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!