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    Self Storage Auctions and Business
    Self Storage Auctions and Business
    Self Storage Auctions and Business
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Self Storage Auctions and Business

    By Larry Porter

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    About this ebook

    Everyone wants to check out storage auctions since so many TV shows are featuring them. Get the real story on whether you can make money at these auctions or not. Ten years as on-site managers has taught us so many tricks and so much regarding the business of this business and we share it all with you here.
    Do you want to, attend auctions, build a storage site, buy a storage site, manage a storage site or just store goods? You need to read this. It will give you invaluable information from the inside on these subjects and more in an entertaining, informative way. My wife and I managed storage sites for ten years all over the country. Our stories and the information contained in them will help you determine where, when and how to go about anything you want to do regarding the storage business.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLarry Porter
    Release dateMar 17, 2013
    ISBN9781301202423
    Self Storage Auctions and Business
    Author

    Larry Porter

    Larry Porter has been writing since 1976, when he had his second project, a children’s play, Treehouse, produced in Atlanta, Ga. He has written fourteen full-length plays. Another, The Gospel According to Jesus, was produced in Asheville, NC. He has written numerous short stories, eight novels including Chance Mountain, Ivan the Backward Man, True Globalization, The Carousel, The Blue Barrel, The Visitor, and After America: Rebuilding. He has a memoir, Self-Storage Business and a collection of short stories titled Heaven? dealing with the afterlife. He has written four screenplays. His latest project is writing history in verse. A compilation of four epic poems titled History in Verse includes The Experiment, a history of the US, The Reconstruction of a Nation, a history of the Civil War, The Quest for the West, a history of the settling of the US west, and The Sixties, a history of the decade of the 1960s in the US. Look for a new series of totalitarians of the twentieth century coning soon. He lives in the North Carolina Mountains where he continues to write.

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      Book preview

      Self Storage Auctions and Business - Larry Porter

      Self Storage Auctions and

      Business: the Inside Story

      By Larry Porter

      Copyright 2013 by Larry Porter

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 Norcross, GA

      Chapter 2 Acworth, GA I

      Chapter 3 Acworth, GA II

      Chapter 4 Richmond, VA

      Chapter 5 Jacksonville, FL

      Chapter 6 Alpharetta, GA

      Chapter 7 Mesa, AZ

      Chapter 8 Bullhead City, AZ

      Chapter 9 Afterthoughts

      INTRODUCTION

      Are you planning to attend auctions or build, buy, or manage a storage facility? Or do you just plan to use storage or are already using such a facility? Then this is a must read. My wife and I have been in the business for nearly ten years. This book will give you invaluable information from the inside. While entertaining, these stories will tell you things about the business you won’t find anywhere else. You will learn the truth about such things as why get into this business, why you should or should not attend auctions and what you should know before renting at any storage facility.

      My wife, Vivian, and I spent the better part of the last ten years as resident managers in the self-storage business. We managed several sites for various companies throughout the U.S. We enjoyed a business that gave us different experiences every single day. Some were funny, some odd, and some were heartbreaking. But that is the nature of the self-storage business.

      The kinds of people who use self-storage are as varied as the human population. But most do have one thing in common. They are in some sort of a transitional stage in their lives. Of course there are the folks who just have too much stuff and need more space to store it. But they are in the minority and usually don’t offer any unusual stories. Most of the time, that is. They are ordinary people going about their business of buying new things and moving old things they can’t part with to another spot, to make room for the new things, of course.

      An argument could be made that Americans simply have too much stuff. And they don’t seem to be slowing down on buying in spite of the economy. The industry has been the fastest growing commercial real estate sector over the past three decades. In 2009, the industry passed the twenty billion gross dollar amount. According to the Self-Storage Association, there are approximately 46,000 primary facilities in the U. S., those whose basic business is self-storage, and 4,000 plus secondary facilities, those offering storage as an addition to their basic business. Rentable space available is approximately 2.2 billion square feet or about three times the area of Manhattan Island, if it were all put under one roof.

      I believe most people have seen a storage facility in their lives. They are everywhere; 86.9% of all counties in the U.S. have at least one primary storage facility. Every man, woman and child in the nation represents 7 square feet of storage space. That means everyone in the country could stand under cover of storage at the same time in the U.S.*

      About one in ten households rent space at a storage facility. With households having approximately four people per household and with three hundred million people in the country, then seven and a half million people have been exposed to self-storage.

      There are huge, gated facilities, with more than one thousand units, requiring pass codes to enter, in larger metropolises, smaller, fenced facilities with typically under a couple hundred units in smaller towns, and stand alone facilities ranging from five to twenty-five or more units in fields and along roadsides in rural areas. This industry seems to have created a need where none existed just 30 or so years ago. But becoming a more transient society over the past forty years, it seems to make sense that many people actually need a holding space for their goods until they settle into a new residence.

      There is another class of people who use storage facilities. These are small business people who don’t rent a brick and mortar building. They usually work out of their homes but have equipment, supplies and other items critical to their business that they have no room to store at their homes. Self-storage is the perfect answer for them. These places are secure; many of the larger ones having twenty-four hour watchmen in the person of the on-site managers, and most have easy access for larger vehicles. From my experience, I would say about 5% of the occupants are businesses. But they probably rent more than 10% of the total rented space. The owners of storage facilities love to rent to businesses. They are usually very reliable, paying rent on time and causing few disturbances.

      The number one reason real estate investors like self-storage property is that the laws in most states allow for auctions. This type of rental property is unique in that the property owner has control of the goods. Unlike apartment or house renters, storage renters have their goods under the control of the facility manager. If they do not pay their rent on time, they are locked out. If the facility has a pass code entry, the manager makes the pass code inoperable until the rent is paid. In addition, even if there is no gate, the manager puts a company lock on the unit and it is not removed until the rent is paid. Can you, as a rental property owner, imagine a better set-up?

      If the rent falls into default for a certain amount of time, directed in each state by statutes, the unit gets auctioned off to defray the rent due. Often times, depending on the auctioneer, the amount received does not cover the rent due. If the property recovers more than the rent due, nearly every state, if not all states, require that the difference be returned to the owner of the unit. This seldom happens in spite of what you see on TV shows. From a property owner’s viewpoint, however, rent due on one unit seldom amounts to much, especially in a facility with a large number of units and if the management is doing their job properly. Losing one hundred dollars in rent at a facility that has forty thousand dollars a month coming in isn’t felt much. That means that, unlike an apartment building that has, perhaps twenty units, the amount of loss in the storage business is not devastating to the owner. It simply becomes an expense allowed for each month. Believe it or not, the number of units auctioned each month at any given facility is very predictable. And, unlike the apartment unit, the owner does normally recover some of the rent because of the unique ability to sell off the unit owner’s goods.

      People, usually couples, choose to work in managing storage facilities because they offer an apartment and monthly expenses paid by the owner. Some companies pay basic utilities like electricity and water, because they are already connected with the property and would be difficult to separate. Others are more generous and pay telephone and cable as well. In any event, although the pay is not great, a couple can save a lot of money in the industry if they are careful. This was the main reason we entered the self-storage business.

      This gives the reader some background on why and how the self-storage industry works. It also gives the reader an insight into just how large the industry is. As stated earlier, nearly everyone knows about storage places and at least one in ten of you have used them. When people find out my wife and I worked at these places, they always want to know personal stories about them. The following are a compilation of events that covered a ten-year span in the industry.

      Hopefully, what ever your interest in the business, my stories will add insight through our experiences, and help answer your questions about the business in a colorful, enjoyable way.

      CHAPTER 1 NORCROSS, GA

      I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the mid 90s, in a one-bedroom furnished apartment. I kept the things that I didn’t need daily and that wouldn’t fit in the apartment in a self-storage facility. When I left Albuquerque in 1997, I piled everything in my van and headed for Atlanta, Georgia

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