Storage space rentals as a business opportunity?

[scottmandue]

Thinking of my retirement,

I live on a lot with two houses so we rent one out, and yeah, it is nice to have that extra income.

However it can be a headache... I do most of my own home maintenance so it is twice the maintenance plus working a 40 hour week job.

Plus if you rent to a single mom the you get... Ack! The pilot is out on the water heater... Ack! There is no power in the bedroom, I think a breaker tripped! (light bulb in bedroom burnt out) etc. Ack, ants in the kitchen... and I am in the back house so I can't just ignore the renter.

Anyway, so I am thinking one of those storage space businesses would be ideal. No plumbing to worry about. People for the most part just stuff away their useless junk they can't part with.

And you don't have to deal with renters rights, it is a storage unit. Customer signs a contract "if rent isn't paid in (x) months you are evicted and you stuff gets thrown out." (or sold).

What think ye?

[HardDrive]

Seems like a pretty saturated business, at least where I live.

[look 171]

I think they are gold mines, but they are $$$$$$$ to own. Overhead is very low and many of them have a live in manager. The one we use has one. own one in a dense populated area can be very profitable as space are very limited in the city.

[KevinP73]

There is some downside. People go broke or lose their jobs and rent on storage is the first thing to suffer. Here in LA you have to be watchfull of people taking up residence in storage units. Drug labs are prevalent also. Not the biggest problems in the world and may be less trouble than renting homes.

[porsche4life]

Originally Posted by look 171

I think they are gold mines, but they are $$$$$$$ to own.

Exactly... I don't see many coming up for sale either. I'd love to own one also, but I doubt I could come up with the scratch to buy land and build one here....

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by look 171

I think they are gold mines, but they are $$$$$$$ to own. Overhead is very low and many of them have a live in manager. The one we use has one. own one in a dense populated area can be very profitable as space are very limited in the city.

Just brainstorming at this point, when I retire I would be the manager but live close by but not on premises. I wonder what code/license issues there might be?

Originally Posted by KevinP73

There is some downside. People go broke or lose their jobs and rent on storage is the first thing to suffer. Here in LA you have to be watchfull of people taking up residence in storage units. Drug labs are prevalent also. Not the biggest problems in the world and may be less trouble than renting homes.

Well, they sign a contract, no rent and out come the bolt cutters and you stuff is mine (or the salvation army if it is not worth anything).

The drug/illegal/hazardous substances would be the big worry.

However most of the people I know, no... make that all the people I know that have a storage unit just stuff it with crap they can't bear to part with.

I figure I would watch the initial loading and have CC cameras, probably install sprinklers. I have heard drug labs stink to high heaven so I think that would be easy to detect.

[biosurfer1]

I know the regional manager of Public Storage for the west coast. He says they are absolute cash cows, but the hardest part was already mentioned... They rarely come up for sale unless you have the inside track. The ones you do see for sale have astronomical prices or there are other issues.
99% of the work is just getting the tenants in, laziness keeps them there. That is why you see so many, "1st month free", "Free truck use" etc.

Funny (scary?) story he told me once. He was helping the owner of a mini storage once do work on a unit which required cutting into the wall between an adjacent unit. The owner said he was curious what was in the unit since it had been rented for 18 years, always paid on time but never, ever saw the person who owned it. Checks came from out of town, thought maybe moving stuff was stored, or who knows. The owner tried to contact the owner to get approval since the wall was part of his unit. After no response, they went about the work. My friend said they could see inside just enough to see the ONLY thing in the unit was a refrigerator, sitting in the middle of the unit, not plugged in, just sitting. Without any cause to investigate further, they simply finished the work, closed up the wall and didn't ask questions. Creepy for sure. Never did find out if that was still going on or anything came of it.

[HardDrive]

Jimmy Hoffa!

Originally Posted by biosurfer1

I know the regional manager of Public Storage for the west coast. He says they are absolute cash cows, but the hardest part was already mentioned... They rarely come up for sale unless you have the inside track. The ones you do see for sale have astronomical prices or there are other issues.
99% of the work is just getting the tenants in, laziness keeps them there. That is why you see so many, "1st month free", "Free truck use" etc.

Funny (scary?) story he told me once. He was helping the owner of a mini storage once do work on a unit which required cutting into the wall between an adjacent unit. The owner said he was curious what was in the unit since it had been rented for 18 years, always paid on time but never, ever saw the person who owned it. Checks came from out of town, thought maybe moving stuff was stored, or who knows. The owner tried to contact the owner to get approval since the wall was part of his unit. After no response, they went about the work. My friend said they could see inside just enough to see the ONLY thing in the unit was a refrigerator, sitting in the middle of the unit, not plugged in, just sitting. Without any cause to investigate further, they simply finished the work, closed up the wall and didn't ask questions. Creepy for sure. Never did find out if that was still going on or anything came of it.

[rcooled]

My FIL owns a couple of these...and they're like having a license to print money! As said before, the price of entry is steep and you need to be in the right market to keep your occupancy rate up. All the big national storage companies, like Public Storage, are always after him to sell. He did cash out one of his properties a few years ago and made a bundle.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Emergency post-apocalypse beer stash. Nothin to see here, move on...

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Jimmy Hoffa!

Even if it was sealed in a refrigerator, you'd still have wall-to-wall stink, right?

[VaSteve]

There is a forum like Pelican for those in the owner/live in manager roles. I found it once, too lazy to look again.

[Arizona_928]

They had a prostitution sting locally that ended up with a Jane using the storage unit as a place of business.

[JJ 911SC]

Originally Posted by look 171

I think they are gold mines, but they are $$$$$$$ to own. Overhead is very low and many of them have a live in manager. The one we use has one. own one in a dense populated area can be very profitable as space are very limited in the city.

+1. There is 8 like hotel look already open and another 13 planned for a city of around 1,000,000.

This is the smallest one;

[WPOZZZ]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

Well, they sign a contract, no rent and out come the bolt cutters and you stuff is mine (or the salvation army if it is not worth anything).

I think there might be more to it than that. I think you can't just open it up and keep what you want and dump what you don't. That is why there are always storage auctions. You only get the proceeds from the auction to cover your fees, that's it.

[GH85Carrera]

I used to work at a place that was next to a storage facility. We would go out to our cars and see the storage facility cutting the locks off of yet another unit. 95% of the time it was full of pure junk. They had auctions all the time.

I rented a trailer recently and that place also had a HUGE storage facility. The had a list of 75 units that were overdue on rent and were up for auctions in the next few days. The lady there said a lot of people have a household of trash and they will just rent the place for a month and that is cheaper than a dumpster.

There are new facilities being built all over the place. It is just astonishing to me how much people will pay to store crap. Crap that is often not worth two months rent much less years of rent.

I suspect it will be a profitable business for you, but it will be a lot of work.

[stealthn]

I think a pod business would be better, no people on the lot, stack me high, charge stupid fees, i see these type of businesses popping up a lot more.

[sammyg2]

I simply can't understand why anyone would pay thousands of dollars over the years to store $200 worth of junk.
Packrat mentality I guess.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

I simply can't understand why anyone would pay thousands of dollars over the years to store $200 worth of junk.
Packrat mentality I guess.

Yep.

We go for walks in the neighborhoods. On a regular basis we can see someone with the garage door up and it is PACKED with crap. Their 40 or 50 grand car is sitting outside.

I confess to keeping some junk. It is up in my attic and I am just to lazy to go up and carry it back down to throw away. Out of sight, out of mind. My cars have plenty of room to park inside.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by JJ 911SC

+1. There is 8 like hotel look already open and another 13 planned for a city of around 1,000,000.

This is the smallest one;

I was thinking nothing that high end, maybe something like one story cinderblock garage type buildings (or concrete tilt up?) with metal stud and drywall separators. On a big paved lot with a big a$$ wall, razor wire on the top and lots of CC cameras.

It would be a business, any business you have to deal with people, a certain percentage of the human race are a-holes.

I'm guessing you have to deal with more people (and jerks) on a daily basis at a bar/restaurant/retail store that you would in a month or three owning a storage rental space business.

I also have never rented a storage space.... but you know what they say... the riches drug dealers are the ones who don't do drugs.