Elevation Advisory — Christopher Sanz & Carlos Pelaez · Brokered through Index Real Estate
Business Sales & SBA Financing Readiness
Christopher Sanz and Carlos Pelaez help owners and buyers through disciplined valuation, proactive buyer outreach, and lender-style underwriting — including SBA financing readiness that widens the pool of buyers who can actually fund the deal.
A valuation consultation is a conversation with a person — range, readiness, timing, and what a lender will accept. It is not a certified appraisal.
The two-person advantage
Most brokers bring one of these to a deal. Elevation Advisory brings both, and both partners stay on the file through closing.
Carlos Pelaez
Director of Business Sales
Carlos leads with market insight and relationship-driven outreach to connect the right buyers and sellers — efficiently and confidentially. He is the full-time real estate agent at Index and Director of Business Sales on the Treasure Coast.
Christopher Sanz
Founder, Elevation HFC
Christopher brings a deep background in finance, commercial lending, and SBA lending to help ensure the deal is positioned to get to the closing table.
SBA or lending pre-qualification is not a commitment to lend and is subject to lender underwriting and SBA eligibility.
Financing readiness
Prepare a transaction to be financeable and more buyers can say yes.
A buyer who cannot fund is not a buyer. Most of the damage in a failed transaction happens after the letter of intent, when a lender finally reads the file and finds add-backs nobody can support, a balance sheet that will not carry the debt, or a structure the SBA cannot approve.
Elevation Advisory brings that scrutiny forward. Sellers get their earnings tested the way an underwriter will test them, before the market sees anything. Buyers get a financing pathway mapped early instead of discovered at closing. The result is usually a wider pool of buyers who can actually fund, offers with fewer contingencies, and far less drama in the final thirty days.
Christopher does this work for a living on the other side of the table — he leads SBA lending nationally for City National Bank — which is the whole reason the arm can say what a lender will accept before a buyer asks.
How we help
Business sales of every size — with a special focus on the lower middle market — plus the commercial real estate that so often comes with them. Most owners end up needing at least two of these.
For owners
You will most likely sell a business once. The people across the table do it for a living. Representation means someone establishes what your earnings actually are, creates competition for them, and holds the economics together through closing.
For buyers
An acquisition is won or lost on evaluation and structure, not on finding the listing. Representation means a written thesis, a qualified target universe, an honest recast of what you are buying, and financing that survives underwriting.
Buy-side engagements are typically structured as a retainer plus a success fee at closing.
For property
A business sits in a building, and the building is often the second transaction. Licensed Florida commercial real estate — buying, selling, and lease negotiation — handled in the same conversation as the business, not bolted on afterward.
Process
Timeline, goals, and what confidentiality actually has to look like for your situation. Some owners cannot have staff or competitors learn anything; that constraint shapes everything after it.
A first-cut recast of earnings, walked through with your advisor. Add-backs get tested against what a lender will typically accept, not against what would look best. It is where the conversation starts
Financial normalization, documentation, and a package a lender can actually work from. Sellers also get a candid list of the issues worth fixing before the market sees them.
Outreach, screening, and NDAs — paced and confidential. Sellers meet buyers qualified to close; buyers reach owners genuinely willing to sell. Nothing is broadcast.
LOI support through diligence and closing coordination. Value is most often lost in the final third of a transaction, so that is where the process is built to hold it.
Your advisors
Finance, underwriting & lending strategy
Christopher has spent his career in healthcare, commercial and SBA finance and is Director of SBA and National SBA Sales Leader at City National Bank of Florida. The combination is the point: he underwrites these deals for a living and advises on selling them, so he knows which numbers a lender will accept before a buyer thinks to ask.
He advises on business sales of every size — with a special focus on the lower middle market, $5M–$30M in enterprise value — and is a licensed Florida real estate agent.
Market strategy & deal origination
Carlos brings more than two decades of commercial real estate and business brokerage experience, and is the full-time real estate agent at Index and the face of Index on the Treasure Coast. His legal and financial background sharpens his hand in getting acquisition transactions to the closing table.
With a broad footprint across the state, his work spans local transactions to statewide portfolios. He has been involved in more than 275 real estate transactions and closes across a wide range of industries.
Business brokerage runs through Index Business Brokerage, and licensed Florida real estate through Index Real Estate — both divisions of Index Companies, the Jupiter-based commercial real estate group. Elevation Healthcare & Financial Consulting Firm is the affiliated firm on the Elevation side.
Owners and buyers across Florida, with a special focus on the Treasure Coast.
Client portal
After you are invited, sign in to share files and follow the engagement. What comes back is a first-cut review of earnings — a starting point for a conversation with your advisor.
Drop a batch and confirm the folders. Tax returns and a P&L start the pack; a balance sheet is optional. Excel workbooks are fine.
Your advisor starts Analyze when the files are ready. It never runs on its own, and it produces a first cut rather than a certified appraisal.
Revenue, Gross SDE, and a short blurb. The working papers stay with the advisor until there is something worth walking through together.
Contact
Nothing on this page is a listing. A sale or an acquisition starts as a private conversation and should stay that way until you decide otherwise.
Elevation Advisory · Carlos Pelaez(772) 215-3436cpelaez@indexrealestate.com
Already invited? Open the client portal
SBA pre-qualification is not a commitment to lend and is subject to lender underwriting and SBA eligibility. Nothing here is a certified appraisal, a price opinion, or an offer to buy or sell a business or a security. Real estate services are provided through a licensed Florida real estate agent whose license is held at Index Real Estate.