and he has been talking to the credit unionloan officer where he has his savings and checking. He has 2 years of college and a couple of years working in the business. He has a few people wanting to have him do work for him. He does have a good reputation.

As far as market research, we live in the community so we pretty well know what is around here. There are 3 body shops and two dealers with shops in the county. They are on the west side of the county and this business would be on the east side, so we think he would have a lock on a lot of good business. It is on a major 2 lane highway so he has a lot of exposure. I will look at the links you all have provided.

You know, the more I think about your son the more I wonder why he wants to get in debt. The body shop business is always going to be in demand. He needs:

1. A place to work.

2. Tools.

3. An accounting service.

4. An assistant.

5. What else?

I don't know how it is in Indiana but in Atlanta there are certain parts of town that have body shops, repair shops, etc.

It looks to me like most business is walk in and not loyalty. After all, how often does anyone need non-dealer body work in their lifetimes?

Unless he is going to seek some specialty business like UPS fleet trucks it seems to me that he needs to go as cheap as he can and hang out a sign.

But then again I am not in that business so my advice should be taken with a big grain of salt.

Another thing and I'll shut up. I once bought a newspaper with my partner in the securities business. We thought we were so smart. But in our minds we bought the whole business and when some unknown entity came around looking for payment of some debt we thought we had an obligation to consider payment. WRONG!!

When you buy a business you must be sure you only buy the assets. Leave the liabilities to someone else if you can.

Don't borrow money if you can help it. Good luck.

hope it helps. I'd suggest getting your son on his way to a course to train for ASE cert before you hangs his own shingle out front. Until he is ASE certified, and until he jumps through certain hoops for insurance companies to become certified with the insurance companies, your son should think about trying to work for someone else to avoid the large debt load. (He might be already, which if he is at 21, is a clear reason to start his own shop already). Has your son dealt with enough auto insurance adjusters to know all the hoops? Does he know the local insurance adjusters already? Who controls the local towing contracts, does that tower have a in house body shop, or a guy he refers people out to?

At 21 your son could do a few more years of working for someone, someone who pays all the p&c insurance and health insurance costs, and build up more capital towards this endeavour.

Best of luck.