All Forum Posts by: Henry Clark

I will zip some info to you.  Some are spreadsheets which are not allowed.  Just go to my website and look in blogs to see if you can find attached.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR RV OR VEHICLE STORAGE

A. Pull through- The front, pull as far forward as possible, gives the person next to you an easier angle to turn into, from behind you. Align your front with the fronts of all other vehicles. Be courteous and leave enough room on the Driver side, so that RV can open their doors.

B. Back to back parking- our locations are set up at 60 degree parking. Also, they are setup for the driver to back in on their side, so they can use the lot next to them for alignment. This way you only have one blind side on the right side backing in. Otherwise you have two blind sides.

We have 20/30/40 foot parking at our location at 26763 Highway 34, Glenwood, IA. Each size has a different width due to how hard it is to park a longer unit at the very front angle of their turn in. 20’s- 10 wide; 30’s- 12 wide; 40’s- 15 wide. Although you could park an RV in any of these sizes, it is easier with a wider width to make the “front” turn. Or ask for an end parking spot, so you are doing a 90 degree parking, but have the whole drive way to back in with, without a turn.

C. Canopy- same issues as others, depending on if 60 degree or 90 degree parking.

D. Enclosed- Really a matter of width and depth. Keep in mind all measurements for storage are relative. For example: A 10 wide x 20 deep x 8 tall unit, with studs, roll up door and door jambs; is really 9 wide x 19 ft 6 inch deep x 7 ½ foot tall. Also if you have a 20 ft boat or Camper, its really 22/23/24 ft depending on Propeller, bumper or front hitch.

E. Surface- Rock or hard surface (concrete/asphalt); If on rock/asphalt put your tongue leg or stabilizer pads on wider pads to spread the weight out. These pads are needed on Asphalt since in hot weather they will sink into the asphalt.

F. Pest control- we put mouse bait out along the fence lines and under the units, mow excess weeds and grass. You should put both rodent and bug control in your unit. Dispose of all food sources, for long term storage. If you want to be really diligent with pest control, don’t park next to overhead lights. They attract bugs at night and then mice underneath. Put scented drier sheets in all compartments and rooms. Open all cabinets and doors.

G. Stabilizers- if doing long term storage put you stabilizers down. Most parking is in an open area and the units can rock and move with the wind. This will also help with taking pressure off your tires so they last longer.

H. Security- Put a lock on the hitch. Although you are in a secure location, RV’s and trailers are the easiest storage to break into or take without notice. Recommend you put in motion sensors or GPS tracking security. Check your vehicle at least twice a month. Most Security systems only maintain footage for 2 weeks due to camera memory capacity.

I. Propane Fuel Tanks- disconnect and store if leaving for long term storage.

J. Electronic Lifts- disconnect the battery if leaving for long term storage.

K. Insurance- most storage unit insurance policies do not cover vehicles. Keep your insurance, just have them adjust your automobile to fewer miles or just comprehensive coverage. Wind, Flood, tornado, Hail, or third party damage or theft can still occur. Traditional insurance coverage, RV’s normally stay a flat rate throughout the year, thus you will still need to maintain full coverage. Or, if you seek out a specific RV or rec vehicle insurance company, you can move in and out of winterization rates.

L. Pricing- use a 30 foot vehicle as an example:

-In the country about a $1 per foot on rock.

-With Paved access and parking spot, this might run $60 to $90

- Enclosed parking this will cost about $120 to $170 for a 30 foot.

- Enclosed parking for a 50 foot, might cost $225 to $350.

The price extremes are the cost of the concrete/asphalt road and the storage bay. Also the longer the unit the price goes up significantly because it takes more driveway width to park and the type of door changes in both size and type (remote operated). A 50 ft RV will require about a 70 foot wide driveway to back in.

We are only addressing the long term Parking portion of storage. Other items are specific to each vehicle such as water clean out, Tire/window shades, etc.

Quick non Parking list:

Wheel/tire covers; Vehicle cover.

Remove and store your tires.

Store with a full fuel tank to prevent condensation

Add fuel stabilizers

Place RV completely off the ground to prevent flat spots on your tires, if left for a long time.

Cover your HVAC, skylights, vents and windows to prevent exposure to sun and breakdown.

Boats leave your plug out, whether covered or not.

@ Chris Gawlik   

Nah, lets "jump off the cliff and toss the toaster into the bath tub".  Lets have some fun and go prepping.

When it comes to your money, your always right.

1.  Go to cash- like you said.

2.  Next is where you put your cash.  First rule of prepping is don't tell them who you are and where your cash is.  Now all of your friends and relative know.

3.  Where do you put your cash.  If things get that bad, pick the bank your going to trust.  Find which bank will make it through the next depression.  I live next to one of the top 25 banks to make it through the great depression and it is still run the same way.

4.  Consolidate your loans/collateral at the bank you have your cash at.  If it gets tight you want the same bank to offset debt and cash.  If its at two banks, they may not release your cash.

5.  9 to 5 job, what is your plan for when you two loose your job.  In other words don't just have cash.  Determine how much you have and for how long; and what is covered.  

6.  For the Spelling aficionado in the first series of posts,  "there" funding needs to match "there" potential cash needs.  Brings back bad memories.  Two time spelling champion.  When I did a team, my teammate lost it on "Rhubarb".   Yep, the "H".  

7.  Look at your family and friends.  Determine ahead of time who you will and won't fund or support during this time.  Take that into your cash needs.  Part of Prepping is determining who your circle of friends are, and what they bring to the table.

8.  Take a cash safety position.  Example:  a.  So much in CD's, b.  So much in a safe deposit box, c.  So much in Gold/Silver, d.  etc.

9.  Your near Los Angeles.  What's the plan to exit the city area? If it's that bad, LA is a hot spot.

10.  With Covid, have you taken out Life Insurance for the family?

11.  Health plan.  If unemployed, what is the plan?  Any pre-existing conditions or babies on the way?  How much cash is set aside.  Should be part of the plan.

12.  Etc.

The sign you want to look for, is when the Drug Cartels switch from US $20/$100 to Euros/Yen/Rupees.  They have no allegiance other than a safe monetary position.  By the way, for another Forum somewhere, if we were truly serious about Drug traffic we would set a "New" currency date and force all old bills to be converted to "New" currency.  Talk about a flood of cash back into the economy, talk about cash sitting on the sidelines.

Folks, go with his thought.  Add to the above prep list.  Realize this topic was probably put out there as a teaser, but lets take it to its natural end result.  An action plan.

It's his money, help him protect it and grow it; his way.

Me, I'm about to spend $4mm in the next two years in Self Storage.  If it fails.  I have a plan and can take the hit.  

@Daryl L.

Normally I would say run as fast as you can.  But I always tell people to always make an offer.

First, you have to buy the "Assets" as recommended above and not the business.  

You cannot take this as a gift.  Any effort or investment you make becomes 50% hers until the divorce is settled.  You won't be able to do any financing with this property until the divorce is settled.  Any wages he gets are suspect to the divorce proceedings.

If the note above is correct and the wife was doing the books, all Third party payments and debts are suspect; as to whether they are paid.  Property tax, electric, insurance, sewer, any debt payments, etc.  You have to do an audit, yourself.

Steps:

1.  Put an offer to both of them.  If rough value is $5mm, offer them $2.5mm; get them to agree that this will go to the wife subject a divorce settlement agreement, effective on XX/XX/XXXX date.  He wanted to gift you 100%, then he is giving you $2.5mm; "but" you are paying for the business; thus not a gift.

2.  You perform an audit of the above third party bills.  Make the above price subject to all deductions prior to the XX/XX/XXXX date noted above.

3.  You need a lawyer to walk through this with you.  I'm just making business suggestions above and not legal ones.

No response to coc ?   If you use coc please complete the above calc. If missing info let me know.  

Curious to find out how you use the initial down payment in an annual calc.  Or do you use a Npv of revenue stream against the initial down payment. Thanks. 

Input please. Thanks

@seth. The above was an example.  Like I say on most of my post.  Start small and make your big mistakes early.   Recommend you stick to towns 30,000 or less.  Stay away from both large cities and climate controlled for the next 5 years the large REITS and regional firms will pummel each other.  You will need about 50% equity  to survive.

I’m building two in large metro. 

Location 1.  It’s exposed and open to market pressure, but I had planned to be able to change my product offering.  Which I am doing for phase 3.

Location 2.  Identified a protected location due to zoning and availability of land suitable for storage. 

Start in small towns with $250,000 up to $800,000 locations.  

Looking forward to your COC calc and interpretation

@Seth Eatonundefined

Traveling so I'll do a rough call on the road. At the end remember it's about the three additional investment steps that bring you abnormal cash flow. I wouldn't try to compare a Storage facility initial investment versus a BRRR and flip

Going to do a 1mm metro area type of investment versus a population of 5,000 to 30,000. Due to the rampant REIT and large regional/local builders your grade of investment can degrade very quickly in a large city if you have not selected a location with little chance of competition coming in.

Cash in:

SBA loan 10% down$250,000 on $2,500,000; loan of $2,250,000. Use 20 year term 5% over life.  

 Annual cash outlay:

Calc P/I annual or how you do versus 20 years compared to the down payment lump sum

Property tax  $50,000

Insurance $10,000

Electric  $12,000

No manager $0 or use $50,000

Maintenance   Grass snow etc  $20,000

Depreciation disregard

Income tax leave to you, leave out or put in.  If your building this or do cost segregation assume immediate writeoff of $700,000 for taxes if you do them.

Cash inflows:

Rent  430 units at $100 average at 90% occupancy, annual, past rent up phase.  $464,000 annual  if you want to get more precise with rent up period assume 30% first spring: 20% fall; 30% second spring; 10% second fall

Disregard all fees for now.  Just doing a rough calc for you

Traveling  please run the numbers and let us know how you calculated   

This includes a phase 2 which I included up front  

You won’t be able to do items 2 and 3 above for further value generation.

For my benefit what type of investments are you comparing against a storage location.  And how much time investment on your part from an ongoing standpoint.  Also how much are you looking for a BRR killer deal?   Storage is really boring once setup.  If everything is done right all your work is done for 20 years.   You just have to manage.  Very little entrepreneurship  after initial investment  

Long shot.  See if Farmer Mac operates in your area.  Do a farm loan.  Check the restrictions first.

Also check with Farm Credit.

You guys must find this boring.  Only one vote thus far. 

Anyone can buy a storage location, thought folks might want to see all of the nitty gritty.  Will this project get done based on the cost estimate, will it fill up?, what will Mother nature throw at us?,  etc.

Several items moving forward, slower than I would like, but actually nice, giving me a chance to take it in and make adjustments.

1. Layouts- finalized revised layouts with Engineer. He will take through the city to get build permits. Key issue was to take out "stepped" buildings at the entrance. The "footings" cost more than its worth to build from a profit standpoint.  Should start concrete pads for buildings in 2 weeks.

2. Retaining wall started. This gives us more buildable surface. Added on 20 foot to the buildings in the middle.
- These pictures will show the bottom footing space dug out. -The bottom block is about a foot down in the dirt, to keep the dirt behind the wall from pushing the footing out.
- They put pea gravel or rock chips in the bottom of the trench. This is easier to level, when lining up the blocks and making sure they are level.
- As they go up, they put gravel behind the block a foot, then behind that dirt. Then a small compactor comes behind it.
- Next is the Dead man or Geo Grid. This goes on top of one block then a block is put on top of it. Then the mesh is pushed back, and gravel and dirt are put on top of it. This ties the wall back into the hill, so the blocks don't get pushed out.
- Next will be a drainage tube to take water away from the wall. I'm gone for the next day, so it will probably be in place and no pictures.
- Setting the first course is the hard work. Then they will fly laying blocks and packing the backfill.

3. Construction Entrance
- moved rock from last years build site to this one, today.
- spread out rock for parking vehicles on if it is wet.
- put "Clean Rock" at the front entrance. City requires this, so any dirt and mud gets cleaned off of the tires.
- This is 3 Inch "Clean Rock". Actually recycled concrete. 3 inch because it is sorted. "Clean" because the "Fines" or smaller particles when you crush the rock down to size is not included. "Clean" rock is better for making the Initial base. Smaller rock tends to get pushed into the ground and disappear. This is a rough road, which is good for cleaning tires. If we wanted a nice road, on top of the 3 inch after it has been pushed into the ground, we would put 1 Inch rock with the "Fines". This makes for more of a flat easy riding surface. This rock entrance will stay in place until the project is done. This is so the heavy concrete trucks don't drive on our brand new roads as we pour them. They would bust them.

4. Gas Line
- This location has been "Located" for utilities twice, with no gas line.
- For some reason the Gas company came out and they found part of their line to the apartments behind us runs through where we are building. The pipe is plastic, thus their metal detectors didn't catch, plus I think the Apartment complex told them it was there.
- They don't have an easement. Again, both the Apartment and the ground we bought used to be owned by the same people, so they didn't keep things clean. They will have to move the line over.
- They found part of the line by using a power water gun to dig. The white flags are where I "Water Witched" and marked the rest of the way to their gas pipeline.

My friend Noelle on Covid Lockdown.  Him and his wife do snorkel trips on San Pedro, Ambergris Caye.  Not making any money right now.  Went out to spearfish for dinner.  He has it "scored" ready to cook.  Think they will do over a camp fire.