Week 39 of self employment:

Property Updates:
Houlton Storage Garages LLC - We are getting close to wrapping this project up (Phase 1 anyway). Getting a bunch of documents to the bank so that we can close out the loan. We have an SBA loan which allowed us to put down less money, which is great, but it also adds a few extra hurdles. Nothing that we can't handle but it is stuff that adds time and complication.
We had to extend our loan terms on our bank loan so that our mortgage doesn't come due before we close on the SBA portion of the loan. I won't bore you any further with this but if you have any questions about SBA (Small Business Administration) loans, feel free to reach out. We've done 3 SBA loans now and I do have to say they've been great. It takes risk off the banks which allows them to more confidently loan out money to startups. Banks are inherently risk averse and SBA loans reduce their risk to the point that they can loan you money with confidence. And when your loan is backed up with hard assets, that is risk they can live with.

Storage Garages of Hudson - We were pretty excited to rent our office space and warehouse space to a budding entrepreneur but that seems to have fallen through. We certainly wish her the best but it would have been a good fit for our current tenant and facility.
We built this facility knowing that many people were looking for a place to "dock" their boat in the summer and winter months and to protect their RVs and campers from the elements. Sun can really beat up a camper or RV, nevermind snow, ice, and rain. However, the fun part of owning a storage facility is meeting all the people who rent from us. In the end, only about 1/3 of the tenants use it for what we thought they would. Obviously, businesses are our greatest percentage of renters. These people generally have a lot of stuff that they need to store to run their business. Their garages and driveways can no longer accommodate their growing businesses. It's great knowing we're helping small businesses grow.
As far as the facility, our second building (B3) is still empty. With the holidays, things were definitely slow. Since the first of the year, we've received a lot more inquiries. We hope this continues. We realize this isn't exactly the busy season but we expect traffic to pick up soon.

Border Properties - No real news to speak of.

Other Properties - We are looking at a handful of properties that we're trying to work out a deal on. I don't think any of them are officially on market. This is a good and bad thing. The good is they don't have to monkey around with all kinds of tire kickers the bad is that I have to come up with a price out of thin air that meets both of our expectations. I think 2019 is going to be a banner year if we can get creative enough to get some deals done.

Other - We had a meeting of the minds to discuss global cashflow and expected profits for 2019. Up until now we've only made interest payments on Houlton and Hudson and that is going to end for Houlton very soon (March). We also know we'll have a sizeable tax bill due to the sale of our mini storage in Prescott. We are hoping the depreciation on Houlton and Hudson will offset a bunch of that but in the meantime we're hoarding cash like fools. This is the part of our self employment that has gotten a little uncertain. We think we have things covered but you never really know by how much until the taxes are fully run. We had an estimate run earlier in the year but that didn't include Hudson or some consulting income. We've tried our best to estimate the tax implications of most everything but we always have to hold our breath a little come tax season. My strategy at this point is estimate high and hopefully get another income producing property in the door to make some money to help pay the tax bill come April. And if that isn't enough, we'll ask for an extension to hopefully make more money to pay the tax bill. Wait, is it bad that both of my strategies involve adding properties to pay the tax man? Only time will tell.