Sam, we like Dallas, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Provo, Tampa, and Atlanta. 

Both houses are on a small lake in the Midwest in a nice neighborhood and were worth about 250K at the time.

@Ryan Swan I just talked to my friend about the house last night and he really set my head back on straight.

I'm a software engineer currently located in Winter Springs, FL but have lived in Oviedo and Lake Nona as well.

There is a location where like minded investors gather in Lake Forest, California every month that you should check out.If you would like to chat before then and talk about investing let me know.

If lakes are your thing then Dallas may be best.

Minneapolis close to the lakes.  

Spend on marketing : highway billboard(units are only 0.1 miles from the major highway), lake billboard(units are 1 mile of the lake), Facebook ads.. total budget 20k.I have owned single family/multi fmly rentals before and this is my first big investment into storage units, please help me out industry veterans and let me know what else can I do to get to profitability soon.

I am looking from the bay area to about 30 minutes north of Sacramento to South Lake Tahoe.

I see from your profile that you might have a rental in Lake County (I hope it's not Cook County because you cannot deny someone simply for having section 8 there)?