OUR SELF-STORAGE JOURNEY

“My wife and I were looking to buy a cabin in the fall of 2019 when we accidentally stumbled across a self-storage facility for sale. Being entrepreneurs, we thought this would be a great fit for us. The facility needed some TLC and attention, but we saw past the hard work and realized what we needed to accomplish. On the day of closing, we only had 12 out of 100 units rented. In just over a year, we improved the facility and now have a waiting list for storage units. We want to put our money where our mouth is and want to help others in this industry find the success that we did.”

—Adam Armstrong

Case Study

You learn a lot when you have your first properties. The trials and tribulations can wear you thin even if you have the best plans and all the money to spend. The Self Storage Consultant is ready to help you with your workflow and priority list.

We believe in putting our money where our mouth is! On our first property, we learned a lot about what to do and what not to do! The trials and tribulations can wear you out, even if you have the best plans in place and all the money to spend. The Self Storage Consultant can help you with your workflow and priority list.

Assessing the property: During our due diligence, we had the unique opportunity to inspect nearly every unit. We rolled up the doors to see what was working and what wasn’t working. December is historically one of the wettest months here in Georgia. We also looked for any leaks and had the roof inspected. Luckily for us, the parts just needed some greasing to work like new again. Have your property surveyed to ensure it’s correct. It’s common in self storage for people to back up to their unit and hit the buildings, causing unsightly dents and dings. This is a great time to negotiate any repairs!

Here is what our initial to-do list looked like:

• Have property surveyed
• Conduct roof inspection
• Inspect for damaged buildings; require the seller to fix any damage
• Inspect the doors and locks
• Ask for any maintenance records
• Compile a list of vendors and utility companies
• Rent Roll, Sq Footage, Tax Returns and or P&L reports

We hired a company to do light grading and brought in over 20 dump truck loads of gravel to correct the drainage issue. Just doing this one task alone started making our phone ring! With December being typically cold and wet here in North Georgia, the weather made cleaning out the other units that much more miserable! The amount of cobwebs and landscape debris in each unit was something else. After a few weeks, all of the units were completely cleaned out and ready to rent.

One big error we made in our lineup was installing the new security camera system AFTER we laid the gravel. The security company had to trench the camera lines which caused the new gravel to have a scar line. This disappeared after a few heavy rainfalls. We also installed an Axis doorbell camera by the front gate. This great app allows us to talk to customers at the gate and opens the gate from our phone!

Another miscellaneous task that we completed was adding new ropes to each door. The final steps were installing commercial grade lighting, oiling the doors and locks, and upgrading the gate hardware to our CRM company components. Our finished product was something we were very excited about. What used to be an eyesore on a busy corner is now a thriving business that we own! If you are about to tackle a project similar to this please reach out to us!