What are you looking for in a self-storage owner and a property?

Once you have built your database, it is time to start reaching out to the owners of these properties. Whether or not you send out mailers or call them, you need to let them know that you exist and you need to do it on a regular basis. Most of these properties are not for sale today. Remember that circumstances change for everyone. Eventually, they may want to sell.

There are many reasons why someone decides to sell. They may want to retire or have health issues or face a divorce. They may have refinanced the property to pay for capital expenditures and now they cannot get the financing for the balloon payment. This is where you come in. You are going to consistently market to self-storage owners so that if any of these things happens, they know that you want to buy their property. This way they will call you instead of a real estate agent.

Not every seller is going to work with you. There are a lot of sellers that are going to want more than top dollar for their property. There are a lot of property owners who think that they paved the walls in gold. On the other hand, you are going to have properties out there that have started to deteriorate, or they haven’t been able to maintain the occupancy levels. These are the properties that you are going to get excited about.

Don’t feel bad when you don’t get them all. You need to be consistent about reaching out to sellers to see if they are open to a conversation. However, before you have that conversation, you need to make sure that the property will work for you and your business goals.

The first thing that you need to look at in a property is the upside potential. If the property doesn’t have the ability to increase in value, you probably are not interested. We are not looking for the properties that are 100% occupied. We are looking for the properties with very low occupancy rates.

We are also looking for the properties that have the potential to be expanded or converted to bring in more rental income. For example, do they have a large parking lot that could be converted into boat & RV storage instead? Do they have room to add portable storage or can you even expand your current building? Any of these opportunities would increase your net operating income.

As you start talking to sellers, make sure that you are looking for properties that have potential. You want to find something that will be able to increase in value when you take over. Also start thinking about what you are going to do to create a consistent marketing plan. And as always, happy investing.