I would highly encourage paying a GC to walk deals out the gate, have them give a scope of work so you can see what items costs.

While you don’t have to wait to file your taxes before funding your SEP IRA, making the contribution before ensures you accurately reflect it in your return and maximize your tax savings upfront. 

We only needed to pay earnest money and a portion of the closing fees bring upfront investment to 12-15K.

In just the past week, I've had to deny six applications from agent-led showings because the agents didn’t conduct proper due diligence upfront.

We also do not allow the tenant to patch holes or touch up the paint, because they usually do a terrible job that takes longer and costs more to fix. 

Anything you do remote will come at a cost of operational inefficiencies and a higher cost of doing business.

They usually collect all docs upfront and then underwrite once the appraisal is completed.

@Luke Spencer I am not on the management side but I can tell you it took 2+ years to fill 300 units at one of our facilities and the other just hit 300 units in 12/13 months so it really depends on the demographics, and local housing market trend, the more people moving in and out the higher the demand for storage.I think if you're looking at a saturated market then the upfront cash to turn the warehouse into self storage is not a good idea but then again, maybe those operators are on back roads ( low visibility ) and don't push google ads well.

At this time I manage and renovate majority of all my units to keep cost low but most likely not the best use of my time although I'm skilled at it.

So this requires some upfront planning.