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Updated almost 3 years ago, 01/12/2022
Self Storage- Build or Wait 2 Years?
Self Storage- Build now or Wait Two Years?
We are 100% full at
all of our locations. Have extra ground we can build about 500 more
drive up, metal units on. Trying to decide whether to Build now or
Wait Two years. Prices for erected buildings have gone up about 40%
in the last 1 ½ years.
Steel prices-
talked with my neighbor who is a Project Manager for a Steel supplier
and with an Owner of a Steel Company, who I have done business with
for 10 years. They both said to wait till mid 2022 to make a
determination. They don’t see steel going down in the near term.
Google is building a lot of plants. The Auto industry due to the
chip shortage is backlogged for the next two years trying to ramp up
production. The economy was already hot 2 years ago and still is.
Federal government about to pour $xTrillion onto the economy.
Local
Contractors- all of my local contractors are booked into the
summer.
Engineering-
our engineering firm has projects out into the summer.
Building
Manufacturer- says prices won’t go down. Raise rents and
build to protect market.
Interest
rates- let's say 4%, I can only see them going up.
Supply Chain-
Steel from China is fighting to get through the same ships and ports
along with toys.
Cargo
Containers- You can’t buy a used container now. They are
not being sold and are being used to store on backed up ships or in
ports for storage. At some point Chinese manufacturers have to quit
building steel, if there is no place to put it. This would drive
prices up. Or the Shipping will open up driving prices down.
Whiplash effect.
Trucking- only
so much capacity thus shipping steel has to work its way through,
along with other material, thus Chinese steel won’t all of a sudden
flood the market lowering the price.
My background is as
a Controller/CFO, thus I like to look at scenarios versus just
the above Verbage. So, I made an
analysis to compare building now or waiting 2 years. This is just an
approach to work through the decision. It is not a matter of whether
my assumptions are correct or not. They may be correct for my Risk
assumptions, but wrong for you. Just change the assumptions
and figures.
Used a baseline
“Erected Building” investment not including the concrete, roads,
fences, electrician, etc. Interest rate assumed going from 4% to 6%.
If you think differently, just change the figures.
The analysis below
says to wait till prices go down. But in the meantime, do you leave
your market open for competitors to build more? Not utilizing the
land. We will start to prep the land now. Wait till mid 2022 to
decide whether to place orders. If we place an order will probably
only install Concrete in 2022 since any Building order Summer of 2022
will probably not get manufactured and then you need a Contractor to
erect the building and they will be booked.