All Forum Posts by: Henry Clark

Read my post:  Self Storage, so you just died.  This will cover many areas you need to consider.

Then reach out to a "Trust" attorney to set things up.  Not your regular attorney.

Separate industry, but if your near the farm belt.  Have a discussion with a Farm Management service.  Get a fill for the type of services your looking for.  The fee and responsibility structure.

Parking pad poured today. Will need to dry for 7 days before we can use. Will paint handicap parking, put up handicap parking sign and penalty sign, then paint handicap path. The second picture below they are putting in the curb. This was part of the engineered drawing. Elsewhere I will try to get away with no curb, unless to catch water. Want to be able to push snow over the curb without hitting it.

Now that the parking spot is poured, we can put the road sign behind the two gentleman in the picture above. Stopped by my sign company and discussed what I was looking for. 4x8 double faced sign. He will erect with the bottom 4 feet off the ground. I will surround with landscaping blocks and fill in. The picture below is similar, but is using native stone blocks. Road signs are under a separate permitting process versus for the project itself, so a separate permit is required.

Called in to city permitting to get inspection. We are not totally done, but want to get the ball rolling. Still need to paint and put handicap signs, which I will do as soon as concrete dries. Also the Fence and Gate are not in. Stopped by the fence company. Our gate is third on the to do list in the shop, so should get done this week. The fence material is being rationed out, since they are short. But we have been on their list since last November, so we will get ours.

Shortages of material and price hikes. I have asked a Pool person in Phoenix and there is no Chlorine available for pools, Herbicide applicator for corn/soybeans who is almost out and it is just the start of the season, and Fence distributor. Plants are running, but the shortfall is due to fewer truckers. Back in 2017 E logs became Federally mandated for commercial truckers. A lot of the older truckers have decided to get out of the business.

Why do you care?  What is the decision your trying to make?

The reason I ask is there an off question behind the question, or just a general where will it go.

A.  I will answer you in a general fashion, because the answer is an Individual decision.

Lets say interest rates are:

1. 4% on an SFR or MFH investment your looking at.

2.  What % would you not make an investment at?  For me I stop investing at 9%.  If I was a Flipper and could move a property in 4 months, I would be okay at 15%.

3.  Lets say your stop investing % is also 9%.  Then to answer your original question, it doesn't matter as long as the interest rate is between 4% and 9%.  Within 4 to 9% it becomes a deal by deal question.

B.  From a macro standpoint, are you trying to not take the plunge.  Is another approach.  Because if it isn't the interest rate, it will be another issue, that keeps you from investing.

C.  A general Interest rate discussion is a simple matter of Cash supply and Risk.  1.  The Cash supply from an investment standpoint.  There is still a lot of cash out there.  The Federal government thru their spending is putting more cash out there.  Thus interest rates should stay low.  2.  However the economy was already hot.  By the Fed putting more dollars out there, the economy will heat up even more, causing inflation.  To correct they will need to raise the Interest rates to slow the economy down.  3.  Risk from your personal finances and deal standpoint.

Thus what do you think the dynamics in C above, will occur in the next 6 months to a year?  No investment you make should be dependent long term on these short-term rates.  The short-term rates should only impact your decision to get "in".

Run your numbers using 3 different interest rates.  Decide if the numbers work.  Then lock in long-term, or over your investment horizon.

Please breakdown what features you are looking for.

Example:

1.  Non internet

2.  Access camera pictures on line via phone or computer.

3.  Motion sensor.

4.  Unoccupied unit intrusion.

5.  Noise alarm or just message alarm to you.

6.  Parking lot and vehicle ID.

7.  Memory or how much retention do you want.

8.  Wide Angle or close up.

9.  Fire/water alarm

10. etcetera.

11.  Dimensions.  Height- ground level to 4th floor ceiling.  Length, one side of stair way or hall way to the other.

Although I hear of out of state investing. We have all we can handle in a 40 mile circle. We could keep investing for the next 10 years and still never be done. I would go after the value add multiples you get when you operate in an area versus several states. 

You would need to hire a general contractor.  Then hire a manager to start up.  

With all of the detail and issues that can come up, I personally would prefer to develop myself. But that would mean covering the project for over a year. 

Since your open to out of state. I personally would rather purchase a location versus develop out of state.  You will miss out in the inherent profit from the development but also the risk and time. 

Also purchasing takes less time allowing you to expand faster. 

Find some of the towns that don’t have any of the Reits or large regional firms. Then you have 2 or 3 value add propositions. 

Can you say slow going?
Great weather, but contractors are really tied up and hard to get to close small issues.

Uh Oh. My wife just looked over my shoulder and got on to me for posting her beautiful picture.

Assorted lose ends:
a. Will go for Occupancy and inspection next week. Was waiting on Plumber which is done., Fence/gate not responsive. Big Google project going on. Road contractor build form for parking and will pour next week. Parking is in the form. Need to put Handicap parking and regular parking for occupancy. Still have the handicap form from last project. Costs about $50. The dirt section in front will be where our Road sign goes. Still need to design.

b. Overview of phase 1, basically the buildings you see above. Phase 2 will be the two long buildings at the top of the picture below. Just need to pour the roads around them.

c. Phase 3, we will start doing pads on the bare ground above next week. Building cost went up about 25% since the units we build last year.

d. The storm retention pond drain is shown below. The drain is the large Concrete structure. Water can exit in both the round circle at the bottom and the small outlets at the top. Facing the side of the pond is the outlet which goes to the city storm drain. This pond has to be designed and sized by an engineer. They only count dry surface area as retention. If this pond had standing water, they would not count that area. The black tube on the left is the driveway drain. It is taking all of the water flowing from the buildings in "b" above for phase 1, into the pond.

e. Landscaping is almost done. Really dry here. Put seed, then grass mat down. Watering every night. My son and his friends will get home from College. Have them mulch all trees and bushes then. Also in the second picture, time to take the Silt fence out. Grass has mostly grown. Reseeding some. Have to get a zero turn mower to mow since this is a high bank and my riding lawn mowers wont work. The first picture where the two Bollards are in the concrete is where the security gate will go. You can also see a light green standing plastic stand. This is one of the connections where the Fiberoptics goes into the building. They just put in yesterday. Same security system as at our other location. Will go over later. Cameras are already recording in Phase 1.

f. City Inspection, will schedule next week. Kind of crazy, they have all of the inspectors come out at once. I will probably be the only one there. Contractors don't usually show. We will get a bullet list of items that need adjusted. Then we fix and just email a picture to them for approval. Just remembered on the bathroom sink, it has a plywood backing against the wall. It has to be painted, or the city won't accept. I noticed and painted today. Must be a plumber thing, that they don't paint wood. This was an exception at our last location inspection.

B.A.H.  Base Allowance for Housing.

A.  Find  out what your BAH is for that location.

B.  Recommend you buy a mobile home, and rent out extra rooms.  Use your BAH money for the payments.  When you leave, sell or keep renting.

C. Do a BRRR or Flip on the mobile home.

D.  Keep doing this, and as you get cash, start either moving up in value, or start to do more Mobile homes at each place you move to.

Reach out to the military folks here and get them to help you get started.  Checklist, appraisals, what to watch out for, etc.

@Christie Duffy

We do self storage.  Our objective is to get units cleaned out, that are being auctioned.  If we make $10, we are happy, even when there is a motorcycle, diamond ring, Drone or whatever in there.  Doing Ebay is not our game.  We want it cleaned so we can "FLIP" it.

If you just want cleaned out, recommend you do the following.  Contact your local Self Storage locations.  Tell them your situation, and ask for their top Auction people.  

a.  Get some orange or lime green masking tape and put it on everything you want left.  Take photos.  If you don't want something broke, protect it.

b.  If your in a hurry, contact 3 or 4 of the Auction people and assign them different rooms with different access doors. Back door, garage door, front door that is closest to their rooms.  

c.  Place some dumpsters in place.

d.  Tell them everything has to come out of their rooms, good and bad at the same time.  Bad goes in the dumpster.  If they start to cherry pick, kick them out.  They can only access the building from xx am to xx pm.

e.  Don't sell to them.  Give it free.  Reduce your exposure.

f.  Give them two days to remove everything.

Over the last two weeks I was asked what is a good customer in terms of length of stay. My response was all customers are good, because most of them don't know how long they will stay. Even when they tell me they only need a unit for one month, I will rent to them. Even if it is the last unit we have available.

Our oldest location was flooded about 2 years ago and we lost all of those tenants, so their dates are not reflected. The below data covers only one of our three reporting areas, but are the oldest locations. This also includes about 60 parking rentals. The Terms below represent that period and prior, to the next Term. So 90 days is 90 days or less; down to 60 days. Then it converts to Months.

Always tell people it takes 3 customers to cycle through, to get one "good" customer who will stick. So especially for a New location, want the customers to come and go, till we get customers who stay longer.


Below is a Cacao Pod, from which Chocolate comes from. Until you crack it open, you don't know what's in it. Just like a new customer, until they start renting you don't know how long they will stay. So every customer is a good customer to us.

You eat the white film around the seeds, which is really sweet. Then you can dry the beans, for Chocolate.