EP 54 - Bree Hartman - Self Storage for Financial Freedom, Grow Your Wealth!

Get ready to learn all about "Self Storage for Financial Freedom" with Bree Hartman, the owner and CEO of Storage House Group. Bree talks about her incredible journey from being a field biologist to becoming a successful self-storage investor. It all started when she accidentally ended up with a rental property and discovered the world of self-storage. Bree shares the tough times she faced, like handling pregnancy while closing big deals, and her amazing achievements in places like Baton Rouge. She explains tricky stuff like SBA loans and how to set prices that change with demand. Bree also gives practical advice on finding the best investment opportunities, using virtual assistants for buying properties, and making everything run smoothly. This episode is full of great tips and real-life stories for anyone interested in self-storage investing.


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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Welcome back to the Money Focus Podcast. I'm your host, Moses the mentor, and on this episode I'm happy to be joined by Brie Hartman, who's the owner and CEO of Storage House Group, as well as an acquisition specialist. She's here to share her journey, her insights on finding and investing in self-storage facilities, so let's dive in All right. Thank you so much, Bree, for joining the Money Focus podcast. I really appreciate it. The first thing I like to ask my guests to do is to just really walk us through your career journey, professional journey, just ultimately how you started your business. So the floor is yours.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Absolutely, really good question. So I always like to say I had nine lives and I started my career actually as a field biologist working for a fishing game. So I moved from Santa Barbara up to Sacramento, california, and I thought it would be just like a hop and a skip, but I actually ended up working for fishing game for seven years and so what I did was we collared big game animals and we actually looked at the predator, prey interaction and how to actually get permits out, so very much 360 to where I am right now. And so from that I jumped into owning a fitness nutrition business and so went back to school and I think, just as an entrepreneur, you know, you learn how to do business differently, and so I learned the very first time to kind of I built it wrong, you know, and so you learn all these different steps in and outs, and that was five years that I owned my business before actually COVID happened. What I did right was I created an app so that you could actually train people, one to many throughout the US, and when COVID did happen, it kind of blew up, which was fantastic. So I ended up going through COVID selling my app and I really envisioned just having a family.

Speaker 2: 2:34

And so I built this business wrong and I, when I got pregnant, I kind of like woke up one morning and I was like, oh my gosh, I built this business the wrong way and what do I need to do next? And that was a big epiphany for me. And so I actually ended up selling that business and we bought another house across the street and that was our accidental rental. And so I thought, as an accidental rental, like, yes, I got the thing. You know, real estate, this is going to be my next thing for my career. And little did I know buying that accidental rental was going to be my next thing for my career. And little did I know buying that accidental rental was going to lead me to my first storage facility. And so with that, you know, you start to paint the walls and you learn about the tenants don't understand what mildew versus mold is, and tenants would leave you know eight months out of the 12 month contract.

Speaker 2: 3:23

And so there was a lot of big lessons that I learned. One of my favorite was there was a service dog that kind of came in halfway through and there were supposed to be no dogs allowed and that dog actually created $7,000 of baseboard damage. So to me I was like, okay, I had this vision of owning like 20 houses and I was dashed because I'm like this is a lot of work. So I wanted to kind of think bigger and see what else was out there in the sense of like assets, because I wanted to live a different life with my family and have that financial and time freedom. And so that actually led to storage.

Speaker 2: 3:58

And so I was painting the walls of my rental and I was listening to the storage podcast and when they mentioned like no toilets, less tenants and very little problems, I was like, yes, that's my thing. So I actually that night, just being about like four months pregnant, I was Googling you know when's the next self-storage conference? To learn more, and I actually bought my ticket at like one, I think at 1am in the morning, without telling my husband, and when he woke up I was like, guess what I'm doing? I'm going to a self-storage conference. And he's like, oh honey, are you okay? So that was, you know, I think, just the big turning point of understanding, like going from residential real estate to wow, self-storage is an asset. You can actually build a storage portfolio. You know, live out of state, live anywhere within the world and manage it with a non-mand approach.

Speaker 1: 4:48

I appreciate that breakdown on how you actually move from my side of the house, which is the rental properties, to getting away from the toilets to focusing on the storage business, and I love that you invest in yourself. One of the first things you said was hey, you know I sought out information, so listen in the podcast. And then you also made the commitment by going to those conferences and again I encourage that a lot on the show to invest in yourself. You know that's key, that's a huge deal, but ultimately obviously you purchase a storage unit. So talk us through the initial challenges that you had when you first got into the business.

Speaker 2: 5:34

Absolutely so. When you have this big vision, you're like, ok, you learn all about these things and you think it's going to go A to Z. And you think it's going to go A to Z. But I think the biggest challenge for buying the storage facility is I was pregnant and we're like, is this baby going to come or is the storage facility going to come? And as a mom you always try to be like the storage facility is coming. So I put a lot of effort into that. But finding a good deal I think that was the biggest piece Our facilities we have two right now, which is over 84,000 square feet of storage.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Our first facility that we purchased was actually in near Baton Rouge, louisiana, and I just never. I'm based in Sacramento, california, so I never thought that we would own anything in Louisiana and kind of be that far away, because I started out looking for facilities close by. And so the initial just I think process of when you find a good deal, you move fast. We put that letter of intent in and you move through due diligence, which is kind of different than, I would say, residential because it takes around 90 days, and so our first facility that we purchased is around 370 units and then with an additional 67 RV and boat spots, and so our biggest challenge was closing an SBA loan. So I don't know if you are you familiar with like an SBA loan a little bit. It's for storage as a business.

Speaker 1: 6:52

I would love for you to break it down. I mean, I think most people know the small business administration, but I don't know anyone personally that's ever qualified and received funds. So if you could break it down, that'd be great.

Speaker 2: 7:05

So it was just a small business association loan, and what's nice is, with self-storage, it's an asset, it's real estate and it's a business, and so I think a lot of people forget about that, and that is why you can actually go get an SBA loan, and what that loan does is actually it helps you with the down payment. So instead of having to put 30 or 35% down, you only need to actually put 10 or 15. And so that allows people to get in to buy their first storage facility, because you don't need as much of that capital in the beginning. And so they put these programs out there to help you get started and start to own an asset in a business. And so that was actually the hardest part, because I think, if people have heard about the SBA loan, it took us nine months to close this loan, and with that we purchased it in order to close the deal with the owner. Of course, the owners want it closed within 60 days, so we actually bought it on a bridge loan, an SBA bridge loan product that would go into an actual SBA loan, and so that allowed us to move fast, which is what the owner wanted, and then that allowed us to do what we needed, which was only put 15% down for that down payment and then to close that deal.

Speaker 2: 8:22

But the craziest part of this is that that nine months was when the interest rates increased like 3% over that like 12 month period, and so it was probably the most intense process I've ever went through, because not only are you pregnant, you're on a bridge loan, you're putting all your eggs in a basket Because if that loan doesn't close now, you've got to go find you know something else. And you're on a bridge loan which is feeling like it's a temporary loan at like 10% interest, 12% interest that's kind of what it was at the time and you just don't know if you're going to get to that next end. And so but we did, we completed. It took nine months and we underwrote it at four percent interest and we got the deal done at five point seven five. So a little bit of our underwriting, the, the underlying cash flow, was taken away a little bit at the end, but it was still. We underwrote it conservatively and we doubled down and we're really excited about the deal. It's going to be a really good, cash flowing deal in the future.

Speaker 1: 9:25

I didn't realize SVA had a bridge loan product, so I just want to make sure I heard that right. So they have your traditional, like your, long-term loan product with SVA, but while you're going through the I guess, like the qualifications process, the bridge loan product is directly through SBA. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 9:48

Yeah, and that's what's nice about it was that it was an SBA product. So if you qualified and they said, yes, like you've met all the criteria, we're just going to need to close it on our end and get all the materials. That helps you feel a little bit more comfortable to be on that bridge loan, which helped us reduce our risk a little bit, and that's why we did it was because it was an SBA product that said, hey, you've, you've gone through the first screening, everything looks good. There shouldn't be a reason why you can't close. But it will take X, y and Z to close it.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Yeah, that's, that's a huge plus for sure the fact that it's all connected, yeah, I like that huge plus for sure, the fact that it's all connected.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yeah, I like that, and what we liked about this property just like real quickly for the self-storage was that we saw that it was an underperforming facility, which means that it had a website, but the rates were the lowest in the town. They weren't doing good operation. There was weeds everywhere. We could increase the prices like 20% day one. In addition to we really liked that it had an additional three acres of property right there on the main front of the highway so that we could actually expand. And so our three stages with this in mind.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Just being an investor, you have to be creative and this is going to be a seven-year buy and hold property or even longer. But our first phase is you buy it, you increase the rates 20%. The second phase is that we build another. We built 67 RV and boat spots and then the last phase is we're going to build another 45,000 square feet of climate controlled units if the demand is still there in the next, like two years. So we really, at the end of the day, we'll have 90,000 square feet of storage, so over 600 units at that property.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Pretty much. You took a property that was underperforming. It can be a variety of reasons.

Speaker 2: 11:38

When we target properties like the. I mean, in that situation, he was an ex-pastor and he had owned the property for eight to 10 years and he was just like, hey, I'm ready to retire and move on, and so that was kind of his big retirement plan was to sell that property and I think, just towards the end of people's like careers or their businesses, they're not really looking at how to fine tune and make it efficient. So you know, there's a lot of things that you can do to automate and put systems on, such as the gates and the security, and then to improve your customer service, and so those things were very much left behind and we saw that as like money on the table. In addition to he loved. He bragged all the time like, hey, we're the cheapest in town and that's what his like big slogan was.

Speaker 2: 12:25

And so when people say that in storage, you're drooling.

Speaker 2: 12:28

You're like, oh my gosh, okay, sure, because you're able to actually raise rates day one without doing anything to meet the market demand. And so we look at a lot of price dynamics in storage and just similar to hotels or airlines. Airlines, you know, as it gets closer to your flight, the prices go up, and the same thing happens with storage, and that's why I love it so much is because you have dynamic pricing and this mom and pop owner was not doing that, so we were able to, you know, increase the rates based on the demand that we saw in the area. And this area is a very affluent area in Louisiana that has oil and gas, really good school systems and it's actually growing at 2% rate year over year. So we felt really good about coming in, being a better operator day one and then increasing that revenue, because once you increase the revenue, you buy it for maybe $3 million and then you sell it at 8.5. It's going to be our goal in the next, like seven, in the next seven years.

Speaker 1: 13:37

You're based in Sacramento, in your businesses in Baton Rouge, louisiana. I can relate because I'm in Atlanta and my rental properties are in Cleveland. So talk us through, like, how did ultimately you get to Baton Rouge? Like, what's your process of finding storage facilities and how did you get over that, that hump that a lot of people may have that says, hey, you know what, if I can't see it, touch it, smell it, drive by it every day, I don't want to invest in it.

Speaker 2: 14:03

That's such a good question I don't want to invest in it. That's such a good question, like you nailed it on the head, because when you jump into an asset and buy your first storage facility, I think everyone feels like, oh, I need to touch and feel it, like I did the same thing with my residential home, and so that's kind of where you start is you cast that net. And so I always like to say, especially for my self-storage students in a self-storage school, let's start casting the net, so that can be like maybe just an hour outside of where you live, all the way up to like three to four hours, and then after that, like, how can we extend your buy box to areas that you maybe know, like and trust, which means, like you like to go visit in those areas. Do you have family in those areas? Kind of like you in Cleveland, you have a reason to go visit there because you will be, you know, not every. You know I'd probably visit my properties like once a year, but you will go at some point and you better enjoy, you know enjoy that time there. So why not go see friends and your business at the same time? So I always like to suggest like, stretch yourself and don't limit yourself to just your area, but it's always good to start there. And then I would say, like to finding your first storage facility.

Speaker 2: 15:08

What I think I did right which I did a lot of things wrong was that I got really good at finding deals, and that's something that is really like I love. I'm a deal finder, so I own my own acquisitions pipeline, which means like I own storage house group. I own have a few virtual assistants that are cold calling storage owners. We have a lot of processes and systems, and then what I do is I kind of get on the phone and close those warm leads and negotiate a seller financing deal with them. And so I always like to say, like a really big skill for storage is finding a deal, because if you find a deal the money will come automatically. And so one thing that you know I always like to kind of tell people is to start with finding deals in general is to I call it like my top 100 list.

Speaker 2: 15:55

But you can actually start today, like you guys don't need to know A to Z. You can start, like today, finding your facilities. And so I'm going to kind of go through. Do you mind if I do a fun little demo. I was like what was that? Go ahead, okay.

Speaker 2: 16:08

So if you go onto Google, just like Google maps, and you actually type in cell storage, do a mirror image let's do Sweetwater, tennessee and so this will pop up as all the self-storage facilities within that area. I love Tennessee. If anyone finds one, I will partner with you all day so you can actually look at all the facilities on there and it'll go through different pages. So if you scroll all the way to the bottom, make sure you look through all the pages. And then what I like to do is I look at that map with all the storage facilities and I look at okay, are the businesses doing well, do they have under four stars and why? And then do they have a website? And so these two key things are huge when you're looking for mom and pop underperforming storage facilities, and so you can actually start creating your list. And so I will actually click on one of them.

Speaker 2: 17:01

I saw one of them. I picked one with my student the other day and it had no website. It was a beautiful like 200 unit facility. It had a picture on the very thumbnail of Google my business, that it was like all this junk in a storage unit which shows you that's an underperforming mom and pop, and they said I wouldn't even write this place a one star, it was so bad.

Speaker 2: 17:24

And so that one I'm calling right away, like I'm saying you better drop right now, call the facility, try to get ahold of the owner, because you know they can be an absentee owner or they could be like hey, nearing their like retirement career where they're like it's not worth my time to go in there and make it better, or they just are like I don't like technology and you would be surprised at how many people own mom and pop businesses that are retiring, that somehow got through COVID without a website and it's still shocking to me, but they are out there and so those are the exact storage facilities I want you guys to create.

Speaker 2: 18:00

And so with that list, you can just put it on Excel, you can write it on, write it out, but build a list of 100 storage facilities that you would actually want to purchase today and then from that list, every single week for one month, you're going to call the facility number which is on Google my business, everything is right there or you can send them a mailer and I always chunk it down, do 25 one week, 25 the next week and in the whole entire month. You now have 100 people that you've called 100 leads and I'm sure we're between like 2% and maybe a 5% People will answer and say, yes, I want an offer. So just real quickly, that was kind of like my just one little tip that I love and I started off doing and I got really good at finding mom and pop underperforming facilities that would be open to considering an offer and selling.

Speaker 1: 18:52

If a business doesn't have a website at this point, at the basic level, a website will help drive some traffic. So that's probably someone who has an older business and you know, they just kind of just not operating it effectively. Let's just say that.

Speaker 2: 19:08

So I think that's where, like the technology I mean everyone here you know goes to Google and they say you know where's the nearest grocery store, where's the nearest like whatever you need, you input that in there and if you're not on Google my business, or you don't have a website, there's no way that you can do service anymore. And I know I'm a millennial. So if some, if that happened and I couldn't find a website to make a payment or, you know, get a unit right away without talking to someone, I know I would probably go somewhere else and that's why we like to target those. And then it's nice to kind of just put an easy tech stack on top of that to make it better day one.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Talk to us a little bit about like some of the monthly expenses. I know a big one that I'm thinking about is management. So if you can really definitely talk us about management, but even like other expenses I know we said no toilets, but I'm sure some other things that break oh yeah, I mean, it's a business, no, you're so totally right.

Speaker 2: 20:09

And but I do like to say, like, what's nice about storage is that it's a box. Like a 10 by 10 unit is a box with you know sides, a roll up door and probably a concrete pad, and there's not a whole ton of maintenance, which is exactly what I like. I know a lot of people love to make things look pretty like Airbnbs. I'm the opposite. I'm like I love just business. Let's talk numbers, let's move, let's make this more efficient, and that's why I connected really well with storage. But the expenses which I like with storage is that an estimate right now, coming in at a larger facility, might be around 35 to 38 percent expense ratio, which is nice, because in the hotel space, for example, they're at 68% expense ratio, so you have more, a bigger, larger margin to cashflow, and that's why I love storage is because that gives you that ability. The expenses, though, like if you want to talk about expenses, it's the two killers I think in storage that I have seen for deals, when I underwrite deals, is real estate taxes. So you know, based on the new price that you are purchasing that property from, what are the new real estate taxes Because every state, every city has different ordinances and so I always, no matter where I'm going, I'm going to Google, you know what's the real estate taxes, and maybe Sweetwater, tennessee, and then I can calculate. You know you have to calculate it based on the new purchase price that you're purchasing at, not the old. And then a lot of I have seen this wrong actually in broker offer memorandums or OMS, where they have the real estate taxes wrong and it has really killed some deals for people and screwed people over during their due diligence. So real estate taxes is number one deal killer I always look at, especially in Texas. That's why I don't I don't say I like Texas, but I don't say I love Texas is because of their high real estate taxes. And then number two is the insurance. So I think all of us, if you own a business, especially in the South, like Louisiana right now, our insurance went up 20, 24% and that just sucks because as a business owner you need to have that protection always. But it comes down to it's a piece of paper and you're praying you're not going to ever have to use it and that affects your cashflow and your bottom line or your return on your investment. But those two, and then the last one is definitely your property management.

Speaker 2: 22:48

There's two ways that you can kind of do it to cut expenses and our smaller facility, which is 83 units. We actually run it non-man, so there's no one on site. Everything is automated. So as soon as you pay and click the button on Google my Business, you can run a unit. Once that happens, the code is actually sent to your cell phone and then you would enter the property by pushing the code in and then going to the unit and opening up your unit with that lock and placing your own lock on it. So there's no, you don't need anyone to be there if anything happens, and so that's another piece that we really like is that you can have, like we hire a 1099 contractor for 20 hours a week and they actually run both two of our facilities and they do lock checks and all the things. We have been able to take away the full-time manager position because of our automations and our systems that we put in place.

Speaker 1: 24:11

I was just about to ask you did you buy it like that? But it sounds like you put that yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:17

And I love this your question before was like what you know things that came up, obviously, when you first buy your facility. But we inherited a manager, an onsite manager, and we decided to keep her, you know, in the beginning for six months just to be like, hey, let's, let's date, right. Everyone always says their number one regret is keeping the manager. We ended up releasing her within like three months because it wasn't a good fit. She, you know she wasn't doing very well in sales or being professional in the ways that we needed her to step up and she was very much in the older domain of what felt comfortable and wasn't able to meet us there. We were actually able to take her salary, reduce it and put a 1099 contractor in there. So that really helped us with cutting expenses, which will now make your facility more valuable because of the higher net operating income the 1099 person essentially primary duties.

Speaker 1: 25:15

is it mostly tending to the locks? Is it keeping the facility clean? Like what are the main responsibilities of that person? Clean? Like what are?

Speaker 2: 25:23

the main responsibilities of that person.

Speaker 2: 25:25

Really good. Yeah, so our 1099, she is absolutely amazing. She's really good at fixing things and she does lock checks every Thursday she does. She kind of goes through. She makes sure like the grass is cut, everything's nice and trim the outside looks good. She also will. If anyone needs help, like if they are having trouble with their door, she'll grease it and kind of make things nicer. We do have.

Speaker 2: 25:54

So she doesn't do any customer service. She's very much like the fix it lock check. But we do have a call center in place and so the call center takes all our calls and they take them 24, seven, and some of them are there based in the US, which are from nine to five, and then after nine to five we have the virtual assistants from the Philippines that will take over, because the biggest thing in storage right now is customer service. If they call and you don't answer or you don't pick up, they're going on to the next storage facility. People that we have seen that they're not as brand dependent. They're very much looking for moving fast. Is their customer service good? Can we get what we need efficiently?

Speaker 1: 26:41

How does it work? Do most people operate on a month-to-month basis, or is it like a contract? How does that work?

Speaker 2: 26:49

yeah, no, I love this. So this is why I love storage is that it's a month-to-month contract and so every single month, you know, it just renews. And so what this is we were able to do as storage owners is that we can actually increase prices, you know, whenever we want. We try not to do that, you know, regularly, but we do it, for when we first come in, we want to meet market demand and market prices. And then after six, we do a six month increase and then we do a 12 month increase every six months. Pretty much we'll do like a three or 5% increase, which then pushes your gross you know, operating income, or your gross, sorry, your net operating income which then increases your purchase price of your facility and your facility's worth. And so you're constantly moving the bottom line little by little, and you know we've seen with that.

Speaker 2: 27:40

You know a lot of people in storage are sticky. We call them sticky because and we like that because, if I like, increased your rent $5 or $10, you're not going to take you're possibly not going to take your Saturday to go run a U-Haul, get all your stuff out of your 10 by 10 unit and then go find another facility that's going to be the exact same price. So most of our tenants are pretty sticky in that sense. And then if you think about $10 times 100 units, it's a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 28:10

The dynamic pricing that can change month over month, and then the fact, like you said, it's such an uphill battle to just move my stuff out of this unit just to go to another unit just really doesn't make sense. So I do like that you might be convincing me.

Speaker 2: 28:29

Yeah, I was like come over to the storage side.

Speaker 1: 28:32

Come on over.

Speaker 2: 28:34

And I think you know they call this the four D's. But because a lot of people storage was not sexy, like probably 10, 12 years ago it was, you know, just a box, and even banks didn't even think it was bankable and so it's becoming more and more popular and it's because people have seen that you can use storage in an up market, a down market and a sideways market. So they call it like recession resilient and so with that it's like you have to think about how your customers. We call it products. It's not just units, they're products that because we own a business, and so with that there's death, there's divorce, displacement and then decluttering.

Speaker 2: 29:17

I think it's called the four Ds, but people use storage as a community to store their things when they're either downsizing such as right now recession people are moving into condos or apartments, and so they're putting their valuable things somewhere to keep them safe, so that they can lower their expenses from their household, and then you have death, you've got, sadly, divorce, so people are moving. So, however, people are moving. That really helps the storage industry. So when interest rates are lower, that a lot of people are moving and buying houses, you have a big bubble, big boom, and then we still have really good occupancy throughout recession times because of these daily things that happen in our lives.

Speaker 2: 30:03

And we also have businesses that come use our facilities, such as like the banks they put their valuable documents, and like six of our climate controlled units. And then we also have truckers that come and park their trucks, their RVs and their boats. So there's just a lot of need, you know, to put your items there, and people are more likely sadly, you know, in 2008, they're more likely to pay their storage unit price versus their mortgage. So the first thing that goes out is you know, mortgages might not be paid, but they want their stuff secured right. So that they're they. People have seen in these consumer reports that they're more likely to pay their storage facility fees each month to keep things safe. Storage facility fees each month to keep things safe.

Speaker 1: 30:44

Next question is going to be about cash flow. Oh, yes.

Speaker 1: 31:39

In the rent to property kind of industry you know you'll hear people say $100 to $200. It's kind of like you know your go to mark per unit and honestly for me I I was like that was too small and that was the reason why I invested in cleveland because I pretty much get four to five hundred dollars a door. You know consistently net. You know I like to talk, met a lot of folks, get on social media and stuff and talk about gross. But realistically, what Can you net per unit? Or is it even equated that way on the storage facility level? Do you look at the whole property or is it still based on per door?

Speaker 2: 32:23

No, really good question, and I hate how a lot of people will say it depends. Because it does, because it's a business, you have to have this certain operational plan in place. A business, you have to have this certain operational plan in place. And so that's why, like in a market in, you know, louisiana, is going to be different than a market in Sacramento, california. But I get this question a lot and I think how I like to put it into perspective and I think this is what made me think bigger was, you know, being able to cash flow like $500, like you said, you know, on a rental property, which is probably less than an 8% return, depending on where you buy. And then looking at a storage facility, even just a smaller facility of 100 units, you could possibly cash flow depends on the square footage and all your operations probably around $3,000 to $4,800, depending on where it is. I just wanted to give you that range. But if you think about it, how many houses like 10, you would need to get to 10 houses to get to one storage facility, and I always think about economy of scale, right? So it will take me how much effort and time to buy 10 houses versus how much time is it going to take me to buy just one facility and let that cash flow and put operations on top of it? And that was my deciding factor.

Speaker 2: 33:44

You know, when I was pregnant it was like I'm 35, I'm in my mid thirties, you know, I I want a family. I want to live this life differently, like I want to go, like let's go. Let's not just, you know, go slowly, let's move fast, take massive action and build. You know, our goal is to own 12 to 15 storage facilities throughout the US, non-mand, so that I and our family can work from wherever in the world while obtaining financial and time freedom. And so that was kind of like a big. I don't know if that helps economy of scale. Obviously you can make a whole ton more.

Speaker 2: 34:22

I just wanted to give you, like that, one facility, like we have one that's 83 units. That is very possible to purchase. And I always like to say, like with my self-storage school students, I just don't love houses, but I bought a house like two weeks ago and it was $400,000. I bought a house like two weeks ago and it was $400,000. And our same storage facility that is 83 units, I bought for 500,000. So very similar right and this kicked me every single time Like, should I buy it? Should I buy it? Because I was like I could buy another storage facility, but this was across the street from my house, so my little baby girl will be able to be the land property manager, the teacher.

Speaker 2: 34:59

But this is the economy of scale. Is you know you can, you can buy a storage facility less than you know five hundred thousand, even two hundred thousand dollars, and people don't even think about that and and have the business write offs. And I think this is what is key for a lot of people is you now have cashflow. You're gonna play the, you have cashflow and the appreciation game and now you've got depreciation for tax benefits that you can apply in your taxes because you're a business owner and so and you can do a cost segregation to reduce your W-2 income and you can play this great game of financial time, freedom, freedom, building of wealth by accumulating facilities. And so that's kind of I always like to say what would you pick?

Speaker 1: 35:45

The great thing with real estate is there are many ways to skin a calf. So if someone prefers the economies of scale approach and, like you said, one property, 83 units, perfect. Some people can't get over the hump, like we talked about, as far as buying a property that they can't truly see on a regular basis, but it will limit you. So I think for me, and hopefully people that's listening to the show, the whole point of the show is to give you options with your money, you know, and then the ability to learn from Brie when it comes to storage, to learn from me when it comes to rental properties. You have to find what really drives you and also, like I'm not limited to just rental properties, like I would be happy to own a storage facility. I'd be happy to own a storage facility, I'd be happy to own a car wash, like my good friend Hannah Ingram came on the show and broke down. So it's a lot of ways to make money and I just think your approach is great.

Speaker 1: 36:50

I love the way you find properties. I love the way you broke down the different ways that you increase the value in your properties. I love the way you broke down the different ways that you increase the volume in your properties. But I wanted to ask you what is the time commitment? I'll be remiss if I let you go before really talking through that. Like, is this something that someone can work a nine to five with?

Speaker 2: 37:10

So we have two different ways you can actually structure the time. And so our larger property that we purchased for our first facility, we actually decided to hire a third party management company to manage that, and the reason for that was because we wanted to buy other properties, and so that did free up my time and my other business partners time in order to, you know, find the resources to go out there, purchase more storage facilities and and build the portfolio. And so, you know, I think one day we might, if once we had like the 10 facilities, we would open up our own property management service so that everything would be housed underneath one, so that everything would be housed underneath one. But for now we're kind of in this growth stage and the property management that we have does a really great job with chucking in and kind of monitoring. They do the marketing, they do all these different things that support that facility and we really trust them because there's a lot of bad property managers. But when you start to vet the property management systems, we really, really enjoy the people that we work with.

Speaker 2: 38:21

And then our smaller facility is all on the automations, and so I do have two other business partners, so there's three of us total. And what's, I think, important about this is that in commercial real estate you can partner up and that you don't have to do this alone. And that was something that was really very important to all of us is that we could divide our skill sets and our strengths and go out there and conquer. And so I, personally, my side of the business is I do acquisitions and I also do the capital raise. So I do the private money lending for our new acquisitions and for the facilities. My two other business partners one does the underwriting and all the numbers each and every week, and then the other one does more like the property management piece to it, because she's really really good at talking with the city, getting the occupational licenses, like doing all those key pieces making sure that the facilities are running well, like doing all those key pieces making sure that the facilities are running well. So I, you know, want to make sure I talk about, you know, business partnerships because in you know, I thought I had to do it all alone and that's not something that appeared to me when I first started and I so blessed that to have good people that I know I'm going to grow with future. So I don't know if that was helpful to you, but you can do it two ways. You can do it yourself and I would say it's about six to seven hours a week.

Speaker 2: 39:43

For our smaller facility, that maybe even less that, once you get the systems in place and you have a call center, you're just checking in on the KPIs. Because that's the biggest piece, as like a business owner, is that we're looking at the KPIs of our automated systems and then we're also looking and monitoring the KPIs of our property manager and making sure that they're doing exactly what they said they're going to do. And you know we call. We call as a tenant pretending to rent and so every once in a while just to monitor how fast are things happening. What are the reviews? We haven't gotten a review in two months. Why not? What are the organic ways of marketing that we're doing? You know we're spending $500 on Google. My Business Is this converting? So I think I always like to say, like, how can you be that CEO that doesn't have to always do it yourself, but how can you like look at those KPIs and then delegate efficiently?

Speaker 1: 40:39

You know, we can talk for hours about this stuff.

Speaker 2: 40:42

I love it.

Speaker 1: 40:43

And I can tell you love it, so I know the audience will as well. But for the sake of time, what final advice or thoughts would you like to share with someone who's really trying to get their feet wet in storage and, you know, kind of direct them in the right path and then also close this out with how to reach you, your website, your social media? So the floor is yours. Thank you, brie.

Speaker 2: 41:11

I think that a lot of people can get into analysis, paralysis, when you have to be overeducated and I'm just someone that's like you know, yes, let's know the nuts and the bolts, which I think is important and the foundation, but getting an understanding just to kind of get out there and take massive action, like there's a difference between massive action and passive action, right, passive action is the educational component and you could stay in that educational component for years. Like I have friends that are like I'm going to buy a storage facility and it's been five years. And then I've got people that are like, hey, I just need to know. You know, what's that one step that's going to get me closer to buying my first facility? And that first step that I went over today is like your guys's step build a 100 storage list and start with becoming good at finding a good storage deal, and the money is going to come. And so if you have a deal, if you have an owner or a broker that's willing to sell, you have the gold in your hands. You know, and so that was my big key piece is that something has to be to really move you right, to make you take action. For me, you know, getting pregnant as my first kiddo coming along, envisioning my family, some people I know it's like actually retiring from their W-2 or being able to finally travel or have a little bit more passive income, and so you have to have that why. And then you have to make that jump and everything that I did was super uncomfortable and it still feels like I'm in that green goo phase, but it's that massive action, I think, at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 42:42

And then I think the last thing is, I think, finding people in your corner that do your asset class or are a mentor, such as yourself, like Moses, and finding those people to surround yourself by, because in real estate, we all know, it's not all rainbows and butterflies.

Speaker 2: 43:00

You know, you have days where you're like, wow, like I had a deal the other day, I was so excited about it. I've been working on it for two weeks and I called the planning development and there's a whole storage facility being built and that was a deal killer, you know. And so those days when you're just like, oh, I was so thrilled about this and now I got to start over, and so, yeah, finding a coach or a mentor in a community to surround yourself by, and I think that's really important and that was a big key piece for me for starting the self storage school, and so we started that in January and I help people buy their first storage facility within 90 days, and so that's something that I'm just very passionate about is I made a lot of mistakes, but giving people to take massive action and then don't worry about how to fund that deal, worry about how to find that deal first, and then all those key pieces will come to you.

Speaker 1: 43:52

That's a mindset change that people have to make. That last part you just said don't worry about funding that deal, worry about finding that deal, and so I really appreciate you pointing that out. Shout out your school, like how can people tap into you if they, you know, interested in joining your school? And then also, don't forget your social media.

Speaker 2: 44:16

Absolutely yes. So if you guys want to find me on social media Instagram or Facebook I'm there daily. I love talking to people, so please say hi. My Instagram handle is brietheinvestor and I know most of us will link it below. But what I really wanted to give you guys is like as like a little bonus, I have a freebie of how to find self-storage deals on Crexie or LoopNet, and so I'm going to give Moses the link below, just to click on it and you guys can download it, as well as my self-storage buy box template. So I'll put those together for you, for your show notes and just for your guys as listeners, because I value so much of letting us just have this conversation. And I told Moses I was like we're going to partner on a deal, like why aren't we doing deals together? So he's in Georgia. I've been finding deals in Georgia, so I can't wait. You know this is what it's all about is, I think, the communities, the vibes of people and helping, lifting each other up and partnering on. Why aren't we doing deals together and putting our strengths, you know, as a team? So I'm really excited to kind of chat with him more.

Speaker 2: 45:22

But we are opening up the self storage school in. So June 10, we will open up the waitlist. So if you go to the link below or just say go into my Instagram and say school, I will send you the waitlist link and then we will be starting the self storage school, which helps you buy your first storage facility, helps you find them, helps you fund them and it helps you put confident offers on and they start July 16. So it's coming up. Really excited about it. So if you're interested, definitely reach out. I just really enjoy helping people buy their first facility and getting their whole life turned around because it only takes one. And I always like to say you don't have to do it by yourself, like you never have to do business or storage investing by yourself. You know we've we've got people in the community here to do it together.

Speaker 1: 46:06

Perfect. So again, everything will be in the show notes, the description. Thank you so much, Brie. It was an excellent conversation. I learned so much about storage and we'll definitely keep in contact. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 46:19

No, thank you so much, Moses. This is wonderful Appreciate you. Can't wait to chat with you soon.