There may be a loan on the car and, just like equity in real property, you may acquire title by way of storage fees and lien sale, however it may also mean that the loan remains.

When I was going through my tax preparation end of last year I realized that my shoe box bookkeeping is finally at the limit and I had to do something.

I feel like I will lose less clients than I would if I were buying an apartment complex because it is a storage unit.

Honestly I would be willing to temp them indefinitely if you have the storage.

Just seeing the cost of huge storage structures made of steel made me curious. 

Cap rates are also different as being acceptable by an investor of larger multi family as opposed to smaller 5-10 types primarily from effects of early depreciation.As to specialty areas,  I haven't seen Joel's concern as to multi family as much in business and RE, office-warehouse, warehouse, storage facilities, general office are not difficult, I'd rather see an appraiser admit they don't do agriculture, industrial, hotel-motel-hospitality appraisals than attempt to and screw it up costing a few grand.

How does one acurately assess the value of self storage business?

Seeing you're in ND, snow on shoes could cause a major problem with laminate so I wouldn't even consider that.  

If I'm down there and see a property I love, I would probably still buy it, with a regular mortgage.I do have to figure out where I want to live mostly, but some of that will depend on what I can do with the money and how confident I feel about longer term stability.Renting out a Spanish property while I'm in Canada seems somewhat easy, as it's pretty common there to rent out fully furnished places, and tourism rentals would be an option too, to help pay for it.Canada on the other hand, I'd have to put everything in storage or sell it off every time I want to be away and rent the house...

I was in your shoes 1 year ago.