90 Days After Buying an Abandoned Self Storage Facility
The takeover has been quite something. Here's a recap of our first 90 days buying a failing self storage facility.
Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Jacob Greer has built a thriving business rooted in customer service and community connection. As the founder of 6th Man, a moving company established in 2013, he has dedicated himself to alleviating the stress of relocation through customized solutions and exceptional care. With a passion for helping others and a foundation of family values, Jacob continues to bring a people-first approach to his work, ensuring every client feels supported during one of life’s most challenging moments.
Get commercial real estate coaching, courses, and community to jumpstart your investment journey over at CRE Central: www.crecentral.com
Key Takeaways:
Occupancy dropped from the seller's claimed 93% to as low as 58%, but has now climbed to the high 70s.
Partnering with a moving company (Six Demand Movers) provides unique advantages in filling units and getting above-market rates.
Major operational challenges included:
Transferring property management software
Onboarding a call center
Fixing maintenance issues (gate, HVAC, doors)
Tenant retention strategy focuses on:
Responsive maintenance
Flexible fee policies
Building relationships
Serving long-term, multi-unit clients
Future plans include:
Reaching near 100% occupancy
Adding 40-52 new units using shipping containers and movable units
Potentially expanding to 130-140 total units
Improving property curb appeal
Key financial insights:
Each unit is worth approximately $17,300
Adding units can significantly increase property value
Avoiding marketing expenses creates substantial value
Seasonal considerations: Peak moving/storage season is March to October, with slowest months in January and February.
About Your Host:
Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.
Episode Transcript:
Tyler Cauble 0:00
This episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www dot cre central.com to learn more. Welcome back to the commercial real estate investor podcast. We are live from the cobble group Studios here in Nashville, Tennessee, 90 days into buying an abandoned self storage facility. Now abandoned may be a bit of a strong term, but for all intents and purposes, it had an absentee owner that when he handed the property over to us, I think genuinely had no idea what he had, because he just wasn't paying attention to the asset at all. And so Jacob, my partner here with six demand movers here in Nashville, Tennessee, which, by the way, guys, if you were ever going to buy a self storage facility, I recommend partnering with a moving company. And you're going to hear a little bit why? Yeah, we know how to fill it. You have some people that need some storage for a little bit, which is pretty great. It's been a bit of a mess, which is what you would expect whenever you're buying a new property, right, whenever you're taking something over, even if you have a very organized seller, you're gonna have no idea what you're really stepping into until you do it. And it's been it's been interesting. It's been a fun 90 days, that's for sure. Yeah, but the good news is, let me Hey, whoops. I don't know why that is playing. I like this, though. Yeah, sorry for that, guys. Oh my gosh. Okay, hey, I have no idea how to turn that off, and I have no idea how it started. Okay, sorry, guys, we had a bit of a technical difficulty. There are, we're back. We are back anyway. So when you're when you're 90 days into a project, you've kind of gotten your arms wrapped around it enough to a point to where you understand, all right, we've got the full picture of it. Here's what we've accomplished, and here's what we're going to be doing moving forward. So that's what Jacob and I are going to jump into. Game Master is already jumping into the live chat saying, caught the live welcome Game Master. Good to see you, Jacob. Catch us up, man. I mean, tell us, like, remind everybody. Because we did the first video on this, which was, you know, we bought a failing self storage facility, which, for all intents and purposes, was true, yeah, what were our assumptions going into this? What had the seller told us we were going to be getting?
Speaker 1 2:36
Well, the seller's rent rolls, I think we're like 90 93% occupant. That was one thing that you know, we found out to not be true, and we kind of knew, hey, we probably have some attrition, or some folks that you know will either leave or not be here by the time we take over. So occupancy rate was, you know, Miss misrepresented, for sure, I think that a lot of the systems are, I mean, literally, it's like a time capsule. I think we've been in there and just kind of laughed about how retro everything is. Yeah, there's like a U haul poster from the 90s, yeah, and, like, everything was pen and paper, you know? I mean, there definitely had some software that was running a lot of the kind of rent rolls and things like that. So, you know, we're grateful that we had some integrations already in place so we weren't starting from, you know, all scratch. But, yeah, it's been interesting. I mean, I think the biggest thing is, what's cool is a lot of the customers have been there for years, and they are wanting to stay and and are loving that someone's going to that's been there and is caring and listening to the little things like needing a light bulb fixed, or, you know, the gate has always been a problem. So we updated that, so I think we're already showing the value add and and, yeah, as far as, like, the story, this guy just was absent. That's, that's 100% the underline. I mean, even during the closing, as you remember, I mean, he was unaccessible. Why would we think he's going to talk to us after the closing if he wouldn't talk to us before? Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 4:19
if you've got an in communicating or a non communicating seller while you're trying to give them money, they're definitely not going to talk to you after you have given them the money. Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 4:30
So I think, I think right now, yeah, we got our hands around just how vacant it was, which was not a big surprise. I think we probably thought, if you look back in hindsight, Tyler and I kind of worked this out, we're like, all right, if they're saying it's 95% we'll take it over. It'll be 70. And really it kind of came down to, like, 58% at its lowest moment. And then, you know, given my unique position in the market, you know we're climbing back up, and we're in the high 70s now. And, you know, we're three months in, so I think there may be a little bit of rework of floor plans to think about maybe merging some smaller units to make one bigger unit. There's a little bit of micro decisions around how we can best improve the layout. But, I mean, we're rock and roll, and I think the cool thing on the horizon as we'll get it filled, and then we get to do the additional units, and kind of think through that process.
Tyler Cauble 5:28
Yeah, it's been interesting. So if you did not catch the the first episode that we did on this self storage facility that we bought it back in December at the end of 2024 so we will be able to do a cost segregation study and take that depreciation in 24 which is pretty nice for us and our investors. The the systems that they had in place were a bit of a mess. You've got a variety of tenants that are paying, you know, Ach, some that are paying checks, and it's a bit of a mixed use property, right? We've got 105 self storage units, but then we also have two flex buildings. They also had a handful of vehicles that we're parking on site. And so our plan at the moment is to get the vehicles off because that gives us enough room on the site to add additional storage units. And one thing that Jacob and I were talking about earlier this week because, you know, we're trying to figure out how to best go about doing those additional units? Well, the long term play with this property is for Jacob to refinance it and buy us all out. And so we were having a discussion of, should we go ahead and spend the money on doing nicer self storage units, you know, that are pretty that would be market rate. Or, since you have a moving company, would it make more sense for us to bring shipping containers in which are cheaper and a little bit bigger and use those instead, because Jacob has moving clients that he would be able to put in there, and he could, he and his team would be moving out of those instead. So talk to us a little bit about that conversation. Yeah, I think, I
Speaker 1 6:55
think it just kind of comes back to like how we want to use our capital expenditure and how quickly we want the solution in place. I mean, you know, shipping containers, 40 foot, 20 foot, I think, you know, give or take, you're looking at 2500 to 4500 bucks, depending on the size. You know, there's some portable units that are going to be much nicer, and there's probably some financing options that are in there. So it really comes down to, like, our cash burn and how we want to, you know, navigate that. I mean, I'm, I'm a bootstrap, kick it, old school, pay cash, don't finance and get it done, kind of guy. And you're, let's shine it up. Let's add some value, and let's, let's make sure we do it right one time. So I think it's a good mix of our approach, and we'll probably have to do a little bit of both, I do believe, because what we don't want to do is get to a point where we don't have any space, when we could have just dropped some containers and maybe leverage the space to get the rent rolls up, you know, yeah,
Tyler Cauble 7:59
and that's a good point, because, you know, when we dip down to 58% occupancy with with the amount of debt that we have in the property, which is only about 75% maybe a little bit less, we're losing money, right? It's it now that we've gotten it filled back up. I think you signed, what, seven units last week, this
Speaker 1 8:16
week, yeah, seven units. And they were all pretty big units, like, so, you know, hence the I would say, like now we're thinking, Okay, well, let's take some smaller units, merge them to where we're ready for the next customer. Because a lot of these folks that you know, they all plan to stay for six months, and six months turns to nine really quickly, and nine months turns to a year. So what I see is a lot of our stickiness, of our customers are going to stay longer than maybe your Self Storage group that isn't waiting on a builder to finish their home or something like that. So I do think, like, there's three metrics that I've been paying attention to, what's our average unit cost, what's our occupancy rate, and then really, like, how long, or, you know, what's the retention of this customer? Is it 30 days? Are we turning this thing over? And the cool thing about this property is it's really sticky. A lot of the customers love working there and kind of doing their thing. I have a catering company that works out there. We have an electric like electrical company here in Nashville that's worked out there. And if you look at our reports, I mean, some of these people been in this space for four or five years, and it's, it's a utilitarian to their operations. And, you know, once the nervousness of like, are we getting kicked out, or is our rent going to triple? I think we're getting through those conversations to know like, hey, we want you here, and we just got to get you up to fair market rate, and then obviously add some value along the way. And, and, yeah, I do think that this group, for whatever reason, and my customers, they stay longer. They're not turning over in one month, two months. Yeah.
Tyler Cauble 9:51
And the nice thing about being able to sign seven units in one week is that it almost immediately brought us back to break even. Yes, right? So we're no longer losing money. On the deal, which is great, right? Because you kind of prepped for the first year to lose a little bit of money, right? You bring in some reserves, which we did, we brought in a hefty amount of reserves just in case, right? You never know what's going to happen. And you also need to be able to carry the debt service, carry the operating expenses as you're going through that. And you know, signing those seven units brought us, brought us right back to that, and again, this is why you want to partner with a moving company. If you're going to go and do this stuff, it's at above market rates, right? I mean, we're able to get rates that your typical self storage facility isn't able to get because Jacob has clients that are in between moves, and it's just a part of their moving package. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 10:38
I think that, like, you know, a lot of self storage businesses, and why I've kind of stayed away from them is it really is a race to the bottom. It's a big price jump chase of like, who, you know, who can get the first month free, the third month free, and, and then, you know, there's a gaming of the system that goes on where it's like, you may have a client that rents a place, they get a first month free, and they really only need the two months, and so you got one month for two months of occupancy. So with our unique customer base, we really don't have to play that game, and we do look at markets and that's how we're pricing them. Don't get me wrong, like we have a self storage half a mile one way and half a mile the other way. So, you know, we want to price ourselves right there with them. But that doesn't mean you can't get some business partnerships or some unique other types of groups that may use the property and they're willing to pay a little bit higher rate. Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 11:40
that's exactly right. And you know, it's, it's going to be interesting seeing what we're able to accomplish over the next 90 days. Because now, I mean, it's a learning curve. Yeah, right. And, you know, moving in, I mean, if you guys have never bought a self storage facility before, which I hadn't, but I had represented a lot of clients that had we moved in and and took over the existing management software. Yes, when the previous owner doesn't communicate to the existing management software that they have sold the property and somebody else will be taking that over, you can't take it over. Yeah, it's kind of a problem. And so, you know, it's interesting some of the issues that that caused. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah,
Speaker 1 12:23
yeah. I mean, the company that we, that the old seller used, is called store edge, and it's a great suite that, you know, they do everything from managing the rent rolls to managing your website and a bunch of different add ons, your gate access. It's a full, full suite that we you know, luckily, someone down the line made a good decision, and you and you and took a premium software approach, and that's been awesome. That team over there to work with has been great during the transition. But, yeah, there's a there's a form that you have to have, and it's a transfer of ownership and and it's only good for 30 days. And if you know, let's say we closed on the 31st but our rent rolls and things weren't going to become till the first well, our our transfer ownership paperwork is no longer, no longer well, so storage has been good with us to work with. I will say it's very intuitive. Anybody who knows software and any kind of customer relationship manager can get in there, you know, get a login and go, Okay, here's where the reporting is. All right. You know, it's not this, like you need a big tutorial to figure it out. And then I think the best part is, like the automated communications, the lease or rent agreements, and all that is is uploaded and and communicated that way. And then we, we hired a call center to, you know, work in that storage system, and they're called XPS solutions. We looked at Brett copper's group and our our property is just a little too small for their model. And he's was very transparent about like, you know, if we add some units, I think we're probably a really good sweetheart account for them, but we ended up going with XPS solutions. And they're, they've been amazing to work with, but all of that is time consuming onboarding stuff. It's the things that you just don't think about where, you know, you get a meeting, you think everything's going to be set up, but, you know, you learn at the at the end of the meeting that this meeting was just to have another meeting so you can onboard the service. Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 14:34
it's all the non sexy stuff, right? I mean, everybody thinks like, oh, well, we'll buy a self storage facility. We'll get into the property management system. Everybody's paying rent. All we have to do is just market a little bit more, yeah, and sign some more, you know, unit leases. And that's it's really not the case. No,
Speaker 1 14:50
operations is not, is not sexy. You know, I think that also when you're doing this, like, I have an administrative support team for my. Business, and you do too, but a lot of this is kinetic learning and understanding. Like, hey, this can't be delegated, because they have to have an owner deal with the onboarding. So, you know, usually I'd say, hey, like, administrative assistant, take this off my plate. But really that just hasn't been capable. Because just as you go open a bank account, you got to have the owner. Well, same for a storage system, same, same for a a call center support. They just, they have to deal with the person who actually owns the property. And, you know, that's time. But I do think that a lot of my my approach is throw throw myself at it at first, and then, that way I understand how it works, and it now can be delegated and supported a little more. Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 15:47
it's been good. So the first 90 days was Jacob and his admin team kind of taking over, you know, wrapping their arms around, how are things actually operating on this site? I've got my maintenance team out there doing some work on, you know, there's some like, broken doors and, yeah, broken doors,
Speaker 1 16:02
a little bit of HVAC, you know, some, some just neglect, minor things here and there. It's just neglect. It's just like, hey, if we would have changed the filter, you know, when it should have been, we probably don't have this issue or or the the doors and things like that. It's wear and tear. It's things that you are probably going to be aware of when you take over something like this, but if you got somebody who doesn't put the capital aside to deal with the wear and tear, it's just going to get worse over time. So you know, we'll have four new doors. And I think you know, our our our gate broke like month one, so we got a brand new gate. And and even that, though, I will say, is perceived value to our customers. I mean, to see, you know that they can put in the maintenance call and then it get fixed, somebody actually responds, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's value there. And I think, you know, Madison is a cool little area, and just being over there, you kind of get a sense of what's happening in that kind of square, Madison Station Square area. And I do think, like, as far as the you know, more or less the onboarding of all that. I mean, give yourself 60 to 90 days for sure, because they're gonna go at your pace. But there's also, like, the chicken or the egg, and this has to be set up before that has to be set up. And it just takes time. I think quarter one, we had some ambitions to get all of the onboarding done, and here we are, and like, sliding in right on the 28th of March, kind of going, Hey, we're good to go. At least it was cute, yeah, yeah. And then, I mean, really in Tennessee too, like, it's just really shitty weather in January and February. So it's kind of worked out, because now we get to focus on the outside. Spring is sprung, you know, we get to clean up the property, put a little updates here and there. And, you know, had the sign guy out given some quotes. And just, you know, now we get to do the little curb appeal thing, and it definitely coincides with the season. And, and there'll be, you know, a few dumpsters full of things, and, and then we'll be ready to kind of clean the slate and make it, make it ours. Yeah.
Tyler Cauble 18:17
I mean, one of the biggest things you can do as a landlord when you take over any type of property is to just reach out to the tenants, make sure that they know that things are happening, and then show them right absolutely, changing the gate, responding to the to the work orders or the questions, having a presence, all of that makes a big difference, because now all of a sudden those people have confidence in being able to stay there, instead of saying, well, if they're not going to respond To, you know, I can't see in my unit my lights out, or whatever it is, I need to move somewhere else. Yeah.
Speaker 1 18:45
And I think, like, you know, another part of that, at least on the communication side, every customer I've talked to, I've had to give them the tone of, hey, we're we're different, we're new, any fee, you see, for right now, we're in transition, like, we're waving any of that stuff, you know, the $7 additional for them being six days late, did you know, doesn't matter as much as building the relationship right on the front end. So I think there's been a lot of little conversations here and there. That's
Tyler Cauble 19:14
right, because every single unit is worth $17,300 in value. Yes, right. And so it's like, yeah, one, of course, you want to make sure that you're signing new units, right? And that's based on the cap rate that we're putting on the property. So one, you want to make sure you're signing new units, of course, but you want to make sure you're retaining the ones that you've already got. Yep.
Speaker 1 19:31
And we've got a lot of multi unit tenants, so they may have a one unit in one building, and then, for whatever reason, their use case got bigger, and now they're a two unit or a three unit owner. So I think that's also something that was a little surprising. Where you go, Oh, we have 106 units or whatnot, and we have 44 clients, and we're 78% full. So that's kind of interesting of i. Uh, just knowing that most of these groups are are using more than one, uh, offering that we have, yeah, which
Tyler Cauble 20:06
is, which is definitely a great thing to see. And Game Master mentioned the long term value. I mean, absolutely you've got to think about, if you want tenants to stay there and continue to pay you year after year, instead of having to find new ones. Which, you know, a lot of these self storage facilities. Again, if you're not using the hack of partnering with a with a moving company, you know, we got proposals for management companies that had a lot of money in marketing, oh, yeah, a lot of money. I mean, it was, we're talking like, what was it? I mean, it was, we're talking eight to 10 grand a year in marketing, yeah, that we get to just cut out of our budget, yeah, which, if you think about that. I mean, let's talk about not having to spend $10,000 a year on marketing. Because $10,000 a year at a seven and a half percent cap rates $133,000 in value. Yeah. So by not having to spend eight to 10 grand a year, we're making 130 grand.
Speaker 1 21:00
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that, like, my company's basketball, so everything's sports, punny, but like, that's that defense, right? So we're playing defense by understanding that we don't, we don't have to use that capital for that activity, and we still have the outcome that it would have. So yeah. I mean, as far as, like, now, will we do a little bit here and there. Absolutely, I mean, you never get away from that. But just having a better Google page, we're doing a little bit of SEO, just to kind of, you know, get it up to date. It's been quiet on the domain of and we also found value in the name, you know, that was a decision that it's, do we leave it? Do we keep it? Do we change it? And there's some, there's some value in the name that we have, because it's the area we're in, and that that one is free. Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 21:51
yeah. I'm loving the comments from Game Master. You said fixing repairs equals marketing. Who knew? Yeah, it's true. It's like some of the best marketing you could ever get. Yeah. So Jacob, that's, that's the first 90 days. I mean, the next, you know, we've kind of broken some things out into some two week sprints, depending on what we're looking at, but the next 90 days is what I'm most excited about, because I think we're going to start to see the biggest improvements and the biggest story that we can go back and tell our investors. So what are we looking for in April, May, June? Yeah, I
Speaker 1 22:21
think we'll definitely get as close to 100% occupant, definitely by the end of the quarter, only because of how it coincides with moving season. You know, opening weekend for moving and storage is really this weekend, March 31 it's like a shotgun goes off, and it really is our season until Halloween, and then it kind of settles down a little bit, and then we do it all over again. So we'll fill it up, and then we'll be able to clear the grounds. We're going to move some of those vehicles to to another area of the property and start to drag gravel and and think about what type of containers we're going to land out there. And, yeah, we'll kind of keep you guys informed along the way. I think it will be noticeable from the outside, you know, as far as, like, what it looks like and and how it operates, I think that's for sure. In the goal set of, like, I want people to drive by there and go, Oh, that's, that's, that's that new group, you know, yeah, and
Tyler Cauble 23:23
it's, and it's fun to kind of look at it from a math perspective, which I know it probably sounds ridiculous just to hear, but when, when we're talking about adding new units to the Self Storage Facility, you know, it costs us four to six to maybe $8,000 depending on the type of unit that we decide to Add. And that one unit we're looking at mobile, right? Because we can move those around or whatever, that will have somewhere between two and four storage units within it, right? And so when you start running the math, you know each of those? Yeah, we're spending 468, $1,000 but even if it's just one, it's worth about 17,000 least, yes, if it's four, it could be worth 2030, $40,000 least, depending on the type of unit that we go for. So you start looking at those expenses, and you're like, would you spend $6,000 to make 17 Yeah, I would. I would put, I would put as much money as I have into that machine. Well,
Speaker 1 24:17
in the alternative is like, leave the boat there and have one, get 25 bucks a month or an old boat, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think that those, those are going to be the the next steps is just identifying what type of, what type of facility, this extra area that we have is going to be and is it? Is it 40 additional units? Is it? Is it 52 additional units. I think that all comes into what type of decisions. And I do think it'll probably be a mixed use, where maybe we land some larger containers on there and then have some movable area of movable containers as well. Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 24:53
one of the fun things that I like about a deal this size 105 units. It's not institutional quality, right? Not a big enough deal to where private equity is going to get interested. However, you get up to 150 units, yeah, and that totally changes the game, which means you can get a lower cap rate on the deal, which means that instead of $17,000 a unit, you might be able to get 1819, $20,000 a unit in value. And it's not going to take that much for us to know,
Speaker 1 25:21
and that's, that's kind of been the cutoff, I mean, or, like, that's really that threshold, at least, we've kind of learned. But through working with some of the vendors that you know, we're considered like a a small hybrid only model, meaning it makes no sense to have or dollars. It makes no dollars to have some money on the property all the time to manage it. So we're definitely a hybrid model. But once you get over to the 150 and above, now you kind of start to have the capital to, you know, have somebody man the ship, if you will. And yeah, obviously, just have different resources available to you. And look like our our goal is to maximize our footprint. And you know, we have really two areas, one on the right side, that's that's of the property, and one on the left. And I think if we focus on everything inside the fence line for the next quarter, then we'll really have an opportunity to get our our containers, or our unit rate up to, like, let's call it 130 140 units and and then we're, you know, it's, it's not a break even, it's, it's a cash flow positive, you know, pretty, pretty. It's why we signed up for this. It's the success, success story we're, we're trying to write right now, but, yeah, next, next 90 days inside the fence is, really, is going to be the focus. And once we kind of maximize that footprint, I do think that we'll lean to the to the other side and and it's got all kinds of unique potential as well. Yeah,
Tyler Cauble 26:53
that's for sure. Game Master is asking interesting. What he's saying? Interesting? Why Halloween? Why is Halloween the cutoff for moving season. Is it the holidays? Yeah?
Speaker 1 27:01
For Nashville, it's really just like, all in line with the weather cold. Yeah, yeah. I always think about Halloween as, like, the first cold day, because you look at the lady who's got the Wonder Woman outfit on, you're going, that's a little too cold for you know, but it is really where it's all in, in line with weather. Some years it goes a little further, right, because it's nice. And, you know, we've all had Tennessee Christmases at 70 degrees, yeah. But mainly, it's kind of like, if you, if you zoomed back and looked at the last 10 years, it's, it's the last weekend in March to the last weekend in October and then at least how we operate our businesses. November and December can be surprisingly good, but January and February will always be kind of the slowest time of year in this in this business. Yeah, nobody really wants to deal with that. It's the people that have to move not they're not like thrilled to list the house, right? You know, what
Tyler Cauble 27:59
have been your biggest takeaways this quarter for this being your first Self Storage takeover?
Speaker 1 28:06
I mean, I think, like for sure, I'm so grateful that I already had my foot in the Tennessee Self Storage Association, because there are resources there that, quite frankly, you know, we've had to lean on so just already having a foothold before your storage unit owner joining an association, it can save you so much because you're not having to chase all the resources and the vendors they are actually coming to you. So I would say that's, that's a big deal. I mean, same for like, don't underestimate what, what the, what the rent roll difference can be, yeah, I mean, you know, we, we knew that would kind of be the case. But, I mean, there's a lot of things that are just kind of comical, and, you know, oh, that's, that's rented out to yourself, you know, and they're not paying anything market rate. So I think there's just like, don't underestimate the information. I look at hindsight too, of like, okay, you know, in a perfect world, if we could zoom back during our diligence period, what could we have done different? It's like, you get that seller, you walk that property, you open every unit. Because, I mean, you're entitled to do that right your property. And I think for us, we took we took them at their word, and their words not been great. So yeah, looking back, we could have,
Tyler Cauble 29:31
sometimes you just don't have a seller that's willing to do it. Wasn't it wasn't we were willing to put up with that because we knew, well, even if we get into the mess that we did, it's going to be worth it in the long run. Yeah? And, I mean, we're, I'm not even kidding, we couldn't we had to, Jacob, had to get the seller's real estate broker. Yeah, God bless you. Get like, she's been awesome, yeah, she had to get, like, what a power of attorney to be able to sign off on some stuff for him, because he just wouldn't deal with it. Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 30:00
So, I mean, I think that, like, you know, and that was a creative solution too, because you're going, I got to have this paper signed, and this guy's not going to sign anything. So how can we get this done? I
Tyler Cauble 30:10
mean, that's, that's the power of getting creative on deals. And whenever there's, you know, hair on a deal like that, probably good opportunity. Yeah,
Speaker 1 30:17
yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, I think just persevere through the little nuances. I think that's like been, there's like little wins that are thankless, you know. I mean, just by getting your call center on boarded, or getting your gate, you know, API connected to the storage software, like all of those, are just little wins that, quite frankly, you know, no one's going to go, hey, great job. It's just you put in the work and you got the outcomes that you have to have to run the business seamlessly. I think, you know, this is a misconception of quote, unquote, passive income. It's not passive at first, and you got to know that, you know, I think it eventually could become passive, but in the first year, I definitely would, wouldn't think too much about that word,
Tyler Cauble 31:06
yeah, yeah. You've got to put the work into it to set it up the right way, to make sure that you're getting the income that you deserve if you want it to actually be passive. True, true. Awesome, guys. Well, thank you for joining us. We will be back. We'll continue to update you all on this self storage facility that we acquired, as we have updates. So stay tuned another 60 to 90 days, maybe at the end of q2 Yeah, we'll do another update, kind of catch you guys up on how many units we've leased and what the what the long term plans are. So appreciate you guys joining us. If you were listening on Apple or Spotify, leave us a review, and if you're joining us here live on YouTube, leave me some comments. Let me know what your thoughts are on the Self Storage world. We'll see you guys in the next one. This
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Unknown Speaker 32:19
to learn more you.
What does a $370,000 mistake really teach you?
In this first episode of Lessons Learned, I sit down with Marcus Kittrell—founder of Marc-1 Car Washes, partner at Mammoth Holdings, and 40+ year commercial real estate investor—to unpack one of the most expensive lessons of his career.
From building car washes in the ‘80s to scaling a portfolio of 17 commercial properties and launching a private equity venture, Marcus shares what he got right, what he got very wrong, and how he’s preparing the next generation to carry on his legacy.