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Self Storage Income

AJ Osborne

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The authority on creating wealth and income through self storage.

Self Storage Income

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193. Remote-controlled Facilities, Spiraling Debt, & "Now is the Time to Develop" - w/ Mike Burnam

Welcome back everybody to Self Storage Income! Today we have an exciting guest, Mike Burnam, on to talk about the current state of self storage markets - particularly smaller, tertiary, and subprime markets - as the bubble created by the pandemic is starting to pop. Mike is the CEO of StorageMart and has been in the industry for over 42 years, with over $4 billion worth of self storage. He has experience with being publicly traded then went private, and has operated in the US, Canada, and the UK. So what's going on with storage? Debt is harsh, ChatGPT is disrupting Google's dominance, and large competitors, like Public Storage, is experimenting with more and more remote & digital solutions in their properties. ExtraSpaceStorage, just bought over $500 million to buy a portfolio of over 100 properties. These changes will determine the future of storage, especially impacting smaller markets in rural areas while high population areas approach these changes head-on. Find out more in this episode! You can reach out to Mike directly via his email: mike.burnam@storage-mart.com Find out more about StorageMart: https://www.storage-mart.com Need help funding a deal? We can help you figure out what type of loan or financing structure you need, and where you can get them. Just send us a message here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/debt Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook

192. Financing in Troubled Times - What Banks Look for in Self Storage w/ Anna Taylor

The economy is shuttering: with the Fed raising rates trying to slow down inflation, banks are responding differently to investors than they used to. Developments aren't getting approved as much as they used to. What does this mean if you are wanting to invest in, build, or acquire a new storage facility? Today we are joined by Anna Taylor, who is the head of Self-Storage Lending at Live Oak Bank and she is an absolute self storage lending expert. She's kept a close eye on the industry over the last decade. We talk about the market conditions right now, what she's seeing from a lending perspective, and what needs to be done prior to obtaining the loans and financing you may need. Need help funding a deal? We can help you figure out what type of loan or financing structure you need, and where you can get them. Just send us a message here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/debt Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook

191. How to Appraise Self Storage Properties 101 w/ Tim Garey

When buying a self storage facility, the sale price isn’t always market value - if it was, we’d live in a perfect world. Thats why having an appraiser come out and inspect the property can be tremendously valuable. They can tell you what exactly adds or subtracts from market value and determines the final sale price. In this episode, special guest Tim Garey from Cushman & Wakefield Self Storage sheds light on the appraisal process. With over 20 years of experience in commercial real estate, Tim has valued a wide variety of properties: shopping centers, industrial, golf courses, and...self storage! Find out more about Cushman & Wakefield here: http://cushwakeselfstorage.com/ Need help funding a deal? We can help you figure out what type of loan or financing structure you need, and where you can get them. Just send us a message here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/debt Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook

190. Q&A: MAJOR Slowdown Ahead? | Self Storage in 2023

In this special Q&A episode of Self Storage Income, we answer YOUR questions directly. We will be addressing - The State of Self Storage in 2023 - Developments: The Pros & Cons - Finding Investors for a Boat & RV Facility with much more to come. Thanks to all those to have supported us and sent us questions. You can send your own via our YouTube channel, Instagram, or Twitter. https://www.youtube.com/@SelfStorageIncome https://www.instagram.com/ajosborne/ https://twitter.com/AjOsborne1 Need help funding a deal? We can help you figure out what type of loan or financing structure you need, and where you can get them. Just send us a message here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/debt Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

189. Funds vs Syndications: Pros & Cons

There are many ways to finance a self storage deal. You can bring your own money, leverage your own assets, or enlist the help of others, like investors, banks, and even the sellers themselves. Today we're talking about two of the most common ways to finance a storage facility: Funds and Syndications. Funds pool together capital to invest across a series of investments or properties, such as a portfolio, hence diversifying the capital you invest. Syndications aggregate a group of investors together to "crowd-finance" a single property or deal, but allows for more parties to help manage or secure deals, especially larger ones. We're breaking down what you need to know BOTH as an investor AND a sponsor. What are the pros and cons of each? Need help funding a deal? We can help you figure out what type of loan or financing structure you need, and where you can get them. Just send us a message here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/debt Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

188. The Problem with Debt | Lending and Financing in Self Storage w/ Ben Benditson

Once you've figured out which market to go in and what price you should pay, the next step is to secure the funding and financing for your deal. Lending is a tricky business - there are numerous types of loans and fund structures each with their unique benefits, regulations, and interest rates. Each of these factors will directly affect how your deal functions now and years into the future. Today we are talking to Ben Benditson, our newest addition to the Cedar Creek team. He's a broker who has helped us fund numerous deals that we now own. We're going through the Pros and Cons of different types of funding for Self Storage (and commercial real estate at large) and what to look for and avoid when you are raising capital. Need help funding a deal? We can help you figure out what type of loan or financing structure you need, and where you can get them. Just send us a message here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/debt Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

187. Don’t OVERPAY for Self Storage | The Art of Valuation

Valuation is a key step in buying a self storage facility. You need to know how much it costs, after all. Price is a measurement of value. But in commercial real estate, value is not determined only by the price. You also need to look at things like revenue, growth, expenditures, and operations. It’s not just a single line item. Not anymore. As an investor, what are those drivers that determine the total cost? As a seller, what factors in the market affect your property right now? That and more in this episode! Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

186. The Rise of the Self Storage Industry w/ Steve Mirabito

Self Storage hasn’t always been the real estate class that we all know today. It’s one of the youngest and was originally developed under drastically different circumstances. Cities often approved storage to gain an income producing property that didn’t stress the infrastructure by adding more traffic or population. Understanding the key changes from how storage started and how it got to where it is today will shed some light into what exactly affects the demand, markets, and revenue. What makes it tick? Today, we’ve invited Steve Mirabito, President of StoragePRO, Inc and a board member of the world’s largest Self Storage Co-Op, Storelocal. He has been in the industry since the early days, and his experience in the industry is unmatched. We’ll be talking to him about what it was like when he first started out, and how the industry has shifted over the years. Find out more about Steve: https://www.storagepro.com/ Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

185. Buying your First Self Storage Facility: Do's and Don'ts w/ Ben Kall

Starting out in Self Storage can seem scary and complicated. Even if you've studied the topic and the math, nothing beats experience in the industry and knowing what metrics to achieve and what pitfalls to avoid. Ben Kall is a real estate agent and broker out of Minnesota. He's dealt in multi-family, triple net lease (NNN), and now Self Storage. His first investment (outside his first home) was a $1.5 million facility. We've invited him on to share some of his experiences just starting out, what it's like,and what you need to know about acquiring your first facility! Check out Ben's company: https://www.legacystoragemn.com/ Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

184. Occupancy Down...but Revenue Up? | The Truth about Occupancy in Self Storage

In the last 6 months, the Self Storage market has shifted. We've discussed this before, but in today's episode, AJ and Conner discuss how this affects occupancy and revenue. Namely, how can you increase your revenue despite the market conditions driving occupancy down? AJ and Conner are fresh off of an internal meeting where they reviewed a market he currently owns more square footage than the REITs in that area. So for this episode, he pulls information from his accounting and underwriting teams to break down the changes happening and what needs to be adjusted. Don't miss the market insights and updates! Check out our YouTube channel for more! https://www.youtube.com/@SelfStorageIncome/featured Our partners: Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

183. Nailing your First Self Storage Deal w/ Cameron Barsanti

Starting out in Self Storage is no easy feat. We talk all the time about the finances and the underwriting and all the “prep work” that needs to be done before you attempt to acquire a facility. But now, you’ve done that, or maybe you aren’t in a position to wait any longer. You have to start looking for that first facility deal. In this episode, we hear from Cameron, who went from loads of debt and 0 facilities, to over $30 million property valuations in just 2 years. When I met him, he was enthusiastic about the industry, but still harbored the fear and the uncertainty that we all experience when investing. He started learning all about the industry (and even joined my Inner Circle mentorship group), and made the jump to buy that first deal. What exactly does it take to make that jump? To go all-in on that first deal? What factors do you need to consider, and what fears do you need to overcome? Don’t miss this amazing episode with Cameron! Follow him on Instagram…

182. Investing with Others | Raising Capital with Syndications w/ Ryan Strub

Raising capital today is more uncertain than ever. Funding deals for any real estate investment has more implications than it did just a year ago. Syndications have numerous pros and cons between the sponsors, the people putting the deals together, and the investor, the people bringing the capital to the deal, who are typically accredited investors. What if you aren’t accredited? Can you still invest without meeting the legal requirements? What is your * cost of capital? * control that the capital brings? * certainty of capital? We tackle these pressing questions with Ryan Strub, the head of commercial investments at Crowdstreet, a company specializing in linking vetted sponsors with investors and coming together on commercial real estate deals - including self storage. With over 700 deals funded and $4 billion invested, Crowdstreet offers tremendous opportunity and choice for investors. Find out more about Ryan and Crowdstreet: https://www.crowdstreet.com/ Our…

181. The Beauty (& Horror) of Remote Management - Can you FULLY Automate a facility? w/ Terry Campbell

One of the great benefits of a Self Storage facility is its low maintenance costs. Sometimes, it may be in an operator’s best interest to fully automate a facility by making it unmanned, which can help increase customer satisfaction through online systems, and cut down costs associated with staffing. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. If a customer has questions, how would they reach someone? How do you handle payments? Defaults? If a facility is broken into, how would you know? And who do you call? Today we talk with Terry Campbell from Copper Storage Management, who specialize in remote management of Self Storage facilities. We ask him some of these pressing questions and talk about how he has overcome these obstacles, and what solutions can be used for day-to-day operations. Find out more about Copper Storage Management here: https://copperstoragemanagement.com/ Sign up for our SSI community on facebook! https://www.selfstorageincome.com/ssi-community Join…

180. Taking Advantage of Taxes in Self Storage | Leveraging Depreciation w/ Yonah Weiss

Welcome back to Self Storage Income! Today we're answering some of our most asked questions about TAX. Specifically, how does self storage benefit from the US Tax Code? We've invited Yonah Weiss back on the podcast for this episode. He is a cost segregation expert and has saved millions of dollars in taxes for his investors. The last time he was on, we focused on his backstory and cost segregation specifically (you should check out episode #77 from Dec. 2020). But today, we talk with him specifically about accelerated depreciation - and how you can use it to write off the depreciation of your property in the FIRST YEAR, effectively saving a small fortune in property tax. Learn more about Yonah: https://www.yonahweiss.com/ NEW sign up for our SSI community on facebook! https://www.selfstorageincome.com/ssi-community Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Join Copper Storage Management + Live Oak Bank…

179. Automating Storage Facilities using Tech w/ Hayden Buettner

Self storage is known for its low maintenance costs and relatively low upkeep compared to other real estate types. However, offering certain features to customers, such as convenience, privacy, and improved customer service, can help you stand out amongst your competitors. Today, we're talking with Hayden Buettner from Janus international. They pioneered the NoKe automated locking system that we use on our facilities. We talk to him about how the advancement in technology, which used to be a competitive advantage, has more or less become a necessity. Additionally, how has NoKe improved our operations, and what's next for the future of Self Storage tech? Check out Janus - https://www.janusintl.com/ NEW sign up for our SSI community on facebook! https://www.selfstorageincome.com/ssi-community Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Join Copper Storage Management + Live Oak Bank for a discussion about self-s…

178. Understanding Market Demand & Navigating Risk in an Uncertain Economy

Storage is incredibly localized. Generally, these 3-5 mile zones are what is considered a standard market radius. This means that storage can perform amazingly even when the economy is hurting. But the opposite is true: the market can be doing great and your facility could be failing. How you execute and react to changing market conditions matter more and more. The market is no longer in the place where being in the market automatically yielded high returns. Consumers and investors are both feeling the pressure from economic conditions, and every decision has more of an effect today and it did just two years ago. In this episode, we discuss some of the criteria of how we look at facility markets and how to truly understand the effects of supply and demand, even in a localized area. But not only that, we also discuss the potential benefits and consequences that arise from an unstable or unpredictable market. Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.s…

177. How to Land Your Next Deal, Seller Financing, & Red Flags

The deals are coming back, but the economy is shifting rapidly. How do you find and land a self storage deal during a time of uncertainty? The ability to execute and find good deals is coming back (we discussed this in the last episode). Now is the time to buy. And buyers and sellers are both facing massive industry changes in deal flow. Deal flow is increasing, and this affects prices, margin, contracts, and how brokers approach closing these deals. We're taking you through the experience of a few of our past deals and some of the big red flags we see. What makes a GOOD deal and what should you avoid? Find out in this episode of Self Storage Income. Our guide for what to do on Closing Day: https://youtu.be/UBaqhaKfNug Thread on financing: https://twitter.com/ajosborne1/status/1581670937723695104?s=46&t=mHsxTpKT6O4qr_ttvUmlFA Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Our partners: Janus Internationa…

176. Interest Rates Soar - Now is the Time to Buy

As the economy continues to decline: is now a good time to buy self storage deals? What happens when the government "protects" people and business from the effects of an economic contraction (or an all-out shutdown)? The Federal Reserve raised rates AGAIN and they are scheduled to continue to raise rates until inflation is halted or reduced back to a normal level. THIS is the time to buy. Grab my audiobook Growing Wealth in Self Storage for FREE: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/free-audiobook Our partners: Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/incomepodcast Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ Want to invest in storage without dealing with the day-to-day operations and management? Learn more about our syndication company Cedar Creek here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

175. Starting Out with Small Facilities - The Changing Industry w/ Jeremiah Boucher

Starting out in Self Storage is no easy feat. And one of the biggest factors to consider is, which market do I want to be in? And will that market be profitable with the size of facility I'm looking at? With the Fed hiking interest rates to fight high inflation, the market is changing at an incredible rate. Buying a facility is no longer the "guaranteed" return on investment it has been in recent years. What are the large REITs doing in response to the changes? In this episode, we invited Jeremiah Boucher to talk about smaller facilities in the current market, specifically in sub-prime markets. He flew all the way out to Couer D' Alene, Idaho, where we held our Self Storage Income Live Event, and recorded this podcast with us live on stage! He is a returning guest, but for those of you who don't know, Jeremiah is a value investor who specializes in the acquisition and development of alternative commercial real estate assets. He learned the real estate business from the groun…

174. Raising Money from INVESTORS - Set Expectations & Limit Risk w/ Caley Acevez

Putting money into an investment deal can seem daunting - for both the investor and the sponsor. Funding a deal with private equity from investors can be extremely powerful, but it matters what happens to their money! It matters how contracts, problems, and returns are communicated and structured. In this episode, we get to hear from Caley Acevez, who is the Director of Investor Relations here at Cedar Creek Capital. Caley's been with us since the beginning of AJ accepting investors to work with him. She has brought so much value in the form of overseeing capital raises, helping mitigate risk, administering contracts, and more. Don't miss this incredible episode! Thanks for tuning in. Exclusive to SSI listeners, Forge Building Company is offering a FREE consultation and Complimentary Site Layout to jumpstart your development project. Find out more: https://forgebuildings.com/podcast Remember to SUBSCRIBE for our upcoming episodes - we have a roster of all-star guests you…

173. How Financing has Changed in Self Storage w/ Anna Taylor

Welcome back my fellow self storage investing nerds! (yes I meant every word of that lol). This is your host, AJ Osborne and man do I have an episode lined up for you guys today… Money. Investing requires money, and a lot of it. That’s honestly probably one of the most common questions I get – how do I get the money, find the money, or raise the money enough to be able to invest in self storage? Everyone wants to know where the money comes from and how that piece of the puzzle fits in the process of buying and investing in a commercial property. This said, I want to give a huge welcome to an amazing guest – Anna Taylor. Anna is the Head of Self-Storage Lending at Live Oak Bank and she is an absolute self storage lending expert. In this episode we talk all things self storage funding and financing, we talk market trends and she gives the latest and greatest update on what she’s currently seeing – not only that, she brought a crystal ball and told us exactly what was…

172. Capturing Leads for Self Storage Deals | Acquiring Facilities w/ Brian Mullally

Finding a good self storage deal is not as simple as calling up an owner and pitching a price. What does it involve? Brian Mullally is the VP of Acquisitions for Cedar Creek. He's found and helped us acquired numerous deals back from when we first started building our processes, to now, when we are constantly raising capital for deals rolling in. In this episode, he talks with us on his experiences in the game and some of the common downfalls to avoid. You'll want to stick around for an inside look inside our acquisitions process in this episode! We also have a video following up on due diligence and common mistakes. Check it out: https://youtu.be/fRZQMwl161E Exclusive to SSI listeners, Forge is offering a FREE consultation and Complimentary Site Layout to jumpstart your development project. Find out more: https://forgebuildings.com/podcast Remember to SUBSCRIBE for our upcoming episodes - we have a roster of all-star guests you won't want to miss! Be sure to check out our…

171. Building Costs & Market Conditions | What You Need to Know w/ Hamish & Melissa

Building a storage facility requires an in-depth look into the rapidly changing economic market. We get asked all the time - is it a good time to buy? Is this a good place to build? Inflation is rising, should I reconsider my projects? In this episode, we're bringing in Melissa Anderson & Hamish Bell from Forge Building Company. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the self storage industry with as much building and storage development experience. They monitor and keep a close pulse on the Self Storage industry because they have been doing it for well over a decade, with hundreds of facilities built. If anyone understands what's going on in the market, it's them! In fact, Forge has helped us build many of our storage facilities in all types of different markets, and have saved us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on ONE deal alone. You'll want to stick around for all the juicy insights in this episode! Exclusive to SSI listeners, Forge is offering a FREE consultat…

170. How to Raise Capital & Start Funds for Real Estate or Private Equity w/ Bridger Pennington

Raising money for real estate deals can seem overly complex. It's not easy to raise hundreds of thousands - even millions - of dollars for your investment or private equity deal. When it comes to raising capital, there's many ways to do it. There are private equity funds, hedgefunds, syndications, and more. How do you know what to use, and, more importantly, how to use them? So we're inviting Bridger Pennington, the cofounder of Fund Launch and the host of the Investment Funds Secrets podcast. Check out his website: https://www.fundlaunch.com/ Exclusive to SSI listeners, Forge Building Company is offering a FREE consultation and Complimentary Site Layout. They are AJ’s go-to building contractor for all things self-storage, who has saved us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on one deal alone. Find out more: https://forgebuildings.com/podcast Be sure to check out our partners! Janus International - https://www.janusintl.com/ Live Oak Bank - liveoakbank.com/i…

169. Starting out in Self Storage - Lessons & Pitfalls w/ Braedon Haertling

Things change at an incredible pace. The economy, interest rates, inflation...how do you compensate for such a volatile financial environment? We always talk about passive income and how it can help you achieve financial freedom, but a common mistake made is trying to predict the future based on the past. Associating the cost of a current investment with the value of a prospective one is not only risky, but it's also dangerous. With today's guest, Braedon Haertling, we discuss how Storage is affected by environmental factors and how he was able to overcome a void in his other ventures by starting out in Self Storage. He is incredibly busy during his years in school studying to become a physician's assistant, but he never gave up on his desire to be in real estate. He eventually pivoted to commercial and storage, and we're glad to have him on in this episode to discuss what he learned and his experience starting out. Find Braedon on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thestoragemat…

168. "Storage is Easy"? Wrong! Development Mistakes & Challenges w/ Ryan Lorenzini (Part 2)

Developing a self storage facility is no easy feat. What are some of the factors to consider and mistakes to avoid? I'm not talking about making typos in a text message, I'm talking about mistakes that could cost you thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in your next development. We're continuing our conversation with Ryan Lorenzini in this episode. This is part 2 of 2 of this series. I'd check out the previous episode first if you haven't already! Ryan is the Director of The Claremont Companies, who specialize in real estate developments and has been building Self Storage for the last 10 years. Check it out: https://www.claremontco.com The Self Storage Income Podcast is Sponsored by: Forge Building Company. Forge is our go-to building contractor for all things self-storage. In AJ's words "Forge has saved us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on one deal alone through their ability to value-engineer, improving our facility at the same time." Exclusive to SSI…

167. Building & Developing A Self Storage Facility w/ Ryan Lorenzini (Part 1)

As you know, we’ve had some pretty incredible guests here on Self Storage Income, but I have to be honest here… I’m extra excited for our guest today. Meet my friend and fellow self storage investor Ryan Lorenzini. Ryan is also the Director of The Claremont Companies. Ryan became familiar with property development initially through home building. Fast forward to today and The Claremont Companies develop and operate a number real estate asset classes including self storage. He’s an absolute wealth of knowledge when it comes to property development and market analysis when looking at the viability of a self storage project. This being said, we of course talk a lot on the podcast today about self storage development. In fact, this episode is part 1 of 2 of this discussion. Stayed tuned for the second part, where we follow up on a lot of the ideas introduced in this one. Self storage development questions easily rank in the top three questions I get consistently. So many peo…

166. Now is the Time to Make Millions: How We Leverage Recessions

Welcome back to the Self Storage Income podcast! The current level of inflation is out of control. With the Fed desperately trying to hedge against it by raising interest, we might be headed into, if not already in, another recession. As we mentioned in last week’s episode, the market is shifting, and capital is getting more expensive. Consumer sentiments are changing as people become more frugal and increase savings. But then why did we just buy 23 facilities? All at once?? How is that even possible? Let’s talk about it in this week’s episode. You might have noticed that we’re adding a new segment to our podcast: Comment of the Week! This is where we read one of YOUR comments posted on our social platforms – like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, etc. – or a review from this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher. As much as we love sharing our knowledge and our success stories, we also love hearing the stories and feedback from you, so we’re sharing them here on the po…

The Shifting Self Storage Market - Opportunities & Risks I’m Looking at Today

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! We recently did a podcast titled - 'The Deals Are Coming Back'... if you haven't listened to that episode, you should. It complements this episode we have lined up for you today. The self storage and real estate market as a whole is shifting. But before you lose your mind thinking things are going to "crash" (I don't believe they are), hear me out - there's going to be more buying opportunity in the next couple of years in self storage than there possibly ever has been. This is super exciting. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Yes there are, and will continue to be incredible self storage investing opportunities - however, this does not come without risk. That's why today I wanted to share with you all the incredible self storage investing opportunities that I see coming down the line. And of course, I want to share with you all the risks and pitfalls that I'm looking at and paying attention to as wel…

Improving efficiency with AI - Can Machine Learning Automate your Self Storage business?

Software is one of the things that the Self Storage industry desperately needs. From automating simple operations like entry gates to helping address customer issues in a quick, efficient, and contactless way. I know, "AI" and "Machine Learning" and the like are basically buzzwords at this point. But actually applying them in a meaningful way that makes a difference in your business is what really matters. Today we are discussing the possibilities with AI and system automations with co-founders Mason Levy and Rodolfo Ramirez from Swivl.ai. They integrate technologies similar to Siri and Alexa with websites and point-of-contact systems within Self Storage. What can a software program like this do for you? It can help keep track of inventory, customer service, gate code assistance, bill pay, and much more. The goal is to improve efficiency and time spent by both customers and employees. You are able to serve customers quicker with less repetition and downtime. You can reall…

No Money? No Problem! | How to Invest in Self Storage with Little to No Money

As you could imagine, I get a ton of questions about all things self storage investing (just look at the comments section on my YouTube channel lol), but one question I get a ton is how much money do I need to invest in self storage? And how do I get money to invest in self storage? Like so many others, most of us just don’t have an extra million dollars or several million dollars just sitting around waiting to be invested. And you clearly can’t invest without capital. I’m going to let you in on a little secret - NO ONE has enough money on their own to invest and grow a company as quickly and effectively as those raising capital. You simply cannot scale quickly enough on your own. Why do you think these large private equity companies do capital raises? Why do you think companies go public? But raising money or bringing in partners isn’t the only way to close great self storage deals. You can also seller finance. The fact is, you can invest in self st…

Self Storage Deals are Coming BACK | How to Prepare

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast where we talk all things self storage investing! This is your host, AJ Osborne! It’s been a crazy moment the past few years for the self storage industry. Valuations were through the roof, there was crazy stupid money being thrown every which way into deals that would never pencil in reality, billions have been invested into the industry by major institutions, the list goes on and on. However, this is all about to change, and it’s already happening. Deals are falling out of contract, capital is beginning to retreat slightly, values are on their way to returning to some kind of normalcy again, and competition in acquisition is declining, all great things for the self storage industry. But what does this mean for you as a self storage investor? This means - you better be ready for all the great deals coming down the pipeline. You better have your team and your resources ready to find, secure, and close on s…

How to Get Started & How to Build Self Storage Investing Momentum with Tiffannee Boss

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! We’ve got a special guest episode lined up for you all today that I couldn’t be more happy to share with you. Give a huge welcome to the self storage boss herself, Tiffannee Boss. Tiffannee started off in the real estate investment journey like a lot of us. She was reading the real estate books and listening to real estate podcasts, and figured she would start off investing in multi-family. This suddenly changed one day when she heard yours truly on the Bigger Pockets podcast talking about the incredible opportunity of self storage investing. From that day on, she’s been laser focused on self storage and she’s been absolutely crushing it. She’s invested passively, partnered with others on deals, and recently took down a deal solo. That said, she is an absolute wealth of knowledge for any of you who are just getting started on your self storage investing journey…

Self Storage Investing Today & the Metrics You Need w/ Cory Sylvester

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! As you might know, we get some pretty phenomenal guests here on the podcast who are experts in self storage investing, managing, and all things self storage honestly. But today is a special guest episode with a good friend of mine who just might have some of the most valuable and actionable insights into the self storage market that you can find. It’s my pleasure to welcome back Cory Sylvester, principle of DXD Capital and one of the founders and creators of the widely used and popular Radius+ self storage market analysis platform. Needless to say, Cory has an incredible amount of data at his finger tips and is one of the most well informed individuals on the planet in regards to self storage markets everywhere. That said, this is exactly what we’re going to dive into on today’s podcast. We talk markets, the impact of interest rates and macro level metrics, develop…

State of the Market – The Keys to Investing & How to Win

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! There’s no two ways about it - a lot of investors the past several years have made A LOT of money. When you have record cap rate compression, inflation, and increased demand, the self storage asset boomed in value. This has been the case even if you bought and did absolutely nothing. But things are about change. Markets are already changing. Interest rates continue to rise, inflation is still rising and has yet to slow, we have more self storage inventory with much more debt being held on these assets than ever before, the list goes on. Unfortunately for some, they banked on the market continuing to perform as it has the past 10 years running. But therein lies the fallacy - they were expecting THE MARKET to perform, not their business model or ability to execute good deals. We’re going to talk a bit today about the major threat of relying on markets to generate good deals.…

How Technology Has and is Changing the Self Storage Industry with Lance Watkins

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m so excited to share this episode with you all because we have my great friend Lance Watkins on the podcast today. This isn’t his first appearance here on Self Storage Income Podcast and for good reason. Lance is one of the most influential people in the growth and development of the self storage industry. To start - it's no secret that technology has impacted and disrupted industries in a huge way. This hasn’t only changed those industries forever, it has changed consumer expectations and experience in an equally huge way. So what does this mean for the self storage industry who’s operators are generally speaking, vastly stuck in the 1980’s? This means that there is massive opportunity to use existing technology to gain a massive competitive advantage over other self storage owners and operators. In this episode, Lance is going to share what that opportunity looks like and how you can capi…

$3.2 Million in 4 Months - An In Depth Look at One of My Self Storage Deals

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I believe self storage can be one of the best investments out there. Whether you’re looking to be a passive investor, or an active, hands on investor, self storage can provide some incredible returns. Today, I wanted to share with you just how great self storage investing can be. And to accomplish this, I wanted to share some numbers with you from a real and recent deal I did. I’m going to walk you through this deal, where the value add opportunity was, and how I was able to execute on it - creating $3.2 Million in value in just 4 months. And this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the added value at this facility. This is just bare bones, up and to this point, not even fully stabilized. All in all, I wanted to share a real deal with you guys. I wanted to give you a peak at the deals that are still out there today and t…

Self Storage Development - The Keys to Success with Joe Evangelisti

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! It’s getting pretty wild out there in regards to finding great existing self storage deals that you can just simply acquire. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still great opportunity elsewhere, especially when you consider developing a self storage facility instead. Make no mistake, when it comes to development there’s little room for error. It’s a lengthy and uncertain process that demands expertise and relentless execution. The potential risks may be great, but the rewards can be huge. So how do you successfully navigate the world of development? Welcome our guest and self storage development expert Joe Evangelisti. Joe gree up in the construction and development world, even serving in the United States Navy as a Seabee. After his service, he and his wife began house flipping and diving into real estate. Problem was, house flipping just wasn’t scalable enough for the goals they…

Will it Crash? The Coming Bubble in Self Storage

Welcome to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host, AJ Osborne! That’s right… you have me, one of the biggest self storage investing cheerleaders talking about a self storage crash… Does this mean that I’m selling all my storage facilities? Ceasing operations? Shutting it all down? Not even close. In fact, my team and I are going harder than ever finding and making great deals. So why all this discussion and attention to a potential self storage crash? Because a crash is a very real potential currently, and the self storage industry is just not in the position it was before the Great Recession in 2008. All said and done, if you haven’t been investing well, and you’re banking on self storage to perform the same in the event of another recession, you’re in for a huge and potentially painful surprise. Ok, but why? Why would self storage perform differently now than it has in the past during market corrections? Well, I shot out a se…

Starting and Growing a Successful Self Storage Business with Chris Ramsey

Welcome back everybody to the one and only Self Storage Income Podcast - this is your host, AJ Osborne! I have yet another incredible guest lined up for you on the podcast today - we have self storage investor and entrepreneur Chris Ramsey. Hailing from the moving business, Chris and his family weren’t too far off the mark when it came to looking at self storage. Chris actually developed a software for moving companies that also helped gather data about those individuals moving and their needs throughout that process. As you might imagine, this gave great insight for Chris in identifying the majority of people’s obvious need for self storage. We cover a variety of topics on today’s podcast but to share a few - we discuss the importance of identifying product market fit and supplying a market with the self storage product that is actually in high demand. We also talk about the king of good self storage markets - DEMAND. Outside of this, we discuss some industry changes, what we’…

Self Storage Investment Funds & The Risks You Need to Know

Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast! As per usual - I’m one of the biggest cheerleaders that the self storage industry has ever seen. This doesn’t mean though that self storage is without its thorns or pitfalls. Don’t buy into the hype - there are very real risks of investing actively or passively in self storage. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who have built businesses around this idea that self storage can’t fail. Not only does this expose them and their business to massive amounts of unnecessary risk, it exposes their investors. So what gives? How can we tell the difference between a good self storage investment and a bad self storage investment? I can’t answer this for you fully - but there are certainly some investing fundamentals that you should absolutely know and be considering. This is exactly what we’re going to be talking about on today’s podcast. So don’t miss this one! Thanks everybody, AJ…

Going All In on Self Storage Investing with Jeremiah Boucher

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! That’s right! We have my great friend and the one and only Jeremiah Boucher on the podcast today for his second appearance here with us. If you haven’t listened to Jeremiah’s first episode, check out the link below and be sure to listen to that as well. Since his last appearance here on the podcast, Jeremiah has been doing what most great investors have… building a great team and a company that can execute on great deals. From manufactured housing and communities, to self storage, Jeremiah has experience across numerous commercial real estate asset classes - that said, he brings an absolute wealth of knowledge. Today we talk about opportunity and how to identify it, matching your skill set with those opportunities, investing versus actually building a real estate business, and of course, we talk about something new and exciting he has going on - the release of his new book ‘Finding Your Edge - How to Win at the Game o…

How to Raise Capital the LEGAL Way with Attorney Bethany LaFlam

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Just a heads up - if you plan on raising capital to fund deals… you NEED to listen to this episode. We hear it a lot in real estate investing - “you don’t need your own money to get into real estate invest!”, or “get into real estate investing with low or no money!” So of course this means securing capital to do deals from another source - this means using other people’s money, or OPM. Seems pretty straight forward… you have a deal, know the numbers, and know how much capital you need to secure to execute, and now you just need to secure that capital from others. Now enter the U.S. Government and regulation… (that escalated quickly!). This isn’t some big scary warning meant to discourage you from using OPM or raising capital, but it is a statement - as with anything, you need to know what you’re doing to ensure you do things right. Which is why we hav…

Insuring Your Storage Facility the RIGHT Way with Insurance Expert Gary Kelley

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! I’m a huge proponent of protecting my investments with the best and most ironclad solutions available. One such solution is insurance. If I can insure something… I get the absolute most and the absolute best. But how do you know what the best is? That’s why I’m bringing in the expert himself - Gary Kelley with Rice Insurance. Gary shares why and how the self storage industry differs from others in regard to the type of insurance you need and what you need to be looking for, he shares the key pieces that a lot of self storage owner/operators miss, and how the overall insurance solutions fits into and works with your business model of self storage. You can get in touch with Gary via email: Gary@riceinsurance.com Or you can check out the Rice Insurance website: https://www.riceinsurance.com/ Thanks for listening everybody, AJ You can also find the AJ Osborne Podcast on: iTunes: https://podcast…

You Need to Invest in Self Storage Right Now - Here’s Why

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! Check out the video version of this episode here! https://youtu.be/QbnlcqVaCo8 As you might already know, investing in self storage has gotten quite the reputation recently. We have large funds bringing billions of dollars into the industry. Not only is the money coming in billions, the market is consolidating at a much more rapid pace than we could have ever imagined. Yes, this rapid market consolidation is one huge reason you should get into self storage investing right now. Some other reasons? Well you don’t have to look far to see that inflation is at an all time high and if you’re not playing the game and investing in assets, you’re sitting on the sidelines and paying big bucks to watch. Not only this, but self storage has actually had a 26 year long winning spree (more on this in the episode). All said and done, there are various factors that we’re go…

Self Storage Financing - How to do it Right

Show Notes: Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! That’s right! We’re talking about a super important part of a self storage investing deal… the financing. Luckily for us, there are currently a lot more financing tools and willing lenders nowadays than there used to be (man that makes me feel old… lol). Whether you’re going the SBA route, hard money lending, using your own cash, etc. there are obviously certain fundamentals of self storage financing that we need to look at and fully understand. After all, we’re only as good as the tools we have available, and actually KNOW how to use. Not only that, we need to have financing contingencies in place and more to cover all the bases and help ensure our deals actually get done. We’re going to dive into all this today and help shed some much needed light on the funding and financing of self storage deals. As always, thank you all for your support! AJ Invest with Cedar Cree…

Skipping College Class to Millionaire Real Estate Investor - Hayden Crabtree

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! I have a good friend and fellow self storage investor Hayden Crabtree on the podcast today to talk all things getting started in self storage investing and a pretty incredible piece of technology that he's been working on and is bringing into the world of commercial real estate. After deciding the college route wasn't for him, he decided to get a mentor and started into real estate investing. And find a mentor he did - Hayden linked up with a successful investor and worked for them for free just for the opportunity to learn and surround himself with the right people. Soon after that, he started working for equity in the deals that they were making. Since then, Hayden has experienced numerous real estate investment successes (and some set-backs of course), and is now putting a huge emphasis on self storage investing. We're going to talk about how he found his first deal,…

Do You Have a Self Storage Deal or a DUD?? The Exact Steps I Take to Find Self Storage Deals

Need help analyzing a self storage market? Check out our feasibility study services here: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/feasibility Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! Well this is an important question isn’t it? When you’re looking at a self storage deal, how do you know whether or not it's a good deal or it's not even a “deal” at all? Obviously, this is an important question to have an answer to. The thing is though… answers may vary. But there’s some good news at least. There are some fundamental drivers that can help you identify a great self storage investing opportunity, and also help with rooting out the bad. I’m going to share those fundamentals with you today to help you be able to quickly identify great self storage deals. Thanks everybody, AJ Invest with Cedar Creek: https://cedarcreekwealth.investnext.com/portal/capital_raise/358/ Success doesn’t happen on an island, which is why I’ve launched the C…

How to Maximize Revenue of a Storage Facility Through Operations with Ron Osborne

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! As you probably know, the value add strategy is the cornerstone of most investment strategies. You invest in something that’s undervalued, inject value, extract that value, and re-deploy that return into other investments. This is one key piece of my self storage investment strategy. But how do you actually accomplish this? What steps can you take to actually improve and maximize the value of a self storage investment? To help answer these questions, I’m bringing in a subject matter expert, my partner, and my father, Ron Osborne. We cover a number of strategies that we’ve used to control and drive the revenue of a storage facility to maximize our returns in the quickest and most effective ways possible. These are the same strategies that you too can use in your self storage investing strategy. Kick back, relax, and learn how you too can drastically increase the revenue from a storage facility. Thanks for listening everybo…

Cash Flow - The King of Business & Investing

Welcome back everybody to the AJ Osborne Podcast! When it comes to business, when it comes to success or failure, there’s ONE thing that truly determines it all… CASH FLOW. Cash flow is the absolute king of business. If it's not there… you’re in trouble. This all comes down to the business, the industry, and your specific value proposition. This comes down to timing, overcoming challenges, and making educated and calculated decisions day to day. I’m going to share a bit about my journey on today’s podcast and how different the landscape and the opportunity is today than it was years ago when I got started. In some ways, there is immeasurably more opportunity and in some ways, there’s less. But the fact remains, opportunity exists to create incredible businesses, with incredible cash flow, so that you can live an incredible life. This opportunity of timing, growth, and cashflow was one my partners and I identified in self storage and to say it’s paid off is an absolute u…

The Ever Changing Self Storage Industry with Investors Jon Marshalla & Andrew Freeman

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! Alright, so if I were any kind of a good writer, then I’d probably put something here for you that would do today’s episode some kind of justice in explaining how freakin’ awesome it is… but that’s all I got guys haha it’s freakin’ awesome. Why? Well we have my great friends Andrew Freeman and Jon Marshalla on the podcast today. Their names might sound familiar because this isn’t their first appearance here on the podcast. They appeared on the podcast once before and they also attended our live Self Storage Income event in Coeur d’Alene Idaho this past year. And no, this certainly won’t be the last time we have these investing juggernauts on. What these two guys and their immensely growing team have accomplished over the past several years is truly astonishing and incredibly notable. Not only in regard to the amazing self storage portfolio they’ve been able to acquire and bui…

How to Add MASSIVE Value to Your Storage Facility

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! AJ Osborne here your host of this awesome podcast that’s become the largest podcast in the world on self storage, and no, I’m not shy to say that, it’s absolutely incredible! As you might know, so much of successful real estate investing, or even entrepreneurship comes down to effectively applying some kind of value add strategy. You’re purchasing something at a certain price, then improving the value through controllable levers, and selling it for more than what you bought it for. One of the most impactful value add strategies in self storage investing is something called Dynamic Pricing. Imagine being able to constantly increase your cashflow on your assets and the ability to extract the utmost value from them. This is the power of dynamic pricing. What is dynamic pricing? How do you use and deploy this strategy? Well you’re about to find out. This is a fantastic episode where we dive deep into this subject and shar…

The Power of Self Storage Investing with Commercial and Self Storage Real Estate Expert Paul Moore

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! Holy cow, do I have an awesome episode lined up for you guys today! I had the pleasure to have my great friend Paul Moore on the podcast today who is an absolute wealth of knowledge when it comes to self storage and all things commercial real estate. This also isn’t the first time we’ve had Paul on the podcast to share the value, he’s been on once before, you’ll absolutely want to go and listen to that first episode with Paul as well. Paul got his start in multi-family and residential real estate investing. After identifying that commercial real estate was where the real money was made, he decided to make the leap. Fast forward to today and he’s driving a ship called Wellings Capital and just got done raising capital to acquire hundreds more commercial properties - self storage facilities included. We talk all things self storage, how it stacks up and compares against multi-family, storag…

The Biggest Risk to the Dollar and Your Investments

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! There’s no two ways about it guys, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the air regarding the US Dollar and the US Economy. There are a lot of reasons as to why we’re in the place we are today and this is a beast of a topic to cover, but we’re going to dive in head first. Because these macro-economic changes can have a huge impact in you and your self storage investing plans. We’re going to talk about the current economy, some ideas of what future performance will look like for the economy, all based on where we’re at today. Thing is we’ve never been here before, these are uncharted waters. We’re also going to talk about reserve currency, what this is, and comparing it to other countries. Then the big topics - what are the threats to our fragile systems and currency and what are the impact that those threats have and could potentially have. I don’t want to take up too much of your time h…

Marketing Social Media and Self Storage - Why I Do It All

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! There’s something I hear quite a bit and I heard it more when I first started doing all this content and sharing my self storage investing “secrets” with the world. You guys and even friends have asked me, “AJ, why are you sharing all this information with everyone?” Or “Why are you doing all this work on content?” Well let me break it down for you. The truth is - me sharing this information doesn’t hurt me, doesn’t hurt the self storage industry, and it certainly doesn’t hurt those looking to learn more about self storage investing. Yes you could try and make the argument that I’m creating more competition… you could TRY, but you’d be wrong. Sharing this information actually accompmlishes the complete opposite - it helps me, it helps the industry, and of course, it helps you. And it DOESN’T create more competition. Just think about this - because of these podcasts, vide…

1,314% Return in 10 Years Through Self Storage Investing

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! AJ Osborne here, your host of the most epic and the largest self storage podcast in the world. Thanks so much for tuning in! In relation to the returns most of us are used to seeing… you might think “1,314%” is some kind of typo. Cool thing is, it’s not. This is what my firm and I have been able to achieve. No this didn’t happen over night, and no, we didn’t know exactly what we were doing or exactly how we were going to do it from day one. To be honest, this is the first time we’ve even looked at these numbers in this way across our portfolio. Currently, it’s only been in the past year and half that my team and I have been securing capital from accredited investors. Before this, we’ve only ever used our own cash to buy storage facilities. As you can imagine, raising capital from investors has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s been a great and necessary step to grow our company and allow others to join in o…

The End of Self Storage? The Truth About RISK in Self Storage

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! That's right, you read that title correctly. Me, the biggest self storage investing cheerleader talking about the potential ends of self storage and the very real risks that exist in self storage investing. Now why would I do this? Here's the deal - when all you have is people praising a particular asset or investment, and people NOT talking about the risks (and even down playing or refusing to acknowledge the asset or investment even HAS risk)... we have a big problem that needs to be addressed. Self storage investing is in my opinion, is one of the best (if not the best) commercial real estate investment opportunities that exists. However, this does not mean that self storage investing 100% fool proof, or even that the amazing opportunity of self storage investing will remain the same (which it certainly won't). We're in an amazing time for the self storage industry. Again, the opportunity is massiv…

Firefighter to Self Storage Investor with Ian Horowitz

Welcome back everybody to the largest (and the best) Self Storage Podcast in the world - Self Storage Income! I’m your host AJ Osborne, and we have an awesome guest episode lined up for you all today. All too often we hear about the “safe” and “secure” 9-5 career. Get that awesome job with the great benefits, retirement plans, and pension if you can find one. What we don’t hear a lot about is the failure of systems like 401K’s, pensions, and the like, not to mention the false sense of “security” that a 9-5 often provides. Don’t get me wrong here, whatever career path you choose, own it and be the best in it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing any kind of a career, if that’s what you truly want to accomplish for your life. However, don’t buy into the idea that whatever systems are supporting that career, those benefits, the retirement, or the pensions will be around forever. Or that they’re 100% guaranteed… because they’re not. Our guest today…

$200 Million in Assets in 2022 [My Exact Framework]

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne and we have another awesome episode lined up for you guys today. Deal flow, due diligence, financing, asset management… these items are the bread and butter of an organization. They’re also essential aspects for even the beginning self storage investor. But how do you put all the pieces of the puzzle together? Better yet, how do the pros put the pieces of this puzzle together, and how exactly do they put them together? These are great questions to be asking and questions you need answers for if you plan to make it in the self storage investing world. Lucky for you, this exactly what we’re covering in today’s podcast. Over the past couple years, my companies have experienced a huge amount of new opportunity, and an amazing amount of growth. This presents some very real problems though. How do you manage the growth? How do you manage so much opportunity? And how do you run your business at the s…

2021 - What a Year for Self Storage

What’s going on everybody!? Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! Well folks, it's that time of the year again - Christmas just past, we’re on to the New Year, and we’re all reflecting, planning, organizing, and looking to the future. It’s safe to say that 2021 was another wild year for many of us. For the self storage industry, it’s been another record year of growth and opportunity. Today we’re kicking back and looking at this past year and all the growth we’ve had as a self storage industry, and as a company who focuses heavily on self storage. There’s been no shortage of self storage investing opportunities, but as with any growing company, there have been a multitude of hurdles we’ve had to overcome. We’ve had to pass on a ton of deals that didn’t pan out. We’ve been working to build the company while also running it. The self storage industry has seen some of the largest institutional investment firms in the world…

The Largest Boat and RV Storage Acquisition with Scott Ramser and Adam Deermont

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while you’ll be super excited to hear a familiar voice on the podcast today… If you’re new to the podcast, well… you’re in for an amazing episode that is packed with outstanding amounts of value. This is especially the case if you’ve ever thought about or considered investing in boat and RV storage. That said, it’s my pleasure to welcome back my friend and fellow self storage empire-builder, Scott Ramser. And this time, he’s not alone! He brings with him today his partner Adam Deermont. Scott and Adam just recently closed on THE largest Boat and RV acquisition ever in Florida, which is huge news. Boat and RV storage is Scott’s bread and butter, and he knows this asset class within self storage better than anyone. Scott and Adam share all details of this incredible acquisition - how they found it, how they funded it, the closing, and…

How to Get a Storage Facility Under Contract with Brian Mullally

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! Whether it’s self storage or another real estate asset class, we always hear the importance of being able to get a potential investment property “under contract”. But what exactly does this mean, what exactly do you need, and how exactly do you get this done? These are all great questions and questions that you need answers to as an investor. The last thing you want is to have an amazing self storage investing opportunity come your way, but then not have the tools and resources ready to go to actually execute on that great deal. So then, what do we need? Enter your Letter of Intent. The letter of intent or what is commonly referred to as an LOI, is the document that you’re going to need to actually get a storage facility (or any investment property) “under contract”. There may be times when you go straight to a Purchase and Sale Agreement (or PSA) without doing an LOI first, but generall…

2021 Self Storage Industry Overview & the Future of Self Storage with Ron Osborne

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Today you’re in for a special treat as we get to sit down with none other than my business partner, my father, Ron Osborne. He’s the man, the myth, and the legend that guided me to self storage initially, and that has helped build the incredible self storage portfolio we have today. We’re going to take a deep dive into the 2021 self storage industry overview, self storage trends to look out for in 2022, and what the overall self storage industry future looks like. We also talk self storage markets, demographics, and how you can create and own only the best self storage facilities. Get ready to take notes! This episode is packed with data and tons of self storage industry insights. Thanks everybody! AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a self storage market, how t…

How to Become a Self Storage Investor in 6 Months with Chris Lawrence

Hey everybody! Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! We have an awesome guest lined up for you on the podcast today who I know you’re really going to enjoy. Chris Lawrence is our guest today and just weeks ago, he closed on his very first storage facility. Which means, we get to hear all the details on how he found, funded, and ultimately acquired and is now running this newly purchased storage facility. And to think, just 6 months ago, Chris was just starting to look at self storage investing and began to learn about the asset class… too cool. Chris came into the commercial real estate world after being a successful residential real estate investor. The cash running his residential business was great, but didn’t offer him or his family the life they wanted to live. Now, just one storage facility in, he’s obtained that lifestyle and has plans to continue growing his self storage portfolio. I absolutely love stories like this. It reminds me…

The End Of Self Storage

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! That’s right… today we’re talking about the end of self storage… or what could be the end. This all boils down to the very real threats that face the industry. What are those threats and how do we manage them to help ensure the health of great self storage markets for years to come? Because trust me, we can’t fall victim to believing all the hype around self storage. Self storage is NOT recession proof. Self storage is NOT a ‘build it and they will come’ asset. Self storage has weaknesses and faces very real threats and that is never going to change. We also have to understand that there are very different threats and risks at play. I like to separate these risks into two categories - Macro (what I can’t control), and Micro (What I can control). In today’s episode I go through the various macro and micro risks associated with self storage. I also share what I believe to be one of th…

The Best Commercial Real Estate Investing Strategy

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! So if you’ve studied real estate investing for any amount of time or followed the Brandon Turner or Bigger Pockets, it’s likely you’ve heard of the BRRRR strategy. If you haven’t, it stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. This strategy has become widely known as the go-to investment strategy for many residential investors. However, the fundamentals can be applied to commercial real estate investing and need only a slight re-framing…. I’d like to introduce you all to commercial real estate's BIRD strategy. This stands for Buy, Increase Revenue/Cash flow, Reduce risk, and Do it again. In today’s episode we’re taking a deep dive into this commercial real estate investment strategy, what you need to effectively execute each step of the strategy, and the exact framework that you can begin implementing to achieve commercial real estate investment success. Thanks a ton everybody! AJ…

Exclusive Release - AJ Osborne’s Self Storage Income Live Event Speech

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Like the title suggests, this is a totally exclusive release of my speech that I gave at our epic Self Storage Income live event in Coeur D’ Alene Idaho just a couple months ago. This is a long speech so bare with me… I love to talk and I love self storage… so sue me… totally kidding please don’t sue me. This speech covers almost everything from start to finish. I talk about how I started in self storage investing, what my path looked like and how I grew my self storage portfolio. I share my experience being totally paralyzed and how self storage literally saved me and my family's lives. I share the power and freedom that self storage has provided me and the steps that you can take to do this with your own life. Get ready for a great podcast, take notes, and learn everything about me, my life, and the incredible role that self storage has played in allowing me to grow my wealth and achieve t…

Investors 101 - How to Find Investors and Fund Deals

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! One of the most popular subjects I get asked about is this topic exactly - how to find investors, how to structure deals with investors, the entire world surrounding all things INVESTORS. And these are great questions to be asking. The truth is, no matter if you’re just getting started or you’re a seasoned investor yourself, you will NEVER have enough money. You never reach some kind of finish line where you have all the money in the world to fund all your own deals. It just does not exist. Not only that, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Think about it - look at the largest companies in the world. Are they using all their own money to fund their deals or grow their company? Realizing the power that you can unleash by bringing in partners is probably one of the biggest and most important lessons you can learn, so learn it now! Don’t miss out on the opportunity to scale more efficiently and more…

How to Structure a Self Storage Deal with Partners

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! One of the most popular questions I get is - “How do I structure a self storage deal with partners?” Or - “What does a typical deal structure look like?” All in all, how do you take the deal, yourself, and your partners, and put it all together? Not only that, what actually IS typical? These are all great questions and they’re the perfect type to demonstrate the whole idea of you don’t know what you don’t know. If you’ve never put a deal together or know someone who has, how deals are structured is a total shot in the dark for you. But that’s not a bad thing, and to be honest, that is exactly where I was at not too long ago myself. I had no idea what was typical, what partners or investors wanted, I knew nothing. So, when it came time, I reached out to my network and found some answers. Funny thing, I even still got my first deals a little wrong lol. But that’s ok, because learn…

The Number One Key to Self Storage Investing Success

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne! So chances are, if you’re listening to this podcast… you’re interested in investing in self storage. The chances are also that you want to SUCCEED in self storage investing. Well today we’re talking about possibly the most important aspect of helping to secure self storage investing success. We’re talking DEMAND. If you don’t or can’t accurately measure a market’s demand, you’re in trouble and this could spell disaster for you and your storage facility. So the question is - how do you accurately measure demand in a given market? I’m going to share with you all the top four keys that we focus on that help accurately gauge demand time and time again. These keys of demand will better help you identify self storage opportunity and self storage ruin (or deals you should absolutely stay away from). Enjoy, take notes, and make things happen folks! Thanks everybody! AJ Be sure to go to…

Self Storage Investing Introduction | How to Get Started and How to Crush It

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! There’s no two ways about it, our most popular podcast episodes all have to do with getting started in self storage investing. Which obviously makes a ton of sense. There are a lot of you out there who are just getting started on this awesome journey of self storage investing and you’re needing answers, resources, tools, and a great self storage deal. But how do we find all of these things, combine them, and create a successful deal? It’s a process and one that is well worth taking the time and effort to go through. It’s a process that we’re going to dive into a bit on today’s episode. We’re going to talk about the different ways you can make money from a self storage investment, the keys you should be focusing on, and what I believe are the biggest downsides and biggest upsides of self storage investing. I’m also going to talk about where the opportunity is and how you can take the…

Inflation - Good or Bad for the Self Storage Industry??

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! I know, I know, I used the “I” word… INFLATION. We’re all thinking about it, talking about it, seeing it on the news, and so forth. It’s real and it can have a dramatic impact on us as investors and obviously our day to day lives. But what are the effects of inflation on self storage? Since inflation is such a hot topic right now on all of our minds, I wanted to do a quick deep dive and cover some in’s and out’s of inflation and what impact it has on the self storage industry. Thanks for listening everybody, AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a self storage market, how to perform due diligence, how to contact a current owner, and ultimately how to land a deal and purchase a storage facility. You can also find the Self Storage Income Podcast on: iTun…

Self Managing from Scratch to Building a Storage Portfolio with TikTok Legend Frazier Robison

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! It’s my pleasure to introduce you to my great friend Frazier Robison. Frazier and just so happened to know one another years and years ago… and it just so turned out that we BOTH ended up in the self storage investing world, which is so wild! In this episode Frazier shares his journey about how he went from zero, to now owning and operating five self storage facilities. Frazier also sheds some light on a few strategies that he uses to value and INCREASE value of a storage facility. There’s a ton of incredible value packed in today’s episode and gives you all great insight into how you too can go from having zero, to building your very own self storage empire. Thanks for listening everybody! AJ Keep up with him on TikTok and Instagram: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frazierrobison?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frazier_robison/?hl=en Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get…

Investment Returns on Self Storage | What I Expect and How I Underwrite

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Today we’re going to take a deep dive into one of my most recent deals. I’m going to share with you all details on what exactly we looked at, how we underwrote the deal, and our expected returns on the deal. There are so many questions that me and my team get when it comes to underwriting and returns on self storage. How much do you expect in expenses? How much for payroll? What’s your internal rate of return? How are your expenses broken down and what do they include?... are just a few of the many questions I’ve received. I’m excited to jump in and share it all with you guys today so you can see exactly how we look at and underwrite these awesome deals. Thanks for listening everybody! AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a self storage market, how to perfor…

Foreclosure to $150 Million with Jeremiah Boucher

Welcome everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! Man do we have an amazing guest episode lined up for you guys today… We have my great friend Jeremiah Boucher on to drop some massive value for you. Honestly, without a doubt, this is one of my all time favorite episodes because the value packed in here today is just unbelievable. Jeremiah shares a bit about his background and how he got started investing in manufactured home communities, along with his journey into self storage investing. We talk everything from identifying markets and value add opportunity, to gauging demand, to market metrics, self storage development, and more. You guys are going to absolutely love this episode. I’m going to let you get to it because there’s no way I’m going to do it justice for you here. Thanks for listening everybody! AJ Keep up with Jeremiah on the Patriot Holdings website: https://patriotholdings.com/ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your co…

Brandon Turner Live | How to Become the Architect of Your Real Estate Empire

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne and we have an outstanding episode lined up for you all today. It’s something we’ve never done before and I’m about as excited as a mosquito in a blood bank to share this with you all. This episode is a first time ever - it is a live podcast that took place at our Self Storage Income live event that we hosted in Coeur D’Alene Idaho. This was THE LARGEST private self storage event that has ever taken place and the energy there was unlike any conference I’ve ever been to. Now onto the podcast… The one and only Brandon Turner (Host of the Bigger Pockets Podcast) joined us on stage for this live podcast. The day previous, Brandon had made mention of the ultimate goal of becoming an architect of your real estate investment empire - meaning, knowing what pieces of the puzzle you need, and knowing how and when to utilize those pieces to build a real estate investing machine. We build off this ide…

Changing the Self Storage Industry for the Better with Self Storage Attorney Joe Doherty

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne! I can’t even tell you guys how excited I am to get this episode out to you, it’s one we’ve been wanting to get done for you for a while. We’re sitting down today with the one and only Joe Doherty - Self Storage Association’s Senior VP and Chief Legal and Legislative Officer. Joe has tackled (and is in the process of tackling) some of the most difficult and beneficial legal and legislative battles that self storage owners and operators have faced, and continue to face today. The value he’s brought to the self storage industry through advisement and legislative change is immeasurable. We’re going to dive into these incredible challenges Joe has faced, what the outcomes were, and what his plans are for the future of the self storage industry. That said, I’m going to let you guys get right to it. Enjoy! Thanks everybody, AJ You can keep up with Joe and all the great things happening at…

How to Build Your Self Storage Empire with Tim Fadorsen

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne! We have another incredible guest lined up for you all today - the man himself Tim Fadorsen. Tim started off in the development and construction world working as a general contractor for years. He ultimately ended up building a self storage facility for a client. Seeing the value of self storage and the great opportunity he could leverage being a general contractor, he immediately began to dive into the world of self storage and began construction on his very own facility. Tim gives us a run down of his first storage deal and walks us through and up to where he’s at today and what the plans are for the future. We talk about investing strategies, leveraging your skills to get deals done, and he has gone about identifying great self storage markets to develop in. Enjoy everybody and we’ll see you next time! AJ Keep up with Tim on their website: https://www.thetymacgroup.com/ The Self Storage Inc…

5 Keys to Great Self Storage Deals

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Deals deals and more deals! They are the critical life blood of us as investors. We have to constantly be looking for, analyzing, and creating deals. The only question is how? How do we put deals together? What are the essential keys to creating great deals? We’re diving into this today and are going to pull the veil back and give you an insider's look at how deals are put together and what the 5 keys are to getting deals done. Whether it’s the different kind of deals, finding key people, or the numerous ways that you can make money from putting deals together… we’re hitting it all. Get in, take notes, and we’ll see you next time all! Thanks everybody, AJ The Self Storage Income Exclusive Fall Event in Coeur d’Alene Idaho (GET YOUR SEATS RESERVED ASAP!) - https://selfstorageincome.com/events/ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by…

Top Self Storage Investing Questions Answered - Self Storage Q&A with AJ Osborne

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne! There’s no two ways about it, you all are amazing. The community of great people we’ve been able to build here around self storage and commercial real estate investing is such a huge accomplishment. We couldn’t be here doing what we’re doing without you all. That said, we have an awesome episode lined up today that focuses on you and exactly what you guys want to hear. We’re jumping into the comments section of the Self Storage Income YouTube channel and we’re going to dissect a number of awesome questions that a lot of you have in common. I’m really excited to help answer these self storage investing questions for you guys right off the cuff and to be able to shed some light on some of these topics that you all want to hear more about. This is a huge help for me too to be able to identify what it is that you all want to hear more about. Thanks for listening everybody! AJ The Self Stora…

The Keys to Financing Your Storage Facility with Terry Campbell

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! Today you have me, Conner Skeen as your host. We have an awesome guest lined up as usual that we’re excited to have on. But we’re even more excited than usual because this particular guest has made an appearance on the podcast before, and we’re happy to have them back on to join us all for round two. It’s my pleasure to introduce or re-introduce the one and only Terry Campbell with Live Oak Bank. Obviously, we’re kind of a bunch of fan boys over here about Live Oak, but for good reason. We’re going to talk about all those reasons today and today’s episode is yet another testament of why Terry and Live Oak are such phenomenal people to have in your corner when it comes to financing your storage facility. Terry today shares with us all things self storage financing. We talk SBA loans, interest rates, the current self storage market and some the trends he’s seeing, and he also shares some key insights into what k…

The Truth About Debt - How Debt Can Make or Break You

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Debt - there are very few subjects that have gotten as bad a wrap as debt has. Don’t get me wrong, debt when you don’t understand it… can be downright deadly. But debt used as a rocket fuel for generating wealth and income… that’s when debt becomes a massive force of leverage. But how? How can taking on debt ever be a good thing? Isn’t buying all cash a better way to go? Isn’t paying off a loan as quickly as possible the best course of action? Yes and no, just like the above gives hint to - it depends on what kind of debt we’re talking about. Let’s clear this up once and for all - not all debt is BAD and not all debt is created equal. We have two kinds of debt - consumer debt (which is generally bad and that you should try to avoid). And then we have revenue producing debt (which is the sweet nectar of the gods for investors). This is just the tip of the…

The Self Storage Industry Today & What the Future Looks Like for Investors with John Lindsey

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Today we have an incredible individual on the podcast who I’m honored to call a great friend - the one and only John Lindsey from the Lindsey Self Storage Group. John has a huge wealth of knowledge when it comes to self storage. He’s done and is still doing it all - he owns and operates his own facilities, owns and operates a commercial real estate brokerage with an emphasis on self storage, has help partner and form the most powerful self storage co-op in the country, has authored a book, the list seriously could go on and on. Today is simply a down to earth conversation about what John is seeing in the self storage industry currently, what he’s seen and experienced in the past, and what he believes is the not so distant future of self storage. The self storage industry is not like it used to be. We compressed cap rates, stronger competition, and the space that used…

Special Edition - On Site and On the Ground Analyzing Self Storage Deals and Markets with My Team

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne! This is a special edition episode of the podcast that I thought would be super fun and insightful for you guys to listen in on. This episode is of my team and I while we were on the ground in real time evaluating a number of potential self storage deals. Some of these we already have under contract and some we don’t… yet ;). Join myself, Brittany Arnason, Brian Mullalley, Conner Skeen as we dissect our day of looking the deals, looking at and evaluating the overall self storage market, and more. This episode is short and sweet but it’s packed with value and I’m super excited to be able to share it out with you guys. Enjoy, take notes and be sure to keep up with all of us on social media where you can follow us in real time as well as we look at these awesome deals! Thanks everybody! AJ The Self Storage Income Exclusive Fall Event in Coeur d’Ale…

6 Storage Facilities in 2 Years with Jon Farling

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, I’m your host, AJ Osborne! Do you know those people who are out there just who just always seem to be crushing it? Well, our guest today is that person and I’m excited to have him on the podcast for you guys. It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Jon Farling. Jon came from a family who had a bit of a real estate background. His parents owned a duplex and built spec homes. This helped to give the foundations to become a real estate investor… but NOT before he decided to go into sales… True, he wavered a bit, but like we always do as investors, Jon found his way back to real estate investing and started to think seriously. At first, he was considering single-family rentals as his real estate investment of choice. Finding out though that that route would be far too slow for his desired growth, he decided to start looking at self-storage. Fast forward to today, just two years later and Jon has six facilities that he own…

Getting Started in Self Storage Investing with 2 Conversions with James Reid

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host, AJ Osborne! There are so many incredible stories out there of people who are getting their self-storage investing journey underway, and today I have a phenomenal episode lined up for you with self-storage investor James Reid. James has been in the game for about 4 years, has two storage facilities under his belt, and is continuing to work on building his storage legacy. James started this journey in a somewhat unorthodox way through… these first two storage facilities he’s built and invested in are conversions! Yep, he went all-in from day one and it was awesome being able to sit down with him and discuss how he made all this happen. James shares why and how he got into self-storage investing after coming from the landscaping contracting world, we go in-depth on his very first storage deal (and conversion), how he found the deal, analyzed it, funded it, and more. James also shares some incredibly creat…

Breaking Into Self Storage Investing with Brian and Kelly Saari

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host, AJ Osborne! You know those kinds of people you meet that you immediately know they’re just great and genuine people? Well, our guests today are just that. I’m excited to introduce you all to Brian and Kelly Saari. Through and through, this episode is packed with so much value, I can’t even tell you… How Brian and Kelly have gone from square one, step by step through the process to where they are today is absolutely incredible. They’re the absolute epitome of combining skills with resources and doing what it takes to make huge moves and make huge accomplishments. Brian and Kelly share how they broke into the self-storage investing world from the buying of the land to them actually building their own storage facility… not with a builder… on their own. This is just one example of their go-getter mentality, their will, and their determination to simply get things done and to make things happen.…

How to Buy Your First Storage Facility with Dan and Ben Schiermeyer

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host, AJ Osborne! For anyone just starting out - those that are looking for that first storage facility to close on… I have two amazing guests lined up for you today - Dan and Ben Schiermeyer. Dan and Ben are self-storage brothers from the same mother… (I know, my jokes are great lol), and they just closed on their first-ever storage facility and they’re here to share the experience with us. Dan and Ben tested the commercial investing waters by investing in a car wash. They enjoyed that, but when their broker who sold them the car wash brought along a self-storage facility deal… they knew they had to jump at the opportunity. They share on today’s episode the whole process from start to finish - finding the facility, valuing the facility, the financing, the purchase, the management, and of course... the VALUE ADD. Like most deals, this wasn’t cut and dry, there were hurdles that they had to overcome, p…

3 Million Square Feet of Self Storage in 5 Years with Jon Marshalla and Andrew Freeman

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host, AJ Osborne! Man do we have an incredible guest episode lined up for you guys today! It’s my pleasure to introduce Jon Marshalla and Andrew Freeman. These guys started in the self-storage world in 2016 after building a wildly successful e-commerce business. Fast forward to today and they have over 3 million square feet of storage, with more facilities coming down the pipeline. To say these guys know how to grow and scale a business would be a massive understatement. Building so much success in e-commerce, Jon and Andrew needed somewhere to place their capital. Which led them to self-storage (for a lot of the same reasons we all love the self-storage asset class). We talk about their experience purchasing their very first facility and what the process looked like for them, what they learned, what they saw immediately that they could do better to increase value and more. Jon and Andrew also talk about the sy…

100th EPISODE | Special Edition Listener Q&A

Well everybody, welcome to the 100th episode of the Self Storage Income Podcast!! I’m your host, AJ Osborne. That’s right everybody, we’ve done 100 episodes here on Self Storage Income. We’ve covered a ton of self-storage ground (or square footage you might call it lol). We’ve talked about and shared numerous value add investment strategies, interviewed top leaders in the self-storage industry who are disrupting the self-storage industry in the best possible way, and who are setting new and exciting standards for their facilities and their tenants. We’ve talked about the big picture, goals and how to achieve them, economics, and finance. We’ve shared A LOT! Even what most others have decided to charge tens of thousands of dollars for, all... for free. But why? Why in the world would I want to start this podcast, write my book(s), and essentially create more of what people would generally call “competition”? Here’s the deal - first and foremost, when it comes to s…

How to Start Investing in Self Storage | Learning the Ropes with Pam Domingue

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host, AJ Osborne! I’m so excited today because we get to sit down with my great self-storage friend Pam Domingue. Pam owns and operates several self-storage facilities in California and even Hawaii! She has a ton of incredible experience, experiences that she’s sharing with us today. Pam shares how she got into the self-storage industry and gives us an in-depth look into the very first facility purchase. This insight is key for so many of you out there that may be just starting out. She talks a lot about the resources and the tools she used to learn and to be able to transition into the self-storage investing world effectively. We go on to talk about buying versus building and what Pam is looking at currently. We talk about the pros and cons of the self-storage industry as a whole and her suggestions for self-storage investing beginners. There’s also a huge question in all our minds as the self-storage ind…

How to Work with Investors and Raise Capital with Drew Dolan

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host, AJ Osborne! It’s an absolute pleasure to welcome my guest today Drew Dolan, Principal Fund Manager at DXD Capital. After earning his degree and starting a career in sales, Drew realized something…. All the guys he was working with who were in real estate had huge potential to earn a lot of money, and better yet, these same people were having a blast. Drew decided that real estate was the way forward and began working in real estate development. Fast forward to today and he’s the Principal Fund Manager at DXD Capital, which is a fund that specializes in real estate development, and he’s raised a total of over $600 Million across his years of experience in real estate investing and development. This was a great episode and we dive into a lot of important topics in regard to raising capital, deal structures, investor relations, and more. If you’ve ever thought about raising money and bringing on in…

Your First Facility - How to Find it, Fund it, and Manage it with Masha Klapanova

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne. As you all might imagine, we get A TON of questions about how to get started investing in self-storage. We get asked all time - how do I analyze a market for self-storage? How do you add value to a storage facility? How do you fund or finance a storage facility? How do you find good self-storage deals? Well, today we answer every single one of those questions with our amazing guest Masha Klapanova. Masha just recently closed on her first storage facility. First things first… Masha, CONGRATULATIONS!! The first facility is a huge step towards building your self-storage holdings and it only gets better from there. Masha is super excited and shares a wealth of knowledge with us on today’s episode. This is such an amazing podcast because she gets to share with us everything she went through to find, fund, acquire, and now manage this facility. It wasn’t easy and it took time and creativity to mak…

The Future of the Self Storage Industry and How to Crush Competition with Lance Watkins

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! Today we have an awesome guest on the podcast who is back by popular demand… the one and only Lance Watkins. If you haven’t listened to our first podcast episode with Lance, you might go back and listen to that podcast first to give you a better idea of who Lance is, and all the amazing things he’s doing in the self storage industry. He’s an absolute wealth of knowledge. If you’ve seen or been around the storage industry for any amount of time, it’s clear that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to bring storage up to date. That said, today we’re going to the tip of the spear. Lance is going to share cutting edge insights into the future of self storage and we can and should expect to see happening in the industry. Just a couple topics covered today - looking at self storage as an ecommerce experience, the truth about “man-less” or “totally aut…

Our Current Economy & How We Can Succeed

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne! As you’re probably aware, there’s A LOT of wacky things going on out there currently with the US Dollar, stimulus packages, and interest rates (and a ton of other crap I’m not even going to get into). One huge aspect of today that we have to take into account is this - we’re in totally uncharted economic waters. There’s never been a time in history that we threw capitalism to the side and solely relied on the government to support everything. We’re living this right now. What happens when the stimulus stops? What happens when interest rates rise? What about inflation? We have some ideas as to the answers to these questions, but none of us have a crystal ball. These are topics I wanted to be sure to discuss today on the podcast because I know so many of us are thinking about and asking the same questions. We’re going to talk micro and macro economics and which you need to be focuse…

Should You Buy or Should You Build a Storage Facility? (Key Factors to Consider)

What’s going on everybody!? Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast, I’m your host, AJ Osborne! I have to say, I get asked a ton of questions about self storage and self storage investing as a whole. But one of the most popular questions I get, especially right now is, “do I buy a storage facility, or do I build a storage facility?” The answer? YES! If your numbers work for you to just buy an already existing facility, and building doesn’t make sense, then you buy existing. If your numbers work better to build than to acquire an existing storage facility, then build! I know the answer doesn’t seem this simple, and yes, there are absolutely factors that we look at to gauge whether or not we want to buy or build a storage facility. But what exactly are those factors to look for or look at? Well, I’m going to share those factors with you on today’s podcast. I’m going to share exactly what we look for, reasons you SHOULDN’T build, key factors…

The Current State of the US Economy & What We Need to Understand

Welcome back everybody to the AJ Osborne podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne. If you follow me on social media you may have noticed these past couple weeks, I’ve been posting quite a bit on the current economic events happening here in our country. What we’re seeing is honestly unprecedented and in our country’s history we haven’t seen or experienced quite what we are today. That said, I’ve been thinking, and reading about this… A LOT… and I have some things to share that I think can shed some light. The fact is, we’re seeing massive government intervention. This is diluting the economic fundamentals of this country and the very systems we run on. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a huge importance that needs to be placed on monetary policy and reasonable inflation is actually a good thing (more on this in the podcast). What causes issues is when the very systems we’ve created to help our economy actually end up being used in such a way that actually start to…

The Future of Self Storage | What’s Happening & What You Need to Succeed

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This your host AJ Osborne. There are no two ways about it - industries are changing every single day, and they’re changing rapidly. Self Storage is no exception. Self Storage today is drastically different in a number of ways than it was even 10 years ago. But what have been some of the biggest and most influential changes that have happened, and that we also see coming? And how can we plan today to be a part of and take advantage of those changes? And what is holding the self storage industry back? These are the questions that my team and I are always asking. This is also why I’ve invested heavily into companies and products over the past decade that are asking these same questions, and providing the self storage industry with solutions for these questions. We’ve seen what happens when industries or globally recognized brands don’t pay attention to changes in the market. They ultimately fail to meet the…

Building a Self Storage Empire and the Process of Scaling [Our 3 Keys]

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne! Some of us simply want to buy and run a few self storage facilities that will allow us more freedom over our finances and our lives, and that’s fantastic. Some of us however, want to build empires, and that’s exactly what we’re going to focus on in today’s podcast. Whether we have a facility under our belts or we’re just starting out, if we want to build self storage empires, we have to think and execute in a totally different way. We need a goal and a master plan to help us achieve it. But where do you start? How do go about planning to build a self storage investment empire? What processes, tools, and infrastructure will you need? These are all great questions and ones that YOU will have to answer for yourself. Investment goals and expertise is different for everyone. The investment vehicles and paths that investors take is equally different and dynamic. But there are a f…

No Money? No Problem. | How to Invest in Self Storage with Little or No Money

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne! First off, I wanted to take a second to give a huge THANK YOU to all our listeners and supporters. You guys are what drives this podcast and everything we’re doing here at Self Storage Income. Today’s topic comes straight from you. We had a listener write in this question on the Self Storage Income website (linked at the end of these show notes). We also get talking points and subjects for the podcast and our YouTube Channel (also linked at the end of these show notes) right from your comments and reviews. That said, keep it up! I love hearing from you all and hearing about all the exciting things you’re doing. So what was this listener question? Well, if the title didn’t already give it away, the question in a nutshell was this: “I really want to invest in self storage, but how do I start investing when I don’t have any money to invest?” This is by far one of the most asked questi…

3 Keys to Finding Hot Self Storage Markets | Special Edition SSI Takeover with Conner & Caley

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is NOT your host AJ Osborne! This is Conner and Caley doing a Self Storage Income takeover! AJ just so happens to be in Florida at the moment enjoying some well deserved family time. That said, we have full reign over the podcast today and are going to dive into one of the most popular subjects of discussion regarding self storage investing, and that subject is how to analyze a market for self storage. Despite what you might have heard about self storage, you cannot simply have the “build it and they will come” mentality. It could spell disaster for us if we fail to recognize this. Not only could it spell disaster for us and our investment in that market, it could also destroy that market for everyone for decades to come. It’s extremely important that we can correctly and thoroughly analyze a market for self storage. We have to be able to tell if the market is good or bad, if building would be better than a…

Absolute Financial Freedom Through Self Storage (Your Self Storage Financial Freedom Plan)

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage income podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne! Why are you interested in self storage? What does success look like to you when you envision your future in self storage? How do you define success in self storage and how will you achieve that? Are your self storage investing goals truly defined? These are all questions that you should have an answer to. After all, these questions are your road map. We have to know where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. Without knowing and understanding these fundamentals, we can’t plan or execute on our goals at all. That’s why today, I wanted to jump into defining what real freedom through self storage really is, ways you can get there, and what you need to be thinking about today to get started off right. We hear a lot about how people want to be “financially free” and this very well may be you and why you’re looking at self storage investing. But what is “financia…

The BIGGEST Risks to Self Storage and How You Can Reduce That Risk

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne. That’s right, you read the title of this episode correctly. That “Risks to Self Storage” may have caught you off guard. If you’ve spent any time in the storage world or even looked at purchasing a facility, chances are, you’ve heard all the hype: “Self storage is recession proof.” “Self storage is a cash cow!” “Build it and they will come.” You probably haven’t heard much about the risk and trust me, there are very real risks in self storage investing. Let’s get some facts straight right out of the gate - you cannot eliminate all risk. You can only plan for risk and do what you can with what you can actually control. That’s right, nothing is ‘risk proof’ and honestly, thinking something IS risk proof is insanely risky. So what exactly are the biggest risks to self storage? I’m glad you’re asking this question and even more glad you’re seeking an answer…

Self Storage Conversions | 4 Keys That Can Make or Break Your Self Storage Deal

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! Today we have an awesome episode lined up for you. We’re going to be talking about self storage conversions. We have an insane conversion project going on currently and we wanted to share some key insights into what you need to be looking for when you’re analyzing a potential self storage conversion project. Whether it’s an old big box store or an industrial space that you’re looking at repurposing into self storage, there are a few key things that you absolutely need to be looking for through your due diligence. These keys could be the deciding factor to your deal either being a home run, or being a colossal failure. The four keys we’re diving into today are concrete flooring, gas piping, HVAC’s, and roofing. We share what exactly you need to be looking for and what exactly you need to do to help ensure you cover as many bases as possible in regard to each of these critical items. Get the n…

Special Edition Episode - Featuring Fan Questions and Answers

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m extra excited to get this episode out to you guys because in today’s episode, we’re doing something we’ve never done before. As you probably know, we get a ton of awesome questions from you guys every day. We use a ton of the questions that you ask to create more videos, podcasts, social media posts, and content in general. This is awesome because we get to create content around the specific questions you guys are asking. Today, we’re doing something a bit different - we’re taking your questions right from YouTube, social media, emails, and reading them and answering them off the cuff. We had a blast doing this! It was great to take some of the best and most common questions about self storage and get them answered for you. If you enjoy this as much as we do, be sure to get active with us on the Self Storage Income social media, YouTube, and of course the Self Storage Income website. I w…

RV and Boat Storage with Scott Ramser [An In Depth Walkthrough]

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host, AJ Osborne! So as you could imagine, I get a ton of questions about a lot of things self storage… but something I get asked about absolutely all the time is RV and Boat storage. Common themes I hear are, “Hey AJ, I have some land and want to put some open parking spots for RV and boat storage so I can make some money and get into the self storage game.” Or, “Hey AJ, I want to develop but don’t have the capital to build a large full scale storage facility, could I do Boat and RV storage?” To be honest, RV and Boat storage is a niche within a niche. Storage is a niche of real estate and business, and RV and Boat storage is a niche of it’s own within that…. And it’s not something I know a ton about because I don’t specialize in it. But you’re in luck. Today I have another awesome guest on the podcast for you who DOES specialize in this exact thing, and he’s absolutely crushing it. It’…

Self Storage Crises and Large Expenses You Need to Know About and Prepare For

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host, AJ Osborne. Today we’re talking about the nitty gritty… the unexpected crises and large expenses you absolutely need to be aware of. It’s tough sometimes to imagine the worst case scenario, whether because it makes you cringe or because you simply don’t know what you don’t know. Either case is no excuse to recognize the very real possibility of a storage facility failing. On this note real quick… if you ever hear anyone say storage is “recession proof”... run away. Self storage has performed extremely well through recessions, however, storage is not (and neither is anything else), “recession proof”. To say self storage is recession resistant… is a much more accurate phrase. So please, don’t think self storage can never fail, because it can. Now that that’s been said… I want to share with you in today’s episode some of the things that you need to be thinking about when it comes…

Investing in Self Storage | How to Start and How to Crush it with Drew Pearson

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne. Today we have the one and only Drew Pearson on the podcast today to share his self storage investing journey with you. Even though Drew just recently jumped into the amazing asset class of self storage, he has already closed on two facilities and has a third currently under contract. How is Drew finding, evaluating, and closing on these storage deals? That’s a fantastic question and we’re going to dive into all of it. Drew started his real estate career working at a commercial real estate brokerage firm. Seeing first hand the incredible power of real estate investing, Drew knew that he had to make the leap from real estate broker to real estate investor/owner. To do this, he wanted to get an inside and in depth look behind the scenes to see how deals are found, funded, and structured as a whole from start to finish. This lead him to start working as the head of acquisitions for a private equit…

Building a Storage Facility | Everything You Need to Know with Hamish and Scotty from Forge Building Company

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this your host AJ Osborne! Special Note - This episode is for anyone thinking about BUILDING or DEVELOPING a storage facility. Alright, let’s get to it.... I’m always excited about the great guests that I’m able to bring you guys, but today, I’m extra excited. We have two amazing guests on the podcast today who have an incredible amount of knowledge and experience in the self storage industry. It’s a pleasure to introduce you to Forge Building Company’s Hamish Bell and Scotty Sundin. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the self storage industry with as much building and storage development experience. They’re truly experts in their fields and they provide a behind the curtain view into the world of building a storage facility. Forge Building Company is one of the most premier storage facility developers in the U.S. They’ve helped build countless storage facilities of all shapes and sizes, all across the…

Why People Fail in Self Storage (4 Things You Need to Get Right)

What’s going on everybody, AJ Osborne here with another episode of the Self Storage Income podcast. When we set out to accomplish anything, we have to have the right mindset. The right mindset allows us to plan, execute, and survive. This is no different when it comes to self storage. We need to be able to plan, execute, and survive, and we need to be able to do it effectively and efficiently both now and in the future at scale. No, this isn’t going to be another podcast where we all sing songs and “motivate” each other. Today’s podcast aims to help you see self storage for what it really is and what it can be if you do it right. Today I’m going to talk about the top 4 things that I see people doing wrong in storage: * Not accurately measuring and identifying supply and demand * Not accurately underwriting your storage deal * The lack of a solid team * The lack of a real business plan These are things that can devastate your storage investment if you get th…

Pricing a Storage Unit - How to Know Exactly What to Charge to Increase Value

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne. Today we have the big daddy of them all… unit pricing. If you own, operate, or are looking at investing in storage, have you every asked yourself: What should you be charging for the units at your storage facility? How do you know what the storage market can handle in your area? How much can you increase the rate of your storage units? What’s the BEST price you should charge for your storage units? If you’ve asked these questions before, you’re certainly not alone. You’d be surprised how many storage facilities we come across that are extremely under valued. They’re not charging the rates they could be. This is a great problem to have as an owner or investor, because you can immediately and simply resolve this issue. Not only that, you can increase your revenue by incredible amounts. This is what we’re going to jump into today. We’re going to cover everything unit pricing a…

2020 Year End Storage Industry Review and What We Expect for 2021 with John Lindsey

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne. As we all know, this past 2020 year was a little crazy to say the least. Socially, politically, economically… it was the perfect storm. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom and that certainly wasn’t the case for the storage industry. I’m super excited about today’s episode because we have the one and only John Lindsey on the podcast to share his incredible insights into what storage did in 2020 and what storage is expecting to see in 2021. Who is John Lindsey? John is a great friend of mine who has some of the most extensive storage experience of anyone I know. John came from an ownership and development side of storage. John’s father built and owned and operated storage facilities, and as any great dad would, put John to work helping to build these incredible assets. Ultimately John decided that he wasn’t super excited about pouring concrete and building the storage facilities. However,…

How to DOUBLE the Value of a Storage Facility with Rob LaBonne

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This your host, AJ Osborne. I’m super excited about today’s episode because we have another incredible guest on the podcast today. That awesome guest is Rob Labonne. Rob was the perfect guest to have on today because like a lot of us, he’s just getting started on his self storage investment journey. Just 10 months ago, Rob acquired his first storage facility and since then close to DOUBLED the facility’s value. How? I’m glad you asked because we’re going to dive into all of it! Rob shares how he found the storage facility, how he financed it, and how he dramatically increased the value of the facility in just a few short months. As most of you know, we can’t just wait for deals to come our way. We have to put in the work and build the systems necessary to put ourselves in the path of opportunity. This is a long term game that requires long term thinking and solutions. One of the…

How to Get Started in Storage Investing [Step by Step Guide]

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! This your Co-host Conner Skeen. Today we’re going to dive into AJ’s step by step guide on how to get started in self storage investing. That guide is actually AJ’s best selling book “The Investors Guide to Growing Wealth in Self Storage”. We know that there are a lot of you out there who are just starting their self storage investment journey. We couldn’t be more excited for you and we’re happy to be here to help. Getting off on the right foot is critical for any investor and we want to be sure to help give you the knowledge and the tools to be able to find and execute great storage deals. AJ’s book is a wealth of knowledge for anyone wanting to invest in self storage. It walks anyone through from start to finish - the self storage industry, how to find deals, how to finance deals, how to analyze markets, operations, and more. Here’s the table of contents to give you an idea of the value this bo…

The Best Real Estate Investment Tool You’ve Never Heard of with Yonah Weiss

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast (or the AJ Osborne podcast – whichever one you’re listening to right now). I’m your host AJ Osborne and this episode was so great, we wanted to be sure to release it on BOTH of our podcasts – Self Storage Income and the AJ Osborne podcast (formerly Cashflow 2 Freedom). Are you a current real estate investor? Looking to become a real estate investor? Then today’s episode is definitely for you. Whether it’s storage, multi-family, single family, homes, manufactured homes, or pretty much any other real estate asset, the strategy and concept we’re going to cover today can apply to you all. That said, I’m extra excited about today’s episode because we get to dive into this subject that could save you thousands and even millions of dollars in taxes. The subject? Cost segregation. Not only do we get to learn about this amazing tax strategy and tool, we get to learn about if from the expert himself - Yonah Weiss. Yo…

The Key Self Storage Investing Step That So Many Investors Are Missing

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne. Today’s episode is going to be a slight change of pace. We go in depth on almost every single episode on tactical and strategic steps that will either get you started investing in self storage, or that will help you take your storage portfolio to the next level. This is all great and fantastic for you guys to see and implement in your storage investing journeys, however, there’s a lot more that goes into building a storage investment business. Did you catch that? “Building a storage investment business.” Building a business and taking the steps to truly move the needle is exactly what we're going to dive into on today’s episode. For whatever reason, you most often see business and investing segmented and separated. Why is this? I have NO idea!? Building business and investing should be treated and looked at as one in the same. If you’re building a business, you’re investing. If you’re…

The Exact Metrics You Need to Use to Find Great Storage Deals [My Probability Funnel]

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne. There’s a lot that goes into analyzing a storage facility and the market that that facility is located in. As you know from our other episodes, the due diligence process is lengthy, in depth, and is a complete undertaking. But that process is necessary to help you invest in only the best storage deals. Just one question though - is there a way to make this process more efficient? The answer is yes, and that is exactly what we’re going to dive into today on this episode of Self Storage Income. Today I’m going to introduce you all to my due diligence Probability Funnel. This a personalized process that me and team have used to help identify and secure the best storage deals. Not only that, the probability funnel measures key indicators of a storage facility and the storage market in a way that helps streamline and make the due diligence process go that much quicker. We’re going to dive into wha…

Going From 0 to 7 Storage Facilities - An In Depth Investing Walkthrough with Zach Quick

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne. We have another incredible guest episode for you today and you just might recognize the name. Zach Quick was one of our first guests on Self Storage Income and his episode has been one of the most downloaded episodes of the podcast for quite some time. That said, we wanted to bring him back on for you all for a follow up episode. Today Zach shares with us where he’s at, how far he’s come and what his next steps are to continue growing his self storage investment portfolio. As Zach has come to find, there is a lot that goes into scaling your investing across multiple facilities. Zach shares what he’s been doing to help scale and what systems he’s focusing on right now to further build upon his storage investing foundations. We talk about optimizing operations, systems building, and making that transition from owner/operator to simply owner while you have your systems do the operating for…

$0 to $4 Million in a Few Short Years - A Step by Step Case Study of Our First Storage Deals

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this your host AJ Osborne! I’m especially excited for today’s episode and here’s why - we talk a lot about storage investing, storage deals, how to find them, how to analyze them, and so forth. Today we’re going to do something similar, but we’re going to walk through the step by step process of my very own deals when I first started investing in self storage. Ultimately, I want to show you how we went from owning ZERO storage to reaching $4 Million in just a few short years using the value add approach. When I first started in storage, there were zero resources when it came to self storage or how to invest in it. My approach in the beginning was simple - find a storage facility that cash flowed, purchase it, watch the appreciation grow along with our equity over time, w collect the cash flow, do this with a number of small facilities…. and retire. We learned a couple things - this approach didn’t really work or p…

How to Get on the Fast Track to Achieving Your Goals [In Storage or Otherwise]

What’s up everybody!? Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast. This is your host, AJ Osborne. We’re going to take a bit of a different direction today and we’re going to talk about goals. If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are, you’ve set huge goals for yourself which is awesome. But are the goals you’ve outlined for yourself truly the root of what you want to accomplish? So many of us will set off on a path to what we believe is our ticket to success, only to find out later that what we thought we wanted… isn’t actually what we wanted at all. We’re going to dive into this topic today and discuss goal setting and how to identify your underlying, overarching, root of all things goals. We’re also going to talk about goal planning and how to map out our days, weeks, months, and years to help you hit those goals once you’ve identified them. At the heart of today’s episode is time and ensuring that we’re using our time and efforts as efficiently a…

How to Identify a Great Market for Self Storage

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne and I’m geared up and ready to dive into today’s topic with you all. As you all know, or as you might be learning, there are a lot of variables to consider when performing your due diligence on a potential storage facility whether that be an existing facility or a potential ground up build. Today though, we’re going to be talking mostly about ground up builds and a critical variable that you need to be paying attention to. Failing to account for the variables could lead to an investment disaster. So what is this critical variable? This key component we need to keep in mind and account for is square footage of storage in relation to the market. If you’re just getting into self storage investing, one of the metrics used to help measure supply and demand in the market is square feet of storage per capita (which is a fancy way of saying - how many square feet of storage is on the market in a spe…

How to Build the RIGHT Team That Will Deliver Huge Value and Huge Wins

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! As you’re all familiar, this is your host AJ Osborne. I’m really excited to talk about today’s subject because it’s actually something we’re working on in my company Cedar Creek Wealth. It’s a work in progress and we’re building it out, but I wanted to touch on this today and share this journey with you a bit as I know so many of you guys want to, or are doing the same thing in your own businesses. The topic? Growth and progress. As we grow and progress in our companies and our lives, we always need new skills, new tools, and most importantly… new teams. I specifically want to talk about building out teams because this is really is your bread and butter. As I always say, success is not created on an island. You need a great team of people behind you that help guide, lead, and drive you closer to your end goals. The thing is though, we can’t just build any team. There are certain things we have to consider when…

How to Hire Employees and Maximize Your Storage Facility

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne. Today’s episode comes straight from one of you guys - our listeners and couldn’t more excited to jump in on this today. We have talked in length about how to find storage deals, how to turn storage facilities around, how to extract and increase value, how to finance a storage investment, and all kinds of great topics that can help you get started investing in self storage. One thing we haven’t touched on much is the fact and very real need for employees to run your storage facilities. That was the question we were asked by one of you listeners recently - when do you hire? Who do you hire? Do you hire part time or full time employees? These are all great questions that we’re going to dive into here today. We clear up some industry misunderstandings such as the “completely automated facility” concept where individuals wrongfully assume you can completely automate a facility. To that point w…

How to Dominate in Self Storage - Building Your Framework (Step by Step)

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! I’m your host AJ Osborne. I don’t think anyone sets out in their self storage investing endeavor with the intent NOT to succeed. Unfortunately though, we can and people do fail. A huge reason why this is, is due to a lack of building our framework to succeed. But what do you need to include and take into account when developing your framework? Today we’re going to go over my 5 part framework model that will help get you on track to dominate self storage. One of the most important aspects (if not THE most important) aspect of your framework is going to be progress. This is one of the huge takeaways from today’s episode and we dive into the idea of progress, what it means, how to measure it, and how you can use progress to gauge when it’s time to adjust your plans. Thanks for tuning in as always and whatever you do, DON’T miss out on our $2,000 give away opportunity. Details are here in the podcast and also on my soci…

How to Buy a Storage Facility - Financing Your Storage Facility with Terry Campbell

What’s going on everybody!? Welcome back to the Self Storage Income podcast! This is your host AJ Osborne and I hope you’re all doing well, finding deals, and making moves. One of the most talked about topics I hear from you guys about is the world of lending. Obviously, when we want to purchase a storage facility, we need money! But how and where to get that money? Well today you’re in for an incredible episode because we have the one and only Terry Campbell on the podcast today who works for LIve Oak Bank. Live Oak Bank has an incredible team of some of the best and most knowledgeable folks in the lending industry when it comes to small business and especially when it comes to self storage. Terry shares some invaluable insights today into the world of lending, insights you’ll want to be sure to take note of. We talk about the different types of lending and financing options available. We talk about the different types of SBA loans and generally when and how you can…

How to Structure a Deal (After the Money is Raised) - Behind the Scenes of Our Past and Current Deals

Hey what’s going on everybody!? Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne. One of the things that’s often talked about throughout the world of real estate investing is the raising of capital for deals. Everybody talks about how to find investors, how to manage investors, how to raise money, and even a bit about how to allocate that money. One of the issues with this is…. No one ever talks about what the actual deals look like AFTER the investors are secured and money is raised. What does the deal structure look like? Is there a industry standard for percentages of ownership in the deal? Who gets what and how much? Well that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in today’s episode. We go behind the veil and share with you guys the exact structure of our past and current deals. We go over the different roles that we and our investors take in in the deal, what that means, and the exact percentages shared of those deals. We talk general partner…

The Investors Hack - Step by Step (How to Grow Wealth More Quickly)

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne. Today we have an episode for you that outlines the exact process we’ve used to go from owning one storage facility, to now owning and operating storage facilities all across the U.S. with a portfolio worth over $100 Million. We just recently refinanced several of our facilities. What’s that mean for us? Well for starters, we pulled out capital (completely tax free) to deploy towards the purchases of more storage facilities, we drastically lowered our investment risk, and all the amazing cashflows from all of our facilities will be staying the same as before the refinance. How? Well that’s exactly what we’re talking about today. That said, you better get that note book out again and get ready because this is a juicy episode you won’t want to miss a detail of. We talk debt, finance, economics, and the tools you can use that help you grow more wealth more effectively. Thanks a ton for listen…

How Secure is Self Storage Investing? The Pros and Cons

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne. If you’ve talk to others about investing in self storage, it’s likely you immediately received the “storage is a cash cow!”, or “storage is recession proof!” comments. While we’re just as about excitable as you can get about self storage and the massive opportunities there are in this industry, we’re not about to forget that things can and do go wrong. Is storage more secure than other asset classes? Well, today I wanted to talk about the pros and cons of the self storage investment vehicle. There are some who say that storage is the be all end all investment and you don’t need to invest in anything else - that storage could never fail. This is extremely dangerous thinking. As you and I know, there truly is and can be an unbelievable amount of upside investing in self storage. Storage in general has performed incredibly well through down turns and recessions - but not all storage fa…

Taking the Plunge and Buying Your First Storage Facility with Rafa Ortiz

What’s going on everybody!? Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast. This your host AJ Osborne. We have another incredible guest lined up for you today and if you follow or are a part of the extreme kayaking world, you’ll recognize his name. Our guest today is Rafa Ortiz. Being a professional kayaker sponsored by some of the biggest names in the extreme sports world such as Redbull and GoPro… self storage is far from his usual. But Rafa has recently discovered the power of not only real estate investing, but in self storage investing. After discovering the potential that self storage can offer, Rafa decided to purchase his first facility. Today, Rafa shares his experience with his first facility from how he financed it when no banks would give him a loan to the incredible process it takes to get your storage investment train started and moving. We also dive into the journey that is investing and what you should expect as you begin or continue down your investment path. As…

Grow, Scale, and Compound Your Self Storage Portfolio - Our Franchise System

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast, I’m your host AJ Osborne. As you know, here at Self Storage Income, we’re all about scale and going big. After all, we get one shot at this and we want to make the most of it. That’s why today, we wanted to talk about our franchise system. In today’s episode we walk through and lay out the key aspects of our very own franchise system that allows us to continue to rapidly and steadily grow our storage portfolio. No, our facilities aren’t franchises, but we do however operate them as such. As you grow, you’ll find yourself doing the same tasks over and over and over again. Like I always say, you have three options: hire for it, automate it, or get rid of it. That’s exactly what we’ve done with our own facilities. You’ll also find as you grow that efficiency is key to your ability to grow and not become overwhelmed. We have to ensure that our efforts today drives progress tomorrow and to do that, we have to build…

The Forefront and Evolution of the Self Storage Industry with Lance Watkins

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast. This is your host AJ Osborne. If you’ve been in or researched the storage industry for long you may recognize our guest in today’s episode. We have my good friend, and the one and only Lance Watkins on the podcast today and I couldn’t be more excited to share this episode with you. Lance has been in the industry since the 1990’s and is at the forefront of the evolution of the self storage industry. Like every other asset class, storage is changing and it's crucial that we’re in front of that change. Lance talks about what he’s seen in the past, what he sees for the future, and what he’s done by leveraging technology to take control of not only his own storage investments, but the self storage industry as a whole. We also dive into a topic that no one else is talking about in real estate - that topic is market share. No, we’re not talking about market share of the physical real estate or physical real estate mark…

How to Find and Close Deals Consistently by Being the Bear

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income podcast. Through talking to, meeting, and interacting with you guys - one of the biggest and most frequent questions by far that I get from all of you is - “How do I find and close storage deals? And how do I do it consistently?” Obviously, this is a great question to be asking and I’m super excited to share my process with you that is going to help build an infrastructure for you that will create real and consistent deal flow. We’ll go over my simple three step process - step by step that will help you take action and start finding, evaluating, and closing storage deals. This an episode you should listen to more than once and an episode you should absolutely take notes on. Reason being, the strategies and the steps outlined in today’s episode are the exact same steps and strategies we’ve used to grow our storage portfolio of over 1 million square feet of storage. Thanks a ton for listening as always everybody. Keep in touch…

Our Latest Kansas City Deal - Re-cap and Update

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast, this is your host AJ Osborne. I just got back from a trip to Kansas City where we’re working on closing our latest acquisition and I have to tell you… I haven’t been this excited about a purchase in a long time and today I’m going to tell you exactly why. This facility is the exact type of facility that we look for and has every piece of criteria that tells us this is a great deal: - We have high demand in the market - The facility is poorly ran/managed - The facility rates are lower than current market rates - Very little revenue management - Very little online presence - No ancillary streams of income - Off market deal - The list goes on and on If you’ve listened to this podcast for any period of time you know that these factors immediately signal that there could be very real and massive value left on the table to extract. The only thing now is to move and execute. To do this, we need to have our plan and our team…

How to Invest in Out of State Storage Deals

Welcome back everybody, this is your host AJ Osborne. So you might be aware… we receive a ton of questions from you guys about self storage and how to begin investing in self storage… and we absolutely love it. We love getting this feedback from you all and addressing any questions you might have about self storage, because like most times, if you have a question about something, a lot of other people probably have the same or a similar question. This is exactly where today’s episode topic comes from - you guys. Today, we’re going to talk about how to invest in storage out of state. There are a lot of us that live in markets that are far from ideal and that don’t meet our investment criteria. That said, we end up having to look at markets outside of our own back yards. Thankfully for storage, once you’ve figured out how to identify a good deal in a good market, it doesn’t matter where that deal is located, it’s still a good deal! The only real hurdle is knowing how and…

Current Deals We’re Looking At – Storage Conversions and What Exactly We Look For

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income podcast. This is AJ Osborne your host and fellow self storage addict. Today I wanted to share with you some of the current deals we’re looking at. Specifically, I wanted to talk about conversions. Conversions seem to be all the hype lately and for good reason. First off, when we say “conversions”, we mean taking what used to be a big box store (that is now sitting vacant) and turning into a self storage facility. We’ve done this before and it was a huge success, but not just because we did it, but because we did it right. Like anything else, as long as we get the job done right, there’s massive potential. However, if we get it wrong, there’s massive negative consequences. Today I break down exactly what we look for and consider when we’re looking at a potential conversion project. I share the two things that make a conversion project worth it. I also break down our three step process of evaluating a conversion - will the ci…

Identifying Good Deals in Great Markets - The Art and Science

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast. This is your host AJ Osborne. I don’t know how many calls, messages, and emails I have received from you all and replied to that had to do with this very topic. This alone makes me proud, as this is obviously one of the biggest key factors to help ensure your storage investment success. First and foremost, there is no one size fits all generalization of a market or what makes a good deal. Each deal, each market needs to be analyzed on a case by case basis and compared to your investment criteria. There is an art and a science to finding good storage deals in great markets and that art and science is exactly what we’re going to dive into today. We’ll go over the first thing that I look for in markets to identify a good market, the macroeconomic factors affecting the self storage industry and what you can do to position yourself, a surefire sign of when to completely avoid a market, and more. We also share our three pillar…

An Intro to the Self Storage Industry - The Good the Bad and the Opportunity

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! Thanks so much for tuning in and for all of your incredible support. The podcast is growing, our book is doing amazing, and all the feedback we continue to receive has been outstanding. That said - let’s get to it! Today I wanted to give you all an in depth introduction to the self storage industry. Whether we’re just starting out or we’re veteran storage investors, keeping our hands on the pulse of the storage industry is key to our continued success. Throughout today’s episode we’re going to cover a variety of subjects that will give you some good insight into the storage industry and where not only the pitfalls may be, but where the massive opportunities can be. From the total number of storage facilities in the US and their combined rentable space, to the primary reason storage exists, to storage performance year over year and even through specific seasons, we get into a lot here today. As usual, I’m excited to…

COVID 19 and How It’s Affecting Self Storage

What’s going on everybody!? AJ here with another episode of your favorite self storage podcast - Self Storage Income. Today I wanted to dive into what we’re seeing and experiencing in the self storage industry with the looming COVID 19 pandemic overhead. We’ve had a lot of you sending in questions wondering how this virus has affected our operations, our returns, and our expectations of self storage performance in the future. I share some in depth insights into what we’re seeing currently at our numerous storage facilities across the US. One reminder however - every city, county, state, etc has been approaching COVID 19 differently and as to be expected, their guidelines have also been different. Being such a dynamic event, it’s been quite the undertaking for business owners and investors to keep up with the rapid changes going on in each respective area. We go over how we’ve been approaching rate increases, our strategy moving forward to realize the best returns possible w…

Wealth Building Fundamentals and How I Applied Them to Self Storage

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Self Storage Income podcast! Real quick before we dive in, thank you all for your awesome support of this podcast, my book, our website, and all these awesome things we have going on. The emails I’ve received, the comments, the incredible reviews of my book and the podcast… the list could go on and on. That said, I just wanted to take a moment to send all of you a huge thank you! You all are the best! Today’s episode is going to be a little different. We love heavily centering the podcast around providing tactical information. We wanted to break that up just a bit today and talk some fundamentals. Reason being, no matter how tactical we get, if we don’t have the fundamentals down, we won’t be able to use those tactical strategies and tools effectively. We start off by going over a process that you can utilize that will help you figure out what exactly it is that you truly want. This is a huge question and one so many of us have gotten wrong.…

The Economic Forces That Make or Break Self Storage

Hey everybody! Welcome back to the Self Storage Income podcast where we talk anything and everything self storage. It doesn’t matter what you’re investing in, understanding the economics of your chosen asset and how both micro and macro economic factors can affect that asset is key. In today’s episode I jump into the economic factors that can make or break a self storage deal. We go from debt cycles and the economic overview of the last several decades and how storage has weathered those cycles, to where the self storage industry is right now in today’s market cycle, and we even jump into the tools that government can use to control the economy that can also act as signs to eny savvy investors. One last thing, I also share with you all the biggest economic threat to self storage. Be sure to listen in, take notes as usual, and shoot us emails with any comments or questions you might have. Thanks a bunch for listening guys, AJ Pick up a copy of my book An Investor’s Guide to Gr…

Real Estate Attorney Charles Dobens | The Keys to Building a Real Estate Empire

What’s going on everybody!? AJ here, I hope you’re all doing great and you’re out there crushing it as usual. I’m excited to release this episode to you guys because I’ve been saying for a while now that I’d love to get a real estate attorney on the podcast. Well, I’m happy to say, we’ve finally done it and this is the episode you’ve been waiting for. Today I had the the pleasure of sitting down with real estate attorney Charles Dobens. Charles specializes in multifamily investing and even go on to launch his Multifamily Investing Academy that helps both new and veteran investors grow multifamily empires. Charles walks us through the various aspects of what it takes to begin building your multifamily portfolio - building a team, building systems, the power of compounding, and so forth. We then jump into the details where Charles defines legal terms and gives examples of how to find and structure deals, This is yet another value packed episode that you should definitel…

How to Identify, Evaluate, and Force Value of Your Storage Investments with Sam Whitaker

What’s going on everybody!? AJ Osborne here, your host of the Self Storage Income podcast. I’ve been telling you all for a while now that we’d have our CFO Sam Whitaker on the podcast for round two, and today is that day. Sam’s first episode, How to Underwrite Self Storage, on the podcast has been one of the most downloaded episodes we’ve published to date, and for good reason. Knowing how to accurately underwrite your self storage investments is where we either make or break a deal. If you haven’t listened to that episode, definitely put it on your list and go listen to it. Today’s episode is focused on how to identify potential storage investment opportunities and where the value add opportunities are that you can implement and leverage to immediately force value. Being able to quickly and accurately identify potential investment opportunities is something that takes time to master. However, there are some key factors that we look for that Sam covers in today’s episod…

An In Depth Look at One of Our Self Storage Deals

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income Podcast. As you might already know, I’ve launched my book An Investor’s Guide to Growing Wealth in Self Storage. Having put this book together for you and everyone out there like you who is interested in investing in self storage, i wanted to share some pieces of it with you today. Specifically, I wanted to share one of our case studies that I chose to put in the book - a real deal with real numbers. This deal we go over in today’s podcast is our bread and butter and is a direct representation of the strategy we’ve used to build a storage portfolio worth over $100 Million. We walk you through how we found this deal, what the key identifiers were when we were looking for this deal, the price we acquired the facility at, how much money we put into it, what we did exactly to turn the facility around, and what the facility was worth in the months and years following our acquisition. This episode is short, sweet, and straight to the…

Three Keys to Finding and Moving on a Self Storage Investment Opportunity

Welcome everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast. I’m AJ Osborne, your host and self proclaimed self storage investing addict. So many times we can get caught up in all the details and analysis of our goals, investing and otherwise. That’s why today I wanted to dial in on three keys to help you focus on when analyzing whether or not to move forward with a proposed storage facility. The three simple keys we go over today are: Demand Revenue Potential Cost Once you accurately identify and measure these variables, you’ll have a pretty clear idea of whether or not a proposed storage facility is a go. I walk you all through how to analyze demand, how to identify revenue potential, and how to analyze cost to help ensure that you’re making the best investment decisions possible. Listen in, take notes, and please, email me any questions you have! We love addressing your questions on the podcast and social media. Thanks for listening everybody! AJ Pick up a copy of my book An Invest…

Financial Freedom Through Self Storage | Building Wealth Through Self Storage Part 2

What’s up everybody!? Welcome to the Self Storage Income podcast and welcome to part 2 of this short series where we’re taking a deep dive into the world of growing wealth through self storage. Today we break down some more of the key aspects of why self storage can be such an incredible investment. We take today’s talking points directly from my new book - The Investors Guide to Growing Wealth in Self Storage. Our focus today (like most days) is growth - more specifically, growth through systems. To grow and scale we need systems - systems for hiring, procedure, acquiring assets, billing, project management, and so forth. It’s no secret that we as individuals cannot do absolutely everything that needs to be done for our growing businesses. This means, we must build systems that allow us to hand off those tasks and responsibilities to a qualified team. This means that you can work ON and not IN your business. This ideal is one of the reasons I decided to put toge…

The Investors Guide to Growing Wealth in Self Storage | Part 1

Welcome everybody to Self Storage Income! Today is an incredibly special episode, and this is just part 1. It represents decades of work, time, effort, successes and failures. As you all know, it takes teams of people and years of discipline and hard work to achieve life goals. It’s a journey of ups and downs and one of the most difficult parts about the journey is having the knowledge to be able to execute successfully. The same applies to self storage investing. This is one of the reasons I decided to put together the guide of all guides - The Investors Guide to Growing Wealth in Self Storage. As I said, this guide has taken years of experience for myself and my team to be able to put together for you guys, and I couldn’t be more excited to provide this to you all. This guide walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a potential storage facility, how to analyze markets, the keys to underwriting, acquiring a facility, changing day where you take…

How to Get Infinite Returns with Zero Risk

Welcome everyone to the Self Storage Income podcast! Real quick here, we’re proud to be the largest self storage podcast and that is all thanks to you - our incredible fans and listeners! Thank you for your continued support, your emails, your comments, your reviews, it’s an absolute honor to have you all here. That said, let’s get down to business… Yes you read that title right, and yes, it may sound click-baity. Nonetheless, this is exactly what we’re going to talk about today, and yes, it’s a real thing. I’ve built many companies, but few provide the advantages and upside that self storage investing can offer. Our storage portfolio of over 1 Million square feet of storage and over $150 Million in assets under management, has been built on the concepts we talk about in today’s episode, concepts that few have heard of and even less have deployed. We’re going to walk you through, quick and easy, the exact strategy we’ve used to identify value, to get and produce kno…

How to Build an Empire | Our Four Squared Process of Scale

Welcome back to the Self Storage Income Podcast! Today we’re talking about scale and building self storage empires. A lot of the time when we start out or as we continue to build our businesses, we think we have an idea of how everything will play out and how we’ll get from point A to point B. As any of us know that have started or that are owning and operating any business, things rarely play out like we suspect them to. One of the biggest things we get wrong is just that, we ask how to get from point A to point B, when in reality, we should be asking ourselves how to get from point A to point Z. We fail to think bigger and successfully reverse engineer ourselves to that ultimate goal. We fail to build the foundations today that will continue to drive us forward both now and in the decades to come. Today, we wanted to help address these issues and to help set you all on the right path to scaling an empire. To do this, we break down and give an in depth overview of our four squared…

How to Raise Capital and Structure Deals

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast where we talk anything and everything self storage. Today, we have another incredible episode coming your way. Reviewing our most popular podcast episodes, we’ve found that the “how to’s” that have to do with starting out in self storage investing have been the most downloaded. That said, we wanted to throw another “how to” your way that will not only help you get started, but that will help you scale to new heights. The discussion today is all about how to raise capital for your self storage deals, and also how to structure those deals with investors. Through this episode we walk you through our exact deal structures, the pros, cons, and how you might want to structure your deals as well. This discussion is so dynamic and there are so many variables when raising capital and structuring deals, that we won’t be able to cover everything in this episode. However, we share exactly what we’re doing and how we’re doi…

The One Thing You Need to Use to Operate at Your Highest Level - Leverage

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! I’ve had people ask me lately how it is that I can do all of the things that I do. From self storage investing, my health insurance brokerage, to my new book, and my online companies, there’s no two ways about it, I have a ton going on and I absolutely love it. But how can one person do so many things at once and keep it all on track? There’s one key - leverage. In today’s episode I’m going to dive into this idea of using leverage to grow both professionally and financially. As I always say, success is never built on an island. Time, money, knowledge, relationships - we have to use these resources and leverage these resources to be able to grow and function at our highest level. We cover all of this and more in today’s episode. Thanks everybody, AJ Be sure to go to selfstorageincome.com to get your free copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to iden…

Self Storage Opportunities in Small Towns - The Pros and Cons

Welcome back everybody to the Self Storage Income podcast! Today we’re talking about good ‘ol small towns and the pros and cons of investing in a self storage facility there. There’s great opportunity to be had in small towns when you’re looking to start investing in self storage. But like most great opportunities, there are risks and pitfalls that you need to plan for and be aware of. We walk through the details of one of our small town deals, a facility we still own today, and talk about why it was a good deal, what we looked for, what we saw, and why we ended up purchasing the facility. If you’re just getting started and have limited cash on hand to invest, small towns can be the perfect opportunity for you to get your feet wet, and to start building your self storage empire. Thanks everybody, AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your free copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a sel…

What to Expect From Your Employees | Our Exact Storage Facility Manager Job Description

What’s up everybody, welcome back to Self Storage Income. We’ve had a lot going on at our home office recently in regards to staffing, so that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in today’s podcast. Owning and operating a storage facility at its fullest potential is a lot different than most seem to think it is. The key words here are “operating a storage facility to its FULLEST POTENTIAL”. Sure, you can hire someone to sit there all day and watch TV, not train them on sales, maintenance, or anything else, but not long down the road, your self storage “cash cow” will be more like a dead cow. Not only that, so will any other facilities that you buy. If you want to succeed in storage, if you want to scale now and in the future, building the correct systems, processes, policies, and procedures is critical. These aspects are even more critical when you’re hiring and training employees. Today we’re going to go over the exact job description that we provide to our facil…

Where the Storage Opportunities Are | When to Buy a Storage Facility

Welcome back everybody to Self Storage Income! Today’s episode comes from the overwhelming request to address this topic. Just this past week I was part of a webinar with several other real estate investors. We were interacting with the viewers who were asking us questions. The most common questions we were getting had to do with current opportunity. Everyone wants to know - is now a good time to invest? Is this slight downturn your opportunity to leap? Is this the 2008 you’ve been waiting for? I’m going to lay it out here in the show notes, the fallacy of this kind of thinking. Let’s just address this out of the gate - do not try to time markets. Trying to time markets only leads to missed opportunity and you ultimately never getting where you want to be. So if timing markets isn’t an option, then what is? How do we know when to buy and when to hold off? I’ll give you the answer right here and now - don’t time the markets, time your capital. I’ll cover that topic in de…

How to Fund Your Self Storage Deals

If you’re wanting to get into real estate by funding your deals using other people’s money… this is the episode for you. What’s going on everybody!? AJ Osborne here with another episode of Self Storage Income. As always, I’m super excited to share this episode with you all. Obviously, we’ve talked a lot about real estate investing on the podcast and how so many of us have leveraged the incredible nature of real estate investing to build wealth and financial freedom. We’ve talked quite a bit about self storage and its amazing benefits, but we haven’t talked a whole lot about funding these investments. This is especially an important topic if you’re just starting out in self storage investing. As you might already know, there are a ton of tools available to fund or finance your investments. Today we’re talking specifically about how to work with banks or credit unions and industry insiders to build your knowledge, your confidence, your network, and ultimately your sel…

Is Now a Good Time to Buy a Storage Facility?

As it’s becoming more and more known that self storage is a strong performing asset, whether the markets are up or down, investing in self storage is quickly growing in popularity. But these are crazy times we’re living in. Markets are up, down, sideways, and none of us know what to expect between today and tomorrow. So the question is - is now a good time to buy or invest in a storage facility? The short answer? Absolutely yes, but, just as with any investment, only if you do it right. It doesn’t matter whether a market is up or down, a good deal is always a good deal, and a bad deal is always a bad deal. And trust me, the good deals are out there. We’ve looked at more deals in the past several weeks than we did in the last twelve months combined. So we know we have to do this right, but how? Well I’m glad you asked because we’re going to cover a lot of ground today that will help give you the tools to successfully invest in self storage, the tools to do it right. We talk…

The Keys to Succeeding in Self Storage Investing with John Lindsey

Thanks so much everybody for tuning into another episode of Self Storage Income. As you may be aware, we’ve been lining up some exciting guests to shed their light and experience on the self storage industry and self storage investing as whole. Obviously, we love self storage and want to give you only the best tools, resources, and advice possible. That’s exactly why we’re happy to welcome John Lindsey to the podcast today - Co-founder and President of the Lindsey Self Storage Group. Storage has been a part of John’s family for generations. From owning and operating, to finding, analyzing and brokering deals, to facility development, John has seen and done it all. To say he’s a wealth of knowledge in the industry would be an understatement. We cover a lot of valuable ground in today’s episode with John. We go over the current market conditions including the financing and funding outlook, development and oversupply, to how to find and successfully analyze storage deals, and…

The In’s and Out’s of Cell Towers with Hugh Odom | How to do them Right

Welcome everybody to another episode of Self Storage Income. We have another incredible guest on the show today that we’re excited to bring you. If you’ve ever thought about placing a cell tower on your storage facility property or on any real estate you might own, this is a must listen episode. Our guest today has over twenty years of experience as an attorney, working for companies such as AT&T. Today, he owns and operates his own company centered around cell tower agreements and negotiating and enforcing those agreements for property owners. Our guest today is Hugh Odom. The cell tower world can seem like a complete and total black box of unknows. Even having done a number of cell tower deals and agreements in our self storage business, how the cell tower industry is structured and how it operates has been pretty confusing for us. In this episode, Hugh lifts some of that fog surrounding the cell tower industry and how property owners can benefit from these deals instead of unkno…

Storage Facility Management | What to Look for, What to Change, and Finding Opportunity When Evaluating a Storage Facility

Welcome back everybody to Self Storage Income! I can’t tell you guys how much we appreciate all the comments, emails, and reviews we get from you all. It’s such a huge help for us to hear from you and to connect with you. Today’s episode is right out of one of the comments we’ve received from you. The question was about storage facility management. Here’s the comment asking about the management aspect: “What are you looking for when you’re evaluating a facility? What would you change? How do you evaluate employees already in place?” That said, we jump right in and answer these questions in detail. We also share how exactly we structure and operate our management team. It’s always a great time to be asking yourself how you’re going to set up or improve your management team. No matter where you’re at in your storage investing journey, you should be asking yourself these questions often and evaluating what needs to be done. These structures directly affect our abilit…

Storage Industry Update | How Coronavirus is Affecting the Storage Industry & the Steps We’re Taking

Hey what’s going on everybody!? Thanks a bunch for tuning in to another episode of Self Storage Income. We’ll start off by saying… a lot has happened this past few days across the U.S. as the Coronavirus continues its advance. Currently, state and local governments are deciding which businesses are essential and which are not, essentially picking and choosing which businesses are required to shut down, and which businesses can continue operating. The definitions of essential and non-essential business has differed among the states in which we own and operate facilities. It’s been a very much “fly by the seat of our pants” scenario to say the least. Regardless, we’re full steam ahead. We’ve had numerous employee meetings addressing employee concerns, outlining our plans and current updates to our operating procedures, and so forth. Even though most of our offices at our storage facilities are closed, our employees are going to still be hard at work providing value to our…

Real Estate Financing with Devin Huber | What’s Going to Happen?

Welcome everyone to this episode of Self Storage Income. Today we have another special guest on the podcast that I’m super excited to introduce you to. He and his firm have over $3 Billion in transactions and over 20 years of industry experience delivering self storage and commercial real estate financing solutions to clients across the U.S. Who is this rock star? The one and only Devin Huber. There’s no two ways about it, there is a lot of uncertainty in the economy right now. What does this mean for self storage and commercial real estate financing? Not only that, but how does this downturn compare to the financial crisis of 2008? We also talk about CMBS loans, how this downturn is affecting these specific loans and the lenders offering them. If you’ve thought about utilizing a CMBS loan, we also discuss who CMBS loans can be for and how to utilize them. Another point of discussion is interest rates. How is the Treasury dropping, but interest rates rising? Lastly, and most impo…

The Uncertain Storage Market & One Major Component to Help Your Facility Weather the Storm

Well as you’re all aware, there’s a virus on the loose and it’s wreaking havoc around the world. The looming uncertainty has caused markets to dive. How is this affecting self storage? This being such a huge topic globally, we decided to address this a bit. We also talk about one of the major components that helps your storage facility weather all storms, and it’s probably not what you’re thinking. We’re talking good employees. We talk about the processes and procedures we have in place for our employees, how having good employees has put us a step above competitors, and much more. Employees can make or break your investment - listen in and be sure that it isn’t the later. As always, thanks for listening everybody, AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your free copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a self storage market, how to perform due diligence, how contact a current ow…

Storage Maintenance Expenses - What it Really Looks Like & How You Can Manage Them Better

What’s going on everybody, I hope you’re all doing great and you’re out taking care of business in the self storage world. In today’s podcast, we’re talking storage facility maintenance and operations. One of the biggest misconceptions a lot of people have about owning and operating storage, is that there’s very little maintenance. Which is absolutely NOT the case. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard it, “there aren’t any toilets!”, as storage is generally being compared to owning multifamily property. People who say this are correct, that there aren’t as many toilets. However, there’s a plethora of other ongoing and as needed maintenance tasks and obligations that have to be addressed. We cover different ideas and strategies on how to limit maintenance related expenses, how to consolidate vendors and contractors, how to streamline projects, and ultimately the massive effect that all of this can have on your bottom line. I’ll leave it at that so you c…

Self Storage Automation & the Future of Storage | Janus International’s Noke

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Self Storage Income. Today we’re talking self storage automation. There’s no doubt that the world is changing. Not only that, the world is changing at an alarming rate in regard to technology. The self storage industry is not outside the scope of this change and continued implementation of cutting edge technology. You might be asking - what kind of technology is cutting edge in the self storage industry? Imagine a tenant being able to pick up their phone, select a unit at your facility, rent that unit, access the facility, store their belongings, and leave the facility without ever having to talk to an on site manager. Now stop imagining and start listening because it’s a reality right now today, and that’s why in today’s episode I’m happy to welcome John Bilton and Nelson Hendrix from Janus International. We go in depth on the latest technology that Janus International is deploying that allows storage owners and operators to auto…

What is a Self Storage Facility worth? How do you know?

The question all self storage buyers and sellers want to know - what is it worth? I share today some insights as far as how self storage is valued, but also the very multi-faceted and subjective nature of self storage. I dove into two aspects of value as well - Return and Risk. How do you balance these two elements and what do they mean to you? I also go through a list of how to begin valuing a facility, what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to, the importance of a margin of safety, and more. Get your notepads out and get ready to take notes so you can get out there and start crushing your storage goals. See you next time guys! AJ

How to Find Storage Deals | My Step by Step Process

He guys! Welcome to another episode of Self Storage Income! In a nutshell, one of biggest topics and most asked questions we get is… “How do I get started?” This is a huge question and the answers may not (and usually WILL NOT) be the same for everyone. However, I’ve put together a step by step process that can help guide anyone who is looking to start investing in, or who simply wants to learn more about self storage. So in this episode, I’m going to break that step by step process down for you. I share each individual step from start to finish. After you’re done listening to this episode, you’ll know how and be able to search for potential storage facility investments, how to seed out the poor investments and look only at the best, and how to ultimately find that one deal you’re looking for that meets your investment criteria that you can put an offer on. This discussion also goes hand in hand with value. The more we’re able to identify value, the more we can identi…

The Most Revolutionary Self Storage Analysis Tool | Cory Sylvester with Radius+

What’s going on everybody!? I’m super excited to share this episode with you guys. I had the pleasure of spending some time with Cory Sylvester, a founding Principle of Union Realtime - the minds behind the cutting edge self storage analysis platform Radius+. Cory shares how he went from working on Wall Street as an analyst and consultant investing in tech companies, to building out the Radius+ platform and filling the massive need for a revolutionary self storage analysis tool. Using Radius+ a user can drop a pin anywhere in the country and collect large amounts of valuable data for any specified area. Whether you’re looking for the storage per capita of a 3 or 5 mile radius of a property, or you’re wanting to know the rental rates of the other facilities in the area, or you want to locate and identify new facilities that have just opened in the area, you can do it all and so much more - and this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can collect an incredible amount of data from…

The Economic Future of Self Storage | What to Look for

Hey what’s going on everybody. It’s been a few days since our last Self Storage Income podcast, but for good reason. I was recently, just this past week, at the Self Storage Association conference in Salt Lake where we talked about everything self storage and the economic future of the self storage industry. That said, I wanted to share with you all some of the points we covered at SSA in regards to the self storage market and where it’s all going. Though markets and our attention to them is extremely important, we can’t let ourselves get distracted away from what really matters to us in our investing decisions. Don’t make the common mistakes of trying to time markets, or waiting for investment opportunities instead of creating them, and so on. I’m going to go over what we should stay focused on and how to look at and evaluate storage in good markets and in the bad. Thanks guys for listening and I’ll see you next time, AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com…

How to Grow $200K to $4 Million In Self Storage

What’s going on everybody, we’re back with another episode here. We hope you’ve all had a great New Year’s and you’re ready to knock things out of the park this coming year. We’ve been getting a lot of interest from you guys on topics that have to do with just starting out in self storage investing. So, that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about in this episode. We go over the very first storage deal that I did in Bonners Ferry Idaho. As you’ll hear on the podcast, this facility was not the best. It was off of, and away from main roads, it was a small facility, and we hadn’t quite figured storage out yet obviously. That said though, it always cash flowed. After learning some storage lessons, we actually ended up selling that facility. No, not for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more than what we bought it for… we actually sold it for less than what we had purchased it for. I explain in the podcast why this made sense for us at the time. W…

How to Know When to Buy and When Not to Buy Your New Storage Facility

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

How to Start Investing in Self Storage | The Playbook

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Self Storage Now | How to Identify Markets, Get Deals, & Add Value

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

How to Evaluate a Market for Self Storage

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Zach Quick | How to Start Building Your Self Storage Empire

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

What to Look for When Buying a Storage Facility | My Checklist

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Travis Morrow | Mastering Self Storage Investing

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Self Storage Now | My Nashville Trip & Self Storage Industry Overview

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

My Exclusive Group Phone Call with High Net-worth Individuals | The Self Storage Industry Explained

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Developing Self Storage Facilities | An in Depth Look

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

How and Where to Start Investing in Self Storage

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Lance Watkins | Technology in Self Storage & Building Real Estate Empires

Alright everybody we have another incredible guest episode that I'm super excited to share with you. I'd like to introduce Lance Watkins. We spend a good amount of time touching on technology and the impact it's having on self storage, but we also talk real estate, market trends, and building real estate empires. Enjoy, take notes, and be sure to email your questions and comments to me at selfstorageincome.com. ----------- My Self Storage Investing Master Class - https://cashflow2freedom.com/self-storage/ Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments ar…

How to Automate a Storage Facility

Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industry has grown to bring in over $20 billion dollars in annual revenue. I want to show y…

Paul Moore | Self Storage the Perfect Investment?

Alright everybody, I'm so excited to release this episode... you don't even know. I have the great pleasure to introduce the man himself - Paul Moore. Paul Moore is one of the most respected individuals in self storage and the real estate market as a whole. Here's a short bio of Paul to give you a bit of an idea as to his background and the incredible things he's accomplished: "After graduating with an engineering degree and then an MBA from Ohio State, Paul entered the management development track at Ford Motor Company in Detroit. After five years, he departed to start a staffing company with a partner. They sold it to a publicly traded firm five years later for $2.9 million. Along the way, Paul was Finalist for Ernst & Young’s Michigan Entrepreneur of the Year two years straight (1996 & 1997). Paul began investing in real estate in 2000, and he flipped over 50 homes, 25 high-end waterfront lots, appeared on HGTV’s House Hunters, rehabbed and managed dozens rental prope…

Self Storage is NOT a Real Estate Asset it is a Business

My Self Storage Investing Master Class - https://cashflow2freedom.com/self-storage/ Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industr…

How to Find the Best Self Storage Deals - My Checklist

My Self Storage Investing Master Class - https://cashflow2freedom.com/self-storage/ Whether you do it before, during, or after watching, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND COMMENT. Before I got involved with self-storage I was stuck on a treadmill. Yes, I made good money, but it was my clients that owned my time and not me. If I wanted to make more money I had to put in more hours. If I stopped working money stopped coming in. Self Storage changed that for me once and for all. And I want to show you how it can work for you. Self-storage facilities investments are a quiet but growing sector of commercial real estate. Based on current demographic trends, they’re ready to benefit substantially. You see, we live in a consumer culture. Americans love to buy stuff. At the same time, the average size of the American home continues to downsize. Which means people need a place to put all that stuff. Enter self storage. At this point, almost 10% of American’s use self storage and the industr…

Why I Don't Invest in the Self Storage Asset

What's going on everybody, AJ here with another episode of Self Storage Income. Yeah I know, I know, you read the title and are thinking, "...wait, I thought this guy invests in self storage??" Check that title again - Why I Don't Invest in the Self Storage ASSET. Self storage is much much more than a simple real estate asset or investment, and to be successful in the self storage market (especially in these highly competitive markets), it must be approached that way. Thanks so much for listening and please leave us a review/rating, subscribe, and absolutely tell your friends about us. Catch you next time, AJ PS - get at us at selfstorageincome.com and send us your questions so we can address them in our next episode of Self Storage Income. And don't forget to jump on Self Storage Income's YouTube channel and check out all the awesome self storage content we have coming out each and every week to help you learn how you too can build wealth through self storage…

Self Storage Now | Our Expansion Project and Planning for the Unexpected

Welcome everybody to the first ever episode of our Self Storage Now segment here on the Self Storage Income Podcast. In these Self Storage Now episodes, we're going to be covering what's happening right now, today, in the self storage world. That means anything and everything self storage within my own facilities, within the self storage market, and more. I'll also be using the Self Storage Now episodes to address some of your questions that you've sent me via email at selfstorageincome.com, and also your questions you've sent me via social media. In today's episode of Self Storage Now, myself and my co-host Conner Skeen share a few insights from one of our current expansion projects. You'll hear what the expansion includes, some the hurdles we've had to jump to make the project happen, and the valuable lessons we've learned over the years that we've applied to this investment to make it a success. Thanks so much for listening and please leave us a review/rating, subscribe, an…

How to Underwrite Self Storage with Sam Whitaker

That's right everybody, we're at it again, bringing you more everything that is self storage. In this episode I decided to bring on someone who has been instrumental in growing our self storage portfolio. That person is the one and only Sam Whitaker, my amazing and super talented CFO. We talk about everything from what you should look for when looking at potential self storage investments, to contract terms, to finding the right deals, and so much more. This is an episode you absolutely don't want to miss. Thanks for hanging out on the Self Storage Income Podcast. I'll see you next time, AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your free copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a self storage market, how to perform due diligence, how contact a current owner, and ultimately how to land a storage facility deal. You can also find the Self Storage Income Podcast on: * i…

Self Storage 101 | An In Depth Look at the Self Storage Industry

What's going on everybody!? AJ Osborne here with another episode of Self Storage Income. I'm super excited to jump into this episode with you all. You'll notice I've brought on my co-host Roc Pilon in this episode to help talk about a number of different and incredible aspects about the self storage industry and self storage investing. I'll warn you now... get a note pad and get ready to take notes because this episode in terms of value is off the charts. Listen in and learn all the basics you'll need to know to prepare yourself for the self storage industry. See you next time, AJ Be sure to go to Selfstorageincome.com to get your free copy of my Self Storage Playbook. This step by step playbook walks you through from start to finish - how to identify a self storage market, how to perform due diligence, how contact a current owner, and ultimately how to land a storage facility deal. You can also find the Self Storage Income Podcast on: * iTunes * Spo…

The Self Storage Income Podcast

Welcome to the one and only, the official... Self Storage Income Podcast. In this introductory episode, I, AJ Osborne introduce myself and share with you the story of how I have come to now own and operate over 1 MILLION square feet of self storage valued at over $150 MILLION. Tune in and learn why I've become so passionate about an industry that for so long was completely overlooked. Thanks a ton and I'll catch you on the next episode of the Self Storage Income Podcast, AJ