Yellow Letter campaign for storage facilities

I recently was asked if there was a "special sauce" for sending yellow letters (marketing letters asking to buy someone's facility) to self storage facilities.  Residential home wholesalers who buy houses report having better success for certain types of distressed homeowners.  I find self storage has less "strategy" in the letters.  At the end of the day, most motivation is based on age of the owner and wanting to get a silly good price.  Seeing that we are investors and are looking for a decent deal, I'm not sure we're actually marketing to the folks wanting a silly good price anyway.  So in the end, the real leads are going to come from the folks that are ready to exit self storage facility ownership.  Here is the rest of my response: (Much of the resource information is from the Self Storage Academy's curriculum and can't explicitly be shared.  However, I'm happy to discuss the concepts and topics.)

Letter looks fine.  I don't think there is a need to overthink it.  In the end it's your letter and it should say what you want it to say.  Scott's example letters are templates that have worked over the years.  His group has sent out tons of letters and the examples I've given you are a culmination of the work he's done.  I certainly don't think a person needs to reinvent the wheel, that's for sure.  

With that said, this IS Scott's secret sauce.  Frankly, we want you to be as successful as possible.  I'd say it'd be a good idea to review the Deal Finder Program Session #2 about "How to Build you Contact Marketing Letter".  I've watched this probably 4 times in the past 2 months and there's no reason to diverge from that methodology.  Scott is pushing this method for a reason....it's been working.  Here are a couple notes for you:

-Building a database (where to find lists and leads) - 11:30 (@12:30 he says that you can go to the Library and use Reference USA for free - use SIC Code 2225 for SS)

-Another successful letter used in a student's campaign @ 20:18 in. This letter was resulting in 6-7% response rates rather than the traditional 4-5%.  

-Another good bit of content to review in the video is @27:00 regarding the call script.  I sent you a screen shot of that section but there is further details to be listened to if you tune in to the video

-The video also highlights that you should start off by sending these letters out in your own market.  Frankly, I couldn't agree more.  If you were in a super hot market where RE prices were pretty inflated, I'd probably start by looking elsewhere but it seems to me that X City, AK is a great place to start.  There is a decent amount of population and there probably isn't a ton of pressure on the current owners to sell up to this point.  At the end of the day, hot markets typically just compress the CAP rates which isn't entirely great for your investment.  

As an example, I'm have awesome luck in Western Wisconsin just outside the Twin Cities metro.  Obviously I'd love to own within the Metro but prices are not favorable.  Western WI is in the path of progress (eventually) and I can find 9-10% CAP rates.  Also, property taxes are less, labor costs less, and building restrictions are less.  Nothing wrong with any of this.  The real key is the you have the square foot to population ratio within a 3 mile radius of less than 7 SF/Person.  That's the key.  You also have to do some due diligence in that maybe you have a situation where there's only 4 SF/person but you have 50% occupancy throughout the area (not just the facility in question).  Something is up.  This could be the situation in which local income is too low to sustain a facility.  I'll have to review that guideline and get back to you but it's in the neighborhood of $40k/person.  Or you have a situation where the area is very blighted and can't support a facility.  You're going to spot these facilities from a mile away.  This is the part where a little scrubbing of your list is a good idea.  

Let's say you know West Suburb is a total dive and North Suburb is a decent, blue collar area.  You would probably want to scratch the West Suburb facility off your list and probably continue to send out the letter in North Suburb. (Sorry if I completely missed the ball here but I was just trying to use some areas that were local to you in my example).  

I am not an expert with wholesaling, but I listen to tons of podcasts and whatnot regarding the practice.  At a minimum, I would consider myself well versed.  There are some intricacies to wholesaling residential properties.  But you also have to consider those people are selling for a lot different reason.  They are typically under duress of some sort.  It's quite unlikely that you will find a SS owner who's under duress.  I think something like less than 0.3% of all SS facilities went into foreclosure even during the great recession.  That means that the folks that are calling you that are motivated are motivated because they are retiring or they are investors who pumped up their properties a little and want to move on to something else.  There are some mismanaged facilities out there too but most of those fall into the "owners are ready to retire" category too.  As you see with the residential stuff, you'll get contacted by those who want to sell for way too much but I'm also confident a few solid opportunities will come knocking too.  

I want to add one more thing on the location question (and I'd be happy to talk some more about this when we have our call next week) - I think you should campaign the X City and surrounding areas first and see what comes through the door.  Remember, you also need to try contacting owners via phone and local brokers in case someone's holding onto a pocket listing (although these are fewer and farther between due to SS facilities being on the "radar" nowadays) or so they can bring a deal to you first if they come across something.  After you've done what you can do in X City, then we can start talking about other markets.  But like I said, we want those tertiary markets because they hold the best deals.  Hell, Scott has been killing it just buying stuff around the Indy area (and not IN the Indy metro).  

BTW, I love where your head is going here.  You're thinking about the long term game of keeping properties coming in the door.  Remember, we don't need 4 of these a month, we need 2 within 12 months.  You guys seem like go-getters, which I love, so I think you'll probably do better than that, but I'm just trying to give you some context that this is more about playing the long game.  

Buying Self Storage on a Master Lease Option style of transaction

During a coaching call with a mentee, we discussed a property that has a super low occupancy - approximately 15%.  The owner owned the property free and clear and was an experienced investor/developer (hence he wasn't going to give the farm away).  He said he's base the property's sale price based on a ProForma rather than existing numbers.  Initially, my mentee wrote the property off as just slightly better than a scam.  

I had one suggestion if she was going to consider a property such as this - a Master Lease Option.  An MLO is basically an overarching lease on the business and property and you run the entire thing and the owner collects payments from you.  The key is that you work out a monthly lease payment that is equal to or less than existing rents MINUS the expenses.  It basically offers the seller the same monthly payments that they are currently getting and the upside goes to you, the lessee.  The benefit to the owner is that he can charge you for the Option to buy (typically $2-10K) the property in the future at a higher than market value.  

In this the case the market value of the property with a 15% occupancy doesn't even cover costs to construct.  I get why he wouldn't want to sell at that valuation.  However, you can't say the property could be 100% rented and therefore the valuation is based on 100% occupancy, either.  So maybe you can come to some middle ground on the Option Value that makes sense and that could actually be financed through a bank once you get the property stabilized and cashflowing nicely.  

The key is that a bank will want between 10-30% down, and income has to cover the debt service at a ratio of 1.2:1 or better.  So you'll have to do some soul searching on what an achievable occupancy rate is and price the property accordingly.  The idea is not to lease the property through the end of the lease (typically 3-5 years - I suggest 5 years or more), it is to increase occupancy such that a bank will finance the property for you.  Well, unless the lease is cheaper than the bank financing.  In that case you'll have to consider both options.  

Your risks as a buyer: The property IS stabilized at 15% and you're doing all the work for no profit.  Or you go backwards and lose tenants and you have to pay in to the owner each month.  Frankly, I'd say at 15% occ, you're pretty safe!  You also risk putting an option price on the property that is too expensive and you can't actually achieve it.  Let's say you can't get the property over 50% occupied and therefore the option price can't be financed by a bank.  Well, the good news is that you only put down a few thousand dollars for the option and hopefully now that you're at 50% occ, you're making cashflow on the property each month over the lease payment.  

I would say with a 15% occupancy rate, you probably can't go backwards.  However, you would want to check nearby facilities for their pricing and occupancy (there were a number of facilities nearby which probably hurts the upside of this property).  But you can set super low prices and put out flags and offer concessions to get people to rent from you to get occupancy up.  

The risk for the seller: The lessee deferrs a bunch of maintenance and leaves the facility in worse condition than they took it over.  Again, hopefully they got a decent price on the "Option" such that they could cover most to all of the issues that could arise.  The other risk is that they might sell it for under market rates.  But that would also require the seller to do a better job of managing the facility (which it sounds like he's not interested in).  

This one feels like a win-win on a MLO if they can come to terms on an option price and an option payment as well as a lease payment.  

Weeks 40 and 41 of Self Employment:

Houlton Storage Garages LLC finally has the security camera system pretty well installed. While installing the system the contractor didn't quickly install their underground conduit and pull wires. They came and they went and then they came and went again. By doing so, we ran into a few freeze-thaw cycles which inevitably filled up the conduit with water and then ice. We can argue all day long about what should have been done or not done but at the end of the day, we're in the same predicament, open trenching with conduit in most, if not all of it with the inability to get through a section of 25' under our driveway that will have to wait until spring. We've literally tried everything from pouring salt and windshield washer fluid into it, tried drilling it out with really long drill bits (15' long), to putting a heat gun on one end for an extended period of time. All efforts were futile (most of which were my idea, btw) and really didn't get us anywhere. Our solution was to put a temporary camera in a tree that would cover, albeit from a bit farther away, the area we couldn't get two cameras to. The camera on Building 4 would also have to wait until spring. The good news is that most of that area is currently covered by the cameras on Building 3 that we were able to connect. In the end I'm satisfied with our coverage but wish the process went a little faster. After all, our original quote mentioned that the entire project would take 3-4 days. 2.5 months later, we have something to get us through the winter. The open trench is another story. I worry that snowmelt will destroy our ditches in the spring. A big part of the problem was that the trenches were run in the ditch bottoms rather than on the top of the berms as I requested, and therefore when we got a warmup, all water runs to the ditches and therefore the trenching. No bueno. I just hope all parties learned from the experience. Maybe, maybe not. I learned that I need to be more vigilant with my contractors otherwise they just do what they feel is reasonable. Nothing up until now has been malicious, but preplanning has been a little suspect at times.

Storage Garages of Hudson: Still working on renting up our Building 3. We have seen a lot more interest since Jan 1st but not much in the way of actually renters. Mostly people looking for mini-storage which we really aren't. We have big units, for lots o' stuff. We're cheap based on the size of our space but we're expense if you're looking to store a few boxes and a sofa. Lotsa boxes and sofas? We got you covered!

Border Properties: Prescott is still going strong as far as we can tell.

Other angles: One of my 2 goals for 2019 is to do a deal with a partner. I want my friends and/or family to also reap the benefits of a good investment real estate. There are a ton of benefits of real estate investing that I may get into in a future post but my favorite two are: 1.) You can be as active or passive as you want to be - you can bring the expertise to a project, you can bring money to a project, or you can bring any combination of both. 2.) Real estate is the most tax-favored investment asset on the planet. If you make $100k at your normal job, expect to pay approximately 40% in state and federal taxes (not including sales tax on all the goods and services you buy). So you bring home $60k. With RE if you make $100k, you have the benefit of depreciation and write-offs. You're tax bill is likely to be in the 20% range. That's the equivalent of a 33% raise at work (from $60k take home to $80k take home). The objective is to keep as much of the dough at the end of the day, right? That's why 401Ks are good. They keep all your profits in the deal compounding more and more of your money. The bad news is that you can't take it out until 59.5 years old. What if you wanted to retire at 55? You better have some savings or income to live off of from 55 to 59.5 yo. Something to think about/consider. With income producing real estate you get to make money, pay reduced taxes on the income, and spend it when you need it....now. Whereas you HAVE to wait to spend your 401K or incur penalties (also known as taxes).

Other opportunities:
So I've been putting myself (and family) out there for 41 weeks now. I realize that I'm plenty annoying but I've also been getting some amazing responses regarding investing. Some friends are looking to put money to work, some people have properties that they want my assistance developing, some people have questions about self storage, and some people are looking to sell properties. Putting myself out there has been good for networking purposes and I see it as easy to avoid if you don't want to read this. Hey, I completely understand. But I also want to say that everyone should put themselves out there to a certain degree so others can know what your hopes and wants are. You never know who might be reading.

Various opportunities that I've been chasing:
Outdoor boat storage facility
3 - Mini Storage facilities
Low income apartment building
Assisting others with the development of a garage condo facility
Taking over a storage facility development

My second goal for 2019 is to add 2 facilities to our bag of tricks this year. This goal goes hand in hand with my first goal. We don't have the resources to take down two facilities by ourselves and therefore if we reach the second goal, goal #1 will also get checked off the list. Come hell or high water, we're going to accomplish both goals this year. We'll have to figure out the management side of thing but we keep saying that the next facility will afford us the ability to hire additional help for Angie. Although there will be work up front, hopefully this means that Angie can slowly unwind the big day-to-day responsibilities. Wait, is that a 3rd goal? I think it is!

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.

Weeks 36 - 38 of Self Employment:

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.

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.

Week 31 of Self Employment:

This week wasn't nearly as stressful as week 30 was. I was actually able to stop and think about things a bit and no additional wrenches were thrown into the machine.
Houlton Storage Garages: We finally got all of Building #5 wired and ready for electricity. Xcel was able to install the meters for all the units but we still haven't had them (it's a different crew, naturally) run the main power to our meter panel. So that means we have everything wired, but no power. Sort of ironic.
We are still awaiting running the power to our north and south entrance gates. That should be fun to have the gates fully operational and get our keypads set up for overnight security purposes. We haven't had any issues so far (knock on wood) other than a random burnout or two (the kind that come from tires, not the type of person). I do want to get them up before someone has a little too much fun and puts a car into a building.
We are also awaiting our new security system. Not sure what happened to our security person. We may be forced to go a different route if they can't get their stuff together. This relationship isn't starting off on the right foot. Maybe I'm giving them too much rope.
Two interesting notes about developing your own properties. 1.) When you start a project, everyone wants their say and everyone wants to sign off on the project. 2.) When you complete a project, those same people want to have a say and sign off on your project. However, none of them are reachable. This makes running a business hard. I feel like I'm a total pain in the butt when I continue to hound people to get simple reviews. Not sure what else I can do. I don't want to be "that guy" any more than I already am. I'll continue to send a weekly "ping" to try to get my final sign offs.
Occupancy is a bit more qualitative than it is quantitative. Let me explain. We only have one unit available right now. We have also completely rented up Building 5 which is not 100% finished yet. However, we have two current renters who are going to move out of their current units to occupy Building 5 space. So that means we will have 3 open units as of December 1st. Still a great situation but it feels awkward saying we have 3 units open when we only have 1 that is immediately available. Either way, it's all good.
We had some last minute shifting to perform in order to accommodate some tenants. An existing tenant decided against the new unit he was going to move into. Therefore, we had to rent the new unit to the person who was going to rent the existing tenant's space (at a discount, which is really the only true negative of the situation) but was waiting for him to move out. Confused? So were we. It took only slightly less than a million texts and phone conversations to get all of the swaps right for getting tenants into Building 5. In the end, it'll all work out. It's just funny how very little of our initial plans ever ends up actually working out when we build a new building. Let me tell you, it's a great opportunity to get to know your new tenants, however. And that's always fun for me.

Storage Garages of Hudson: Wednesday came and went and no pavement was laid down. That officially puts an end to any dreams I had of paving our main entrance road and in between Buildings 1 and 3. I spent a couple days shoveling off the concrete pad for Building 3 in hopes that there wouldn't be much ice built up. We still have a few small bird baths on the slab that have ice in them, but overall, I think we can build the new building as necessary. Contractor is looking to start the building the week after Thanksgiving. I hope that actually happens. It is interesting when you're full. On one hand, it's great to be full. On the other hand it totally stinks to have to tell a potential renter than you don't have anything for them. I feel like that's bad business. We try to cross-sell to a certain degree, but most people want what they want (and I totally get it).
We got going on creating a space for a rental office. Mainly it will be an opportunity for us to have a warm place for people to sign lease agreements and such at the facility. People always want to see their unit and drive around, but it will be so nice to have a place to sit down and take our time. Winter tends to put a rush on the rental process and I always feel guilty having renters rush in and out.

Border Properties LLC: Our renters are awesome. Next.

Other: I've had some fun selling some snow plows and other items for friends this past week. I've put a few plows on trucks in the past and therefore I've come to know a thing or two about them. I'm no expert, but I have a good idea of what things go for. My friends wanted to get rid of his equipment, he left some meat on the bone, as they say, and I had some free time to list them for him. It took about 2 weeks but we got those sold. I love Craigslist. I feel like I'm getting pretty decent at weeding out the tire kickers. I also love the single line texts: Will you take $1,000 cash for your $2,000 item? Craigslist tip - only negotiate in person. That way both parties are willing and able to buy the item. Way too many people who live 3 hours away offer me 1/2 price (IN CASH - like I'd take anything else) and then have no way to get to or pay for the item. Seriously.... Buyers are buyers, they rarely have a story and they always have a plan for picking up the item and have money for the item. I'm not sure if my Craigslist etiquette is proper or not, but I'm just flat out asking buyers before they show up if they will have the cash with them. Again, buyers rarely have a story other than, "yes, I do".
I also rented out my frost blankets that I purchased on Craigslist for another week. It was the same renter but hey, I made a few more bucks on the deal. Fun stuff. OMG, this post is starting to feel like an episode of Pickers. I'll stop.
Lastly, I set up a showing for a self storage facility over Thanksgiving weekend. I'm excited to check it out. I hope I can work out a deal. If not, we have a few other things in the hopper but nothing imminent. It also looks like I'll start mentoring Self Storage students around the first of the year. I'm definitely looking forward to that too. Bye for now.

Week 30: Self Employed, Self Storage

This was the most hectic week we've had being self employed. So much happened and didn't happen. Crazy. Winter happened, and therefore many other things DIDN'T happen. Here we go:
Storage Garages of Hudson: Building 5 in Hudson isn't going to happen. Paving isn't going to happen. Had some not so friendly discussions with pavers. You know how this goes....everyone thinks it's everyone else's fault. We'll both get over it. Our grading contractor touched up the driveways and added gravel to the parking/driving area in front of Building 5.
Got a call from our concrete contractor: the concrete floors on Building 5 aren't going to happen this year. Too much frost and cold weather. I talked with the builders and they aren't going to be able to build Building 5 this winter without the floors. Basically, the crosswalls that divide up the units add rigidity to the structure. Without them, we risk the building falling down. Without the slab poured, no crosswalls. No bueno.
Fence guys got starting in Hudson. They got stuck in the sand. I had to laugh a little but I think Karma bit me in the rear - they are slightly behind schedule but they should get everything wrapped up prior to hard-winter arriving.
It looks like we are still a couple weeks out before Building 3 will get constructed. Everyone is busy, busy. With the snow on the slab, it's probably good they can't start construction right now. Hopefully we get some warm weather to melt the snow off before they start the building. Once that roof goes up, no sun hits the slab which makes melting snow almost impossible.
The good news in Hudson: We're FULL! Hurray. That took a little longer than I thought but progress nonetheless. Now we're chomping at the bit to get Building 3 up (our 2nd building).

Houlton Storage Garages: Waiting game. We're waiting on electrician to finish up the units (for the 3rd straight week) and we're waiting on Xcel to get the power run to the new building (for the 3rd straight week). Heaters are in, insulation is blown into the ceiling and everything is a go otherwise. Just got a little electrical problem.... I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but this building is already full. Oh wait, we might have one unit available. We have had a couple people back out on moving into the new building and we just had a little confusion in the mix. No problem as we still have a little waiting to do on the electrical. I don't see a problem with getting things rented up, however.

Other: So I bought some frost blankets for keeping concrete warm in the cold weather. I bought them to rent out and to add a little more excitement. We rented them out the first week things got cold and that paid for the blankets. Hopefully we can keep them rented. The cold weather has definitely added some interest. It's $70/week which isn't much, of course, but it was a little bit of an experiment. I don't really have a way to prosecute someone who doesn't bring them back so I'm going to see how much faith in humanity I have after this whole process. So far so good. If this experiment goes well, I may look for other items to rent out via Craigslist. Buy cheap, and rent out. Kind of a silly side hobby at this point.
Other than that, we've been selling every imaginable item laying around the house that we don't have a need for. This has been fun too. No, we're not broke (yet) but we've also come to realize that so many things have value that we aren't using or taking advantage of.
Oh, and I'm looking for a new fun car. Angie was sort of supportive when I told her (she didn't throw anything at me, so that means she's fine with it), so I've started the search. I'm mostly worried about Summer Nationals coming to St. Paul in June and me not having a car to autocross. I know, stupid, right? Not everything can make sense!
And we're also still looking for another property. We put a bid on WisDOT surplus property in Hudson, WI but we were outbid. We also planned on putting a bid on a tax delinquent property in Florida, but that got redeemed. I really want to take down another maxi-storage facility in the Twin Cities. We are officially on the prowl!

Week 29 of Self Employment

Finished a fun railroad track evaluation consulting gig. That was a lot of fun and the client was very happy with the report and analysis. I hope they're able to put it to good use. This made for a super busy week but it was fun to keep the railroad juices flowing a little longer. I'm working on some additional services that I hope to unveil in the next few weeks. I'm hoping to assist facilities with track in getting better, more complete estimates from their contractors. Comparing apples to apples is the easiest way to get good pricing and evaluate repair costs.

Houlton Storage Garages LLC: See the pics. I mean, c'mon, this place is looking good! Haha. Building 5 is making good progress and we should have the overhead doors up next week. The GREAT news is that we're 100% full (everytime I say something like this, I get slabbed across the face, but I'm going to say it again)! We do have a few folks moving from existing units so the good news is that we'll have a few units still available, but as soon as we have units done, people will be able to start moving in!
As an actual update, we got our building complete (except for garage doors), our driveway paved, our heaters in, out fence gate mechanism run, and a solid start on the electrical. Should be wrapping up next week.

Storage Garages of Hudson: We got the footing in for Building 5 (our 3rd building) and the frost walls poured. I had to strip the footings (2"x12"x16' lumber is heavier than I remembered) to allow for the concrete guys to get in there and knock out the walls sooner. The frost walls were poured and things are looking to fall into place for getting the road paved into and between Buildings 1 and 3 if we can get the foundation backfilled early next week.
We currently have 2 more units left but that tells me that we're ready for the next building. We still have quite a bit of interest. Honestly, I think having our pavement done will dress things up and convince a few more people to pull the trigger. I can appreciate that some people want the cleanliness of pavement. Soon, real soon!

Other: Updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect my railroad consulting services. I figure if someone is searching LinkedIn, I better make it easier for them to find me.

I'm also working through my training materials to act as a self storage investment mentor. With the other things that I had going, on that was temporarily slowed down. Back at it next week.

Week 28 Update - Self Storage, Self Employment

Nothing new happened.
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Just kidding. Exciting week.
Houlton Storage Garages - Building 5 is about 75% done. Exterior steel and 1/2 of the interior steel and insulation is up. We are waiting on three pieces of siding, a window and a service door to finish up the exterior. That won't take much. Spent a good part of the week chasing down paving contractor to get on their schedule, burying conduit for security system, talking through security options with a security guy (boy did I give him the run around, we are such amateurs!), getting conduit run for the gate sensors, and lining up a couple of renters. The heated building is clearly in demand. I think we have 5 units (or 7) rented already and lots of tire kickers. Eventually tire kickers turn into renters so I feel quite fortunate. We also had a two of our large units rent this week too. So, as we sit now, we have 1 unit left but once our Building 5 is up, we'll have a few current renters move into the new units and that will open up a few existing units. It's going well, however.

Hudson Storage Garages - The concrete guys finished up the slab on Building 3 (2nd building) and dropped in a footing for Building 5 (3rd building - I know, confusing....). They aren't going to get to the frost wall and slab on B5 soon enough so we're bringing in the relief pitcher on this one. Hopefully they're a hard throwing lefty. I gotta crank this thing out before winter so we can get our pavement in out to the road. Just want to make it easier to plow and fresh blacktop melts snow fast too. Two rights make a bigger right. We did have an issue. Just got done running our power for lights in Building 1. There was a very visible trench where the conduit and wires were run. Told excavating contractor to warn the crew. Manager warned the crew. Crew still hit the conduit and wire. Let's try this again! ;) Sometimes it just doesn't go as planned. Pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but just another one of the "things" to deal with. I got a little worked up but really, this shouldn't even be on the radar. I think it's mostly funny because these guys are typically very good and conscientious. We'll laugh about it when we're done.

Housing development - Worked on this quite a bit during the week. Decided on Saturday night that I'm just going to do it and start moving forward. I'll let the sellers know on Sunday morning. Started to look at twin home plans and realized that what I want to build is not going to fit on the lot. I made a different call than planned on Sunday. I'm out. I'm sure it's still going to be a great opportunity for someone, but my vision for it wasn't going to work. Next.

RR Consulting - I landed a track evaluation project for an investment banking company. Spent about 75% of my time working on the inspection and reports and numbers for this. It was fun to stay in the Railroad game. Quite a bit of work and a tight timeline but that also means it will be due and behind us pretty quick too. Angie took on an even larger adulting responsibility than normal. I think she's ready for this gig to be up. Soon enough.

Pics are a before this week and after this week in Houlton and a picture of them finishing the slab in Hudson (and a before picture for fun).

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.