Plus contacting real lenders is great practice in and of itself.In terms of repairs, from what more experienced investors have told me, they have yet to find a property which needs *nothing* at all in terms of upgrades, even if it's just a few new GFCI outlets in the bathroom, new cabinet fixtures in the kitchen, new living room carpets, or a fresh coat of paint. 

My brother in law turned a single story into a two story after Harvey since he couldn’t otherwise get out of the property and has gotten a bigger living area and converted the entire first level into storage area that can take a future flood with minimal restoration cost.

But our investors like to buy a property they know is freshly renovated and already rented. 

Next time say it’s a sewer leak, when you say slab leak that says it’s the domestic fresh water system issue.  

Lot's of W2 workers looking for passive returns struggle with deciding which way to go, active, passive, self storage, multifamily, single families, ect.Once you have defined your criteria, then and only then should you start investing.

Additionally, the fenced lot seems like a fantastic opportunity to develop self-storage but again, we have no expereince.

This is to allow them storage to keep the place tidy, but mainly because if there is a water leak I want them to be able to kill the water immediately.

Our deal metrics for our storage from a financial perspective:a. 

. - Repairs: needs new carpet and fresh paint. - Lot rent: $1073 - With utilities bills come out to: $1225 (this is in the middle of the summer)- Lot rent has been paid until the end of the month.

This thread has some good knowledge in it. http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/67/topics/59148-underground-storage-tank