All Forum Posts by: Terry Campbell

Thanks Steve! 

Brian, give me a call at 910-202-6933 this week and we can discuss options to see if we can be of service. 

@Bilal A.

Get up with me and I can give you details of what is available. There are different loans and depending on your individual circumstances, we can determine what is best. You can get SBA for as low as 10% equity.

Bipin,

Where are you planning to build? There are a few that I can name off the top of my head.....Bruce Jordan, Ariel Valli, Danika Dallam, RHAA, Mark Price, Pat Pillot.....depends on where you are, but also most of these folks can do work nationwide. It just makes it easier working with someone in your own timezone.

@Christian Podedworny

I’ve seen this many times in different parts of the country. We have even financed a couple. The zoning officials have to be ok with it and the fire marshall may have input as well. Many areas just won’t allow it due to aesthetics. One of the major concerns I would have if you have any competition in your market that has ‘conventional’ self storage is the fact that the majority of the decision makers to rent are women. They want to rent where they feel safe and the containers may give them less than a safe feeling. This would be one of my major concerns as the owner of the facility. My partners and I just bought a

facility that needed immediate expansion, and we considered containers, but decided against it and will use cost segregation and accelerated depreciation on a new building instead.

Depending on how you finance it, banks may look at it as equipment and give a lower loan term driving up the monthly payments.

Pros and cons to this type storage, but it doesn’t happen very often.

@Natalie Lindsey another vote here for self storage. Low overhead, low maintenance, very few, if any employees. I’ve been in this this business for 25 years and I’d never do anything that involved residents.

@Christopher Brown ,

We should talk about doing a 504. We are not far from you in Wilmington and we specialize in self storage financing. It would be worth a call.

Kyle,

Sometimes the worst reason that people build a facility is that they already own the land. Self-storage has gotten a lot of press in the last few years and for good reason. The first thing to do is to get a feasibility study. If you are going to get a loan to build it, the bank should require one...we do for many reasons. 

The costs of building the facility can vary greatly. your local zoning and permitting can tell you how many sf can fit on a piece of land and it will depend on your FAR (floor area ratio). a good rule of thumb is 15-17,000 sf per acre assuming that all of it is buildable. In your part of the country, there are quite often issues with the plasticity of the soils which will require much more substantial amounts of concrete for footer and foundations. I remember a project in Bryan that required hundreds of pilings driven down to the solid ground, so this is a factor that alters a 'normal price'. 

What we have been seeing is for a decent facility that has a mix of climate-controlled units, fence, gate, keypad, paved drives, etc. is going to be in the mid $40-low 50 per sf. this is for a single story project. I am a partner on a single story with CC that we just recently got our costs on and it was in the low $60's per sf. If you go multi-story, it will be higher (no pun intended) but I doubt that you will be doing that said it is semi-rural. I am a partner in a large multistory that we opened this year and it was in the $80+ range. Just remember that the costs can vary wildly depending on some things that are out of your control and some things that are, such as average unit size (smaller the average size, the more expensive...your feasibility study will tell you what the unit mix should be) and how nice you make it to attract customer.s If you are the only one in the game, you may be able to get away with cutting corners, but when you aren't the only game in town anymore, you may be behind the 8 ball. 

Your feasibility study will tell you what margins to expect, but the more you can lower expenses, obviously the better that they will be. One of the things to consider would be using Virtual Management. I can share some info with you on that if you are interested. it is different than other things out there. I have been in this industry for 25 years and I believe it is going to be the next big thing in our industry. 

I have been involved in well over 100 million sf of new self-storage construction and will be happy to share any info that I can that I have learned over the years.

If you are serious about getting into self-storage, you may find that there are better areas to build and that you sell the land that you have now to build in a better/more logical location. Just food for thought!

you can check out our self-storage Knowledge Bank here: 

https://www.liveoakbank.com/self-storage-loans/

There is a ton of useful info on there that you might enjoy and benefit from.

@Toby Eagan ....and I would also endorse Scott Meyers video as well.

@Toby Eagan I would ask you about the property and its attributes to see what makes you feel that it is a great location for self-storage. I don’t mean for that to sound sarcastic, but I’ve worked with folks for nearly 25 years (I’ve been involved in around 100,000 sf of self storage development and acquisitions) that all felt the same, but many times, it wasn’t a good fit. It very well may be, but I’ll be glad to talk with you and share my experience. Message me and I’ll give you my direct number if you would like to chat. I’m not trying to sell you anything (although I might be able to provide financing for you) and I just like to share my experience with others looking to get into this industry.

@Allen Hudson what is the purchase price? There may be ways to get it financed.