Having trouble finding storage facilities? Then this is the episode for you. On today’s show, Stacy Rosetti breaks down the different ways you can find storage facilities in your area and outside of it. She runs down different strategies, connections, tools, and software you can use to make it easier for you. Don’t miss out on more storage finding tips from Stacy and get useful business advice on how to find hidden markets, determine cap rates, and raise funds.
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15 Ways To Find Storage Facilities To Buy
Enroll With Storage Nerds
Our topic is Fifteen Ways To Find Storage Facilities. The first one would be you could always become a student of StorageNerds, become a lifetime member, and then hire my team to do all the work for you. That is going to be one of the things that we implement because the truth is I want all my students in the coaching program to be successful. Sometimes, people get super busy. We have one guy. He is in the coaching program and he rehabs house. He is rehabbing a ridiculous amount of houses right now, but he wants to get out of that because rehabbing is an active income.
He has to be the one that manages his houses. I know because I rehabbed a lot of houses. He has to be there to manage his houses and he doesn’t want to do that anymore. He does not have the time to get out and look for the facility. He is relying on other people within the coaching program to find facilities and he is willing to partner with them. Now he has the option to hire our acquisitions team. He could tell us what he wants and what he is looking for, and then we will help him to find that facility for him.
Hire Your Own VA
That is 1 of the 15 ways. As of May 1st, 2022, we are going to be implementing that. We are in the process of getting everything set up. We have hired other acquisitions managers and VAs. We will probably be hiring more. We have been doing this for a couple of months and getting it all set up. Our VAs are doing amazing. Another way that you can find storage facilities is you can get your own VA to do it. You do not have to hire us, just hire a VA.
Hire a virtual assistant to look for storage facilities for you if you are not finding them, or you do not have enough time to get out, drive for storage, talk to owners or do what you need to do in order to find them. My whole philosophy in life is if I notice that I’m not getting it done and I know it needs to get done, no matter what it is, all that means is that I need to be hiring somebody to do that for me.
In terms of my fund, the Self Storage Fund of America, when I decided to do this, I was like, “I’m going to start a fund. It is a great idea.” I could not get it off the ground. It took me months to figure out that I needed to hire a consultant to help me to do it. Once I hired the consultants to help me to do it, it took off. We started getting stuff done and I was productive. All this work that had taken months for me to figure out how to do, the consultant was like, “I can do this. We will be done in 90 days.” I was like, “What?”
My personal opinion is if you notice that you are not getting stuff done as fast as you want to, you should hire somebody to do it. It isn’t expensive. There are two reasons why people do not hire other people to do the work for them. One of them is they have this fear of relinquishing this control. They feel like they are the expert and they can do it better. The truth of the matter is that is what the expert is for. The experts are out there doing what they do because they know how to do it, and they will do it better than you.
I have learned over the past several years I have been investing in real estate that there is no way I can do all of it. That is for sure. The truth is I want to do all of it. I’m that type of person. In order for me to be able to do all of it, I have to hire people to help me to do that. I want to be successful in life personally. That is my personality. I want to be successful in what I’m doing. I know what I’m good at. What I’m good at is bossing people around and telling people what to do. I’m a director. That is what I am.
I’m the person that is like, “This is my idea here. Go and implement it.” Everybody has their skills and stuff. My acquisitions person, Chris, is phenomenal on the phone. He is so good on the phone. I have had many of the owners telling me, “I’m going to sell you this property because I like Chris.” You need to be able to hire people to do the work that you do not want to do. You may be the person in your team that does acquisitions well. You may be that person and you may not be good at the management portion or whatever. Figure out what you are good at and when you are not good at it, then hire somebody that is good at it to do it.
If you notice that you’re not getting stuff done as fast as you want to, you should hire somebody to do it.
I tell my students this all the time, “Imagine the company that you want. How do you want your company to look? What are the things that you want to be doing? Imagine the company that you have, a storage investment or whatever. You were running it and only doing the things that you love. All the things that you do not love doing, you could delegate to somebody else. Imagine what your company would look like. It would be the most awesome company ever.”
In my mind, that is my goal. I know I’m good at these things and I’m not good at these things. Those are the things I’m going to be delegating out and getting somebody that is good at those to do those for me. We are talking about all the different ways that you can find properties. I have already been over two. One of them is as of May 1st, 2022, come into the StorageNerds coaching program, become a lifetime member, and then I will have an offer for you for us to find the facility for you. The other way is to hire a VA for yourself and train them to create lists. We have VAs internally in my company. What they do in order to find properties for us is they create lists by going on to Google Maps.
Buy A List.
We are not buying lists now. Another way for you to find the property is to buy the list. My VAs are internally creating the lists themselves. Why pay for a list when I can hire somebody to do that for me? Which one is better? I do not know. It is just personality. I used to buy the list, but now I want these VAs to eventually become acquisitions managers. In my mind, I’m training this VA to get out there to create the list, search and learn the nitty-gritty of it, which is exactly what Chris did.
When I hired Chris as my acquisitions person, I trained him to do what I did, which is exactly the same thing. I created my own lists. I went out driving for storage and talked to owners myself. I went out and built my own lists up is. This is how I trained Chris, our VAs, and all the team as we grow. This is how we do it. What you could do is you could buy the list. You could get the list and mail it out and do it.
Google Maps Search: Storage Near Me
That is an easier way to do it. It is the nitty-gritty acquisitions part when you can dive in and truly understand. The VAs that we hired are going onto Google Maps searching for storage facilities in a certain area. I will tell them an area that I’m interested in, even if it is a certain area. I will say, “This is where you need to find all the different storage facilities in this area.”
I’m in the Austin Lake Travis area. If you went into storage and did storage near me, you would be able to find all the storage facilities coming up in the area. Now you can see all of these storage facilities are all here. As you scroll over, you can always search different areas to see what comes up. These are all the ones that they are putting on their list, except for the ones that are hedge funds where there is a lot like CubeSmart and Extra Space and stuff like this.
These we leave off because we are not going to call them and try to buy anything from them. If it is a mom-and-pop shop and there is only one, for instance, Granite Storage or Alladin Self Storage, these are all going to go on to my list or on to their list. Another thing I wanted to point out too, we are not in the Austin area. This is going to be a primary market. We are going away from the primary market.
I would consider this whole area because everybody knows the Austin area is booming. I would consider this all secondary market. We are talking to a buyer over in this area. He wants to sell his facility, but he wants a 5 cap or even more, maybe even a 4 cap. We also have facilities in the Georgia area. I was talking to a realtor from Marcus & Millichap. We have facilities up in this area. He was saying that these facilities in this area are also going for a 4 cap right now. The market is very competitive if you are talking to these huge facilities or if you are going online and looking for facilities.
The Atlanta area is this huge metropolitan but everybody is moving North. They are moving up into this area. This is why all this stuff like Dahnolega and all this area, this is all at 4 cap. This may not be a 4 cap way up in here yet, but I’m assuming that it will be too eventually. The point is when you are looking on Google Maps, just know that in some areas like metro areas, their cap rates might be super low even in certain areas. I can imagine from Chattanooga to Atlanta to Athens, these are booming areas. For some reason, Atlanta is growing North. It is growing south, but not as fast.
Cap rates in this area are super low. Think about the area in your state. Let’s say in Alabama, you have Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile. Mobile is growing but it is not a 4 cap or 5 cap. Maybe a 6 cap. I’m not sure but I would say 6 cap or higher in this area. Outside of Alabama, you can easily find stuff for 7, 8 or 9 caps. I know because my students are finding these. Some states are better than others. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas will have better cap rates than the North Georgia area.
Texas is booming. Everybody wants to move to Texas. It is going to be more expensive in Texas than in other areas. Keep that in mind when you are looking. My point is that my VAs used Google Maps to find facilities. They create lists to call and talk to owners. We called 60 people in this area. Many of them were owners. The owners are answering the phone. From Llano to Austin, this whole area is going to be growing. It is growing so fast.
Think about the areas where you are living where you do not have to focus on the primary market, maybe not even the secondary market. Where is your city growing to? We are focusing on buying storage in this area because we know we can get a better price in this area, but we know eventually over the course of the next ten years, as we hold onto this property, we will be able to sell it at an even better rate.
Google Maps Search: Hidden Market
Another thing about Google Maps is all of the facilities that you find when you are looking online and you are going in satellite view. For instance, this little town here is called Kingsland. There are a lot of storage facilities in this area that are not on Google Maps. You want to be looking for storage in the area that is not on Google Maps and see if you can find those owners. A lot of storage facilities are on Google Maps, but a lot of them are not on Google Maps. You want to keep an eye on it. I have driven through this whole area but I can’t remember where the storage facilities are hidden.
As you get in and start looking, you will find storage facilities that are not on Google Maps. That is what they are doing as well. It is exactly what I’m doing now, going through these little tiny towns and looking for facilities that are not on Google Maps. They can list those out and put those as potentials that they can call. This is what a storage facility looks like on Google Maps. It looks like long skinny buildings. That is what it looks like most of the time.
You can get in here and start looking around. I did talk to this owner and he does not want to sell because he owns this automotive business, but you can come over and drop yourself right in front of it. You can just go check it out and see what it looks like. Here is a storage facility that is not on Google Maps. It is rather large. I did talk to the owner and he did not want to sell because he owns this mechanic shop. This is his one business that is his bread and butter.
Essentially, what they do is they find these types of properties and then they put them on their list. Another way to find properties is the hidden market. I wanted to pull this up and write this down. Let’s write down a whole bunch of ways for you guys to find storage facilities. I know there is a lot of newbies out there. We had a lot of people register for this. I wanted to make sure for everybody out there that they know how to find them or what we do to find them.
The real way to find tenants is to be on Google Maps because, essentially, Google Maps is the fastest growing search engine in the country.
Number one is to hire Stacy’s team. Number two is to hire your own VA. Number three is to get on Google Maps and search Storage Near Me, and make a list of all those facilities. Number four is to search on Google Maps for the hidden market. It is time-consuming to get in search on Google Maps. I get it. If you do not want to do that, then hire your VA. Number five is you can buy a list. That way, you just have a list.
Crexi, LoopNet, MLS, Craigslist, BizQuest
The reason why we do not do this anymore is because we have VAs that can do this. The list should be as updated as possible. The truth is that these storage facilities are changing hands quickly that sometimes the most recent data is not the correct data. Even what’s on Google Maps is not the correct data sometimes. It is what it is. Number six is the easiest way and the way that everybody is looking, but it is also the most expensive way. It is going online to Crexi, LoopNet or the MLS to find storage facilities.
Crexi and LoopNet are commercial MLS for commercial property. The one thing I like about Crexi and LoopNet is that you could set up email reminders. If there is a new property that comes on the market, it will ping you and let you know. We look on Crexi and LoopNet. I have never bought anything from the MLS, except for my very first deal. That was several years ago when you could find good deals on the MLS. We put an offer in for one on Crexi or LoopNet, but it is a more expensive property.
A lot of times, if you are looking for $1 million or less properties, it is a little bit harder especially on Crexi and LoopNet to find properties. A lot of times, you will find the bigger deals or maybe a little bit. If you can spend a couple of million dollars, you might be able to find a better deal out there. You never know. You should be using all your avenues to look at properties. We do.
Also, another thing is utilizing Craigslist. Nobody thinks about this honestly but I have had several students in StorageNerds find properties to buy from Craigslist. Craigslist would be a great place for you to list your property for sale, especially if you want to do for sale by owner, and then also to look for property. It is a lot of work too. Now that we are thinking about it, I should get my VAs to be doing this. I will let Chris have our VAs look on Craigslist around the country and see if there are storage facilities for sale, which everybody else can do as well. Craigslist is a good place to find storage facilities.
I see a whole bunch of questions here too. Let me pull everybody’s questions up and we will answer those as we go along. If you guys can think of any other ways that you look for facilities, let us know so that we can all share our ideas and stuff. We have one here saying, “What about using a company like BizQuest.com, which I have never heard of? Maybe this is a good site. Has anybody used this? That brings up a very good point.
There are websites out there that are businesses for sale websites. You can go online and then search Businesses For Sale. Maybe this is what BizQuest is. I’m not sure. Every once in a while, you will find some random storage facility that is for sale by owner and it is listed on BizForYou.com or something like this because the owner has no idea where to list it out or anything.
Larry is asking, “How do you search for a hidden market?” That is exactly what I went over. The hidden storage facilities are the storage facilities that are not on Google Maps but they are there. If you are new and you have not been on any of my sessions before, one of the ways that you find tenants for your storage facility is by getting on Google My Business. When I went onto Google Maps and we pulled up Granite Storage or whatever, that person took the time to go and get their business onto Google Maps. Getting your business onto Google Maps is not easy.
It is difficult and time-consuming. Sometimes it can take months. They have to mail you a postcard. It is this way of a code. You have to fill your profile out. For somebody that does not know what they are doing, which there is a lot of people that own storage that do not know what they are doing, it would be horrible. It is like me trying to start my fund. I was like, “I’m going to start a fund,” and then I took four months and I never did anything except for trying to figure it out.
It is the same exact thing for a storage facility owner that does not get into StorageNerds, does not have anybody to help them to guide them through the process and show them what to do. What they do is they try to get on Google My Business but it takes them forever to do because they can’t figure it out. Those people still have storage facilities and businesses. They are still getting tenants maybe by the sign that they put in their yard or their lawn. The real way to find tenants is to be on Google Maps because it is the fastest-growing search engine in the country.
If I want to go someplace, I open up my Google Maps app and I will say, “Restaurants near me. Gas near me. Where is HB near me? Where is my vet? Where is PetSmart?” That’s all I’m doing if I need some food for my dog. It is the same exact thing for storage. People are searching Storage Near Me. If you are not coming up on Google My Business listings, then you are not managing your property properly and you are missing out on all of that activity.
Tenants find storage facilities based on convenience, location and price. That is the two key factors, location and price. They want their stuff right next to them and they want it to be at least affordable. On Google Maps, you can pull up Granite Storage and you can find their information, but if they have not gone through that process, they are not going to be on Google Maps. There are many storage facilities that have not gone through that process so search for those storage facilities.
“What is the fee going to be?” I’m not going to tell you. Only lifetime members of StorageNerds will be able to have access to my team. This is not for everybody. I’m not going to go out of my coaching program. If you want help finding a facility, you must join my coaching program, become a lifetime member and then hire us as an acquisitions team to find your property. I do not know what the price is going to be. The price is going to be based on how long you have been in the coaching program.
Also, another thing is that the doors are going to open to StorageNerds on May 1st, 2022. We only open the doors three times a year. Our two-day bootcamp is also in May 2022. There are different levels of it, but if you join the coaching program and you get to come to the bootcamp, that is going to get you all like, “I’m ready to get out there and find me some storage facilities.” That is what it is supposed to do. If you stay in the coaching program, we help you, hold your hand, and get some one-on-one coaching.
Look Outside Primary And Secondary Markets
“Stacy, at what minimum cap rate are we looking to buy the storage facility?” That depends on what the facility is producing on an annual basis. Your cap rate is based on the market, the primary market, the secondary market, and the tertiary market. The primary market is typically 4% to 6%. The secondary market is 6% to 8%. The tertiary would be an 8%-plus. The tertiary is country in the middle of nowhere. Marble Falls is a booming town in Texas. Even though it is in the middle of nowhere and an hour away from the nearest Austin location, I still would consider it a tiny primary market. Austin, Texas has a huge primary market.
If you have these booming towns, it does not even matter how big it is, 10, 20, 30 or 40, it is growing. There are a lot of towns. I was talking to a student when I was doing my coaching calls. He was looking at a town where the growth rate is 5%-plus. It is growing fast but the town itself was just a couple of thousand people. That is one of those types of towns. If you study migratory patterns and what’s happening in the United States now, a lot of people are leaving all these metropolitan areas. They are coming out to these little tiny towns because they can be virtual. They can find a house and live in a small city, and still be able to put their kids in school, work from home, and afford where they are living.
Look elsewhere outside of primary and secondary markets for your best bank.
This little town that he was looking at was a couple of thousand people, but in a 5-mile radius, it was 25,000 or 30,000 people, which is not a lot, but it was 5%-plus. People are flocking to this area and it is growing. Look for those types of towns. In your mind, start thinking about locations. People think that you need to have a storage facility right around the corner from you. We all know, especially my students, that you do not need this. What you need is you need a computer, a brain, and maybe a boots-on-the-ground person.
That is how the world is becoming. You should take advantage of it. Look elsewhere outside of primary and secondary markets for your best bank. It depends on what market you are in and what area. This is for income-producing properties. If it is a mismanaged facility, that cap rate does not work. Cap rate is based on the income that it produces, but if you’d have a mismanaged facility that is not producing the income, then your cap rate is going to be super low, sometimes even in the negative.
I bought negative 2% storage facilities and stuff for the cap rate. Know that these are income-producing cap rates. The truth of the matter is everybody thinks that cap rate is so important. Cap rate is one of the factors of all of the factors. Factors are exactly what I said. Is it a growing market or a declining market? Is it a stable market? In a 1, 3, 5 or 10-mile radius, what’s the population of that area?
How many storage facilities are there? What’s the total square footage? What’s the population there? What’s the household income of that area? There are a lot of demographics that go into looking for a storage facility, not just a cap rate. I have bought facilities that are high cap rates and stuff like this that are in super rural areas. I bought low cap rates. I bought it all. Keep that in mind. Cap rate is one thing, that’s what I’m saying.
Realtors, Radius Plus, And Yardi
“How can I find out which direction the city is going if you do not know the area very well?” Start talking to realtors, especially commercial realtors. I do not have that on my list. I do not know if it was number 10 or 11, but it was one of them, commercial realtors in the area that you’re in. Commercial realtors know what is going on. They know what’s being built. That is number one.
Number two is if you go onto Radius Plus, which I was going to put down as a way for you to find storage facilities, or you can use something like Yardi. Yardi is more expensive than Radius Plus. Radius Plus or Yardi will show you the storage facilities that are being built in the areas that you are interested in. They pull that data from permits. They can show you where the storage facilities in the areas that you are interested in are being built. What type of permit was being pulled.
We had Radius come and talk to the StorageNerds mastermind. They did a whole demo on Radius and how you can utilize Radius to find facilities. I have also done other videos on that on YouTube. Also, Yardi came in. They did a demo on how to utilize Yardi to find a property. Yardi is a more extensive search engine. It is robust but it is a little bit more expensive to use. Radius Plus gives you good ideas.
Yardi and Radius Plus will also be good for you to learn where the city is going. Also, you can talk to the planning department. Talk to the planning department in the areas that you are interested in. They typically have a twenty-year plan. We are buying in the North Georgia Mountains. The Georgia Department of Transportation is building a byway. That is in the plan. That should be done in the next five years.
We are buying a storage facility that is right in that area. It is going to be affected by this byway that they are doing. That came from the Georgia Department of Transportation. That is all public data. You can also go to your state and look at the department of transportation. They could tell you which highways are being built. The planning department of the local area that you are interested in, and then also the state departments can help you.
StorEDGE And Storable
“As far as you know, is there any specialized storage facility software using technology?” Yes. There is a gazillion bazillion out there. We use storEDGE, but there are a lot of property software out there that you can see. We have Storable come in and talk to the StorageNerds mastermind on a regular basis. They give us an update on Sitelink, storEDGE, and ESS, and what’s happening to those. We use one of those three software. They are regular guests that come on and give us updates on what is happening. Also, we are beta users on storEDGE. We have been using the storEDGE since almost the beginning.
When I started using storEDGE, they had three people working for them. Over the course of the last several years that we’ve been using storEDGE, my husband has become this beta tester. Whenever they have this idea like, “We want to implement this,” they’ll get on a call with Pete. They’ll run it by him and he’ll give his ideas and expertise on how to better the software because we have eleven storage facilities in storEDGE.
My husband is the type of person to utilize everything that the software offers. storEDGE has recognized that for us. They do get on calls with him on a regular basis and say, “We are going to implement this. What do you think? Should we change this?” Pete helps them out. “At what income range do you look at before you buy the storage facility?” I’m buying it for my fund. My fund is buying $1 million to $3 million property. That is what I’m looking for. I started with $1 million or less properties. Typically, for most of my students, their first deals are going to be $1 million or less. The second deal could be more than that, but I do have some students that are like, “No, I want $1 million or more.”
One of my students has $125,000. If you put 20% down, that is an $800,000 to $900,000 facility. Think about how much money you can put down on an income-producing property at 20% down and then you could figure out how much money you can come up with. You could find a mismanaged facility for a quarter of that. You could buy a mismanaged facility at 50% for $300,000 or you could buy three of those if you want to. It depends on how much money you can come up with. Mismanaged facilities, you have to have private money because a bank is not going to lend to you.
The question that you should be asking yourself is how much money can you afford, number one. Number two, when you get out and you are looking on this list of all these properties I’m listing out here, the truth is that you have no idea what is going to come across your plate. Your job is to talk to as many owners as you possibly can and to put offers in. You have no idea which facility is going to be the first facility that works. It could be mismanaged, income-producing, $1 billion or $100. Get out there and look and talk to owners. That is what you have to do.
If it happens to be something that you do not want, then wholesale it to somebody else or partner with somebody else. The best part about commercial real estate investing is that there is a lot of money. That is for sure. There is a lot of people that are willing to partner or will buy the deal from you if you do not want it. Keep in mind that you need to have an open mind when you are looking for a facility. I talked to another student because I do coaching calls on Monday afternoons. One of my guys lives in Florida and he only wants to buy a storage facility in this certain area.
He is like, “This is my area. I want to be here. I want to be able to manage it.” It is maybe an hour radius from where he lives. Obviously, that is going to be a lot harder to find than something if you said, “I’m open to Florida, Georgia and Texas.” You can have a lot more opportunities than if you say, “I only want to be within an hour of my house.” There is not a lot of storage facilities around.
The best part about commercial real estate investing is that there is a lot of money.
My coaching program doors are open as of May 1st, 2022. I will be taking calls. You need to get on the waitlist. Once you get onto the waitlist, then you will be notified that my schedule is open to talk to me about the coaching program. The coaching program is typically $1,000 a month. You got to be able to afford $1,000 a month. This is an investment. The lifetime membership is a different price. My turnkey acquisition solution will be a different price. We will have three different levels. Just so you know, it is not cheap. This is like, “I know I want to buy storage facilities. I’m going to invest in this kind of a thing.”
“I have no experience investing in properties. I’m very new. I have recently joined Trulia and Griya. I have been going to their meetings. I have no investment properties in home buying. Is it more expensive for investors? What kind of money do I need to start?” The truth of the matter is I’m 100% privately funded. I have not put any money into my bills at all. I raised capital to buy my property. You do not have to have money to be like me. What you have to do is you have to learn how to raise money. You all are more than welcome to hop on my fund call. I pitch my fund every Monday night.
You can go to StacyRossetti.com/fund. You can see how I pitch to raise money because my job as a commercial real estate investor is to raise money. All I’m doing all the time is pitching and finding money. I do not want to be limited to 1 or 2 deals. You have to learn how to raise and find money to buy as many properties as you want. Whatever that goal is. If you only want one and you only have that much money, then more power to you. If you want to buy 5, 6 or 10, commercial real estate is expensive.
That is not like residential real estate. Residential real estate is expensive as well but it is a little bit different. The one thing I love about commercial real estate is that people are willing to partner and work with you. There is a lot of people that have money. The goal for you is to find those people. If you do not have any money, you could either wholesale or be the boots on the ground person. I have a 21-year-old guy that does not have hardly any money. He already has put five offers in on properties. He is partnering with other people in the coaching program to buy his facility. He will be the boots on the ground person for that facility. That is how he is putting his equity into the deal.
You can do that as well. There are a lot of different ways to do this. Your job is to make sure that you check out my course, which is Super Simple Self-Storage so that you can learn how to get started, especially now because my doors are not open to the coaching program. Buy the course. That is on my website and then hop on the Monday night webinars so that you can listen in to me rambling on about storage investing. Also, anytime I do a pitch or something like that, just hop on and listen. Anybody can come and listen. I’m here to teach, hold people’s hands, guide you and be there for you.
I do have to hop off because I’m going to go to the next session and go do my fund. Hopefully, I will see you guys over there. You all can listen in. I know you will have a lot of questions. Also, do not forget to join the Facebook group. If you are not in the Facebook group, it is Super Simple Self-Storage. All of these questions that I’m not answering here, those questions should go into the Facebook group. I can take time to answer those in there as well. I appreciate everybody coming, hanging out, and asking all the questions. I will see you guys at the next session. Take care.
