Start thinking about these wooden boxes as franchises, would you purchase a McD's, wendy's, or a golds gym.

@Mindy Jensen Here is a straw man answer to the the generic LLC question.  1) If you don't have either a lot of assets in banks, brokerages, or real estate OR a big W-2 income that could be garnished, stop here and don't bother with entities.  2) If you are in California, the minimum franchise tax of $800 per LLC per year makes LLCs an expensive approach to asset protection.  3) If you are buying single family homes and want to get mortgages it is way less expensive to buy and borrow in your own name.  4) If you are still reading this because you are wealthy, live outside of California, and use commercial lenders, then you definitely have a lawyer you can talk to, so why are you asking this on the forum?

What comes to mind for me is a business owner I used to work for who owned a franchise.

On the expense side, we forecast property management, property taxes, state entity franchise taxes, insurance, repairs & maintenance, general/admin, marketing, contract services, payroll, and utilities (which we further break down into common electric, vacant electric, gas, vacant gas, water/sewer, meter reading/submetering, and other utilities).Next, I break down the forecasts quarterly for the ten year projection, then as each quarter passes I track the actual expense for every one of the categories and have a comparison/variance for each one. 

Hello AllThis is sort of a Question and FYI...We got a demand letter to stop using the following phrase on/in ANY content:"we buy houses" (within quotes)within the next 7 days or face legal action from the folks over at webuyhouses(dot)comThis seems to be a common everyday phrase for those of us that are in real estate investment... sort of like the old attempt at putting a trademark on requiring people to pay royalty/fees every time you told and/or sang happy birthday to someone.If this is a valid claim... it will cause a LOT of rewrite and changes:- Content- Website Domain- Website Directory Structure- Business Cards/Documents/Flyers... etc.We have a Real Estate Attorney that we are going to bounce this off of; however, I thought I'd put it out there in case anyone has any past experience and/or feedback/suggestions - or for those that are new, so they don't have to redesign stuff.Just sort of thought it petty... maybe the folks that are buying the franchises, for leads, aren't getting any bites... complaining... and this is their way to try and corner something.:: shrug ::We are already working on alternate phrases, which may actually work out better...Thoughts/Suggestions?

I have used the unit pricing indexes from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to create the algorithm, along with my own experience managing a HomeFixers franchise for over 10 years. 

expect a full reno, easier that way, remove until sub floor, unlikely but maybe even floor joist. don't go in blind, grab the first best quote from these franchise commercial mold remediation companies.

Franchise fast food places are much more of a guaranteed return than a 1 off restaurant.  

For example, imagine that you need $100k to purchase a franchise.

It would be quite a stretch for any person to raise the resources necessary to build a Lexus or a BMW or a Mercedes automobile franchise from scratch.