Warehouse income ideas

[Oliver Bonk]

I'm looking at an eight unit apartment with a detached 36x48 warehouse/shop. It has power, water, cable and telephone. There is a bathroom with a utility sink in the rear corners. There is one garage door now but it had three garage doors with a petition wall blocking off 1/3rd of the area. It would not take much to switch it back. It has concrete floor and insulated walls and heat. Four of the eight units have washer and dryer hook up's but the other four do not. I though about a coin washer and dryer but I don't see big income for the space needed. I was thinking about using at least part of the shop myself but if I can get more income out of it whole that is the way to go. Maybe put a car lift in it an lease it out to multiple people in the area with hot rods. They could use it to work on and store there's cars. I feel that splitting I will bring in more income. Building an apartment in it could be a possibility but I don't think I could pull that off with permits. Does anyone have any ideas? My main goal is the BEST USE FOR INCOME! Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

[Eva Poon]

Hi Oliver, 

It really depends on the access and the location of your "warehouse" building. It sounds like your "warehouse" building could make for a pretty good mini-storage for your tenants. You could carve it up (into three, maybe more, units) and see if any of your tenants would be interested in renting additional space for storing things. (Apartments here in the SF Bay Area tend to be on the small side, so there is a huge demand for extra storage space out here.)

If your "warehouse" building is not at the back of the lot, or some other hard-to-reach place, you could convert it to additional parking. Again, on-site garage parking is pretty scarce out here, despite most people having garages. (A lot of people out here like to use their garages for things other than storing cars... some garages out here are even converted to bedrooms!) It really depends on your area, but in some parts of the country, additional garage parking can command a significant premium. 

On a similar note, I recently purchased a property that sounds somewhat similar to your warehouse. My property came on a large lot and with an enclosed former-airplane-hangar building (for very small airplanes). It has good power, is adjacent to a well on the property, and has windows. Although the previous owner had previously used the "warehouse" building as a workshop, and then later as a storage building, we plan to convert the space into a home-office or creative-office type space. Our property is very close to high-speed internet fiber and there is a shortage of office, including home office, type spaces here in the SF Bay Area. I'm hoping it works out as an office/home office, but if it doesn't another option for us is to convert the space into a garage, which would allow us to expand the existing SFR on the property.

If your zoning allows for it, conversion of the warehouse building to an additional residential unit would probably be the ideal use of the space. But even if that's not allowed, you still have many options. Good luck!