Would it be wise for a real estate investment club to invest in carwashes securing their investment with carwash assets and real property? Could the revenue stream model of an average fixed site carwash, perhaps a new robotic high tech touch-less carwash, support such an investment? Many a real estate investor has thought here. Indeed even McDonalds is for the most part a real estate company, owning all their own properties right? So it stands to reason that a real estate investment club would ponder buying carwash properties.
Indeed this is being done, however not on a huge scale, but it could be done on a giant scale like McDonalds. Those investing should realize that the car wash equipment is not worth anything once it is used? And the Real estate if it was considered a separate investment and leased to the carwash might be a better long-term play. Two investment groups working together, could make this happen. Kind of like two-divisions of McDonalds, one specializes in the real estate the other make hamburgers and run a franchising company training at Hamburger University. If carwash does not work out, put self-storage on it, after all Public Storages strategy has made them an incredible success.
When the real estate appreciates and is worthy of the investment of a bunch of town homes, a Starbucks or McDonalds, scrape the property, move equipment re-set it up at another best guess for future appreciation location? We must also not forget too the seasonality of car washing and therefore the need to average over 1-2 year period, there are some issues with what you propose, so if the real estate investment club is not flush with cash flow, it could be problematic in slow months. Many a real estate investment club will go hog wild and buy more properties without regards to the absolute need for liquidity and cash flow. Cash flow after all is king and every thing else is BS and should walk.
There are perhaps better types of businesses for such a Real Estate model, however if done correctly, car washes could potentially be a worthy choice. There are a lot of things, which go on in a carwash business. In our country we do not have issues borrowing for equipment, fairly easy to get done thru vendors, so if a Real Estate Investment Club were to do this they may need to run the carwashes themselves in a separate division, as there may not be so many entrepreneurs so ready to sign up. Although the franchise model could also work as it has for McDonalds you see?
A real savvy group of billionaires or the Lloyds of London type group could use this strategy to rock the market and become the McDonalds or Starbucks of carwashes and there is definitely a demand for carwashes. This nation could take another 50,000 carwashes done correctly, convert all the competitors into units under one name and own this market. Sound like a plan? Think on it.
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