All Forum Posts by: Joshua Watts

@Sunny Kohli

I am replying on your question about qualify for a loan and how you would do that? To be honest I don't think a bank is going to give anyone a loan for millions of dollars without experience. (My 2 cents is experience comes in many ways so they might count owning other successful business or working for a self storage business). If I was giving advice start small, go slow, live way below your means, and starting building your real estate empire. That is how I did it. And I did not have a rich mom and dad to help. (I wish I did!!)

I think your other question was about my other assets? So how I qualified for the loan. I asked for a meeting with the bank's CEO and I just give him a back ground of what I have done in the past then laid out step by step why I think this deal was a go one and how I thought the risk for his bank was low. I worked on my speech before I got to the meeting and had lot of notes. (keep in mind that I have been doing this for 19 years at the time of the meeting so I had other assets to pledge to the bank for the down payment)

I hope this answers your questions. This is not easy but it is doable.

@Alina Trigub

Thanks for the congrats. Its funny that you asked what is next, it is 11:00 AM EST and today at 3:00 PM EST I am closing on a strip center that has a closed grocery store within it (the plan is to convert the building to climate control). I am thinking about starting a new post and giving every detail about the deal and updating how it is going once a week. So everyone post on here YES or No (or vote on the reply) if you would like to see the deal information and the weekly post. I don't want to do it if no one gives a crap :}. 

Alina other than the deal I mentioned above I am looking at a large apartment building, another storage facility (I had under contract a couple years ago but the man back out on me, but it is ok he was not ready) and another strip center building to self storage. All these are just stuff I am looking at right now.

Here is a pic of the place I am buying today  

@Lance Langenhoven

Sounds like you are rocking it in TX!! Good down there.

@Justin Frank

I am with you on being hard to find. The place that I bought did not look like a deal either if  you were just looking at the numbers on the internet. You have to find the hidden valve in the deal. In my case a lot of the hidden valve was the fact that the family were not raising the unit rate over the years like they should have been. They were so worried about being 100% full. So my advice is to look for the hidden valve when looking for self storage. (or any investment)

@Ryan Rea

Back to the recommendations. I would suggest getting experience in self storage by buying a very small facility like I did or you might go to work part time (maybe just Saturday's) for a self storage facility. Here are a couple of web sites, I have not read a book on self storage but I am sure there out there.

Insideselfstorage.com (I go to this one a lot)

Betcoinc.com (this place makes the buildings but has lots of information about self storage on there website)

Ryan,

I will get back with you on a few  resources 1st of the week. 

Ryan,

21k sounds unreal don't it. See my  previous post above. In the  previous post you will see where I believe I can increase rents 100%. In the last two years I have increased rent by 80 percent so far. What actually happens is some people will move out but revenues are still increasing while expenses are staying the same. Occupancy has dropped from 100% when I bought the facility down to 75% due to some people not wanting to paid this increase rents. My job now is to add to occupancy pushing cash flow even higher.  If I am successful getting Occupancy to 90% I will increase cash flow another 15k. 

Farzan,

Most of my deals are cold calls. I had a little inside information on this one. My brother and I owned a 84 unit storage in the area that he self  managed for us. I also owned self storage elsewhere and  noticed that my brothers and I rents were about half what I was getting elsewhere. I asked why we are not pushing up rents. That is when he told me that one family own almost all the storage in the area and have been keeping rent very low for everyone. That is when I started calling asking if they wanted to sell. I thought if I could buy there place I could increase rents 100 percent. 

Agu, 

The way I started was slow with my 1st investment a single family home. It took me what, 19 years to land something like this. But if I did not have houses for my down payment I would never have got the bank loan. Also I had storage  experience before this. My 1st storage building was 40 units. Hang in there you will make it and go slow and steady. Good luck!! 

Hi Sunny,

What is the cash flow? Are you sitting down? $21,000.00 per month (in 2018) yes that is after we pay the payment the employees and all the expenses...And yes the loan was for 3,861,000.00