Week 35 of Self Employment

Week 35 of Self Employment:
Storage Garages of Hudson: As you can see from the pictures, we had a lot of progress on Building 3 at Storage Garages of Hudson. Very excited to have the newest building up. We have a few more doors to install next week but at a minimum, we have a few rentable units. We need final inspection anyhow, so we can wait a few days if needed. We were hoping to get the wiring for our exterior lighting run so we don't need to get into the units after that. That way tenants can occupy the space (and therefore lock their doors) and we don't need to get into the unit to do any work. Simple, yes. Did I learn this the hard way? Also a 'yes'.

Houlton Storage Garages: We had a busy week at Houlton Storage Garages. We got the gates working and operational and programmed both gates with each individual tenant's passcodes. A bit of a tedious, yet rewarding, process. Our gates are going to be open from 6 am to 7 pm and then closed after hours. This is exciting as it feels like it "completes" the facility.
Speaking of "completing the facility", our security contractor got started on the camera system. This resulted in many trips to and from the site for seemingly nominal tasks. I can't say I'm upset with the contractor but I'll definitely understand the process a lot better next time around. It is part of the learning experience, after all. The cool thing is that we'll have 9 cameras at the facility that will be accessible from our mobile device or home computer. It's less about security and more about catching nefarious activity, especially the mystery dents in doors, siding, trim, etc. We've already experience our fair share of strange dents. It will be easy for us to determine who the culprit is in the future.
We also gave out our annual holiday chocolates from Seroogy's to our tenants. It isn't much but it really gives us joy to show our tenants (at least a little bit) how much we appreciate them. So in addition to programming gates and camera installation, I got to play Santa's little helper and deliver our holiday gifts. I sure hope we can always do this for our yearly-lease tenants. They really mean a lot to us.

Other news: We are constantly looking for more properties to build or buy. I keep hoping we'll find something prior to 2019 but time is starting to run out. In the meantime, we are trying to exercise patience. With all the to-do about the economy collapsing, we're going to be a little more selective about acquiring quality assets. Whether that happens in what's left of 2018 or in 2019, we will sleep easier knowing we waited for the right opportunity.

Week 34 of Self Employment - I'm a Star!

Week 34 of Self Employment:
We are starting to breath easier around here for a number of reasons. Houlton Storage Garages' Building 5 is officially in the books (after having to label the breaker boxes and get paperwork in to the building inspector for the State plan review of the heaters). Building 5 is officially rented up but we still have a few units left to rent in the rest of the facility, 3 to be exact. All is well, however.
We got our gates powered up and figured out for the most part, next week we'll have to punch in all of the gate codes for the tenants and send those out. Nothing difficult, just a little tedious.
The week came and went without fixing the last 4 dawn to dusk lights. Maybe next week? I've been saying this for over 1.5 years. I think it's about time to get this right. The good news is that only 4 remain. The bad news is that 4 still remain.
We are still waiting for Xcel to install a meter for unit 1F so we can count it as an official unit. It's currently hotwired off of unit 1E so the power and lights work. That too saw the week come and go (for the 8th week in a row).
Installation on the security system was supposed to start but we ended up waiting most of the week for the locating the underground utilities. Let's see what next week entails.
We got some really good news regarding our funding. We found out that we had a sizeable amount of money left on the construction loan that we were able to take as an interest paid expense. The nice thing is that we more than made up for the quite substantial unplanned down payment expense for Building 5. So that is great. With tax season around the corner and other properties we're looking at, it's great to know we have some additional buffer. It was a much better Christmas gift than the Jelly of the Month Club.

Storage Garages of Hudson is finally getting some serious progress made. Building 3 is going up fast. See the pictures for progress. This all went up in 1 week (5 days). The contractor definitely deserves and attaboy on this one. They caught right up. Let's see if they can knock it out in Week 2.
Other items at SGH are scheduling to have the electrician get wiring complete for Building 3 so it's ready to rent at any time. We just want to make sure they don't need to get into any units once the tenants have moved in.
One thing we were worried about at this site was plowing with the gravel parking lots. We got our first plowable snowfall and the plow guys did pretty well. We'll likely have to pick a little gravel out of the landscaping but that's almost to be expected. Especially with gravel parking lots. But we got through it and it should be pretty well glazed over for future snowfalls.
I'm sorry to report we didn't get a bunch of money back from this property. I guess you can't win them all!

Other: I continue to look at properties, far and wide. I have some promising ones but they probably aren't going to pop anytime real soon. As many may know or notice, prices on real estate are at an alltime high. For me that mainly means that I just have to search harder for reasonable deals. Not to mention a lot of people are holding onto their cash flowing properties so not much is really for sale in the warehouse space. In the meantime I continue to network and knock on doors of properties that I think might fit into our business plan. Deals are out there, I just have to work a little harder to find them.

I'm officially a mentor for SelfStorageInvesting.com . That's pretty fun for me. I'm looking forward to taking on my first mentee/student. I think they're going to use me in the role of self storage developer to hopefully assist the clients in getting their new building/facility built. This will start around the first of the year. I really look forward to being a part of this community. I'm also going to take advantage of their events as much as possible. I'll likely give more details on this as I get more involved after the first of the year.

And lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Gretchen Heinen's podcast came out last week in which I talk about Angie and my road to self employment. If this sounds intriguing, definitely give it a listen.

Link to podcast: Net Worth It Podcast

Weeks 32 and 33 of Self Employment - Life of a Self Storage Developer

Week 32 and 33 of Self Employment: Due to the short Thanksgiving week, I saved my latest update for this week.

Houlton Storage Garages: We are still trying to wrap up the last few items in Houlton. We are waiting for the electrician to fix a few light sensors for the exterior lighting. This has taken too long. Hopefully we can wrap that up soon. We had the gates fully wired up so we'll have active gates very soon. They close on their own and seem to work properly, we just need to dial in the vehicle detection for free exits. Also we need to set up the punch codes for opening the gates after hours.
We are now just waiting for the state review on the heaters for Building 5. Still a couple weeks out. I expect this to be a non-event, frankly. But it's part of the process.
We also needed some final paperwork for the inspection agency to sign off on Building 4 and Building 5. We got them the information. B4 is all good but apparently they didn't sign off on B5 so we still need a final, final inspection.
On a side note, we installed gutters on the north facing buildings that struggle with the freeze thaw cycle. The sun warms the roof, the snow melts, it drips down onto the shaded area on the north side of the building and freezes. By installing gutters we hope to minimize that dripping and freezing issue. So far so good. The south facing buildings have the benefit of the sun warming up the ground and dripping so the ground tends to stay clear. We may add them in the future but budget only allowed for the north facing buildings this year. Plus, it's acting as a test case to a certain degree. So far, so good.
We've been trying to add a security system to our property. We selected a contractor. I think Thanksgiving week got a little too busy and things didn't happen fast enough and frost set in. We decide to change to a contractor that will be able to deal with the frost and get out system installed this year. This will be great to get installed. 9 cameras and full coverage of the parking lots. No more mystery damage to doors and buildings that no one knows anything about (sure.....).

Storage Garage of Hudson: We are still waiting to start Building 3 (our second building) in Hudson. Our contractor has been slow to get back to our facility. We are approaching 5 weeks (it was supposed to be 2 weeks) and we've let them know that we are running out of patience. Hopefully they take our concerns to heart and figure out a way to get back to our facility. Good news is that materials have been delivered as of Friday, Nov 30th. That is a step in the right direction. But they were supposed to be there on Thursday. Which would have still been 4 weeks late. Anyhow, we're working through this. Other than this latest issue, they've treated us very fairly so we're hoping this doesn't erode our relationship any further. But we do have a lot of money tied up in our down payment for materials which we're paying interest on. That is no bueno.
I shoveled snow and cleared ice from the slab a couple times over the past two weeks to keep it clear for construction. Another issue with the schedule getting pushed back is that temps will get colder and colder. That typically means that snow and ice is harder and harder to remove. If there is ice in the units and the roof gets installed, the sun will not be able to melt the ice and snow in the units which will render them unrentable. That too is no bueno. If that were to occur, we would be making interest payments on the down payment and the final payment without additional revenue to cover those payments. Anyway, we're trying to be as smart as possible about expenses vs. revenue.
We were looking at doing security cameras at the same time as Houlton but as discussed earlier, we ran out of time to trench in wires. We could potentially run the cameras over the existing electrical wiring but there is no guarantee that will work. Because of that, we decided to skip it until next year when we can trench and install dedicated wiring. Also, our electrical contractor didn't fix the electrical wiring that was hit by the grading contractor before it was buried. That gave me pause too. Mainly because the integrity of the wiring may have been compromised and it'll likely need to get fixed/adjusted in spring anyhow. I'd prefer to not have two systems (electrical and cameras) to fix at the same time.

Border Properties LLC: We are strongly considering adding buildings to our property in Prescott, WI. The land is already there and that means we just need to do the grading and add the building.

Other: Looked at a nice storage facility near my grandparent's cottage while I was home for Thanksgiving weekend. I really liked the facility but after accounting for management, facility maintenance, and an uptick in property taxes, I just felt like my offer was going to be really far away from the asking price. Rather than offend the selling party with what might appear as a lowball offer, we decided to walk away.
Looking at some other interesting properties. Hopefully we'll go into the new year with a new project on the schedule. Either way, we'll exercise patience and wait for something that fits into our investment strategy.

Week 31 of Self Employment:

This week wasn't nearly as stressful as week 30 was. I was actually able to stop and think about things a bit and no additional wrenches were thrown into the machine.
Houlton Storage Garages: We finally got all of Building #5 wired and ready for electricity. Xcel was able to install the meters for all the units but we still haven't had them (it's a different crew, naturally) run the main power to our meter panel. So that means we have everything wired, but no power. Sort of ironic.
We are still awaiting running the power to our north and south entrance gates. That should be fun to have the gates fully operational and get our keypads set up for overnight security purposes. We haven't had any issues so far (knock on wood) other than a random burnout or two (the kind that come from tires, not the type of person). I do want to get them up before someone has a little too much fun and puts a car into a building.
We are also awaiting our new security system. Not sure what happened to our security person. We may be forced to go a different route if they can't get their stuff together. This relationship isn't starting off on the right foot. Maybe I'm giving them too much rope.
Two interesting notes about developing your own properties. 1.) When you start a project, everyone wants their say and everyone wants to sign off on the project. 2.) When you complete a project, those same people want to have a say and sign off on your project. However, none of them are reachable. This makes running a business hard. I feel like I'm a total pain in the butt when I continue to hound people to get simple reviews. Not sure what else I can do. I don't want to be "that guy" any more than I already am. I'll continue to send a weekly "ping" to try to get my final sign offs.
Occupancy is a bit more qualitative than it is quantitative. Let me explain. We only have one unit available right now. We have also completely rented up Building 5 which is not 100% finished yet. However, we have two current renters who are going to move out of their current units to occupy Building 5 space. So that means we will have 3 open units as of December 1st. Still a great situation but it feels awkward saying we have 3 units open when we only have 1 that is immediately available. Either way, it's all good.
We had some last minute shifting to perform in order to accommodate some tenants. An existing tenant decided against the new unit he was going to move into. Therefore, we had to rent the new unit to the person who was going to rent the existing tenant's space (at a discount, which is really the only true negative of the situation) but was waiting for him to move out. Confused? So were we. It took only slightly less than a million texts and phone conversations to get all of the swaps right for getting tenants into Building 5. In the end, it'll all work out. It's just funny how very little of our initial plans ever ends up actually working out when we build a new building. Let me tell you, it's a great opportunity to get to know your new tenants, however. And that's always fun for me.

Storage Garages of Hudson: Wednesday came and went and no pavement was laid down. That officially puts an end to any dreams I had of paving our main entrance road and in between Buildings 1 and 3. I spent a couple days shoveling off the concrete pad for Building 3 in hopes that there wouldn't be much ice built up. We still have a few small bird baths on the slab that have ice in them, but overall, I think we can build the new building as necessary. Contractor is looking to start the building the week after Thanksgiving. I hope that actually happens. It is interesting when you're full. On one hand, it's great to be full. On the other hand it totally stinks to have to tell a potential renter than you don't have anything for them. I feel like that's bad business. We try to cross-sell to a certain degree, but most people want what they want (and I totally get it).
We got going on creating a space for a rental office. Mainly it will be an opportunity for us to have a warm place for people to sign lease agreements and such at the facility. People always want to see their unit and drive around, but it will be so nice to have a place to sit down and take our time. Winter tends to put a rush on the rental process and I always feel guilty having renters rush in and out.

Border Properties LLC: Our renters are awesome. Next.

Other: I've had some fun selling some snow plows and other items for friends this past week. I've put a few plows on trucks in the past and therefore I've come to know a thing or two about them. I'm no expert, but I have a good idea of what things go for. My friends wanted to get rid of his equipment, he left some meat on the bone, as they say, and I had some free time to list them for him. It took about 2 weeks but we got those sold. I love Craigslist. I feel like I'm getting pretty decent at weeding out the tire kickers. I also love the single line texts: Will you take $1,000 cash for your $2,000 item? Craigslist tip - only negotiate in person. That way both parties are willing and able to buy the item. Way too many people who live 3 hours away offer me 1/2 price (IN CASH - like I'd take anything else) and then have no way to get to or pay for the item. Seriously.... Buyers are buyers, they rarely have a story and they always have a plan for picking up the item and have money for the item. I'm not sure if my Craigslist etiquette is proper or not, but I'm just flat out asking buyers before they show up if they will have the cash with them. Again, buyers rarely have a story other than, "yes, I do".
I also rented out my frost blankets that I purchased on Craigslist for another week. It was the same renter but hey, I made a few more bucks on the deal. Fun stuff. OMG, this post is starting to feel like an episode of Pickers. I'll stop.
Lastly, I set up a showing for a self storage facility over Thanksgiving weekend. I'm excited to check it out. I hope I can work out a deal. If not, we have a few other things in the hopper but nothing imminent. It also looks like I'll start mentoring Self Storage students around the first of the year. I'm definitely looking forward to that too. Bye for now.

Week 30: Self Employed, Self Storage

This was the most hectic week we've had being self employed. So much happened and didn't happen. Crazy. Winter happened, and therefore many other things DIDN'T happen. Here we go:
Storage Garages of Hudson: Building 5 in Hudson isn't going to happen. Paving isn't going to happen. Had some not so friendly discussions with pavers. You know how this goes....everyone thinks it's everyone else's fault. We'll both get over it. Our grading contractor touched up the driveways and added gravel to the parking/driving area in front of Building 5.
Got a call from our concrete contractor: the concrete floors on Building 5 aren't going to happen this year. Too much frost and cold weather. I talked with the builders and they aren't going to be able to build Building 5 this winter without the floors. Basically, the crosswalls that divide up the units add rigidity to the structure. Without them, we risk the building falling down. Without the slab poured, no crosswalls. No bueno.
Fence guys got starting in Hudson. They got stuck in the sand. I had to laugh a little but I think Karma bit me in the rear - they are slightly behind schedule but they should get everything wrapped up prior to hard-winter arriving.
It looks like we are still a couple weeks out before Building 3 will get constructed. Everyone is busy, busy. With the snow on the slab, it's probably good they can't start construction right now. Hopefully we get some warm weather to melt the snow off before they start the building. Once that roof goes up, no sun hits the slab which makes melting snow almost impossible.
The good news in Hudson: We're FULL! Hurray. That took a little longer than I thought but progress nonetheless. Now we're chomping at the bit to get Building 3 up (our 2nd building).

Houlton Storage Garages: Waiting game. We're waiting on electrician to finish up the units (for the 3rd straight week) and we're waiting on Xcel to get the power run to the new building (for the 3rd straight week). Heaters are in, insulation is blown into the ceiling and everything is a go otherwise. Just got a little electrical problem.... I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but this building is already full. Oh wait, we might have one unit available. We have had a couple people back out on moving into the new building and we just had a little confusion in the mix. No problem as we still have a little waiting to do on the electrical. I don't see a problem with getting things rented up, however.

Other: So I bought some frost blankets for keeping concrete warm in the cold weather. I bought them to rent out and to add a little more excitement. We rented them out the first week things got cold and that paid for the blankets. Hopefully we can keep them rented. The cold weather has definitely added some interest. It's $70/week which isn't much, of course, but it was a little bit of an experiment. I don't really have a way to prosecute someone who doesn't bring them back so I'm going to see how much faith in humanity I have after this whole process. So far so good. If this experiment goes well, I may look for other items to rent out via Craigslist. Buy cheap, and rent out. Kind of a silly side hobby at this point.
Other than that, we've been selling every imaginable item laying around the house that we don't have a need for. This has been fun too. No, we're not broke (yet) but we've also come to realize that so many things have value that we aren't using or taking advantage of.
Oh, and I'm looking for a new fun car. Angie was sort of supportive when I told her (she didn't throw anything at me, so that means she's fine with it), so I've started the search. I'm mostly worried about Summer Nationals coming to St. Paul in June and me not having a car to autocross. I know, stupid, right? Not everything can make sense!
And we're also still looking for another property. We put a bid on WisDOT surplus property in Hudson, WI but we were outbid. We also planned on putting a bid on a tax delinquent property in Florida, but that got redeemed. I really want to take down another maxi-storage facility in the Twin Cities. We are officially on the prowl!

Week 29 of Self Employment

Finished a fun railroad track evaluation consulting gig. That was a lot of fun and the client was very happy with the report and analysis. I hope they're able to put it to good use. This made for a super busy week but it was fun to keep the railroad juices flowing a little longer. I'm working on some additional services that I hope to unveil in the next few weeks. I'm hoping to assist facilities with track in getting better, more complete estimates from their contractors. Comparing apples to apples is the easiest way to get good pricing and evaluate repair costs.

Houlton Storage Garages LLC: See the pics. I mean, c'mon, this place is looking good! Haha. Building 5 is making good progress and we should have the overhead doors up next week. The GREAT news is that we're 100% full (everytime I say something like this, I get slabbed across the face, but I'm going to say it again)! We do have a few folks moving from existing units so the good news is that we'll have a few units still available, but as soon as we have units done, people will be able to start moving in!
As an actual update, we got our building complete (except for garage doors), our driveway paved, our heaters in, out fence gate mechanism run, and a solid start on the electrical. Should be wrapping up next week.

Storage Garages of Hudson: We got the footing in for Building 5 (our 3rd building) and the frost walls poured. I had to strip the footings (2"x12"x16' lumber is heavier than I remembered) to allow for the concrete guys to get in there and knock out the walls sooner. The frost walls were poured and things are looking to fall into place for getting the road paved into and between Buildings 1 and 3 if we can get the foundation backfilled early next week.
We currently have 2 more units left but that tells me that we're ready for the next building. We still have quite a bit of interest. Honestly, I think having our pavement done will dress things up and convince a few more people to pull the trigger. I can appreciate that some people want the cleanliness of pavement. Soon, real soon!

Other: Updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect my railroad consulting services. I figure if someone is searching LinkedIn, I better make it easier for them to find me.

I'm also working through my training materials to act as a self storage investment mentor. With the other things that I had going, on that was temporarily slowed down. Back at it next week.

Week 28 Update - Self Storage, Self Employment

Nothing new happened.
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Just kidding. Exciting week.
Houlton Storage Garages - Building 5 is about 75% done. Exterior steel and 1/2 of the interior steel and insulation is up. We are waiting on three pieces of siding, a window and a service door to finish up the exterior. That won't take much. Spent a good part of the week chasing down paving contractor to get on their schedule, burying conduit for security system, talking through security options with a security guy (boy did I give him the run around, we are such amateurs!), getting conduit run for the gate sensors, and lining up a couple of renters. The heated building is clearly in demand. I think we have 5 units (or 7) rented already and lots of tire kickers. Eventually tire kickers turn into renters so I feel quite fortunate. We also had a two of our large units rent this week too. So, as we sit now, we have 1 unit left but once our Building 5 is up, we'll have a few current renters move into the new units and that will open up a few existing units. It's going well, however.

Hudson Storage Garages - The concrete guys finished up the slab on Building 3 (2nd building) and dropped in a footing for Building 5 (3rd building - I know, confusing....). They aren't going to get to the frost wall and slab on B5 soon enough so we're bringing in the relief pitcher on this one. Hopefully they're a hard throwing lefty. I gotta crank this thing out before winter so we can get our pavement in out to the road. Just want to make it easier to plow and fresh blacktop melts snow fast too. Two rights make a bigger right. We did have an issue. Just got done running our power for lights in Building 1. There was a very visible trench where the conduit and wires were run. Told excavating contractor to warn the crew. Manager warned the crew. Crew still hit the conduit and wire. Let's try this again! ;) Sometimes it just doesn't go as planned. Pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but just another one of the "things" to deal with. I got a little worked up but really, this shouldn't even be on the radar. I think it's mostly funny because these guys are typically very good and conscientious. We'll laugh about it when we're done.

Housing development - Worked on this quite a bit during the week. Decided on Saturday night that I'm just going to do it and start moving forward. I'll let the sellers know on Sunday morning. Started to look at twin home plans and realized that what I want to build is not going to fit on the lot. I made a different call than planned on Sunday. I'm out. I'm sure it's still going to be a great opportunity for someone, but my vision for it wasn't going to work. Next.

RR Consulting - I landed a track evaluation project for an investment banking company. Spent about 75% of my time working on the inspection and reports and numbers for this. It was fun to stay in the Railroad game. Quite a bit of work and a tight timeline but that also means it will be due and behind us pretty quick too. Angie took on an even larger adulting responsibility than normal. I think she's ready for this gig to be up. Soon enough.

Pics are a before this week and after this week in Houlton and a picture of them finishing the slab in Hudson (and a before picture for fun).

Week 27 of Self Employment:

Houlton Storage Garages LLC - What a full week will do. Our building contractor made amazing progress in Houlton this week. No rain days and generally a lot happening. We also got out security fence finalized and installed. It really looks like a legit joint now. Just a bit of wiring to do and we'll have power security gates. That should be quite wonderful. We also got wiring done on our unit split that we had going on. Of course as soon as I moved my stuff into one of the sides we got a call to rent it. It's a good problem to have. So a bit more musical chairs. On Saturday we took in a few people that were stranded without winter storage. We are renting out one of our large units as a group storage. I had two people call me that morning and we were able to fill it up. Amazing timing as we helped them out while I was still out there.
Since we were able to get the structure up and the sheet metal up on the exterior, we had our electrician stop in to pull wires to all of the units before we got insulation installed and interior steel on the walls. These are some of the interesting things we've figured out over the course of our projects. We used to bury wires and that took a bunch of coordination with grading contractors and gas companies and all kinds of other fun. Now, we just have the electrician come in and run the power inside the walls. This leaves the areas between buildings free of utilities and allows the gas company to easily run their lines and install meters too. I love this route. We did get the conduit buried for the wires that will take the place of the pole line on the north side of our property. Next week they will take down the poles. Now that we got the gas line buried, the wiring to the gates dug and the fence installed, we can make plans with the paving crews to get some black down.

Storage Garages of Hudson - Mostly nothing other than lining up the concrete pad for Building 3 and the foundation on Building 5 next week. That should allow us to put the gravel in for the area in front of B5. Then pavement the week after. We also rented out another unit. We are at 6 units rented out of 11. Still lots of interest. Frankly, with all the interest in Houlton this week, Hudson got a bit ignored. We also "released" our commercial for Hudson. Kind of fun to see. I'll leave it at that. More to come next week.

Other - Still plugging away at the housing development. I keep getting the answer that our lot price is too much. But everyone also seems to struggle that the price per side of the twinhome would be 1/2 of the lot price. Maybe I'm the one that doesn't get it but something tells me that this project needs execution. So I'm still working on this without much progress this week.
I did land a railroad consulting gig evaluating some railroad track for two facilities in the Twin Cities. I'm really looking forward to being able to put this together. Quite a bit to deliver within a week but I work best under pressure.
It's official, I'm going to be a mentor for a group that does self storage coaching. I spent my free time reviewing their "methods" and coaching material to make sure I'm passing along a consistent message to the "students". I'm super pumped to get going on this. Plus I get access to all of their materials and tricks which adds some extra value to this for me.
Here are some pictures of our fencing and Building 5 in Houlton. It's come a long way in a week.

Week 26 of Self Employment:

I've been waiting for this post. I'm officially 6 months into this amazing, great, scary, frustrating, annoying, horrible, maddening, positive, negative, beautiful, ugly, productive, wild, and just about every other superlative in the book, experiment. What a roller coaster it's already been. The tough days make the good days that much better.
I still get a mini-high every time the phone rings and again when we rent out a storage unit. It's such an amazing confirmation our ideas and of the work that's been put in. Okay, enough of the mushy stuff.
Houlton Storage Garages: Building 5 is finally seeing some progress as you can see in the pictures attached. We have had a lot of interest lately for the new heated building so it can't go up fast enough. I think this one might be fully rented prior to completion. I think we only have two units left. Crazy. But with that, some of our current tenants will be leaving their unheated space to move into these new heated spaces. So we'll still have something available for a while yet, I'm sure.
This week we also split one of our large units into two smaller units. We're already seeing interest in those. It's just what people want so we'll do our best to accommodate.
We rented out one small unit and took on 3 group storage renters for the winter. We're trying something a little different this winter. We had a customer/friend of ours contact us asking for winter storage. I thought, hey, why not, we'll just advertise it on a per foot basis and see how it goes. So far so good. $3.75/foot/month is a cheaper option for some customers that only have a boat or RV to store for the winter so we're experimenting and helping some folks out. Kind of fun....

Storage Garages of Hudson: Interest has been strong there also. We are at 5 units rented which is a far cry from expecting to be full by this time. We had the shortest renter we've ever had (24 hours). Apparently they found something else, which isn't a problem at all, just a bit unique for us. So we added two renters and lost one. We have a few in the queue too so we'll see how we fair by the end of next week. Still quite a bit of interest. Let's hope that continues.

Other: Still working on the residential development project. It feels like we are getting close to pulling the trigger. We are getting some mixed reviews on the price per lot but others seem to think it's right where it should be. So we'll see if we can get this deal done to do a bunch of twin home lots. Without going too deep into it, I'd personally like to be able to build some 3 beds 2.5 bath twin homes for the masses. We'll see if we can make it happen.

I'm officially a Self Storage mentor for the Self Storage Investing group. I'll be helping others get into their very own self storage facility on a consulting basis. I couldn't be more excited to do this. Should be fun. I really don't have much to lose.

I may also get involved with a bit of railroad consulting too. It might be an opportunity to make a little vacation money. Or tax proceeds for Uncle Sam. Either way, it's a win!

Until next week. (Holy cow - 6 months!)

Week 25 of Self Employment:

Storage Garages of Hudson update: We started the week off with finishing our first building in Hudson. It really turned out great in my opinion. We haven't had anyone tell their not renting because it's ugly so up to this point, mission accomplished. We got through the week with 4 units rented with a number of additional interest. I'm setting my sights on full rent-up by the end of next week. Maybe not likely, but a fun goal to shoot for. We got electrical run for the lighting and for the security gate and an overhead light. Good to have that out of the way. We also got the parking lot final graded so it's ready for asphalt when the crews can stop in and put down some black. With all this rain, I just hope the weather holds out sometime soon so the pavers can get their other jobs done and come over to our site and knock it out.

Houlton Storage Garages update: Our crews got started on Building 5 in Houlton. "Started" being the important word. Rain killed any momentum that the crews had going from Hudson. They did make some serious progress for only having one dry day onsite. They nearly got both of the long walls built on the ground and ready to stand up. But out of 3 possible work days, they worked 1. They did really well on that 1 day, so I can't complain. Next week is supposed to be stinky too so we'll see what they can get accomplished.
I talked with an electrician about dividing a large unit we have available into two small units. That's going to happen in the coming weeks. When I initially dreamed up this property, I thought people would be all over the larger units (50 x 50) but people just can't ignore the pricepoint of the small units (25 x 50). So we'll try to satisfy demand and build more small units. The customer has spoken. I guess you learn something every day. I'm happy to report this lesson didn't make or break us but I do want to create what people are looking for.
Still working on getting the overhead powerline buried. They tell me the week of Oct. 15th. I sure hope they are right because I have paving lined up the following week. We won't have much more time in the season than that to get pavement in so we're bumping up against the end of the paving season.

Development Update: Still working through the idea of buying a 39 property housing development. I will only do it if we can come up with a product that costs $250k or less. I think people need a damn house that doesn't cost $400k+. If I can't do it, then I'll skip the project altogether. But at this time, things are looking good. So we'll keep working toward this project.

Other: Attended a webinar for an apartment complex project in Houston, TX. The returns looked really good. The project looked really good. It was also interesting to watch how they structured their investor meeting to maybe mimic this someday. I may or may not invest but I'm trying to learn how to structure the process better. In that regard, this has been very helpful.
I got a call to do a track evaluation project that could be interesting. We'll see if that pans out. Funny thing was that I think it was supposed to be confidential but I knew exactly who they were talking about just based on the location. I may have done some railroad repairs there before. 😀
I'll have to do a post of my favorite businesses/tenants that have rented from me or inquired. There are so many cool businesses out there that it'd be fun to compile them. Ok, I'm committing. That post will come later this week!

Week 24 of Self Employment:

I am newly motivated to hit the ground running this week. As you may have noticed in other posts, Storage Garages of Hudson is ripping right along. The good news is that interest is also ripping right along. I think we have 4 units already spoken for (actually 5, now that I think of it). That is always a relief. The last update item in Hudson is that we are ready for paving (2 weeks out) and we got electric run for all the buildings. At least it's ready for power. It allows us to pave and or bury everything on site so that's good. We shouldn't have to worry about that for the rest of this year, anyway.
Houlton Storage Garages: Building 5 will start next week which is great. Lots of interest for the heated units there. I guess it's that time of year. We ran power for our gates which is great. Once the overhead lines are buried, we'll finally be able to pave. I got notice that burying the overhead line won't happen until Oct 15th which is NOT good news. That is pushing pretty late in the year for paving. It should be fine but if we get some early snow or an early cold snap, that could screw things up. I'm going to cross my fingers and toes that we can get that paving done prior to winter.
Other: I attended the Self-Storage Academy by Scott Meyers last week. Very good educational seminar. Well worth the drive to Indianapolis, IN. There were people from Puerto Rico, Alaska, California, New Hampshire, Florida, Texas, etc. Literally every corner of the US and more. Most people were newbies but the panel and speakers were super impressive and professional. I definitely learned a lot.
They brought me down to Indy to potentially be a mentor for some of the up-and-comers. I'm deciding on that as I want to make sure I have the time necessary to do a good job for the new investors. I made some new friends and had a great time learning and teaching and telling our story.
We lost out on the warehouse property I was looking at with another investor. That was disappointing. Still looking at another mini and have a new mission to find a larger mini-storage that we can take on and run remotely. The new objective is to get enough properties to sustain office staff of some sort to take the added burden off of Angie's plate. After discussing this a lot at the SS Academy, this seems within reach.

Week 23 of Self Employment

Monday: Shot a commercial for Storage Garages of Hudson. That was kind of fun and kind of frustrating. I can't wait to see how it turned out but it ended up raining. It was low budget so I'm guessing I'm not going to get a redo. Is what it is. If anything it can be a documentary for our facilities. This isn't a thriller by any means so the rain may not affect anything. The sizes and overall facility design should come through just fine.

Tuesday: Met our new banker at Lake Elmo Bank. We love our current banker so it'll be hard to replace him. Thank you for taking a chance on us when we started Ready Rail LLC, Tom Swedenburg, you will be missed.

Wednesday - Friday: Worked on trying to figure out a creative way to acquire and build a 39 lot housing development. This could be epic. It could also be an epic fail. I need to tread lightly but it could be great. I would love to be able to build some affordable housing in the Twin Cities area. I wish it could be single family houses under $250k but I think that ship has sailed. Material and labor prices are just too expensive for that to happen. It'll probably end up being $450k duplexes or twin homes. I gotta keep running the calcs.

Met with a potential partner for this development which could make things interesting. Even if we don't partner, the good news is that he might help me get some feedback from builders on what the lot pricing would need to be for a builder to be interested in buying. Everyone is a "buyer" until they have to put their money where there mouth is.

Also mixed into the week was additional negotiation with the sellers on the warehouse facility we are trying to acquire. It's looking less and less like we're going to come to terms. I'd really like to add it to the repertoire but the owner doesn't want to finance and there is too much risk with the City to go any other way. On to the next deal. Plus, you never know, it could come back to us at some point.

Lastly, we didn't hear back on the mini storage we made an offer on. We're probably too far off on that offer too. It was fun while it lasted. In the end, if we're going to partner with others, we are going to make sure the numbers work. There is some synchronization with our other properties but we can only go so far on price. Maybe we'll reconsider.

Storage Garages of Hudson got roof trusses and bracing for the roof on Saturday. Hip, hip, hooray. Hopefully we'll have our first renters in a little over a week. That assumes the weather stays dry. That may not be the case. I'm crossing my fingers. We have had a lot of interest since posting our ad on Craigslist. I'm hoping we can fill that first building up prior to November. That would be ideal.

Houlton Storage Garages is just awaiting our crew to start construction on Building 5. Talked with an electrician to discuss alternative bids and alternative schedules for getting our gates powered. In general, every contractor is booked solid in Western Wisconsin. If you aren't busy either you're too expensive or you haven't contacted me!

Sorry, not sorry.

Sorry for dumping 4 post on you in the course of 2 days.  How is it possible for 3 weeks to go by that fast?  Things are busy.  Working on a couple of deals which has taken a lot of my time.  Funny because I'd say that they are only about 10 hours of deliberation, it's just that making offers and talking with partners and talking with people who have the deals takes time.  I'm sure my wife wonders what I do all day.  I kind of do too but I do know I'm cranking away.  Here is a brief summary of what I've been up to other than our Houlton, Hudson, and Prescott properties.

Made offer on mini storage.  Worked with a friend to put the money together for that.  Nothing is solidified.  No response on the offer (is that good or bad?).  Sometimes the offer just is what it is.  I can't pay asking just cuz that's what they're asking.  The numbers gotta work.  At our offer, they still work.  Let's hope that one comes through because I think it would slot nicely into our storage offerings.

Made offer on maxi storage.  Worked with a new friend I met from Bigger Pockets to find and work out an offer on a really awesome property.  I'm trying not to be too much of a fanboy with this property.  I love garages and warehouses and this one is as cool as they come (in my opinion).  I also think it is VERY rentable.  The trouble is that it's completely vacant.  We need the sellers to do seller financing to make the deal happen.  It just is what it is.  I would love to get this property under our umbrella too as it would be another great option for businesses in the SE Twin Cities metro.  This one is a little closer into the Cities which a lot of people have been asking us for.  Like I said, very rentable.

I've been working on a project for a 39.5-lot subdivision.  This one is going to take some creativity.  The price for the lots is really fair.  However, it's up to me to build the roads and get builders on board to buy the lots.  In the end, the lots will sell for $70k each.  That's a lot for a City lot.  But the catch is that the City will allow a Twin Home to be built on the lot thereby reducing the lot price to $35k/side of the Twin Home.  This is great except that it also means that 39 lots turns into 78 buyers.  That's a lot of buyers which means this is a few year long project.  And therein lies the issue.  How much drag is the financing going to be for a project like this?  I would love to do this project but what happens if the market stagnates and you can only sell 1/3 of the lots.  There is real potential that you might sit on a few lots for a while.  But there is also real potential that builders would buy 4-5 lots each and sell you out prior to building the road.  I'm going to meet with a potential partner on this project.  Let's hope that we can figure out a creative way to make this happen.

Lastly, the other items I've been doing is putting together summaries of the projects we've done to give potential investors an idea of my track record.  I'll be sharing those on here as case studies moving forward.  At this point, I think you have enough content for this week.

You Mad Bro?

So the past couple of weeks have been an exercise in anger restraint.  Everything costs more, more expenses than expected, set up a date to film a commercial and it rains (we film anyway - this ought to be interesting), trying to get our buildings up prior to winter and it rains 4 out of 5 days.  All just a head scratcher.  Plus we find out that we'll owe somewhere in the neighborhood of $30k for 2018 taxes (estimate).  Wasn't quite expecting that one.  Oh, and property taxes in Houlton are probably going to double (or close).  So all of these things are conspiring to keep us down.  Frustrating, yes.  Will this hold us back?  No.  As the big guys say, this is what defines you.  Can you keep it together when times get tough?  And you know what, if we can get through this hard time, it's going to increase our confidence and experience and allow us to more easily push through next time.  In the end, $30k isn't going to break us.  But we also know we can't have too many of those types of hiccups and expect to keep it together forever.  So the idea is to keep pushing on and get a few new deals in the works to increase income.  I think once we get to $10k/month net income generation, we'll be able to start really stockpiling money again to go after additional properties on our own.  But then again, our philosophy on venturing out on our own was that we'll need to get partners to continue to expand because no matter what, we're going to run out of our own capital.  So I'm going to keep my eyes on the prize.  There is no time to be mad.

Week 22 of Self Employment: Sink or swim?

This entire process has been refreshing - as in, jump in Lake Superior in April, refreshing. It's allowing us to shoot for the stars which is amazing, but every day is an exercise in cost/benefit for life and business. I love it, no matter how stressful. I know Angie would love a big cushion (who wouldn't) but it's not in the cards right now. The good news is that things are coming to a head. We are getting close to having Hudson come online and there has been a ton of interest in our Building 5 in Houlton seeing that it's heated and people are starting to think about winter. So, in the meantime we'll keep it together with binder twine and chicken wire. Okay, I'm being a little dramatic but some days it feels like this. I think the top of the hill is near! I feel like I could go on like this forever but it's not really fair to continue putting the family through this. 
So with the drama out of the way, on to the good stuff.
Storage Garages of Hudson: At least one wall is up. Building contractor is making serious progress. Grading contractor is all but done for now. They are waiting to put gravel on everything until we dig the frost walls on the next building. Otherwise you end up digging up gravel you just put down. No need to waste perfectly good gravel. Otherwise we have gravel between Building 1 and 3 and that driving area is ready for aprons. Once the aprons are in and complete we can get the pavers in there to do the parking lot. That always makes things look awesome. I'm really looking forward to that. With Labor Day behind us, people are calling us on Houlton Storage Garages and a few don't need something that big. Storage Garages of Hudson might be perfect for them. I'm sure as we get later and later into fall, we'll have more and more interest in both facilities. The nice thing is that they can be cross-marketed pretty well. Renters can rent up or down depending on their needs and budget. 
Houlton Storage Garages: I got the easement over to Xcel for burying the overhead line. That looks to occur in late September, early October. Grading contractor finished things up so the grade is ready for pavement. However, we still need to get electric and gas run under a couple of our driving areas. Then it's on to getting pavement in. I've included a before and after pic of the parking area. It looks nice dressed up. 
Other things: Made an offer on a warehouse facility with another investor. Should be a fun project. This one is in MN for the first time. If things go as planned, my investor friend should see a handsome return. Plus it's close to home. More details coming on this. We're hoping to hear back on Monday (today). Still waiting on a mini storage I made an offer on. Not sure that one is going to happen. I need to revisit the numbers to see if we can bring our offer up a little while also getting solid returns. There may be a little wiggle room left in there. I'll definitely be reporting here if anything changes. 
See you next week.

Week 21 Real Estate Investing Update:

Houlton Storage Garages - Finally met up with Xcel Energy to work on getting our pole line buried so we can build our parking lot/driveway. In the end we have to give Xcel an easement along our north property line so they can legally service it. They currently are grandfathered in to be able to maintain their pole line. Basically, if they've been there for a certain length of time, they have legal rights to keep their power lines there. Anyway, because we are asking them to move their line underground, to be able to maintain it, they require an easement. So we had a meeting onsite and discussed that work. Should happen towards the end of September.
Storage Garages of Hudson - Work continues on Buildings 1 and 3. The frost walls are done on both and Building 1 is backfilled. Some excavation on the north stormwater pond has started and it's actually looking like something. Struggling to get my electrician onsite to discuss our needs. Not sure how this is going to work as I feel like we are running out of time to get wires run to our buildings for lights. I'm sure we'll figure something out but it just never happens as quickly as I'd like.
Other - Looking at a few interesting properties. I basically got booed out of the room on one offer and working on putting together another offer on another property in the near future. I felt like most of my time was spent running numbers on different properties and analyzing deals. I think I found a couple of diamonds in the rough. We'll see. Obviously I'll have a full report on FB. Also looking at a bunch of mini-storage facilities on the left coast. This could be interesting and allow us to try to manage a facility from a distance. Not impossible, not overly complicated, just different.
The last interesting opportunity that came up was the potential to work for an education/investing outfit teaching people about self-storage. They have a "division" focusing on developing properties that falls a little more into the category of consulting. It felt like they didn't want to do that as much. I'm kind of have the opposite feeling in which I think that would be fun. The difficulty with developing is that you don't make money during the construction and rent-up phases. Some investors struggle with the idea of that. Anyhow, I'm going to a conference the last weekend in September to meet the outfit and see if this is something I'd like to do. I see it as a way to network with other people who like the self-storage niche. Seems like a win-win.

Week 20 of Real Estate Investing:

I felt like I spent most of the week answering calls about my car. In the end, I was finally able to sell it. That was a relief. No more dealing with tire kickers. It also adds extra financial security which is nice, but mostly eliminates the future expenses of tabs, insurance, tires, maintenance, etc. and allows us to pay off the family vehicle which amounts to a nice boost in net income (lowered expenses = greater net income). With Brock going back to preschool, the costs pretty much offset which is a net win in my book. Again, the goal of the "game" is to stay liquid long enough to see income from Storage Garages of Hudson kick in. We will be fine but I do know that selling my car now will be easier than selling it mid-winter if need arose. Our philosophy was that it's better to be proactive. 
Houlton Storage Garages: Added a few renters and we've gotten a lot of interest lately. It was getting a little worrisome if I do say so myself. Not much in the way of calls or interest this summer. But after looking at last year's financials and doing some reflecting, last year was the same way. Summers are just slow. Contractors are cranking away and people in general are just busy with life in the summer. So with that we have 2 large unheated units available and 1 small unheated which will likely get rented next week. 
Storage Garages of Hudson: Building #1 has a foundation as of Friday. Yippee. It will get backfilled next week and we'll be able to start on the floor later next week. That is great. I'm still expecting that we'll get the first building up by the end of September (or very close). Just in time to store some boats and RVs for the winter. 
Additionally I've been doing what I can to figure out social media marketing on Facebook and Instagram. We will be filming a commercial in two weeks for our RV and boat storage in Hudson. Should be interesting. Naturally we will be sharing this on FB. Any feedback will be much appreciated if you are so inclined. 
With the commercial we have also been working through getting flyers out to marinas and getting the artwork completed for business cards and our sign in Hudson. Still need to work through the name in Hudson but I think it's going to be Storage Garages of Hudson to eliminate any confusion with our nearby neighbor. I'd hate to give him any undeserved business! Ha. This is a bit of a joke because I don't think our businesses compete at all. He does mini, we do maxi. Anyhow, on to something that matters. 
Other: Spent a good part of the week analyzing other deals that I'd be partnering with others on. One mini storage, a few warehouse buildings and also entertaining the idea of selling Houlton Storage Garages. Not sure if we're ready for that step but it would provide for an injection of capital into our business. However, it also takes away the monthly cashflow which is the reason why we chose to invest in real estate in the first place. But if we could parlay that equity into some other assets that make us a better return, it might be worth it. I am constantly considering our returns on invested capital and our returns on equity that we have in our properties. If the equity gets large in comparison to our returns, it might be time to sell and reinvest to get more return for each dollar of equity. But many real estate investors are talking of a potential downturn and that's where equity can protect us. So we're continuing to weigh the pluses and minuses of this option. I think what will happen instead is we'll find another property to partner with this person on. But it is interesting to consider all of the options.