Your Power Team is Critical to you as a Self- Storage Investor

Water rises to its own level. This is also true in real estate. If you surround yourself with highly experienced, successful, self-storage real estate investors, then you are going to get good advice so that you can become a successful self-storage investor yourself. This is also true with your Real Estate agents, your lenders, and your contractors and builders. You want to make sure that you are surrounding yourself with people who are experienced in self-storage investing and the various aspects of the business so that they can help make you better.

Let’s start by talking about your Realtor. There are a lot of choices out there when it comes to Realtors. You want to find someone in your area that specializes in commercial real estate. Preferably someone who specializes in self-storage. If there is not a lot of self-storage in your area, you want to find someone who has done self-storage purchases or sales in the past. You do not want to train someone on your nickel. It is too expensive.

There are a lot of nuances to self-storage that do not apply to other types of Real Estate and you want to make sure that your agent is familiar with all of them. Do not be afraid to ask your agent what experience they have with self-storage facilities. If you can’t find anyone in your area that has done self-storage sales, then make sure that you have a mentor who can help you navigate the different areas that you need to be aware of during the purchase. Be direct, ask your agent how many self-storage deals they have done. Ask them how many self-storage listings they have now. If there is not a lot of self-storage in the area, you want a commercial Realtor at the minimum.

You also need an experienced commercial lender. You should start building a relationship with a commercial lender today. If you do not have a lender on your team, ask the people that you know who they work with. Ultimately, your lender is the one who is going to make or break your deal. If they cannot find you the money for your opportunity, then it is going to be harder to purchase the property. You want a lender who has done SBA loans because this is a great way to get into properties with only 10% down.

Typically, you will be working with money partners to help you raise the capital for many of your deals and you might pay cash for some of your properties. However, interest rates are at historic lows, if you can hang on to your capital and use it for down payments and rehab rather than purchases, it will allow you to invest in more projects. If you find a lender who will go to bat for you in loan committee meetings and really fight for you and your projects, you will have a better chance of getting approved.

When you are buying a self-storage property that needs to be converted or needs to have some major rehab work done to it to make it more inviting to potential renters, then you want a contractor/builder and architect on your team who are reliable and know how to maneuver the many obstacles that will be thrown at you.

When you are renovating a building and redesigning it, you need an architect who understands what you want to do and can help make that dream a reality. In addition, you want to make sure that that architect can get the plans done in a timely matter and can help you get things through the city quickly. More than likely the city will want some changes made and so you want have someone who can navigate those changes fast so that you are not losing valuable time.

You need a builder who will fight for you. Find someone who will get you the best pricing without sacrificing quality. You need contractors who will do the job right the first time. If they do it wrong, you are the one who will have to make the repairs down the road. Do not skimp up front on someone who might do it wrong. You do not want your units flooding, or your driveways cracking because the grading was done incorrectly. Get references from past clients to make sure that your builder is reliable, on time and will do a good job.

The expression, “It’s not what you know, It’s who you know” is very powerful. Make sure that when it comes to self-storage investing, you surround yourself with the right people who know more of the “right people” so that you can become a successful self-storage real estate investor. Happy Investing.