All Forum Posts by: Henry Clark

Thought I would share an example of why we like self storage.

 Our caretaker in Belize showed us our first Mango of the season below.  Still a little green, but sweet.  Airport doesn't open until August 15th.  Hopefully we can get down there.  Apple Bananas, Plantains, Coconuts, papaya, Starfruit, dragon fruit, limes/oranges/grapefruit, Avocados, Cacao (you can eat the pod itself, versus just the chocolate), Soursop, Custard Apple and others planted last year, starting to take off with the rainy season.  Have an order in for 200 pineapple plants.  Planting Bougainvillea (red, purple, orange) along the drive.  Cassava, yams and taro root along the sides.  Have 10,000 Teak trees coming mid August, so neighbors will help plant them.  Have to settle in first and then decide to build a fishing pond.  Howler monkeys in the trees (below), hopefully they and the parrots will come check the fruit out.  We are at the edge of the jungle, so we will have to watch out for the Jaguar that visited one night.  Actually got to see a Toucan flying through the trees.

Do google earth.  Look for Spanish Lookout.  Look at the intersection of the Western highway and the road into Spanish lookout.  We are on the Northeast corner.  Have the Belize river on the front border and Iguana Creek on the East border.  If you zoom in, you can see the white looking beach on the island.

Official language English; Currency pegged at $2BZD - $1 USD, no currency fluctuations; English common law on property ownership, even for Foreign investors; 2 hour flight from Houston.  Property tax 50 acres = $200BZD.  Even houses say, $300,000 = property tax $500BZD.  No inheritance taxes. Little income tax, no capital gain tax on property.   

Not everything is sunshine.  Belize is ranked in the top 10 deadliest countries in the world (drug related in south part of Belize City).  40 poisonous snakes, 4 of them can kill you in 15 minutes (only about 5 people out of 330,000 die per year from snake bite).   Their beaches aren't really white sand beaches like in the pictures (photo shopped).

So when your zoning is difficult, finding a spot is hard or financing is tricky; keep pushing for your dream.

Fogot this was a Storage Forum.  Only about 40 storage units in the whole country.  A lot of expats, so I will need to check on building storage.  Probably will go with Cargo Containers.

If we weren't done buying and building storage facilities, I would be on a plane right now for due diligence and make an offer.  The worst case would be, we spend time at a great summer/winter vacation spot.

We don't do SFH or MFH, thus the concept of "Driving for Deals" isn't a concept I am familiar with from some of the other Discussions I have read here. But with this market I would drive and talk with all 60 of the above non internet locations. Deals are out there, go get them.

Follow up comment to the person I helped:

If you do go with Sparefoot give me a shout out. They have 4 different sort methods: Recommended, Reviews, Distance, price.

We can get you to the top 1-4 in each category within two months. Obviously Distance would be just for your locale, since you can't change that ranking.  This is way faster than increasing Google rankings.

Just checking the internet and I ran across a thread I responded to below, trying to help them out.  On the flip side, this would be a great deal.  All of the "Work" is done; this is a Marketing play.  Several states away, but what a great location to go to summer or winter.

@?????????, on your background it says the unit is in ?????????, ??.
Looked out on Sparefoot, without knowing your Locations name, here is the info I see. It is better for you to check with Boots on the ground:

a. Great market almost everyone is full. By looking at their listing of sizes, they should have a lot more sizes available, thus they have them turned off, since they are full. If I was there, I would build more units.
b. 10x10 (15 of 22 available); ($105 to $198 price range) Avg $140
c. 10 x 15 (9 of 22 available) ($126 to $274) Avg $170
d. 10 x 20 (14 of 22 available) ($169 to $380) Avg $190
e. A lot of competition, does not use Sparefoot. Only 22 out of 82 listed, use Sparefoot.

Recommendations:
1. Put up a road sign. This is the cheapest and most effective advertising. Everyone that sees it is a potential customer since they are in your neighborhood. It imprints on their mind. Keep it simple. Name and phone number. I know your buildings are storage and customers should know its storage, but you have to tell them it is storage.
2. @????????????; look at his "all encompassing" comments. Most people are using their cell phones to find a storage location and then to price comparison. I have a small town of 5,000 people and our location is on the main road. Buildings say storage and the sign says storage. Most customers still reach me through the internet and don't call my direct number on the sign.
3. Work on your website and other presence, but your fastest (next day) impact will be using Sparefoot. You will have immediate presence. Some people don't like Sparefoot, but they aren't missing out on the extra income or paying the bank. You can always turn them off.


Why do anything? Lets run some numbers. Change according to your actuals:
Since your location has a manager, I will assume 300 units.
Above you say 75% full consistently on average.
Will use the avg unit 10 x 15 with an avg price of $170.

Units available 300 x 25%= 75 units available
Avg price= $170
Potential extra income = 75 x $170 x 12 months= $153,000 extra

Actions:
With $153,000 extra income to work with, here are my recommendations.
a. Install a road sign $20,000
b. Don't mess around learning about internet marketing, your potential rental income is to big. Hire an SEO firm for $1,500 per month ($18,000 annual) that just does Storage. Possibly change your management software. To @???????????? points, if you can automate Rentals/reservations/payment your google ranking will go up, due to customer ease. Some software's have their own SEO products which may be cheaper than hiring a standalone SEO. Only downfall is some of your competition might also be using them. Have a conversation with your SEO around: Google Ads, Facebook, Google map ranking, website, blogging, youtube, internet pictures,
c. Don't leave work today without joining Sparefoot. Cost 1.5 months rent for each new customer. Cost, assume a 12 month rental. 1.5 x $170 x 75 units= $19,000 Sparefoot fee for 12 months of rentals. You will be immediately ahead of 60 out of 82 of your competition.
d. When you reach about 95% or about 3 units of each size available, turn Sparefoot off. Turn back on when your occupancy starts to drop. Towards the end of the Fall season, turn Sparefoot on, until all of your units are filled. An empty unit over the winter doesn't earn any money. Drop your price seasonally in the Fall. You can keep your Street price higher and your Sparefoot price lower.
e. Product mix, even if you are out of a size (except your largest) keep advertising and renting them. Example: out of 10 x 10 still advertise, but give them a 10 x 15 for the same price; out of 10 x 15 still advertise, but give them a 10 x 20. Stop this practice when you get near 90 to 95% full. Your Vortex of prior and existing customers will keep you at that level in the future.

Good luck. Your only one week away from taking the actions needed to get to 90/95% full and an additional $153,000 profit per year.

Besides the software itself compare their product offering for customer insurance programs. So you don’t need a second insurance system

Haven’t used either of the softwares. We use webselfstorage.  Did know one of our competitors uses Storedge.  They justed started 9 months ago and use their SEO and are highly ranked on google 

Just PM me and I will send.  Excel files not allowed here.

Start Small and make your big mistakes Early.

Deal breakers- market, finance, zoning, footings, road type, water/sewer availability, Storm sewers, Storm retention ponds, over Analyzing, too Greedy. Everything else you can mess up and not get too hammered.

We ended up buying two, two acre parcels next to each other through two separate purchases.

Deal A:

When we first moved here the main restaurant was a gas station and restaurant out on the highway called the "Ponderosa".  My reference to Hoss.  It had to shut down because the water had too high a level of Nitrates.  Thus not to many businesses could locate there.  Sat there for about 10 years and was not used.  Came up for sale. We liked it because it was away from the competition and our existing location.  Helped us cover another customer base.

Unfortunately it still had the old building on it and the current owner thought it had "value".  For me it looked like $20,000 of demolition.  Luckily, I like driving a skidsteer and tore the building down, burned the pile and then broke the concrete up and had hauled off for about $2,000.  Actually used the concrete on another property for erosion control and for a road entrance.  Ended up paying about $30,000 more than I wanted; but it was close to home and had great traffic count.   This was our second Storage location.  The land cost $50,000 per acre.  At the time, even though the numbers worked; I thought wow its high.  Since then, we have looked at another place, where we could have paid $1mm per acre and still made the numbers work.  Key- Its not about the cost, its not about the revenue;  "Will it cash flow".

Deal B:

Sour grapes, but a good deal.

This two acres is next to the one above.  It used to be an "Auction" house.  The gentleman retired and did the neighborly thing and offered it to us.  I didn't think it was worth too much since, "Our" water well was in the middle of his property, and cuts down building in the middle.  His front entrance was only a 1/3 his, the rest was our second entrance.  Being on a highway and the way the land fell off, he would have a hard time getting a second entrance or enlargement.  The building was built in about 4 sections and limited usage. Plus it was built near the middle of the property.  If you planned to build, you couldn't keep the existing building since it sat in the prime spot.  His water was also high in Nitrates.  Would cost about $20,000 to tear down the building.  I offered $60,000; but he passed, he had a higher offer.  Second person bought for $100,000 and then started playing around with the property, with no real immediate plans.

Luckily we have the same realtor, and he had heard from both of us about buying or selling with each other for "two years".  I was pissed because this was the second time, this person had gotten into a deal and cost me more money or bought out from me.  He does a lot of land sales and 1031 exchanges, so he is always "having" to buy land at certain times.  After about two years, our realtor seeing our Storage business was really growing and the other person, didn't have plans anymore for the two acres.  Called me into his office and "told" me, I was buying the land for this amount and he was not going to charge the seller commission.  He said you only get to buy neighboring land, usually once in a life time, and you buy it when its available, no matter the price.  We are good friends and neighbors.  Do all of our real estate through them.  Ended up buying for $105,000; plus the demo cost which wasn't much since I did it myself.  Made it into RV/Vehicle/Boat storage.  We just filled up the first two acres with storage, and guess what, we need to build more buildings on the second two acres.

Deal breakers- 

Deal A- trust your numbers.  Even though this was higher than I was used to paying for land, the numbers worked.  

Deal B- swallow your pride or being pissed off and make the deal.  This ground we needed for the future storage expansion.  The first ground the 1031 guy bid me up on, we ended up paying $60,000 more than I wanted.  We are now doing a Subdivision with that ground and selling the $7,000 per acre ground for $50,000 and higher per acre.  If the numbers and plan works, do the deal.  

Our son out mowing the lots.

This one we passed on.  But talking you through all of the deals so you can see the approach and logic, or illogic.

@ Angela.

Out planting grass seed on our new site so not quick to respond.  Hopefully I respond to you in a positive fashion.  Was planning to look at a 1965 GTO today at 3:30 to buy, but the guy called and said the family decided not to sale.  Really disappointed.  You know what they say, one persons junk is another persons treasure.

I'm not techy.  I actually had to look up ROAS before I said something inappropriate. haha.  Quick answer not tracking rentals based on Facebook.  We take calls on one phone and don't track the triggering point.  Thus hard to track source.

We just started (ground zero) Facebook last month.  Attached below is our first full month with Facebook.  On another forum they mentioned they were primarily using just Facebook to push their storage location.  Our major advertising as noted above is Sparefoot and our Highway sign (13,000 vehicles per day count).

This may be wrong, but you (I) have to learn.  I have told my SEO that even if we were the number one ranked in Google for Storage, that still would not mean anything to me by itself.  There are usually about 8 pages of search results when you do storage.  Even being number one bleeds into the other results.  A user still has to figure out Distance and price comparison, so a top Google listing by itself is not worth much to me.

My major objective is for our You tubes to show up.  When I do a google search for anything, there is a common overall thread.  1.  Ads, 2.  Google Map, 3.  You tubes, 4.  Pictures, 5.  Websites.  We want to show up high on the Google Maps and then the YouTubes (pictures jump out more than websites, also people or I am more lazy now, I would rather look at a youtube, than wade through websites.).  See at our website, front page and on the pricing page.

What does Facebook have to do with Google Map and Youtubes?  Trying to drive 

traffic to our website, to drive Google Map and YouTube rankings.

If you have a different spin, please elaborate.  Thanks.

Start Small and make your big mistakes Early.

Deal breakers- market, finance, zoning, footings, road type, water/sewer availability, Storm sewers, Storm retention ponds, over Analyzing, too Greedy. Everything else you can mess up and not get too hammered.

Setup:

1.  We stay within an hour driving radius when looking for properties.  Just makes it easier to service them.

2.  One town we looked at was a perfect fit, our type of town. It was on the 60 minute drive bubble.

3.  Again, when we go to a new town we look at both buying and building at the same time.  Gives us more options to look at and we pick the better deal first.  Prefer to buy first, so we have more control over price and competition.

4.  Met up with a realtor to look at some properties I saw listed on the internet.  Just happened he was one of the two large Storage owners in the town.  

5.  Population was all at the north end of town.  All Storage was at the South end of town.

6.  The main reason they were at the south end of town, was that was where the majority of the appropriate zoned land was.

7.  We were able to find one property zoned correctly.  It had an old derelict building on it.  The property was not quite big enough.  We could make an offer on the ground next to it which was vacant.  Combined the two properties would have been large enough.  What was key about these two properties, they were half way between the population and the existing Storage locations.

8.  Another exciting thing, was both storage owners for some reason had built all 40 wide buildings with no end units.  I.E.  not many 10's or 15's possible, without creating a lot of large size units 25/30's, which don't rent well.

My market analysis said the town was close to full occupancy.

This still looked like a positive build location, even at full occupancy.  Out position the competition.  Offer more product mix.  Build all 30 wide's.  Thus offering 10/15/20 units.

Lets say the existing locations had a total of 500 units.  And "NO" further units were to ever be needed.  We could still make a profit.

Keep in mind you don't need to be 100% occupied.  My normal breakeven is 65% full.

If we built 150 units 10/15/20's; and were closer to the population.  Over the long run if all of the occupants evenly distributed.  Total of 650 units.  Demand 500 / 3= 160 per location, close enough.  Obviously our 150 unit location would be 100% occupied.  The reason this "could" happen is we are closer, smaller and more product mix.  We are good.

Instead lets say the customers were spread Pro-rata.  For us 150/650  X 500=  115 units filled for us.

115/ 150= 77% occupied.  However since we have smaller units with a higher per sqft price, our revenue would be higher than theirs.

Either way, we are above break even.  Making money both from Cash flow and also building equity paying down the buildings.

We have other more positive projects or locations at the time, thus pass on this location.  It is actually a great deal, if we were to contact one of the other two owners and they were to sell to us first.  Again, we would have Price control, between the Purchased location and if we built the smaller location.  This is one where you check back every few years and say hello.

Deal Breaker on this location was it was already at 100% capacity.  

Key Points-  We could still have built there and made a profit.  Just had better options elsewhere.  Can always come back to this town, because most locations are mom/pop owned.  And their kids probably don't live there anymore and there are few potential buyers in a small town.  Also, there is less chance of a REIT coming to small town USA, or for someone else to build there.  Thus the "Grade" of the investment is higher than where there might be stronger competition.

8.