Looking for Guidance..

[Vishesh Shah]

Hello to the Bigger Pockets family, my name is Vishesh from Central NJ. I am 25 and graduated from Rutgers Business School in 2014. Upon graduating, I knew I didn't want to work corporate, a typical 9-5. I knew I had entrepreneurship in my blood. I had saved up some money from internships at J&J and Unilever, sold cars as a side-hustle in college & a took out a bank loan, to purchase a multi-unit Wingstop restaurant franchise development agreement.

I opened my first location in North Brunswick, NJ in October 2015. I opened my second location in New Brunswick, NJ in August 2017 and have two more locations under construction in Bergenfield, NJ and Edison, NJ. We have plans for a total of 10 more restaurants over the next 3 years. 

I also became a franchisee of Orangetheory Fitness in 2016, and opened my first location in April 2017 in North Brunswick, NJ. I am a minority partner in this venture however, to someone who handles all the operations. 

Now with my Wingstop's more streamlined with managers in each store, I want to get started with my real passion - real estate. I already negotiate all my leases and build out all my stores myself, so I love construction and rehabs. I have been reading as much as I can in my free time, books on real estate from Robert Kiyosaki, etc. But I am still unsure on how to truly begin into owning my own properties. 

I am looking for some guidance on how to get started and am really hoping from someone I can learn from. People who can become friends and hopefully I can be an asset to this community. People who have been there before and is willing to share some of his/her expertise to a willing listener. 

Thanks for reading this long post lol, probably the most I've typed since senior year of college. Looking forward tinkering some like-minded people on here and getting to master our true love of real estate. 

[Aaron Mazzrillo]

That 1% rule is a dumb metric someone on this site made up and it has been flowing around like the rule of rental properties. What if your only source of funds is 12%? Guess you'll be losing money every month! 

Do Wing Stops use stand alone sites or are they always in strip malls? You know McDonald's isn't in the hamburger business. The are in the prime corner lot in the city business. Maybe instead of buying dumpy houses you continue with your commercial development endeavors. Seems like you're well versed in that area. Just a thought.

My buddy owns a general contracting company and his company has a contract with a big franchise restaurant to handle all their new construction, redevelopment and maintenance. He owns a very big house and a collection of cars that most people just fantasize about. Building other franchisee's businesses can be potentially very lucrative for you.