The Third Rule of Thumb and Height Requirements & Setbacks!

When you are trying to buy a self-storage facility, you may find that it is very difficult to buy an existing facility. Self-storage facilities are a great investment, and a lot of people are trying to buy them. This can push the price up to where it may not make sense for you to buy it with your current investing strategy. If that is the case, then you may want to look into building or converting an existing building.

When you do find a property that you want to change, you need to find out what the height requirements are and what the setbacks are. If you are thinking about building a property that has multiple floors, you need to make sure that planning and zoning will allow you to go as high as you envision your property. They may have limits to how high you can build in that area.

When you are considering how tall to make your self-storage facility, keep in mind that for whatever reason, people don’t like to rent higher than the third floor and so rents will have to start going down. We don’t expect them to carry their belongings up the stairs, we provide elevators, but often, they prefer lower floors.

Another thing to be aware of when you are considering a multi-story building is that they will require you to install a sprinkler system. If you don’t have water to the property, this will prevent you from building. This also drastically changes the cost of your build job.

Once you are sure that you have met the height requirements, then you need to verify what the setbacks are. There are usually three different setbacks that you need to keep in mind as you are designing your self-storage facility.

You can assume that you will need to be at least 50 feet back from the front property line. Now every city is different and so that may change in your area, or you may even be able to get a variance. You can also assume that you are going to have to be 25 feet from the back of the property line and 10 to 15 feet on either side of the property.

If you are going to start doing conversions or new construction, finding out what your city requirements are would be an important first step so that you know what you can do with a property before you even look at it. By finding out what you can and can’t do before hand, you may save yourself a lot of expense and time. As always, happy investing.