Anyone have experience with owning storage units?

Anyone have experience with owning storage units?

I've been looking into it, seems like a decent investment, especially over multi-family real estate.

Low utility cost, cheap metal building fabrication, minimal upkeep.

Thoughts?

Low barriers to entry mean a lot of competition.

True, there are a lot of themy in the area.

I suppose a good probe would be to simply find out if the existing ones have vacancies

My cousins husband owns a few carpet shops and rents the shipping units out as a side business, he does pretty good from it.

There are literally hundreds of these places within 10 minutes drive of my house. I personally think the market is very saturated, so you have to do something that's going to make you stand out.

Could go with a manned unit and gate, but building luxury units that those customers will demand is going to mean spending significantly more money.

As most posters have noted, lots of competition means lower returns, but the big positive is, if you have the upfront capital to build or set up a truly gigantic setup, you're golden. The amount of maintenance and staffing to run a 20 unit property is the same as it is to run a 500 unit property.

I highly disagree with you...
develop a building, and manage employees or be a slum lord, and deal with bitch ass nigga drug dealers...

your method does seem easier...

What is this guy even talking about?

Worked for a place for a few years. They payed for themselves 350 in 3 months

I used to carpool to college with a very tertiary friend. Along the drive we would point out places that would be perfect to build self-storage units. Literally by the end of college every single spot was a self-storage business.
Every.
Single.
One.

He used you to point out his next business properties lol

So now you piqued my interest in this business. I'm going to be researching it now as opposed to investing in housing properties for rent.
So far my lazy googling has gotten me no info lol. Anyone have an idea how much initial investment I need? If the market is indeed saturated, what will my returns look like?

Actually we ran into each other about a year ago and we both brought it up lol. I wonder how the locations are doing today, this would have been right before 09 when they all went up so....

From what I've seen, heavy opening cost, need a property manager maintenance man, lots of security cams fence automatic gate and a good location. If you can handle that this will make good returns and a nice passive income. Good luck

They aren't a business in and of themselves.

what they are is a real estate play, a way to receive income out of a property that isn't yet ready to be developed into a real commercial or residential location. Other plays would be car washes, coffee huts or car lots.

In terms of like this poster
They work well in college towns because enrollment eventually will go up and the size of the property that most storage units is on is perfect for building high density student housing. Additionally, the students need a place to store stuff for 3 months out of the year so the space gets a spike in demand for 3 months that ensures no vacancies. I would also assume the the other 9 months of the year would suck hardcore.

If you already have the land, all you need is a few shipping containers and a company.

Hey do storage units have electricity?

I could rent one and setup a mining rig and get free power.

no

That guy in that x-files episode who was granted his wish by a genie to turn invisible absolutely hated working at one of these storage places

Just pay Mexicans slave wages to sit in the units and turn generator cranks

>implying Americans won't jump on those jobs in 2016

Yes they do, they use it mostly via a light switch. You would be able to do so quite easily if you can get to the socket and draw power. Of course it would very quickly be noticeable.

bubble
look at PSA
i made mad fucking money buying some puts at their peak