Read the inspirational thoughts and advice of first-time self storage developer and Storage Authority Franchise owner, Jaden.

Jaden has found land, obtained his self storage use permit, and is looking forward to construction this year upon completion of the construction plans. April 2025 Interview with Storage Authority CEO Marc Goodin  www.storageauthorityfranchise.com

Marc Goodin

Jaden, you've done statistically what very few people have done in this world. You found land. You got it under contract. And received approvals for your use. So, you're well on your way to starting construction for your self-storage project later this year. First, I want to say congratulations.

Jaden, Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Jaden

Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. My name is Jaden. For anyone watching who doesn't know me. I work as a pilot fulltime for United Airlines. I've been married almost 2 years and we're expecting our 1st baby in June of this year.

I don't have too much free time. But I generally work on my self storage project whenever I'm home and not flying. I'm excited to get this project moving forward toward construction. I am looking forward to building on the success we have accomplished so far.

Marc Goodin

Awesome, Jaden. I'm 100% sure you're going to see some great success. I want to ask you a two-part question here:  Why did you choose self storage to invest? And then why did you choose Storage Authority for your self storage journey?

Jaden

I have no prior experience in self storage or real estate at all, for that matter. But since I was young, I always had the goal of building and operating a business of my own. So, I really have been attracted to the idea of working for myself.  I believe self storage is a great business to own and operate.

It provides flexibility and financial freedom and provides an asset/business that I can pass down to my children. One day, a couple years ago, I was just researching different types of real estate investments that were popular. And I came across self storage.

It quickly became obvious that self storage was a really good really great investment. My only problem, though, was that I was still missing 2 things: expertise and capital.  I came across Storage Authority. Just online. You guys do a lot of great marketing for people who are looking to get into self storage.

And I really liked all the information that I was getting from both you and Garrett, and I was really convinced that you guys could provide the development and the operational expertise that I needed to develop self storage with no prior experience. Since I did not financial resources I partnered up with a gentleman who who has been really successful in his life. He also was really interested in the benefits of developing a self storage facility.

He's trusting me greatly to find land and develop a self storage facility that we can both benefit from.

Marc Goodin

When you open your self storage business you'll probably still keep your pilot job for at least a little while. But you'll notice all of a sudden. You're going to have more money at the end of the year because of all the depreciation and tax advantages of self storage. But that's another subject. A lot of people. I talk to a lot of people, and

most do not get in the self storage business. Some don't get in because they don't have the money, but you found a way around that, and so that can be solved with hard work. But some people just have a fear of failure that holds them back.

How did you get over that initial fear? Or maybe you didn't have any fear. I don't know. But most people do.

Jaden

I'd say I really didn't feel much fear. Mostly, because I'm just like a go getter kind of person. When I set a goal, I just do everything I can to accomplish it.  I set my mind to finding land and never gave up. I want to be successful. I will say is, instead of fear, I had some emotional stress, starting out and searching for land.  

For me starting out, it was really stressful, just because it's easy to get emotionally attached to a piece of land that you think would be perfect, and then you find out down the road that it's not going to work out for one reason or another. I had like countless nights where I would go to bed upset or frustrated about a property that I really liked, but that fell through. So, I did have to learn how to like, detach my emotions from the process. So that was the biggest barrier that I had to overcome.

Marc Goodin

Yeah, I recall one property. You found it was a great property, and everything was working together, and it was part of an estate, and it sounded like the estate was ready to sell. But you learned things move slowly in the estates. After you waited a couple months for them to do their paperwork. You figured out, it was going to be more like a couple of years, and you had to move on from that property.

I like to say you have to look at 100 properties. Make an offer on 3 and buy one. I think you did a much better job. I'm not sure you hit 100 properties. How many properties do you think you might have looked at to find this one property?

Jaden

A lot. Probably at least 10 that I really thought could work.  I probably called on, you know, more than 50, though.

Marc Goodin

Okay, awesome, awesome. You're unique in that you found a property a couple of states away from home.  Was that by choice, by design?  Can you tell us a little bit about that and how you actually found this piece of property?

Jaden

My business partner and I were both pilots, and he has a plane that allows us to access, like the Western US, a lot more efficiently than taking the airlines. So, we set out with the goal of finding a property that has the best numbers, not necessarily the closest to us., We live in California with very high land prices. It's tough to find a deal here that works because everything is so expensive.

I've looked at properties in California. And there's a couple that could have worked. But ultimately, we just never found anything here. The one that we did find is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's it's in like a growing part of town that it's partially undeveloped. But it's also situated next to an established neighborhood. And there's a lot of development directly adjacent to it.

The way that I found this land is actually funny. You had mentioned always go back to places that you've searched in the past. And Albuquerque, weirdly, was the 1st place I ever looked for land. I found a piece of property back then, which was probably like a year and a half ago that didn't work out, but about a year ago I looked back in Albuquerque, and I found a piece of property for sale that was right down the street from the one that I originally was looking at, and I wouldn't have found that if I hadn't gone back.

But the way that I kind of tackle finding land is, I look for places where the rates are desirable. You stated to look for land where you can charge an average of 1.60/sf minimum. So, I was looking where you could charge a $1.80/sf minimum.

I found this part of Albuquerque that is pretty underserved by self storage. Specifically, I go to the zoning regulations, and I find out what zones permit self storage.

Then I use the zoning maps to see what roads self storage is permitted. Then I search on Google, basically, all the empty pieces of property. I use both Regrid and Google, to find land and find out the information on who owns all the properties that are zoned for self storage and empty. And then we send out mail.

We send out mail and phone calls, to every piece of property, and this one just happened to come back. So, we found it that way. Which, is, is a lot of work, but almost all the properties I found listed for sale did not work for one reason or another. We found most land to review by contacting owners of vacant land that's zoned for storage.  So that's how we found this one. And it's been working out so far.

Marc Goodin

Awesome. I mean, it really does pay to look offline you. You gotta just get the zoning maps. Find out where self storage is permitted, like you say, and drive down that road one way or another, on Regrid, on Google, or in your car (or plane, haha)

You put a layout plan together. You went to the town. You've got the permit for the self storage use and the 2-story height. So basically, you know the project is ago.  You still have to submit final plans. So those are presently under design. A lot of people think self storage is so easy, and they think once you find the land, everything is so easy.  Finding land is a hard step But I like to say the next step is the hardest because it is yet to be accomplished.

Your present step is to finish design plans and then construction, and then it's going to be sales and operations. A lot of novices think that at this stage you just hand it to the civil engineer and the architect, and you're done, and they're going to come out with premier plans. Exactly what you want.

I'm sure you're going to agree with me that that's not the case.  Given you are in the middle of final designs, what advice do you have for people when they get to the design phase? You're just starting to see what happens for timewise and scheduling and getting both standard and premier design features included.

How do you keep your design team on track, working on your project and putting those little design pieces on your plans? Do you have weekly calls with them?

What advice can you give from your experience?

Jaden

Yeah. To speak to your 1st point, I feel like there's a huge learning curve on every part of this process that I didn't know was there. So, you like you, you're right. You think that finding land is the hardest part, which I would say is the hardest part, but there's still, like so many other things that I run into every week that I didn't know how to handle until I do and it really makes me want to do self storage again after this one, just because of how much I had to learn to do the 1st one. I really feel like. after we build this one, I will be in the position to do it again way faster, because of all the things that I've learned from this.

But as far as like design goes, II didn't know this, but I learned that there's like there's kind of 2 main ways to go about it. You can hire your own people, your own architect, your own civil or you can go like the Design Build route.  We decided, given the size of the property, which I guess I didn't talk about.  It's 5.8 acres, and it's a square, and it's on a main road. With housing development to the north, and houses being built to the east and the south because of the kind of like, I guess the environment in Albuquerque and the grading of the property, we decided that it was be better for us and cheaper actually, to build a 2-story facility instead of the single story buildings that we originally wanted to build.

So, we're building a fairly large 2 story facility. That's 120,000 gross square feet and about 89,000 rentable square feet. Given this is a pretty big project, we decided that going the design build route with an experienced team of people is best for us.

I'm working with a company called Arco Murray, and they've been great, and they give me a project manager for the project, and an architect. It was really important to me that the civil engineer is local. So, we actually went through and interviewed 4 different civil engineers who were in Albuquerque, and we found a really great civil who knows the city well. They even knew there was shallow volcanic rock and were able to work around this concern.

So, I'm working with the design build contractor that is helping design and ultimately build the facility. But I have as much input as I want.  We have weekly calls, and I'm able to review all the plans and everything that comes back from these guys.

They help me stay on track with everything and make sure that I don't miss anything, because on a facility that's this size, it definitely can really hurt you if you miss something. Marc, as you know, I send you stuff all the time to review. The design team has been really great in incorporating your review items. When they get something back from the Civil they CC me on it so I can see all the emails going back and forth.

So that's kind of the way that we're doing this project. And we're able to get the conditional use permit this month, which was kind of our big hurdle.

The use here was  for self storage but had a conditional use, so it should be allowed, but you have to get it through the city. So, we hired like a local planning firm that works with the city all the time, and they're really familiar with everybody, and they helped us notify the neighborhood and submit the documents correctly. And we got approvals on the 1st try, which was really important for us. But to answer the back end of your question I would just say that, like weekly meetings are really important.

If not bi-weekly meetings. Sometimes some phases of design are really like quick, and you have a lot of things going back and forth.  And sometimes you're just kind of waiting for the architect and the civil to get stuff back to you. So, you have to be flexible. Like the meetings you and I have. We've had meetings, sometimes I call you 5 times in a week, and sometimes I don't call you for 3 weeks because I'm waiting on stuff. So just being flexible in the process,

Staying on top of everything is pretty important.

Marc Goodin

Yeah, I'm happy you went the design-build route. It helps take some of the coordination off your shoulders.  Plus, you often get better plans because along the way, the contractor reviews the plans for value added design.  I know you've already made several changes to save money, from the contractor's point of view.  Architects & engineers don't always think like contractors or owners, so it's good to have a team.

Construction cost overruns and finger pointing typically are reduced because the team is hired by the design build contractor, and construction conflict are their responsibility and not yours. So, you save money. And you, you know you're not pulling your hair out, trying to coordinate and upset that you know the architect forgot to do something, and so now the contractors charge you extra.

Jaden, I want to thank you. I want to ask you one last question. Is there anything you'd like to share with people watching today to help them in their development path? Any recommendations?

Jaden

Yeah, I'd say 2 things. 1st is, it's it is definitely possible. Storage is hard to do, but it is not impossible, and as long as you just put in the time, you will be successful, especially with Storage Authority’s help.

The other thing I would say is you just have to put the time in to search for land. I think that the biggest hurdle is finding the right piece of property, partly because self storage is gaining in popularity. A lot of people are searching for land, and I've talked to my real estate broker, and he was saying every time he calls or gets calls on properties. Everyone's talking about self storage.

You really have to kind of think outside the box a little bit, and you have to be willing to search for land in other ways than the big guys are. And if you're, you know, just looking for listings, you probably won't help you find the right property. But if you're able to put the time in and learn how to find like off market properties, that's definitely going to lead you in the right direction.

Marc Goodin

I can tell you that the vast majority of our guys find land by offline, and sometimes it's word of mouth. Sometimes it's exactly how you did it by checking the zoning and going street by street. Well, I want to thank you, Jayden, for helping others by sharing your experience.

I look forward to doing another interview when construction is either done or in the middle of construction. Let's plan on that later this year. Again, congratulations and thank you.

Jaden

Thank you.

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