Buying a Leased Property?

I’ve got some residential property and would like to venture into commercial.

I’ve got 2 questions:

  1. There seems to be opportunities to buy things like nationally known free-standing restaraunts (like Starbucks, Olive Garden, etc.) with 5 and 10 year leases with rent increases built in. So it would seem that if you buy something like that, you’ve got pretty much guaranteed income for those 5 years. The only catch seems to be that these properties seem to be priced 2x to 3x of the $/sq ft then unleased properties. Anyone have experience with deals like this? Who usually buys this stuff?

  2. As for financing, I don’t have much cash, but own my rentals outright (don’t ask). Is it common to borrow against the equity in the rentals to finance, or at least provide a down payment, for the larger loan for the commercial property. Assuming the numbers work, is this kind of thing ever done?

Thanks for any advice! Looking forward to someday quitting the day job someday.