The storage business isn’t always fun and definitely isn’t sexy.

We bought this 185 unit portfolio at public auction in October of 2019. 140 units were abandoned and not paying.

We were handed paper ledgers and leases (some 20 years old) at closing.
We paid $632k ($25.80 / sf) and bought it at a public auction.

It had $3,368 on the rent roll at closing.

We spent a week preparing for and organizing a public auction of the units. We got all the units cleared, cleaned, and ready to rent.

We sent auction notices to every customer (using the best information we could find online or in the records).
Took photos, organized everything, and had a big online auction that brought in $8,000 in revenue.

This is a photo I'm excited to show my son someday.

He closed on his first property after a long day in the car!
Today, more than 16 months later, we surpassed 70% occupancy today and we have $11,616 on the rent roll.
Heres our 2020 Profit and Loss statement.

Onward and upward from here!
It’s getting harder / more uncomfortable to be as open as I’d like to be about the financials and inner workings of all my deals.

I’ll be launching a private real estate community in a few weeks!

Signup here to get updates when it launched.

sweatystartup.substack.com

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More from @sweatystartup

15 Apr
Want to make a lot of money without a new idea?

Find a business with:

A: a fax machine

B: a lot of profit

Buy one of those businesses.

10,000 Americans retire every day and they own the businesses that make good money in your home town!
The thing about small businesses:

The 20-30 yr olds aren’t interested in them. They’d rather go start a social media app or the next software company.

We have a serious shortage of folks who want to operate good old fashioned businesses.
There is a major shortage.

And every business out there is overloaded with work.

So if you answer the phone, do some basic digital marketing, and work hard to hire and train employees, you can make a few hundred grand a year with absolutely no innovation.
Read 6 tweets
12 Apr
A THREAD that will allow you to fit right in around real estate Twitter.

With terms, definitions and the basics of the lingo you need to know:
NOI = net operating income

This is the profit a real estate asset makes BEFORE you consider the debt service payments.

We use this term as the ALMIGHTY measure because each investor may get different debt terms and thus debt payments.
Cap rate = NOI / Value

Divide the net operating income by the value of an asset (or what somebody paid for it) and you get a %.

That % is a cap rate. 7 cap means 7%.

If you pay $1MM for an asset at a 7 cap that asset generates 70k of NOI
Read 20 tweets
11 Apr
In real estate you should talk to potential investors even if you don’t have a deal for them right away.

The earlier you can start building the relationships the better.

We’re funding deals today with folks who have been following along silently for months / years.
And if you have no deals and have never done one but plan to do a deal in the future -

Get wealthy people involved and talk to them about your strategy, plans, etc.

You’ll learn a lot and have loyal backers as you prove your competence.
And it almost always comes down to timing.

Fear (of other investments, stock market, etc), excitement (for your asset class), liquidity (just sold a business, etc) all really matter when it comes to WHEN someone will be ready to write a check.

So you need to be consistent!
Read 6 tweets
9 Apr
A lot of new followers, so here’s a bit about what I do:

We buy small mom-and-pop self storage facilities in rural / tertiary markets in the northeast.

Wrap them in technology, increase efficiency / profits.

We own 14 properties / 260k SF with another 12 / 275k closing soon.
Our business is fully remote. 9 total team members in-house. I live in Athens GA.

We are fully integrated from the private equity we take on to the expansion / development to the customer service.

IMHO, we operate self storage more efficiently than anyone else.
I got my start in a small sweaty startup called Storage Squad, which did pickup and delivery storage for students.

My partner and I sold that business this January to focus on building the real estate holdings further.
Read 7 tweets
8 Apr
There are a lot of underrated skills in this world.

Attributes that aren’t openly discussed but are widely shared by the most successful among us.

A thread on the little things and what you can do to increase your chances.
Knowing what advice to take (and what to ignore) is a superpower.

My method:

Take it from anyone.

Weigh it according to how happy / successful the giver is.

Put it through my bullshit meter.

Do the work to apply it to my life.

Ignore 75% of it.

Cherish the rest.
Energy and excitement are underrated.

If you aren’t excited, even the most lucrative tasks can seam pointless.

The grass is always greener. Every opportunity has 10 really good reasons why it will fail.

Energy > competence.
Read 12 tweets
29 Mar
A friend of mine is opening a 2nd restaurant in town in 3 wks.

Trying to hire. $2 more per hr than 1st restaurant. Spent $5,000 marketing the position.

Had 4 interviews scheduled Friday. 3 of them no-showed.

He’s nervous. Next try will be at $2 more per hr.

Crazy out there.
I have a hunch wages are about to really bounce and catch right up to costs over the next few years.

Inflation from all angles as employers compete with the gov to motivate employees.
On the other hand maybe a lot of folks are sitting on the sideline in this industry waiting for vaccinations.

They just opened up to under 40 yr olds last week so could be a flood of applicants in 3 weeks.

Could be wishful thinking though.
Read 4 tweets

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