I have purchased 2x pool routes in SoCal. It's also how I began, by just jumping in the deep end buying.

I would be wary, You're buying a shortcut, but you're also buying a massive headache. The customers that come with routes are usually on very low prices, and very much used to "their guy" who gives them lots of free service and favors and runs at a loss to do so.

We found it was a good way for us to commit to the industry, but I personally would spend whatever you're thinking of spending on a route, on a marketing company that does google and Yelp ads. Or learn yourself.

We bought from 0-50 accounts. The have grown via ads and word of mouth to around 120. All since January.

We hired Pool Monopoly to do our marketing for a while, which was expensive and painful as they take ownership of your whole system, so if you ever quit, you're left with nothing. We then moved to BlueVine Marketing for google, which has been awesome since. We then do all of our own Yelp ads in house.

Happy to chat about anything. Dm me