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!