A logo is not a guarantee
The guarantee that wasn't
Different deal, same lesson wearing a disguise. Nice building, ten years of term, a tenant with a name you'd recognize on the sign out front. Everyone assumed the corporate parent stood behind the rent.
They didn't. The guarantee was the franchisee's single-store LLC. One location's bank account, standing behind a long promise. If that one store has a rough couple of years, there's no deep-pocketed parent to make the payment. There's just a struggling operator and your mortgage.
The building was fine. The lease was fine. The guarantee was the whole risk, and it was hiding behind a logo.
What to take from it
Read who actually signed the guarantee, not whose sign is on the roof. A corporate guarantee and a franchisee guarantee are two completely different investments at the same address, and they should never be priced the same.
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