Self Storage- Deal 3

[Henry Clark]

Start Small and make your big mistakes Early.

Deal breakers- market, finance, zoning, footings, road type, water/sewer availability, Storm sewers, Storm retention ponds. Everything else you can mess up and not get to hammered.

Some of these stories will be ambiguous because they are still "live" items. I am intentionally not telling you all of the details and am obfuscating some of the detail, just telling you the Deal story.

Was out on Loopnet, and saw a property I recognized from a year ago.  Called the broker and asked what was up:

Setup:

a.  $3.9mm deal.

b.  Combination storage, and concrete vehicle ground storage not constructed yet.

c.  Great location and large metro area.

d.  Property has been listed for about x years.

e.  Occupancy 40%

f.  Marketing actions needed, no market issues.

I actually like this type of listing.  Its been on the market for a while, so the owners either have gotten low ball offers or no offers, so they should be more receptive.

Ran my numbers and came up with about $2.5mm.  Only way I could get to their $3.9mm number was 90% occupancy and the Vehicle storage, was not only built (concrete), but also 100% full.

What's up?

Again, the person is a "Developer" and not a "Storage" investor.    They had decided to list it upon build out.  Hopefully as it fills, the value will rise to their asking price.

While out on Google earth looking the area over, noticed another storage location next exit down.  We are done building and acquiring so I did not research it.  But this is what a "Cherry" location looks like to me.  Older location, great location, Storage buildings up front and a lot of acres in back being used for vehicle storage.  If I walked thru their door and met an 80 year old, I would fall down and beg them to sale.  Send them xmas cards and birthday cakes, just so they remembered me when they got ready to sale.  Would ask their price which would be based on the back being Vehicle storage and pay them "extra". 

All of the work is done.  Just move out the Vehicles and build more buildings.

Deal breakers- market, footings, road type, Storm sewers, Storm retention ponds.  Have to check them out.

Time to go clean up for Billy McGuigan concert tonight.  Been looking forward to it from last year.  Don't know about the heat today and the whole Covid, distancing thing.  We do "Self Service" storage, so we almost never meet our customers, so personal contact has not been an issue.