Networking to Find Your Power Team!

Depending on who you are trying to target depends on how you should network. When you are networking to find your power team the most common question you are going to ask is, “Who do you know?” Whether you are talking to your parents, your great aunt, or your dentist, you want to ask them who they know in the real estate business. Everyone knows someone in the real estate world. This is fantastic for you. This means that you can get a ton of referrals.

Once you have a name and hopefully phone number, call and introduce yourself. Drop the name of the person that referred you to them. This alone will build your credibility and hopefully buy you a few minutes of their time. Now that you have them on the phone, ask them about their real estate business.

If they are a Realtor, ask them what kind of real estate they specialize in. If they don’t specialize in commercial, ask them who they know that does. You want a commercial Realtor, preferably someone who has done self-storage. Now you will repeat the process.

Ask them how many self-storage properties they have sold. Do they know what pitfalls to help you avoid? What are the current cap rates for self-storage in their area? Do they know of any current opportunities. Are they willing to help you find properties that are not perfect or sellers who are willing to sell for less than top dollar? If they aren’t, don’t waste your time. Find the next agent.

If this seems like someone you can work with, ask them who they know in the lending industry or the title business. Find out who they recommend for your inspections and studies or who they suggest for your rehab work. If they are good at what they do, they will have a team of people that you can tap into.

Don’t just call one agent when you are getting started. You want to find someone who will take you seriously. You want to find someone who will make you a priority. You want to find someone who you work well with. There are a lot of options out there, don’t settle.

Now that you have a Realtor, move on to your lender. If you find your lender first, great, ask them these questions and then ask them who they know. Talk to your lender about loan programs that will work with self-storage. Ask them if they specialize in SBA loans. How many SBA loans have they done? You DO NOT want to be their first! Find out what their success ratio is for getting their SBA loans approved. Find out what they think your best price range is and what the minimum you can put down is. Now that you have a tentative price range and you know how much capital you need to raise, you can start looking for investors.

You may want to find a property before you start building out the rest of your team. However, you should have a list of names of people that you can call to get your inspections done. Find out how long it is taking them to complete a feasibility study. You need to make sure that you give yourself enough time in your real estate purchase contract. Talk to planning and zoning if you are going to need to make a zoning change or get a variance. How long will that take? Again, you need a long enough due diligence period.

Building your power team isn’t hard but it can take persistence. If you don’t know anyone in the area where you are looking, start with a simple Google search and start calling people. Ask for references. Talk to multiple people. Call on current listings and talk to agents who have listed self-storage properties. Then work with their teams until you find a team that you gel with.

Don’t wait to start investing in self-storage. Start networking today. As always, happy investing.