#1 Short cut to finding self storage land

by Marc Goodin, CEO of Storage Authority Franchise.

The number one reason people fail in self-storage is that they give up before they find a great location. You have to look at over 100 properties, make an offer on 3 to buy 1.

Most people spend way way to much time looking at properties they eventually reject. You have to set up some hard boundaries and move on when the land does not meet your requirements. There are a dozen plus land requirements that include: land price, topography, acres, traffic, visibility, population, zoning, etc.

Most of them have a range, and the range can even be dependent on other land features. For instance, a low to medium traffic location may be suitable due to a combination of factors like very high 3 mile poulation with 45% renters.

There is one factor that, if not met, even if the other factors are all positive, will lead to failure or eventual rejection of the property. This factor is the rental rate you can charge at a given location.

For the Storage Authority model, our average rent rate needs to be $1.60/sf to justify new construction and get the high rate of return our Franchise owners are looking for. You need to do a profit and loss on your model and determine the minimal rent rate you need to charge to make it work.

In nothing stands out as a no-go, with a 15 - 25-minute review of the basic property, it is time to seriously review the competition's rental rates. And the quality of the location, physical features, and operation/manager to determine if they are even real competition.

I start by searching the address on Google, click on the Google map, then go to the" near by" search bar in the upper left corner and type in self storage. Now you can see the competition locations and the distance from your property. You can view photos and get rental rates. And of course, you must call each facility to get office rates and how long they are good for.

A 10 x 10 non-climate control unit rental rate/sf is a rough estimate of the average rental facility rental rate. If things are still looking good, Apps like Radius Plus and Stortrack can provide more rental and other useful data. These apps can help you understand which areas have higher rental rates, so you're one step closer to finding land even before you start your land search.

The second key is to determine how much more than your competition you can charge due to your high-end sales and manager and marketing program. With our systems, we can charge 10 - 15% if the competition is great. If the competition is average (which is about 90% of all self facilities) or worse, we can charge 15 - 30% more.

Email me at Marc@StorageAuthoity.com if you have questions or would like to get reading material on developing or buying self storage.