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.