How Childcare Centres Are Actually Sold: EOI, Private Treaty or Off-Market
The method you use to sell your childcare centre decides three things before a single buyer walks through the door: who finds out you are selling, how hard buyers compete against each other, and how quickly you reach an unconditional contract. Most owners never make that decision — they take whatever process their agent runs by default. That is the wrong way round.
There is no universally “best” sale method. There is only the method that fits what you most need to protect. Get that match right and the process works for you. Get it wrong and you either leak your sale to the staffroom or leave money on the table.
Three Levers, and You Can’t Pull All of Them
Every sale method is a different setting on the same three dials: confidentiality, competitive tension, and speed and certainty. The catch is that they trade off against each other.
Confidentiality means how few people know your centre is for sale. In childcare this matters more than in almost any other business — the moment staff, families, and rival operators sense a sale, educators update their résumés, parents start touring the centre down the road, and your occupancy (the number a buyer pays most for) starts to soften. We cover why leaks are so damaging, and how to run a discreet process, in our guide to confidentiality in childcare centre sales.
Competitive tension means how directly buyers are pushed to bid against one another. The more buyers who feel they are in a race, the higher and cleaner the offers tend to be.
Speed and certainty means how fast you get to an unconditional contract, and how confident you are it will settle. A quiet deal with one motivated buyer can be quick; a wide campaign takes weeks to run but flushes out the strongest bidder.
The four ways childcare centres change hands each dial these three settings differently.
Private Treaty: Sell by Negotiation, at a Price
Private treaty — sometimes called sale by negotiation — is the method most Australians know from residential real estate. The centre is listed with an asking price or a guide, and interested buyers submit offers that open a negotiation. You accept the one you like, or you keep negotiating.
Its strength is control. You set the reference price, you decide who to deal with, and you can take your time. For a smaller leasehold centre, or a business where the owner has a clear number in mind and a thin buyer pool, private treaty is often the sensible choice.
Its weakness is the price tag itself. A published price becomes a ceiling as often as a floor — few buyers offer above a number you have already told them you will accept. And a listed price with the centre’s details attached is the least confidential option of the four, because the advertisement effectively announces the sale.
ChildcareLink Insight: The single most common mistake in a private-treaty childcare sale is anchoring the guide to the owner’s stated (unadjusted) earnings rather than the adjusted figure a buyer will actually model. Price it on the number the market pays on, not the number you wish it paid on — otherwise every offer arrives below your guide and the campaign stalls before it starts. |
Expressions of Interest: Set a Deadline, Invite the Best Offer
An Expression of Interest (EOI) campaign flips the pricing problem. Instead of naming a price, you market the centre for a set period — commonly around five to six weeks — and invite buyers to submit their best written offer by a nominated closing date. Offers are private: each buyer knows there is competition but not what anyone else has bid.
This is the workhorse method for a well-performing childcare business or a quality freehold investment, and for good reason. The deadline manufactures urgency, the absence of a guide price lets a motivated buyer reveal what the asset is genuinely worth to them, and the blind format keeps individual bids confidential. A national EOI campaign on a strong centre can close with several formal offers on the table — Stonebridge, for example, has reported campaigns generating multiple written offers with an unconditional buyer emerging shortly after the deadline.
The trade-off is effort and exposure. An EOI still runs as an advertised campaign, so it is more public than an off-market approach, and it demands a properly prepared information pack, a disciplined enquiry process, and a vendor willing to hold their nerve until the deadline. It rewards a centre that is genuinely sale-ready — which is exactly what our guide to preparing your childcare centre for sale is built to get you to.
Off-Market: A Quiet Word to the Right Buyers
An off-market sale never hits the public listings. Your advisor takes the opportunity directly to a shortlist of qualified, motivated buyers — established operators expanding their footprint, funds, and known investors — usually behind a confidentiality agreement before any identifying detail is released.
For childcare, the appeal is obvious: it is the most confidential method by a distance. Staff and families never see an advertisement, competitors never circle, and you can test the market’s appetite without committing to a full public campaign. It also suits owners who value a clean, low-fuss process over squeezing out the last dollar.
The cost of that discretion is reach. A shortlist of buyers is, by definition, a smaller pool than an open campaign, and a smaller pool usually means less competitive tension. Off-market works best when the buyer universe for your centre is naturally narrow and well-known — a large metro freehold that only a handful of funds can afford, or a centre in a tightly held pocket — or when confidentiality genuinely outranks price on your list of priorities.
ChildcareLink Insight: Off-market does not mean “no competition.” A good advisor runs a controlled off-market process among several credible buyers at once — the discretion is in keeping it off the public record, not in dealing with only one party. If you are only ever shown a single buyer, you are not running an off-market campaign; you are negotiating with whoever knocked first. |
Auction: The Investment-Grade Freehold Exception
The fourth method belongs mainly to freehold investment stock rather than operating businesses. Childcare properties with a long lease to a solid tenant are routinely sold at portfolio auctions, where investors bid openly for a passive income stream. The results can be strong: Burgess Rawson from CBRE, for instance, reported transacting $241.6 million of childcare assets across FY2024–25, headlined by a record $151 million portfolio auction in December 2025 (as reported by The Sector and Commo). Metro freehold centres in that market have been trading on tight yields — we break down what those cap rates mean in our guide to childcare cap rates.
Auction maximises transparent competitive tension for the right asset, but it is public, date-certain, and unforgiving if the room is thin. It rarely suits the sale of a childcare business with goodwill, staff, and occupancy risk baked in — that is EOI or off-market territory. Whether you are selling the operation, the property, or both changes the method as much as anything, which is the distinction we draw out in business only vs business and freehold.
Matching the Method to Your Centre
Start from your top priority, not the method:
- Confidentiality above all (a sale that must not reach the staffroom): off-market first, a tightly run EOI second. Avoid a priced public listing.
- Maximum price on a strong, in-demand centre: EOI, to build tension without capping the number. Auction only if it is an investment-grade freehold.
- A clear price in mind and a small, known buyer pool: private treaty, for the control it gives you.
- Speed and a clean settlement over the last dollar: a targeted off-market approach to a motivated buyer you already know can perform.
And the honest counsel that matters most: none of these methods rescues a centre that is not ready to be sold. A public EOI campaign on a business with messy financials, a short lease tail, or a slipping compliance rating will simply broadcast those weaknesses to the whole market and hand buyers a discount. If your centre is not yet sale-ready, the right first move is not choosing a method — it is fixing what a buyer will find. The end-to-end sequence, from grooming to settlement, is laid out in our complete guide to selling your childcare centre.
The Method Is a Lever You Control
Choosing how to sell is not paperwork you delegate to the agent’s habit — it is the first strategic decision of the whole campaign, and it should follow from what you most need to protect. Decide whether confidentiality, competitive tension, or speed matters most for your centre, then pick the method that serves it. That single choice, made deliberately, shapes the price, the timeline, and how quietly the sale gets done.
Thinking about selling your childcare centre and not sure which process fits? Talk to ChildcareLink for a confidential, no-obligation conversation about the right sale method for your centre. Visit childcarelink.com.au or contact our team directly.
Sources
- Domain, “Auction, private treaty or expression of interest: which is the best strategy?” — general method definitions
- Nelson Alexander / LJ Hooker — methods of sale explained (private treaty, EOI, off-market), 2025–2026
- Stonebridge Property Group — off-market and blind-marketing practice in childcare; EOI campaigns generating multiple formal offers, 2024–2026
- The Sector, “Record-breaking $151m Burgess Rawson from CBRE auction,” December 2025
- Commo, “Demand for childcare assets intensifies,” Burgess Rawson from CBRE FY24–25 turnover, 2025
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. ChildcareLink recommends seeking independent professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances before making any business or investment decisions.
