Franchise Real Estate
Multi-Unit Franchise Operator Real Estate — Portfolio Strategy
Operating five or more franchise units is a different business than owning one. Site selection is portfolio-driven, lease economics scale across the group, and exit decisions involve packaging units for the right buyer. Summitly works with multi-unit operators across food, fitness, and service categories on the real estate side of their portfolio.
Coldwell Banker Summit Realty, Brokerage (905) 553-8500
What you get
- Portfolio site selection that balances cannibalization and trade area capture
- Lease portfolio reviews to surface renegotiation opportunities at scale
- Sale-leaseback structuring to free capital tied up in real estate
- Multi-unit exit strategy including territory packages and portfolio sales
What Summitly does — and doesn’t
Summitly's franchise practice is run by Coldwell Banker Summit Realty, a real estate brokerage specialising in franchise locations across Canada. We help you secure, hold, and exit the real estate underneath your franchise. We are not a franchise consultant or recruiter.
We handle
- Site search and site approval coordination for your franchise locations
- Commercial lease review, negotiation, and renewal
- Resale brokerage when it’s time to sell — confidential marketing, buyer prequalification, lease assignment
- Coordination with the landlord, lender, lawyer, and franchisor real estate team
We don’t handle
- Franchise applications, brand approval, or franchisor selection criteria
- Training, supply chain, operations, or marketing programs — those stay with the franchisor
- Picking a brand for you — that’s a business decision we’ll respect, not influence
Why multi-unit operators need a specialist
A general commercial broker handles your sites one at a time. A franchise advisor sees the portfolio. We model cannibalization across the group, identify lease renewal arbitrage, and time exits around brand and market cycles. We also have the relationships with national franchisors that matter when you're approaching them as a multi-unit operator rather than a single-unit franchisee.
How we help multi-unit operators
Portfolio review
We map your existing units against trade areas, lease terms, sales performance, and renewal schedules to identify priorities.Expansion site search
We pre-filter new sites against your brand's criteria AND your portfolio's existing footprint to avoid cannibalization.Lease optimization
We negotiate renewals, surrender existing leases where the unit is underperforming, and structure new leases for portfolio efficiency.Capital structures
Sale-leaseback transactions can free 8 to 12 million dollars of trapped capital from a typical 10-unit portfolio. We structure these with institutional buyers.Exit strategy
Whether you sell the portfolio whole, in territory packages, or unit by unit, we structure the process to maximize value.
Who multi-unit operator real estate is for
Operators with 5 to 50+ franchise units in food, fitness, retail, or service. Multi-brand operators expanding within or across categories. Operators considering a sale-leaseback to fund expansion or partial exit. Family office or private equity-backed operator groups. If you have multiple units and real estate is a meaningful piece of your business, this is for you.
Your franchise real estate team
Coldwell Banker Summit Realty — Franchise Real Estate Practice
Coldwell Banker franchise · Licensed in Ontario
Coldwell Banker Summit Realty, Brokerage runs a dedicated franchise real estate practice serving operators across Canada. We handle the operator-side real estate work on franchise deals — securing sites at the start, reviewing and negotiating commercial leases, and brokering the exit when it is time to sell. Backed by the Coldwell Banker brand, an independently owned and operated franchise with deep commercial and residential reach, our team reads a lease the way the operator does, scopes a site the way the franchisor does, and structures the exit the way the buyer will underwrite it.
- Operator-side franchise real estate across food, retail, hospitality, fitness, and service categories
- Site selection, lease review, and lease negotiation aligned to franchisor criteria
- Resale brokerage, location takeovers, new-build site work, and sale-leaseback structuring
- Backed by Coldwell Banker — an established global real estate brand and franchise network
Coldwell Banker Summit Realty, Brokerage (905) 553-8500
Questions
Multi-Unit Franchise Operator Real Estate: common questions
Quick, honest answers to what franchise buyers and sellers ask us most.
Each franchisor has cannibalization tolerance limits, but they don't always model it the way an operator would. We pull your point-of-sale data by postal code or trade area, overlay proposed new sites, and project actual sales impact on existing units. Most multi-unit operators tolerate 5 to 10 percent cannibalization in exchange for trade area capture; some won't tolerate any.
A sale-leaseback is when you sell the real estate you own to an investor and immediately lease it back as the operating tenant. You keep operating; you free up the capital. It makes sense when you own the underlying land or building of a franchise unit and want capital for expansion, partial exit, or shareholder buyouts. Typical proceeds: 8 to 15 times annual rent.
It depends on the size, brand, and buyer market. Single-buyer sales work for portfolios under 10 units when there is an obvious strategic buyer. Territory packages work for larger portfolios when the brand has multiple operators expanding. Unit-by-unit sales work when no single buyer can absorb the whole portfolio. We assess the right structure for each case.
It depends on the engagement. On sale-leaseback, we typically take 2 to 3 percent of the transaction value. On expansion site search, the landlord pays. On portfolio exits, the seller pays a fee scaled to deal size, usually 2 to 5 percent. All fees confirmed in writing before work begins.
Next step
Running a multi-unit operation?
Book a free call. We will look at your portfolio map, lease schedule, and growth plans and tell you where real estate strategy could move the needle.
