Storage Units? I'm confused by my own math... maybe...

[Shane Short]

So, I'm 20 years old and I live in Portland. I'm very intrigued by storage units and would really like to invest in them at some point. Especially since so many people are moving to Portland each year. But I feel like my math must be wrong... Or so many people would be buying up storage units, and building them, etc... so I'm curious how much income can a storage unit company pull in. Especially in a place like Portland where an average storage unit is $175 per, some $275, and the lowest i've found being 120 for a very very small one. If this is true, I was talking to a manager at one and they had 750 units. And they managed to pack them in, in about 2.5 acres. At an average of 175 per unit, give or take, that's a Net Income of $131,250.00 per month, thats $1,575,000.00 net income per year..... now even if  i'm 31k off per month, that's 1.2 a year... am I missing something? And she said they are completely full and havent had any issues filling them ever... I feel like even after taxes and bills, and stupid tenants causing issues you should still have a net profit of like 600k a year? 

[Jeff Robert]

Your math looks good, but it's only 1/3 done.  You havent figured in the price of the property/mortgage (or land + construction), taxes, insurance, utilities, marketing, security, and staffing.  You guesstimate 'taxes and bills' at 600k a year, i would doubt that the storage industry has a 50% profit margin, very few companies in the world do.   Run the rest of the numbers, i'd be curious how they look!