Wups. 3 weeks have passed without an update. It's definitely time to reflect on the past few weeks and how I can improve our business practices. The first thing that comes to mind is contractor accountability and timeliness. We are struggling to get things done on in a timely fashion due to contractors being busy. First off, I will say that I completely understand that contractors are busy. However, there aren't any excuses for contractors continuing to push our projects off. We have had issues with our daylight sensors on our exterior lights since the facility first opened (in Feb of 2017) and we just got them finished this week. I assumed (wrongly) that if I set up a date for a contractor to come and do repairs (this does not only reference the electrical contractor), that the contractor would come on that day and stay until they finished the work. That has been a completely wrong assumption. And that, my friends, is MY fault. I have been running with nothing more than a signed estimate/proposal as my construction agreement. That has allowed the contractors to drag out our projects on their terms or just show up at their convenience. Effectively, I was the accordian in their schedule. I shrunk and expand as their needs arise. That has amounted to me tapping my foot while potential renters wait until units are done and I continue to tell them "next week". In the end, I look like a boob that can't keep his contractors in check (which is precisely true). This year I will be putting into writing the tasks, start date, completion date, and damages for not achieving their completion date. I was clearly too lackadaisical. I assumed their word was good. That is not enough for me. We don't have that benefit. We lose money when our units aren't rented. Not to mention we are trying to provide a great experience for our tenants and when we have to tell them "next week" for 4 weeks in a row, our tenants don't walk away thinking, "Boy, I just had a great experience". I see the maxi storage business as 50% customer service with the other 50% being a box for people to put stuff in. People are paying for convenience so they want that throughout their experience, not just the day they start renting. I digress....
Another issue that goes along with this is having accurate plans drawn up. In more than one situation I've argued after the fact with contractors about what they did and didn't include (or should have and shouldn't have included). If it was on our other four buildings, why wasn't it included on the 5th? The answer is always, "well, it wasn't included on the estimate so it's not included". If I can't rely on the expert in that field, who the heck can I rely on? I'm going to start with requiring plans and adjust accordingly if that isn't enough. I'm getting tired of having to come up with additional funds because I didn't catch the lack of fans in an estimate (even though I said to match the other building). Part of me feels like that's not my fault but in the end, it is because I've been too easy going. That is not a good trait to have when your checkbook is on the line. Who's checkbook do you think the contractor is concerned about, mine or theirs?
I'm sure I'll elaborate on this a bit more in the future but for now, on to facility updates.
Border Properties LLC: Still trucking along. We are contemplating refinancing some money out of this property to do some tax advantaged tricks but we haven't completely decided on that yet. With the new cap on interest deduction from your primary residence, we are exploring the idea of taking more out of our business real estate to transfer some of the interest write offs from our personal residence to investment properties. I may be incorrect in thinking that there is a difference. I know Trump's new tax plan is meant to spurn more business related investment so I'll have to see if this benefits us. More on this later.
Houlton Storage Garages LLC: Again, struggling with our security camera installer. They blame weather. We blame poor planning. In the end, it doesn't matter because we are stuck with it taking way longer than it should (in our opinion). Therefore, we can blame them, but really, I'm blaming me. I need to have more concrete start and finish dates.
Electrician finished up replacing daylight sensors for our exterior lighting and one remaining fan switch. Glad to be caught up on this....sort of.
We hired another electrician to split unit 1E into two units (1E and 1F) to account for demand on our smaller units. We are still waiting for a meter to get installed over one month later. Apparently we need a permit to split the electrical and add a partition in between the units. Electrician didn't think we'd need to pull a permit. I agreed. We were wrong. Got the permit last week (with penalties for doing the work prior to pulling a permit). Live and learn...again.
Gates are up and fully functional. No calls yet either (uh-oh, did I just jinx myself?)
Snow plow drivers backed/slid into the corner of Building 5. Not the first, not the last dinger. They are 2 for 2 in the past two months so I hope they can go the rest of the season without any more incidents.
Storage Garages of Hudson: Interestingly enough, we have to change our address. Apparently the road that is basically our driveway was erased from Township existence a while back but no one really realized this during our Township hearings. Anyhow, other than the annoyance of having some things printed out with the old address, I think in general, the new address will be more straightforward for customers (assuming Google Maps directs people to us properly).
We have Building 3 (our second building) up and complete with lights mounted and working. I continue to worry about the exposed wires (not in conduit) that are now under the gravel parking lot that got hit by the excavator while digging the foundation for Building 5 this fall. The electrician didn't come back and fix things before it got buried. They will now have to dig it up in spring to fix the broken conduit. Disappointing to say the least. The grading contractor did need to get things buttoned up before freeze, so I had to ask them to move forward with covering it up. It is yet to be seen whether this was the correct call or not (it's probably not likely). In the meantime I'm going to act like an Ostrich and stick my head in the sand until spring when we have to deal with it. For now, I'll sleep reasonably well at night.
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