Today, we’re going over how to buy a storage facility, even if you’re a complete beginner with zero experience in self storage investing. From pinpointing your purchase price to closing and finally getting the facility under your management, we’ll walk through the six beginner steps anyone can take to buy a self storage facility in 2024. If you’re …

In this episode, we’re diving into one of the most frequent questions we get: how to find self storage deals. We’ll share the five-step guide AJ uses to find self storage deals in 2024 and show YOU how to copy it so you can get your next home run off-market self storage deal. If you’re waiting for your first or next self storage facility, this is E…

Everyone wants to know how to be a leader. They want the big business, the money, the ability to turn a scrappy team into top performers. But here’s the reality—99% of people don’t have what it takes to become a leader because behind the private jets and huge deals getting done are mountains of failure that most people will never see. So, do you ha…

The supply of housing is directly tied to the demand for self storage. The more people are moving, the more people tend to need a storage unit. But what happens if the housing market is being crazy, like it is today? Subscribe for market updates, tips, and more! The housing crisis is not just a matter of super high prices. Since price is a function…

Big REITs can raise and lower prices whenever it suits them - but is this actually the best way to treat your customers? We don't think so. Instead, we focus on operations - how can we improve, so the customer gets a better product?? Our operations team has been visiting our facilities to look at what we can do to improve the value we provide to cu…

Self Storage was hit during the COVID-19 shutdown. But during that time, storage saw a surge in demand, which put it ahead of many other asset classes. It reacted in a way that many thought not possible in a recession. But the problem is, the industry reacted very strangely. There became an assumption that you can succeed in storage with very littl…

It's real. It's talk. It's Real Talk w/ AJ. Ready to buy storage? Have your deals personally evaluated by AJ and our team! https://www.selfstorageincome.com/feasibility Take advantage of today’s market conditions and invest with us: https://cedar.cc/investDi AJ Osborne

Storage tech has not kept up with the times - just think: how easy was it to book a storage unit vs booking a flight? Or ordering off of Amazon? Large companies have condition us, the consumers, to accept new methods of paying for goods and services. We have contactless payments, Apple/Google Pay, Amazon Prime Two-Day shipping, and many more. But w…

Cell towers play an integral role in our modern world - but they also impact the self storage industry directly. We bought a facility years ago that had a cell tower onsite. We put $800K down, but in the first 2-3 years, we received $500K back utilizing the cell tower on our property. Today, we bring back Hugh Odom, co-founder & president of Vertic…

Like any industry, self storage has recently adopted the idea of "promotional pricing." Think "first month's rent" for housing or "device trade in credit" for buying the newest smartphone. At some point, it is just too good to be true. There's a fine line between "promotional" and "false advertising." Attracting the right customer base - and gettin…

Single Family homes and Self Storage facilities are drastically different assets. They are both a solid path of investment that can yield great returns. And as a homeowner (or a prospective one), self storage may seen complicated and out of your price range. Like Mike, you may be a homeowner with 1 or multiple properties. He is an ex-corporate work…

Self storage marketing is one of the most CRUCIAL parts of owning a facility, but most self storage operators completely overlook it. They hear words like “branding,” “advertising,” and “SEO” and become frozen, so they stick to drive-by marketing and running ads in the local newspaper. This WILL NOT work in 2024, and with vacancies still running hi…

Buying self storage can sounds like an impossible task for a beginner, right? Well, we’ve bought dozens of facilities, even when competition is tight—and we’re showing you what we see in the market today so YOU can acquire your first or next storage deal! Your next self storage facility is closer than you think! But before you get into self storage…

The Fed chair Jerome Powell decided to stop interest rate hikes. It's in the news, it's what's trending - but is it accurate? If so, what are the effects on storage? The potential rate drop creates a weird dichotomy. Despite wanting GDP to drop, and for unemployment to rise, the Fed changing its tune is surprising. Recessions are the most effective…

Starting over every since year (New Year, New Me) can actually be a bad thing. Why? Because resetting your own progress can actually lead you to regress, not progress. I n this episode, AJ and Conner talk about how to CRUSH your storage goals in 2024. We started out with a facility FIRE. Without our strategic approach to handling crises based on ou…

Commercial lending is a mess. Interest rates are up, deals aren’t getting done, and banks are becoming very selective with who they lend money to. And whether you’re a beginner or a veteran investor, you’re feeling the sting of struggling to find the money to make your next deal happen. But what if we told you it wasn’t impossible to find funding e…

Missed Part 1? Check it out here: https://youtu.be/0Q_aD48I2qM The Business of Self Storage includes all the important Core Departments that makes the wheels go round. We're talking about legal, accounting, acquisitions, technology, and more. We talked about the day to day operations that happens at a facility in our previous episode. But there's t…

Investing in self storage is not a "passive" investment. It's about how the business is run. We talk a lot about the investment side of things, but what about the business itself? In this 2 part episode, we focus on how the business side of self storage is executed, with our very own co-host Conner Skeen, who is the COO of our asset management side…

Real estate took a hit in 2023. Many companies were laying off their deal acquisitions teams. Because it's true - real estate transactions are down massively. But deals still happen. 70% of our deals this year has been off-market deals. This looked very different just a few years ago. In this episode, we brought on Brian Mullally, our VP of Acquisi…

Since we have numbers and charts, this episode is better experienced over on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/-FYu86WdZSY 2023 SUCKED. It was a hard year for storage. We talked about how the market has changed in the last episode, but today, we want to see how those changes have affected our assets. Yes, we're sharing with you OUR NUMBERS and …

Want to take advantage of today's market conditions with us? Learn more: https://cedar.cc/ The Self Storage Market is now more different than ever. This is the first time we're seeing the impact of high interest rates in this industry. All the policy changes in the last year have culminated in us approaching storage in a way we have never before. W…

When Jonas started investing in Self Storage, he sent out turkeys to storage owners in his area - TURKEYS - during the Thanksgiving season. He didn't use mailers or run ads, but was able to secure 3 deals, despite this unconventional "tactic." Our guest today, Jonas Duckett, now owns over 30 facilities that he acquired with his wife. His valuable i…

If you want to get into the Self Storage investing game, you may be trying to decide if buying a pre-built facility is better than building one on a blank plot of land (or expanding an existing one). Our guest Matt Wallace has extensive experience with just this. He transitioned from multifamily residential real estate to Self Storage, and had to g…

Finding a self storage deal can be daunting. You know there's opportunity, but it can be hard to find unless you know exactly where to look. In this episode, we talk to Shoiab Kabani, who first joined our Inner Circle community 6 months ago. He asked, "If I'm going to buy a facility, what do I focus on?" From there, he went into a learning deep div…

Buying your first storage facility is no easy feat. Today we talk with Ben to learn how he bought his first one. Ben Gottfredson started in his small town of St George, Utah, where he bought his first facility after being denied by banks repeatedly. He started with a small service business, but quickly realized the potential of self storage and tho…

Self Storage is not just a real estate investment - it's a business. And it should be treated as one. "You don't have a business until you can go somewhere to 3-4 days and you company continues to make money." So today we brought A&E's Pace Morby on the podcast to discuss how he built his real estate business and is somehow able to manage it with h…

Coming fresh off from our event, Conner and AJ discuss their main takeaways on what they learned, and what the next step looks like for them. What did we learn, and what are we seeing on the ground? We have a UNIT FULL of exclusive episodes, including one from the amazing Pace Morby that we did live on stage, and many more than were never heard or …

Ever wondered how to compare the profits in multifamily and self-storage real estate? Join us in this episode as we dive deep into the numbers with our special guest, Maryanne! Many people begin their real estate journey in multifamily. While that's okay, there is a lot of extra work involved in multifamily. We invited our very own Asset Manager, M…

How do you underwriting a facility if the market is turned upside down? In our latest youtube video, we talk about the massive rate drops that have plagued the self storage industry in the past year. BUT, the largest storage companies, the REITs, are making RECORD PROFITS. How is that possible? Our video on the massive rate drops: https://youtu.be/…

The possibility of regulating self-storage rates has loomed on the horizon, and it may be closer to becoming a reality than we anticipated. I'm here to break it down for you, why it's a problem, why there is a discussion about doing it at all, and why the whole situation isn't as straightforward as it seems. Trust me, there are some surprising reas…

Our Self Storage Income Live Event: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/ssi-live-2023 Self Storage has changed MASSIVELY in the last 10 years. Big players have entered the market and started investing in a key component: technology. If you don't have a website nowadays, your business *will not* be discovered. The self storage facility today is far mo…

We're answering your questions LIVE on the podcast! This episode was previously streamed over on our instagram. Follow us there and send us your questions! https://www.instagram.com/ajosborne/ Take the first step. Surround yourself with the industry experts, and network with those just like you at our Self Storage Income Live Event: https://www.sel…

Starting out in Self Storage can be daunting, especially when you're doing it all by yourself. Doesn't matter if you are starting with nothing and just want to create some extra income, or if you want to start a full-on, scalable business. It's difficult, right? But that's exactly what Masha and Erik did. And they did it within the last 3 years. Ma…

How do you grow wealth in self storage? Today, we're going BACK TO BASICS, specifically: how storage is NOT an investment, it's a business. It should be treated as such. What? What does that mean? It all distills down to this: operational improvements. It worked for our first few facilities, and we use this model in our company to this day. Custome…

Self Storage street rates have tanked, hitting a historical low for the last decade. But that's not the whole story. Customers are getting tired of what's happening. Typically, street rates, or the rate that is advertised publicly, will correlate with two things: revenue and occupancy. Usually, when people don't rent enough units, you have to drop …

In this episode I answer your burning question: how are MY assets doing? The WSJ posted that we’ve experienced a HISTORICAL drop on national self storage rates. Does this mean the market is crashing? Let’s touch on how the Self Storage game has changed. This concerns me. And I think it leads to a tremendous amount of regulation. Will it actually ha…

How are storage facilities trading at absorbent prices in some places, but are great deals in other markets? There are different forces that affect how a storage facility is valued. Well, that's backed by research and numbers. Every since industry goes through 3 main phases of development. Youth, adolescent, and mature. Self Storage was primarily i…

So many people out there say that they automate or have a "touchless" storage facility. But there's so many misconceptions to doing this. Yeah, it sounds great: outsourcing facility management to a virtual assistant (VA) or 3rd party management company. What are some of the caveats to automating your facility? Especially when starting out? Today we…

The economy is slowing down, and it's impacting Self Storage directly. We're seeing incomes fall, occupancy drop, and normally "busy" seasons are slow instead. This is a result of the Self Storage bubble. It's similar to the housing bubble that popped in 2008, except now it's popped for Self Storage. The rates we can charge are dropping, along with…

A competitive economy results in massive shockwaves echoing through the real estate, financial, and consumer sectors. We're always looking to acquire new properties - but this has all but stalled out. Deal volume has crashed, and the number of GOOD, viable deals has not been reliable During this downtime, can we actually make this be a good thing? …

In today’s episode, AJ and Conner discuss the evolution of Self Storage through years. When we got started, the market was drastically different. Whether you’re a first-time investor, or you’re a part of one of the largest private equity firms in the world - everyone is subject to the same fundamental concepts. Operations, management, expansions - …

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast on our 200th episode! As you know, we’re all about building business – specifically a self storage business that can own, operate, manage, develop, and syndicate self storage deals. Not everyone wants to go this route and that’s ok (which is why we syndicate right!?). But for those of you who…

Welcome to the Self Storage Income Podcast! Today Conner and AJ talk about legitimate tools you can use on your journey to success. You've seen the clickbait, you've been told to have a special morning routine, you've already heard "The One Thing You Need to Do to Become Wealthy." There is no one way, there is no big secret, and it won't be instant…

Welcome back everyone to the Self Storage Income Podcast! Investing in self storage can be pretty overwhelming sometimes. There are a lot of factors to consider, decisions to be made, and risks to be aware of – that is if you actually want to be a successful self storage investor. Today, AJ provides a great metaphor on how to look at self storage i…

What a great week at the Inside Self Storage Expo! We just got back from Las Vegas where the ISS event was held. One of the biggest topics they covered was Automation and AI integration, with both private companies and public REITs all interested - so let's talk about it! AI has been adopted across industries almost immediately - decades faster tha…

The Self Storage market is undergoing an unprecedented time of change and fluctuation. Everything is being affected - buying & selling, cap rates, tenant occupancies, and more. If you are new to the market - or trying to get into the market with your first deal - what does this meant for you? We know Self Storage is connected to residential housing…

There has been a major development in the self storage industry. One of the biggest REITs in the space, ExtraSpace, has merged with Life Storage for a record $12.7 billion, making it the largest merger in the Self Storage industry by FAR. Where will this take us and what does it mean for the self storage world? For years, we've talked about market …

In the midst of the recent bank collapses, economists and investors alike are shuddering at the impact of high cost of capital and the Fed's continual interest rate hikes. Banks are extremely nervous and wary of investments - all investments. INCLUDING storage. Why is this happening, and how will it affect us? When we saw storage being oversupplied…

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…

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 …