Hey Jim, My Storage unit website.

[Yellerdog]

Jim, (and anyone else who may be interested).

Since we were talking about this in the other thread last night I thought I may as well post a link so you could see them.

http://storagemaxstorage.net/

The pictures aren't great, I need to take some better ones now. When we took those it was winter and the grass and trees didn't look so hot, so we just got the buildings. It doesn't show the building with the offices and the Tool and Die shop either. One of these days we'll add more to the website like pictures of the inside of some units.

[FinsnFur]

I'll take a 10x10 for 3 months

That's great, thanks for the link. So let me ask you. Do you get much business off the site?....or does most of it come locally?

And, how big of a town or city is Clinton?

[Yellerdog]

I'll take a 10x10 for 3 months

I just happen to have on of those available. 

Due to lack of advertising the website, I don't think we've gotten any busness off it.
It will be in any future advertising we do, so it may prove worthwhile in the future.
Most of our business is from people that drive by and see our sign. We're located on a well traveled road that many people commute to their city jobs on. Clinton is a small town of only a few thousand people. It's about 45 min. to an hour southwest of Detroit.
We also get quite a few calls from the Yellow page adds. We only advertise in the smaller phone books due to cost though.

[FinsnFur]

I've been contemplating this for a couple of years now. I think another draw back for me would be, I don't live in what they call a city or a town.....but a village. With a population of 701. I must be the 1

I might have to look into setting up in a surrounding town.

[Brad H]

I'd love to have a setup like that. There's a few like it along the outskirts of this town but to own would be, IMO, quite lucrative. That's a good investment consideration fer damn sure.

Brad

[Bob D]

That's a nice looking business you got there Yellowdog. I've watched a few of these storage businesses and most seem to be pretty successful. I would think that onsite management would be one of the most important requirement for a successful rental enterprise. I noticed you said you had an office in one of the buildings. I know location is also important with most real estate deals but I don't think it is that important with this type business? Could you give us any suggestions as to what you would do different if you did it again and why?
Bob

[Yellerdog]

I noticed you said you had an office in one of the buildings.

Bob,
The office is in another building that is not shown in those pictures. It's the building that my Tool & Die business is in. It's farther back on the lot.
Here is a picture of that building before we built the self storage buildings. It was in REALLY bad shape when we bought it. Damn near bankrupted us fixing it up. We bought the property and that building in 1998. About that time the Tool and Die industry in our area took a downturn and things were tough on us for quite some time. We stuck with it and it looks like things are going to work out. The storage business is what I see as my future far more than the Tool & Die.

I would think that onsite management would be one of the most important requirement for a successful rental enterprise.

I agree with that. Many of the storage facilities have no onsite management. They are just building and a sign with a phone number. Not always a good recipe for customer satisfaction. We are there anyway, so the storage management is quite easy.
I am starting the proccess of looking for a second location. This presents the problem of not being there. We can put an office in the storage buildings, but it will still mean a lot of traveling back and forth between locations. I have picked a town that I think can support another storage business, now the fun starts of finding the right land and being able to come to terms with the current land owner. No matter where we put another one (if we do it) it won't be as convenient as this one.

I know location is also important with most real estate deals but I don't think it is that important with this type business

It may not be as important as some types of retail businesses are, but it helps. In Clinton, where ours is there are about 2500 residents. There was already one storage facility there when we built our. They are less than half a mile from us. We have better visability and we have an on site office. They had 10,000 square feet of space when we started. They still have 10,000 sq. ft. We're up to 8,000 in a year and a half and should be at 12,000 by spring. I doubt they will add on.  So both the location and on site office have helped. Plus we're just nicer people!

Could you give us any suggestions as to what you would do different if you did it again and why?

There isn't much I would change. I planned this for years in advance, just had to get in the position to get financing. While I bided my time waiting for that, I had plenty of time to work on site plans, floor plans and things like that. The only thing I may have changed as far as the site goes, I could have shifted the buildings a few feet to the east for a little more turning room on the ends. I set things up for maximum lot useage and it's a little tight on the West end that butts up to the property line.
There are a whole lot of things I would have done different over the years in the Tool & Die business, Like not start it in the first place
But that's another story.

I'll be happy to go into things more if I haven't answered anything, but I'm need a brake from my painfully slow typing for now.

[FinsnFur]

You've done good for yourself Lee.
You've done something that I have considered attempting for quite some time. It's the initial leap that I keep second guessing.

I'm forty years old and self employed, it time I get off the fence and decide how I'd like to supplement any income I might have when my children start handing me grand kids.

It's good to know that I know someone into this storage if I need to ask some questions.

[Bob D]

Thanks for the information Lee. I'm also interested in something like this. I've watched alot of different ones and they all seem to keep it going. How do you structure your payments of the  initial costs with the bank? Do you mortgage it or pay off as you are able?
Bob

[Yellerdog]

I'm forty years old and self employed, it time I get off the fence and decide how I'd like to supplement any income I might have when my children start handing me grand kids.

Jim,
What a coincidence. I was forty two years ago when I started building the storage facility. If you decide to try it, you'll never regret it.
I come from a family that always believed in hard work but never made alot of money. There certainly won't be anything other than bills to pay when my parents are gone. They did raise me right though and gave me all the love a child could ask for and that is plenty for me!
I hope that when I'm gone I can leave something for my children and grand children. I may end up broke, who knows, but if I do it won't be from a lack of trying. (Then my kids will have to settle for the rememberance of my love for them )

How do you structure your payments of the  initial costs with the bank? Do you mortgage it or pay off as you are able?

Bob,
It is set up as a commercial mortgage. They are similar to residential mortgages in many ways. The length of amortization is shorter and the interest rates are a little bit higher. They are also more difficult to obtain than a residential mortgage. The main thing you need to be able to do when getting money for a business of any sort is to convince the bankers that you don't need the money. I know that sounds kind of screwey, but that's the way it is. Once you've convinced them of that, it's pretty easy, they loan you what you need.

Here is new picture of the property. I was standing near the road. We started back from the road about 300 feet with the storage and the future buildings will continue away from the road. This leaves us 330 ft. of road frontage for building some other type of rental buildings like office space or a strip mall. It will be some time before that will happen though. We need some more growth in the area first.