All Forum Posts by: Steve Cheslock

@Dave Carpenter Thanks, that is all very helpful advice.  Going to check out those resources now. 

@Joshua D. I agree with you and if this was a stand alone deal I wouldn't be considering it.  But the value play that the additional parcel of land provides makes the deal worth the time.  

I’m looking at a property with a 4 bay self service car wash on it and have no experience running them. It’s a good deal and only 20 mins from my house so not worried about the management from a time standpoint. However I know nothing about plumbing/mechanical and seeing the back room was daunting.

The car wash has been closed for 6 months (owner lived 2 hrs away and retired) so want to check all the machines, pumps, hoses etc. Can I hire a normal plumber/mechanic to take a look or are their specialty people that I’ll need to contact to take a look at the existing mechanical room?

Thank you in advance.

@Ryan Clark did you end up pulling the trigger?  I'm currently looking at a small self service car wash deal.  It's about 25 mins from my house so management isn't too much of a concern, and the deal comes with additional land which I already have a plan for.  The real value play is in the additional land and the car wash carries the land and adds a little bit of profit a month. My only concern is all the plumbing/electrical.  I don't mind putting in 1-2 hrs per day but I have no idea about the operational side of the business.  

@Christopher Brown Just speaking from your thoughts on the downturn and your storage deal, I was on a call with a well known manager/operator today and we talked about it.  He said that while this will be unprecedented times, we can use '07-10 as a roadmap.  In the aftermath storage lost 3-5 basis points and made that up pretty quickly.  There is a lot more supply on the market now but it will be interesting to see how the market reacts the  first few months out.  Personally I'm thinking with all this newly found time at home most people will tackle home projects (one person mentioned Home Depot traffic) etc.  As the economy drips it will affect tenants ability to pay so maybe prices drop, but with all the home projects going on people may need storage more than ever once any shutdown lifts.  

My 2 cents.  

I have a small mini storage project and raising $165K equity from mainly friends/family/inner circle. I'll probably have 7-9 investors coming in to raise the entire $165K. Is this scenario is the structure as simple as creating an LLC and having myself and all the investors own a piece of the LLC or with this many people am I looking at some structure with a little more complexity? I'll be talking to an attorney tomorrow but just wanted to see what my options are.

It's a 55/45 equity split if that makes a difference.  Thanks.  

@Sean McDonnell

I moved to Charleston a few months ago, will ask about this for you and follow up.

I'm doing a small tertiary project in South Carolina and I need to put in a sliding front entry gate. I've spoken with PTI, but I was curious if anyone else have suggestions on front gate vendors for these types of projects.  Thanks.  

@Adam Johnson Thank you so much for taking the time to answer and articulate your thoughts, they are really great suggestions.  Your process is very rational and mitigates a lot of the initial risk.  

@Michael Wagner As always thanks.  

I'm looking at purchasing a small mom/pop storage facility with a ton of value add opportunity and a little stuck on what to tackle first.   Looking to purchase 1.85 total acres with 4 existing buildings up front.  I guesstimate roughly 1 acre of possible expansion land on the back end that is currently flat forest.  The current facility is at 0% occupancy due to mismanagement and total neglect.  The seller just wants out, and our initial talks have been around $40K for everything. I'd say the overall structures are in decent shape and the majority of the rehab will be around replacing the doors and the insides.    

4 Existing Buildings (A,B,C,D) of 6,673 sf non climate control (82 Units total)

1. A and B: 44 Units (22 each building) of 6.5x6.5 sf (1859 Total SF)
2. C: 20 Units of 10x12 sf (2400 Total SF)
3. D: 16 Units 10x12 sf, 8 Units 9.5x6.5 sf (2414 Total SF)

This is in a small tertiary market (pop 14,000) with this facility on a major thoroughfare about 1/4 from a college (5,000 students).  There is some competition (40,000 sf) about 4 miles away, but in the corner of town surrounded by farm land.  Doing some initial research I'd say the average market rent per sf is $9.60 ($.80/mo).  

Some of my initial thoughts:

1. Unit Mix/Dimensions are a mess.  Ideally I'd like to make all the units in buildings A and B 5x5sf (instead of current 6.5x6.5), but existing building structure is solid and already fitted to these weird dimensions. Should I just bite the bullet and totally redo buildings A and B with the proper unit sizes or just go the cheaper route of just fixing the inside partitions and keep the weird dimensions.  *We plan to split the 10x12sf units in building D into 6x10sf units, which will add an additional 16 units.

2. Expansion, the back acre:  I know the goal is expansion so I'll need to clear the back acre.  My thought was to clear the back acre, cover it with gravel (or millings)  and offer machine/equipment storage until the proper time to build the expansion.  I got some initial estimates of around $60-75K to clear the land, top soil and cover it with gravel.  

I guess my main struggle is figuring out which path to take. *This project will be privately financed

1. Initially go cheap as possible.  Just acquire land and existing facilities, rehab them as cheap as possible (keep existing unit sizes), don't touch the back acre and bring project to stabilization.  At that point (around 12 months) take a look at options.  This would probably be around $100K give or take some.  

2. Raise enough to acquire land and existing facilities, rehab to fix dimensions and maximize efficiency of unit mix, clear away the back acre and bring the facility to stabilization (while adding machine/equipment storage).  This could push the project cost to roughly $200-$250K and adds time/risk and capital raising.  

Crunching the numbers I'd like to get it to 12-15K sf rentable as soon as possible because right now with only 6,600 sf a lot of the potential profit is being eaten away by the expenses.  Any thoughts, feedback or new ideas anyone has is greatly appreciated.  Thanks.