Self Storage Investment Articles

Nothing can make or break your deal more than improper negotiation. You can do the greatest analysis and have terrific operational skills but you’ll never own a storage property if you can’t agree to a price the seller will sign the contract at. So what are the main skill sets required to be a great negotiator?

With the New Year upon us, there’s little time to waste if your goal is to acquire a self-storage facility in 2020. But it’s one thing to talk about it, and another to actual do it. When approaching something as significant as buying a storage property, there’s an established play book that has very concrete, sgte-by-step directions, if you will simply follow what others have learned over the years. So what are the steps?

One thing is for sure about self-storage facilities: they are extremely stable investments. They have very consistent revenues and very high levels of success. But why is that? There are four main reasons.

Most Americans are conditioned to believe that the prettier the real estate asset, the more money it generates. This is normally true, in asset classes ranging from apartments to hotels to retail centers. However, it’s not always the case in the self-storage sector – and that’s a good thing for many investors. So why do ugly self-storage facilities often outperform that pretty ones?

The U.S. economy is in anarchy. The stock market is plunging, oil is collapsing, and world markets are in jeopardy. So where can you invest in a troubled world? The answer is self-storage.

The U.S. economy is in anarchy. The stock market is plunging, oil is collapsing, and world markets are in jeopardy. So where can you invest in a troubled world? The answer is self-storage.

Frank gives examples of fixable vacancy and unfixable vacancy in self storage units.

Frank tells you an insider secret on buying self storages that are priced above the current value but have potential.

There is a ton of bad information out there on the self-storage or mini-storage industry. Contrary to what you may read, there is virtually no money in building new facilities or buying them at a 7% cap rate. If you really want to make money in self-storage, you have to put in significantly more work, and follow a different game plan entirely. Buying an established facility with good occupancy at market rents will not lead to great riches ' only endless concern over making the note payment. The way to success is much more basic.

Buying a self-storage facility is a lot harder than you think - particularly if you want to make money with it. Over the years, there are some basic traits that separate winning facilities from losers. And that genetic code is hard to break.

There is urban legend going around, created by some "gurus" trying to sell their books, that you can manage an entire self-storage facility from a "kiosk", basically a walk-up automated teller like an ATM machine. Although the concept of having a "robot" manage a self-storage facility is attractive from a cost-savings and low management perspective, it is, unfortunately, a fantasy with about as much practicality as the photon torpedo out of Star Trek.

Over the years, I’ve worked with all kinds of investors…from those just starting out with their very first commercial investment, to CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies developing large parcels of raw land into mega malls. One thing holds true…most of them don’t know the first thing about their credit reports or how to use them.

It seems all we talk about these days is ‘the competition’ and how to beat them. From board games to reality TV, the concept has never been more prevalent in modern culture. But when does quality come into play?

Sometimes, borrowers have the best of intentions but lack the industry expertise to swiftly navigate the ebb and flow of the market’s products. There is a certain foresight one develops that affords a seasoned loan officer to provide expert advice coupled with current product knowledge to produce a closing which benefits both the bank and the borrower.