Retirement Franchise or Business?

i got certified as a driving instructor.  Not the fun type of driving, taking teens out to prep then for passing the driving test.  Not hard, money is pretty good and I can make my own hours.

My daughter worked at Rita's Italian Ice through high school. To me, that's a typical franchise that anyone could pick up with some money. The owners were great, but the business did not run itself. Every year, they had to recruit and hire new kids to replace the ones who went off to college. Plus, you are dealing with teens, who can be flakey. They loved having my daughter because she had her own car, was reliable, could do math and was good with customers. That can be hard to find. There were supplies to deliver, ads to run, specials to manage, maintenance on the building and machines and of course filling in when employees choose a party over a work shift. They were on-premise most times that I stopped by.  Same goes for my friends who owned a beer distributor, employees are a lot of work. Most franchises are a business, not something to keep you busy in between races.

I met a group of guys once who drove rental cars from the ski resorts in Whistler BC to Vancouver and Seattle. (or the other way, I cant recall)  They drove to the resort, had lunch, then drove back once every few weeks. Not a bad gig.  

WOW!  HUGE OPPORTUNITY JUST PRESENTED ITSELF TO ME!!!!


I've just learned the I too can become a Walmart Greeter.  Great pay and benefits plus irregular hours.

I don't know why I didn't look into this sooner!!!

In reply to carguy123 :

If you're shopping franchises then you know that many require a lot of liquid capital.  Since it seems you have this capital, congratulations.   There are many qualified people who might be good at running a franchise but they lack the liquid capital part.

What about working this liquid capital into your own little Shark Tank opportunity?   This might allow you some percentage of ownership without the deep day to day requirements.   

As an example, when speaking with potential franchise opportunities, like this gym opportunity, see if the main office knows of someone who owns 3 of these currently and wants to open a 4th.  The guy may lack the liquid capital to open the 4th but he has proven that he is successful with the program.  Write some paper that puts you in a position of partial ownership with some self protections in exchange for your liquid capital.   Have that written paper provide you with an exit strategy. 

In reply to John Welsh :

I really like that idea. 

You have experience in real estate I think I read back there. Not sure how much capital you are going to start with but what about hard money lending?  There are a lot of people that can do the work that are always looking for funding for deals.

In reply to John Welsh :

I hadn't thought of that and I might have the right guy too, the guy who turned me onto this and owns 2 now.

In reply to jgrewe :

Yeah, 47 years experience.  I'd thought about that but it didn't land in the top 10 spot.  I have a friend who does it, but I'd have to be pickier than him because he's always having troubles.

A little new info for those that are following.

I got some hard numbers for a Gym/Workout Center franchise.  It's a minimum of $150,000 - $175,000 out of pocket (and that includes build out and equipment costs) but that will ensure you a $9,000-$11,000 equipment loan bill.  It's $450,000-$700,000 (depending upon the size of your building) is you want to pay for the equipment outright.

For this you will get somewhere in the neighborhood of a $10,000-$20,000 net profit -after you've paid yourself and everyone a salary.  So not the best of returns,, but not totally shabby.  I am going to look at a couple of branches books next week.

A storage facility is looking  better and better.  I'd really like to talk to those of you who own a storage facility.

I've been retired for 7+ years now and frankly don't know how I got everything done before I retired. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day.

In reply to 67LS1 :

Yeah, retiring to do nothing just isn't possible for us.  We'd be crazy before a week was up.  We can't even take a vacation for longer than a week.

BUT if I did my hobbies full time when retired I'd need a job to be able to pay for it all

In reply to carguy123 :

Yeah, I get it. I was scared of being bored too. But between doing all of things I used to pay someone to do while I worked, traveling, grandkids, hobbies and such, my wife and I have to coordinate our calenders so nothing gets missed.

Your experiences will undoubtedly be different than mine so all I can say is best of luck in whatever your next chapter turns out to be. 

carguy123 said:

I got some hard numbers for a Gym/Workout Center franchise.  It's a minimum of $150,000 - $175,000 out of pocket (and that includes build out and equipment costs) but that will ensure you a $9,000-$11,000 equipment loan bill.  It's $450,000-$700,000 (depending upon the size of your building) is you want to pay for the equipment outright.

For this you will get somewhere in the neighborhood of a $10,000-$20,000 net profit -after you've paid yourself and everyone a salary.  So not the best of returns,, but not totally shabby.  I am going to look at a couple of branches books next week.

Assuming you could match the salary with a working-for-someone-else job, the best-case ROI looks like 20k on 450k? 4.44% yield isn't bad, but I would think in many markets you could exceed that buying and renting out a single-family home.

We're hoping that the vacation rental market where our current rental cabin is and where the property we bought earlier this year in another vacation area remains strong enough for us to just rely on the rental income from the cabin and the rental house we're in the planning stages to build on the other property. If things work out reasonably well, we'll build and move into a smaller place in the city we currently live in once our current house is paid off and will split our time between the three properties. 

I had considered the self-storage unit idea- when we were in the process of moving and I still had the El Camino, I rented a garage-type unit in a building about 20 minutes away in one of the smaller towns around our city. It had power and lights and I could work on the car there; the guy in the unit next to me ran a auto detailing business out of his (it had a bathroom and water), and at least a few other people stored and worked on cars in theirs (at least one local racing team included). I thought that would be a neat place to own and run- I got really lucky when I got my unit there since there was usually a waiting list for people who wanted to rent them.

In reply to paddygarcia :

I left one thing out of my previous statement, it's $10,000-$20,000 per month

In reply to carguy123 :

Plus taking home your own salary, yes?