Ever wondered how to truly master self-storage deals and build a thriving real estate portfolio? Join self-storage mogul Bree Hartman, with over $6 million in acquisitions, and 15-facility empire builder Stacy Rossetti, as they share their “secret sauce” for unearthing hidden off-market opportunities and mastering three-part seller financing negotiations—a “cheat code” in today’s market. Get ready to rapidly build a cash-flowing portfolio, with real-world examples of students closing deals with minimal upfront investment. Learn to identify undervalued properties, understand market dynamics, and confidently approach owners to create win-win situations. This dynamic discussion is packed with actionable insights and expert guidance to help you achieve financial freedom and design a life on your own terms through strategic self-storage investing.

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Storage Deal Room Fast Track: How to Find & Buy Storage Deals 10x Faster WIth Bree Hartman

Welcome to the Self-Storage Empire: Meet Your Hosts

My name is Bree Hartman. I live up in Sacramento, California. In the last five years, I’ve acquired over $6 million in self-storage. The result of that has been not only time freedom with my daughter, but also to create a lifestyle by design. When I talk about lifestyle by design, a lot of people envision time freedom and life options. For me, what hit home was that my life didn’t start with storage at all.

I was actually like you. I worked a W-2 job. I worked for Fish and Wildlife for about seven years, spending probably 50 to 60 hours a week working for the state. Yes, I did some awesome things in environmental science. We did collaring of mountain lions, deer, and bighorn sheep, but it was the traditional path. That was going to your cubicle five days a week. My dad’s like, “Bree, go find a stable job that pays you a stable amount of money. You get retirement.” That is success.

I want to hear in the chat if that is something that you have gone for. My dad worked for the same company for 30 years. Security, yes, it is feeling secure with what you have, but knowing that you want more. I want to see in the chat here who went that traditional path as well, where they are working right now, 40 to 50 hours a week for someone else. They’re like, “I want more. I want more with real estate. I want more with my family, with my kids.” That is big. If you go through your five layers of why, it’s like, “I want more time to do what I want with who I want, when I want.”

Steve used to. Drew says, “I did work for the state. I have more time freedom now.” Tamara is like, “I want more for my husband and the kids.” That was something for me where I was like, “This is great. This is awesome. Everything on paper looks good,” but there’s this big need that I want, not only that I can do more. I want to have slow mornings with my girl. The big thing that Stacy and I bonded on is that lifestyle shift, that of becoming a parent, or parenthood in general. When I found out I was pregnant with my little girl on the way, it forced me to rethink my life. I was waking up at 5:30 in the morning, going to my state job.

I desired having slow mornings with my daughter and envisioning this life. How do we reverse engineer backwards? How am I going to build my version of freedom? Everyone has a different version of freedom. That is something that you guys get to put together what feels right for you. Kiya is my little storage baby that changed my world. That is how we became into finding self-storage. I want to reverse engineer this pathway. I want to build this version of freedom so that I can have slow mornings and have those life options with her.

That’s how I found storage after one accidental rental. I painted every single wall in the house. I’m like, “I will never paint another wall.” That led us to, “I want to buy self-storage.” My one thing in 2021 was I wanted to go out there and buy a storage facility so that I could not only increase my cashflow, but I could also increase my time freedom and my lifestyle. These are a few storage facilities that we currently own, along with a few others.

The very first one started in Louisiana, a $3.1 million SBA loan. I also have two other partners on this deal and property. Another one that I wanted to show that we bought six months later was a smaller one, which was $500,000 with seller financing. Something that Stacy and I have a big specialty in is how we find those good off-market self-storage facilities that you can go out there and talk to the owner about seller financing and make it happen. That is my life, what it looks like. I live in Sacramento, California.

I remotely manage all our storage facilities from my home, where I get to dress from the chest up, which is amazing. For more of this, my big mantra is, “There are all storage facilities, there are no toilets, there are no tenants, there are no employees, and we have fewer problems.” It’s very true. That has afforded me more time with my daughter. We get to have slow mornings and location freedom. We go up to Lake Tahoe, which is only an hour and a half away, to go skiing on a Tuesday. This will be my daughter’s first year in ski lessons, which is exciting. We have a lot of fun with our kitchen dance parties.

Storage is freedom — no toilets, no tenants, no employees, and far fewer problems. Share on X

I know a lot of people, if you go through the five versions of why is being able to design your life backwards. That’s why we’re here to talk about this. That’s a little bit about me. I want to introduce Stacy Rossetti. Her story is absolutely incredible, too.

Flipping Houses To 15 Storage Facilities: Stacy Rossetti’s Journey

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, everybody, for coming and hanging out with us. If you don’t know me, then you know that I own fifteen storage facilities. I got a lot of tenants. I got started in storage, the same story that Bree has. I was flipping homes from 2010 to 2015. We did a lot of flips. I did 100 flips in five years. That’s a lot. I was running around like a crazy person. In the middle of doing fifteen flips at the same time, I got pregnant. I got my pregnancy brain. It switched me from being somebody who wanted to work and invest in real estate to somebody who wanted to take care of their child. I had a realtor that I was working with.

I don’t know if you remember from 2010 to 2015. This was the best time to be in real estate, honestly. I had a realtor who basically would find properties for me, and then I would go out and take a look at them. We closed almost 100 facilities together. We did almost 200 transactions together because you buy it and then you sell it. When I told him that I didn’t want to flip any houses anymore, he freaked out because he was working with me. He had bought a brand new Toyota Tundra. He was like, “What are we going to do?” I told him, “Just go out.” This was 2015, if you guys remember this.

From 2015 to 2020, multifamily started to become popular. He was like, “What about multifamily? I can get out. You can get out there. We can look at some properties and stuff.” I went out. I looked at some properties, but I didn’t want to do the rehabs and stuff anymore. It’s so big on these rehabs. I was over it. He was like, “Why don’t you look at some houses? Maybe buy a portfolio of houses.”

Another thing is that of all the transactions that I’ve done, I am 100% privately funded. That means that I don’t have any facilities. I’ve never done any real estate transactions where I’ve had to go up to a bank and get a loan. This is going to become very important because later in the session, I’m going to go over creative deal structures and how I do that. Essentially, I raised a lot of money. I got a lot of people to give me money and things like this. That’s how I excelled in this business. My realtor was trying to get me to take the houses that I had, sell them, take that money from the private lenders, and roll it into a portfolio of houses.

I wasn’t into that either. I was tired of houses. Luckily, he found a facility that was about twenty minutes away from my house. It was perfect because at that time, I was probably about six months pregnant. This is when I lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I lived in Peachtree City, if anybody knows. The facility was in Fayetteville, which is about twenty minutes away. I drove up to that facility. The facility that I bought, the very first one, was a disaster. I looked at it. I was like, “Yes, I could do this,” because anything that has horrible issues and stuff, I always love those. That’s what I buy. I buy mismanaged facilities.

The point is that I bought my very first facility in 2015. I was pregnant with Lillian at the time. We named our facilities Ms. Lillian’s Self-Storage. You can go and google Ms. Lillian’s Self-Storage if you want to see my facilities. I bought one facility the first year, two the next year, and slowly started building up my portfolio. When Lillian was born, I don’t know if you guys remember, but that was when the solar eclipse was. My husband and I, when we started dating, had promised that for my 40th birthday, which was on August 21st, and the solar eclipse, we would go and watch the solar eclipse together.

We bought an RV, and then we traveled up to do the solar eclipse. We hung out. We fell in love with the RV and staying in the RV. We decided to live in an RV. It is what we did. We lived in the RV full-time for seven years and traveled around with Lillian. Lillian was born, and then we would travel to the facilities as we started buying them. Lillian grew up from a baby to seven years old, living in this RV. It’s an old RV, but we loved it. Ultimately, we managed our storage facilities and lived in this RV full-time.

What happened is I started the acquisitions program. I started hiring all these VAs. We started finding a lot of deals. I started buying a lot of deals. I went from six facilities to fifteen facilities in a matter of three years. At that time, we had to find a place to settle down, so we settled down here in Tallahassee. That way, all my facilities are in Georgia, Florida. It is where they’re at. We focused on learning how to syndicate deals, learning how to buy a storage facility, and learning how to manage them properly.

We own fifteen storage facilities. My schedule is that I work one day a week. I work on Tuesdays. I manage all fifteen facilities one day a week. I sit here is what I do, like Bree was saying that she sits there. The rest of the time, I help people buy storage facilities. That’s what I’m doing. When she was talking about lifestyle by design, you can’t get any better than that, honestly. I got to travel the country with my family and watch my daughter grow. She has been to all 50 states. We built our portfolio of storage facilities. I got to live and do what I wanted. That is what we’re trying to help others. I’ve been doing this for five years, helping others get into storage. Hopefully, that inspires you guys to get into this industry.

Unlocking Off-Market Deals: The Storage Deal Room Vision

You are the author of a book. You guys definitely go out there on Amazon. It is how to find, fund, and operate storage facilities. Check that out. It is an awesome, incredible book. A big part that Stacy and I even talked about for our partnership is why we created the Storage Deal Room. People kept asking us, “How are you finding these off-market storage deals? How are your cold callers talking to storage owners? How are you negotiating seller financing deals and actually getting them across that finish line? How are you getting storage owners to agree at maybe a $1 million or $3 million evaluation and then a 0% interest?”

This is something that Stacy and I became good at. Our secret sauce is finding off-market storage deals and then structuring them in a way to create seller financing so that the facility actually cashflows. Also, it is a value-add facility, which means it’s mom-and-pop. You can add value to it over time to increase its value. That is what storage is, so incredible. A lot of people love it because there are a lot of these mom-and-pop owners who are still here in this market.

From Wildlife Biologist to Storage Mogul: Bree Hartman’s Story

Our bigger vision, even together, is that we said, “Why isn’t there a room where real off-market storage deals are happening and making it more accessible to others?” We came together, and we built it. We wanted to walk you guys through an introduction about who we are, what we do, what our goals are, and our mission, but what Stacy talked about, having that lifestyle by design, absolutely. W-2 gave me the grit and all those things, but it also caused a little bit of those handcuffs. I knew that I wanted more while I had my W-2.

I was constantly underwriting deals at night, going to webinars, learning, trying to find those people that had already done it ahead of me, getting in their pathway, and asking them the good questions. Instead of those 40 to 50 hours that I was working for someone else, where you’re burnt out and you’re like, “I’m on this wheel,” how can we create that for ourselves? It’s true. The burnout is real, and making sure that you create even a storage business the right way.

 

I was at an owner’s meeting that Stacy hosts once a month for everyone in our group who has bought a storage facility. We were talking about how to reverse engineer, even as a business owner. These are things that we want to talk about from day one so that we can reverse engineer that to create that future and do it the smart way, not the hard way, moving forward. We always talk about how you are one deal away from changing your life.

You are one deal away from changing your life Share on X

Secret #1: How To Find Hidden Self-Storage Deals

My first storage facility, which I closed after six weeks of having the baby, changed my life forever. Once you buy one, you go out there, you buy a second, you buy a third, and then you own fifteen of them, like Stacy. That is the whole goal here in self-storage. We’re going to jump right into secret number one. We’re going to walk through all these pieces, open up our screen, and show you guys this because we want you to show it, see it, and feel it.

Secret number one is we’re going to talk about how to find hidden self-storage deals. Bob knows this a little bit. We might go into even more detail, even further than what you guys have seen. I do want to talk about the truth about on-market deals. Yes, there are still good deals out there. You have to go through a lot of bad ones. I wanted to talk about on-market deals on Crexi and on LoopNet. That is the platform that a lot of people are using.

Brokers do put a lot of deals out there, but right now, I want you guys to hear how many people see a lot of on-market deals that are overpriced. I want to know in the chat. How many people are going through it at night? This was me. I was watching Disney Channel with my girl, one eye, as I was searching through acquisitions and trying to find what a good deal looks like. How do we even put ourselves in front of these brokers to represent, “I want to buy this facility. What is the right price?” We’re seeing a lot of facilities that are 30% overpriced and more.

It has gotten a little bit better as we dive into this buyer market, but there are a lot of REITs that are coming into the field and 1031 buyers that are sometimes outbidding a lot of these players on the market because it’s more competitive. People, our whole goal here is we show people what the facility is worth so that you never overpay. On-market deals, you can find them. It’s a needle in a haystack. You have to go through the mix and have a good understanding of which ones and where they’re priced at based on that certain market.

 

The truth is, it’s off-market deals. That is where people are finding these good mom-and-pop self-storage deals. We’re going to go through a little trick right here of Google Maps and hidden mom-and-pop storage facilities. We’re going to take it two steps further. These are things that even brokers don’t know how to do. If they’re here, I hope you guys learn it and get some better deals. Off-market deals are where there’s less competition. We have better terms. We can create more seller financing opportunities. You can actually get that deal done ten times faster.

The best investors are action takers—not talkers. Share on X

We are looking for no websites. We’re looking for old photos and outdated signs. We’re looking for rate gaps where they might have a 10×10 priced at $60, and they’re so proud. “I am the lowest in the market. I’m 100% full.” I know Bob knows this. He’s probably drooling at that point. That’s a great deal. We want to find those storage facilities. I wanted to talk about this, and then we’re going to go through. These are the five pillars that I’m going to do a demo on right now. I’m going to show you how we find these mom-and-pop owners. I want to see in the chat, making sure everyone’s awake. Is that helpful? Would you guys want to find these off-market deals and see how we’re doing it?

Absolutely.

I know Bob’s like, “I was stoked on it.” Brian says, “Yes, absolutely, for sure.” I know these are some of the big pieces that not a lot of people know about. Once they see it, they’re like, “Now I get it. That’s how you’re finding these storage facilities, mom and pop owners, and then actually calling them and going after it.” 1) We’re going to be using Google Maps, which is free and one of the best resources ever. 2) We’re going to look at markets that are anywhere between 10,000 people all the way to maybe 120,000. The reason for this population look is that we’re looking for third and fourth-tier markets. We are looking at the outskirts of growth.

A lot of these urban areas are suffering right now. Some of them are doing decently, but a lot of them are suffering. People want out of the chaos. They’re growing outskirts, at least in Sacramento, and a lot of these more metropolitan areas. We have 10,000 homes being built North, South, East, and West of us. It’s absolutely insane. These are the areas that we want to focus on. We’re going to focus on storage facilities that have no websites or have bad websites from 2017, or possibly like GoDaddy, with the rotating E.

Back in the day, there were a lot of mom-and-pop owners who somehow made it through COVID, and they still don’t have a website. You can’t actually rent a unit online, even with the AI revolution. We’re also going to look for storage facilities that have fewer than four stars. That could indicate that that is a mom-and-pop facility. Those are some of the key pieces I want you guys to keep in mind. I am going to have a quiz question, so make sure you guys are paying attention to go into this. I want to do a live demo.

Google Maps Hacking: Finding Mom & Pop Storage Facilities

I’m going to open up my screen, but before I do that, I want you guys to engage in the chat. I want to see who has a market. I want you to put a city and a state that has between 10,000 people, maybe less than 120,000. I want to open up my screen and show you where these facilities are. Please put your one in there. I’m going to take a look at one of those that is in the chat, so we can actually do this blind. We love that. Let me open up my screen. Let’s see. I’m fascinated, Stacy, because you’re right there. I can’t see you because I’m opening up my screen, but I want to hear why you like that market. Do you live close by? Why?

I live close by. I’m from the area. I grew up here. I know there are already several storage unit facilities here that do well. I wonder if there’s a market for more or if any of those people are trying to get out of the market. I feel like no one has ever wanted to sell is the thing I find.

This is great. I love having a little background about it as well. Let’s see. Do you know the population off the top of your head?

I know it’s maybe 150,000. I don’t know.

Maybe a little bit higher. We’re going to check it out. We’re going to see if there are some mom-and-pops in this area. We always look at the corridors. What you can do is you’re going to go to Google Maps. You’re actually going to click ‘nearby.’ It’ll have a quick fact about the city. Sometimes, it’ll say the population, but I always like to go to the census data. I’ll click ‘nearby’. What I’m going to do is I’m going to write in ‘self-storage.’ What this pops up now is the Google Map Pack. It’s called the Google Map Pack, which is the five things that we went over.

We’re looking to make sure that there are no REITs. We don’t want to buy an Extra Space, a CubeSmart, or a Public Storage. If you see sponsored, this is where they’re actually paying for ads. We don’t want to play that game. We don’t want to pay to play. We want to look for what Stacy and I are good at. Where is a facility that might not have a website or might not be utilizing all the capabilities of these websites? In this market right here, because it’s right here on the coast, I know a little bit. There might be a lot of different REITs right here.

This one has only one review. We’ll pick one. I want to see if I can find something that tells a better story. Here we go, Highway 17. Do you guys see how there’s a website here and not one here? Give me a nice little nod. I am going to click on it. I want to take a look at this. It is not the best photo. We’re going to zoom in. There’s Highway 17. Maybe Stacy has been checking this out. I’m going to go into satellite view, though. Let’s see here.

Click here so I can check it out. It is nice on the main highway. They may be building it. That’s perfect. They probably have a little business in the front and then storage in the back. How many people here would buy that? It has no website. It has no way in 2025 to utilize dynamic pricing or to have an easy automated process to rent online and to market to customers. That’s the whole point. You can drop your little man. You can come in all the way to the back.

What I would do right here is I would call the number on this Google Maps. I would call right now. I bet you anything. I do this all the time in my storage. I call them. It goes right to the owner. It’s forwarded probably directly to their phone number if they’re on site or if they’re not on site. I would buy this one in a heartbeat. It has a little bit of land to add a couple more RVs and boats. This is a beautiful facility. That is one facility right there that I would call. We have our acquisition manager call the facility number here first. We try to skip trace and find phone one, which is normally their cell phone, and then phone two.

Another one. Let’s take a look at 3.8 stars and 24 reviews. Let’s take a look at that. That’s a nicer facility next to Walmart, but let’s see storage by the sea right here. Another example. This looks like a conversion. I bet you anything. It probably was a conversion. I wonder if it’s this one right here. See how they took a building. This is a big thing. My goal is to work on a conversion project this year. They took a local Kmart or a Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree went out of business.

There are a lot of Dollar Trees for sale. They converted it into self-storage to use as a product. It is smart. Let’s take a look at any more. Let’s see downtown mini storage. Let’s see if I can find one with a bad website right here by the dock. There’s a facility right here that has no website. I would call that owner, definitely have a conversation, and see. “Hi, Kevin. Are you the owner of downtown mini storage?” He’s like, “Yes.” You can say, “I know this call might be out of the blue, but I saw your facility. I liked that. It was close on the main New Castle streets, right across from a marina. I wanted to check in and see if you would ever consider an offer on your facility.” Silence and let them answer.

Some of the time, they’ll say no, and that’s okay. Some of the time, they’ll say yes. That is how you build know, like, and trust. Even though they say no, I say never take no for an answer. Bob knows this. I’ll say, “Even if you don’t want to look at an offer now, do you know anyone in this city? I sure know you talk to other storage owners. Do you know anyone whom you can give me their contact?” Silence. That might lead you to another lead. That is something that Stacy and I talk about in the Storage Deal Room. We have this done for you. I wanted to see in the chat. Was that helpful, Stacy? I know the other Stacy in Georgia.

Never take no for an answer — persistence pays off in real estate. Share on X

When you’re on the phone, if they say no, do you say to them, “Can I call you in six months or three months, or how would you like me to follow up?”

Absolutely. Stacy and I have an acquisition manager. We also have two other virtual assistants and other assistants who help with calls. What we do is we say, “Not a problem at all.” We ask to get one more reference. The second thing we always do is, “Kyle, great having a conversation with you. I told you I’m not going to bug you, but I wanted to see if I could get your email address so that I can connect with you in the future and tell you a little bit about who we are. We can check in six months or a year from now. Would you be open to that?” People are nice. They’re way nicer in commercial than they are in residential.

Most of the time, they will say yes. Make sure you gather their email address because that’s the lead that you’re going to follow up on. We never take no. No means no right now. It doesn’t mean no in two months or three months. Things change, especially if you are in your 70s and your 80s and you’re looking to exit. Everyone is always looking to exit if they own a business. I want to see in the chats. Was that helpful? Stacy, you’d better be going and calling these facilities in your area.

This is an action step. You guys definitely make sure you do. This is something that we teach. We want to give you all that information. We also do this for you because either a lot of people have time or they have money. A lot of people are like, “How do I even start this? How do I even have a conversation?” That’s why I wanted to share with you how we even start this conversation and then also how we get our students to put out the offers in front of them to get either a yes or a no, and then either move that forward and close that deal.

Secret #2: Master Seller Financing & Creative Offers

Stacy is going to talk about how we actually negotiate and create a three-part seller financing offer, and then how we put it in front of these storage owners. I also want to see. Would that be helpful before we go into it? I want to gauge if that is something of your interest because we want to make sure that we’re giving you value. We want to make sure that we’re hitting on these high points. Is there anything in a storage owner conversation that you guys want to know? I want to hear in the chat. Go to the chat.

I want to see so we can touch on it in this next section right here. Put it in the chat. I know it takes a couple of minutes, so think about it. What are some questions that you want to know about seller financing negotiation that you find interesting or that no one has talked about? Seller financing is the cheat code. Off-market deals are the cheat code that people are utilizing, especially when off-market deals are 30% overpriced. It’s hard to come by some of these better deals.

A couple of people were asking for a script. If you stayed at the end of the webinar, you will get access. You will be able to get access to my seller call script or seller call cheat sheet. I don’t know what to call it. Essentially, it’s a one-page document. On that document is where you can put the information of the facility and how to start the conversation, and the questions on how to keep the conversation going when you’re on the phone. At the very bottom, there’s a little table. The table is for you to fill out the information on what you’re going to need in order to be able to run deal analysis on the facility.

The cheat sheet, if you are interested in it, wait until the very end. We’re going to show you how you can get that as a bonus for staying to the end. You want me to go into the number two? What I was going to go over is what happens after you find. Find, fund, and run is a three-step process that I’ve been teaching. In my book, somebody asked, “What’s the name of the book?” It’s called Find Them Fund Them Run Them. Bree went over finding them.

Going onto Google Maps and finding storage facilities is honestly one of the best ways to find storage facilities because they’re right there. It’s so easy. You can do it yourself. It takes a little time to build up a list and to call owners and stuff. Ultimately, it’s the best way to find facilities. It is a buyer’s market right now. I want to reiterate that. There are a lot of owners who want to sell right now. If you want to buy a storage facility, your job is not only to find them and do what I’m going to show you right now, which is running deal analysis and making offers, but make offers. That’s your job. You want to get to the point where you’re making offers.

It’s a buyer’s market — there’s never been a better time to make offers. Share on X

The next step after Bree is basically we put it into a Google Drive folder. I wanted to show you what it looks like here. Janet and Laura are two of my students. They met actually within the program. They did not know each other beforehand. They partnered on buying a deal together in Arizona. It is where they bought this facility. I wanted to open it up. The information that I’m going to show you here is everything that you need to know in order to make a decision on whether or not you want to put an offer on a facility.

That’s what I’m going over. You have the deal analyzer and the executive summary. I’ll go over those in a second. You’ve got pictures of the facility. You’ve got the offer letter. You’ve got population and demographics. You’ve got some Regrid information. Regrid is the property information. Let me open this up. You can see that we have the OM. I wanted to quickly give you an idea of what you need. There is the property information of this facility and the unit mix. This is the table that I was talking about, which is on the seller’s call sheet of the information that you need to get from the owners. You need to know their unit mix.

You need to know their total square footage. It’s 66 units, 9,600 square feet, 6,160, and 9,600 plus RV storage. It’s a small town down in South Arizona. The population, the satellite imagery of the facility. I wanted to show you what the facility looks like. It’s this property right here. It’s a big piece of property. All we did was call this owner. That’s all we did. We found it on Google Maps and called the owner. They started with this and added this, or maybe started with that and added this. I can’t remember, but here’s the property.

I wanted to show you this is the information competitors. There are three competitors. This is the information that you want to know in order to make a decision on whether or not you want to put an offering. You are going to gather that information from the owner. If you get the cheat sheet, you’ll be able to know what to ask. Everything that goes into the deal analyzer is put into the deal analyzer. If you’ve never seen a deal analyzer before, a commercial analyzer, don’t get freaked out and stuff. This is the one that we use internally.

That’s a big piece of property, but it’s a small storage facility. Everything in yellow on our deal analyzer is what you need as input. Inputs are the inputs that you put into the formulas to run the deal analysis and get the numbers and stuff. The annual income is $46,440. We asked the owners. That’s where we got the number from, 66 units, 6,160 square feet, total square footage. The vacancy was at 30%. When we talked to this owner, they had bought the property. They also were flippers, investors, and stuff. They were not into this storage facility. They decided that they wanted to flip houses instead.

That’s why it was 30% vacant. They were too busy doing their other stuff. All this information here, you ask the owner, the property taxes, the utilities, the insurance, and then all expenses as well, maintenance, staffing, merchant fees, marketing, and your mortgage. When I look at a deal, as it is right now, what is it worth? What is the potential of the property? What is the opportunity of the property? This is what you’re seeing here based on the inputs that we put in. I’ll show you the rest, but this is the valuation of the property.

Another thing is, I saw somebody asking about bigger markets. “Should I look at bigger markets?” Bree is saying that we should look at smaller markets and things like this. Ultimately, your job is to do a competitive analysis because you want to know what the competitors are charging. What have they been charging for the last year up until now? What is my opportunity? Can I raise rents or not raise rents? You look at the competitors. You do that. The thing is, if you live in Nashville or if you live in Oklahoma City or something like that, your competitors are REITs. You do not want to have a REIT as a competitor.

I have facilities where my competitors are REITs. I’m going to tell you it is not fun at all because they have the money to spend on marketing. They have the money to do cheap rates. You don’t want to be stressed out about that. Believe me. I’m going to tell you now. We focus on smaller areas and smaller populations. That’s what Bree is trying to explain. Maybe one day, you’ll own REITs, but for now, you’re getting started. There are three facilities. We are basically looking at the numbers, what they charge, and comparing ours to theirs. When you run deal analysis, you are inputting all the inputs that you get from the owner. You’re putting the unit mix in. It’s a little small. This is how you run deal analysis.

You put the unit mix in. You run the competitive analysis. It comes up with a number that’s a price per square foot, as is right now. It comes up with a number that is your opportunity price per square foot. When you’re thinking of storage, everything is priced per square foot. What’s your total square footage? That’s the link. You’re $0.89 a square foot. It can get to $0.92 a square foot. That’s what we’re looking at. You’ve got the square foot. On this facility, there’s not a lot of upside. It’s an income-producing property.

It doesn’t matter if you want income-producing or mismanaged. The girls who bought this wanted some cashflow. They didn’t want to do any work. They want to get some cashflow, so that’s why they liked this facility. The next step after you do your inputs and your competitive analysis is you come up with your financial inputs. Typically, in the industry, you’re going to send over one offer with an LOI. Ultimately, I teach, and I know Bree teaches this as well, that you want to get the wheels turning in the owner’s brain, thinking, “There are actually other ways for me to sell this property outside of selling it one way.” This is where creative deal structures come in.

We ran our numbers as a cash offer. We have three seller financing offers and a bank offer. From the inputs that we have on the input sheet, we add our price here. We come up with our price. We put our down payment in. How much money can we come up with for a down payment? We come up with an interest rate. We are running our numbers here at 30% down and 8% interest. This was at the beginning of the year. That’s what the interest rates were. You want to run your numbers on these loan inputs, like down payment, interest rate, term of the loan, balloon, and then amortization. Honestly, there are a million different ways for you to run these numbers.

If you can only come up with X amount of dollars, you run your numbers on that. If the owner wants X amount of dollars per month and says, “I’ll seller finance this to you, but I need to make $5,000 a month to do that,” run your numbers based on the monthly payment. We have an owner that we met with. It’s quite a big facility. It’s about a $3 million facility. The owner is willing to seller finance, as long as they get a certain amount as a down payment. That’s what they want. When you’re talking to the owners, this is what you’re gathering from them. This is the best part about talking to owners directly, not going through a broker, and not going through a wholesaler.

Talking to the owners directly is where you get that connection with the owner. You start learning their stories. You start learning what they want. You create a deal based on what they want and what can work for you as well. You’re creating this win-win situation. This is what our deal analyzer does. This is what we utilize and use it for. The offers for this property were at $430,000 cash and $500,000 owner-financed. We have a cash-on-cash return based on what we put in, anywhere from 10% to 26%.

Negotiation Tactics: Crafting Win-Win Storage Deals

Stacy, let me make it fun. This is a real-life deal that one of Stacy’s students purchased. What she’s saying is that all four of these offers work for us in negotiation. When we put these in front of the table, all of these work. You’re giving the owner their opportunity to pick which one, so they feel like they’re in control. This is negotiation. Stacy uncovered motivation. We’ve had multiple conversations with the owner to show them this. We’ve learned who they are, their needs, and their wants. We’ve uncovered the motivation. We uncovered their story. All of these offers work for us because we created them. They get to choose which one, and then we walk through it from there. In the chat, which one do you think they picked?

Real fast, too. If I change the price to $600,000, it comes red. Red is no, you can’t do this deal because it is not going to work, especially with the bank financing stuff. I want to let you know that green is yes, this is a good deal. You play with the numbers until you come up with a good scenario that you can offer. We input this information here. We looked at the cashflow of the properties. What can I come up with? Is it going to work? When they buy it, they’re red because they’re buying it. They have to stabilize the property. They’re taking it to green.

They’re making $617 a month, and then they’re taking it to $2,000. That’s how you look at the deals. We’re looking at the cashflow, and then we make the offer. The offer is right in our deal analyzer, but essentially, this is basically what we sent over. It is this offer at $430,000 cash and $500,000 seller financing. Which one do you think they picked, 1, 2, 3, or the cash offer?

Go to the chat, you guys. I want to see which one. There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s no trick answer.

Just real fast, the inputs again, so we could click back to that. It’s making $46,000 a year, 66 units, and 6,000 square feet-ish is what it is.

Go to the chat, you guys. I want to hear a couple more people. Paul said number three. Drew said number three. Give you a couple more seconds. I know it takes some time. Pull what you think is the best one that you think. There’s no right or wrong.

In the end, the owner accepted 10% down. That’s it, 10% down. All they care about is making a little bit more money on the back end. They were okay with taking a little money up on the frontend. All we had to do was talk to them. Another thing we did was that they flew out and met the owners. That solidified this deal. Laura lives in Oregon. Janet lives in Washington. They’re managing this facility. They closed it, and they’re managing this facility. Two strangers bought a facility together. They’re now managing the facility together.

I want to make sure that I reiterate that calling owners is the best way to find facilities. It’s a buyer’s market. Please make offers. Make as many offers as you can. It’s a numbers game. Make creative deal structure offers because buyers are open to this. Practicing these techniques and doing this over and over again is what we’re seeing internally inside our programs. You guys should be doing it as well.

 

Why The Current Market Is Ripe For Storage Acquisitions

Just quickly, before we go into secret number three, we’ll talk more about this in the Q&A, but why it is a buyer’s market and what we’ve seen in the past several months. We’ve seen more storage owners raise their hands and want offers. The reason is that people have been waiting. It has been stagnant in acquisitions. A lot of people are nervous about what to do. Storage owners in that beginning time period stopped. They’re like, “I’m going to wait.” They’ve waited two extra years when they wanted to retire. We might’ve had 0.25% down a little bit.

Things are starting to trend down. What that means is that people are like, “This is my time. I want to retire. I’ve owned this for twenty or eighteen years.” We have one that we talked to. He’s a police officer. This is a perfect Tennessee deal that we’re giving to our Storage Deal Room students. It’s seller financing of around $500,000. This police officer’s dad died. He owned it for twenty years. He built it. It’s on two extra acres and a beautiful highway.

He’s like, “Yes, I’ll do seller financing,” because they own it outright. He wants to sell. He’s like, “I’m a police officer. I love my job. I would like to get the money.” There are a lot of these facilities that are out there. We have around 20 to 21 of these owners that need offers in our Storage Deal Room. We have too many offers actually going in versus buyers. We don’t want to go too far into that. We’ll go more into the Q&A, but we wanted to let you know it is a buyer’s market. People want offers.

As you guys, this inverse relationship, think about it. As rates start to go down, what happens is that we’re in this nice period. As interest rates go down, the floodgates open. This is higher competition because of credit unions and all these different areas. You can now get a commercial loan, but you have to put 35% down versus 10%. What would you want? Think about it. That is why Stacy and I talk about this urgency. It’s a buy time. It’s talking to storage owners, getting people to raise their hand, and then putting offers on the table instead of just learn, learn, learn.

Secret #3: Student Success Stories & The Buyer’s Market

Let’s put good offers out there and start making things happen. We’re going to go into a secret number three. These are such important things to understand in the deal process. I want you guys to see what we do on the inside of it and what we’re doing right now to get deals across the finish line. We’re going to go into a secret number three. We’re going to talk about some of these deals that our students are closing on and how they’re doing it.

This is John. I know Bob knows him. He is in Texas. He is a firefighter. He’s like, “Bree, I want to buy a storage facility.” What was so great about him, he was like, “I want to start taking action.” Within four or six weeks, he was talking to owners. He was having conversations. He’s like, “I’ve passed this storage facility every day on my hour-and-a-half commute to my station.” He picked up the phone and had a conversation with the storage owner. He was like, “Would you consider an offer?” The storage owner was like, “Yes, I would.” What John did was go to the facility.

We said, “Go meet him. Go shake his hand. Take him to lunch.” That’s exactly what he did. His next day off from his shift, he drove an hour and a half up to this facility. He took the owner out to lunch and got to know and trust him. The owner was like, “How about I sell you my facility? I also know the storage owner down the street. I think he’d be interested in selling his, too.” John actually bought two storage facilities.

What was so awesome about this is that he put around $35,000 of his own money, and his fire captain put in $150,000. I wanted to show you that when you talk about storage to family and friends on these holiday weekends that we’re going to start having, like Thanksgiving and all these family events, people want to invest in storage. They love this asset class. He had someone come in and put the majority of the money into facilities.

He closed these facilities. He owns two facilities, an hour and a half from where he lives near his fire station. The best part about this is that we’ll show you his numbers. He talked to me. He’s like, “I actually got to talk to my family about we’re on the right pathway, at 45, to financial freedom. I never thought I’d be able to purchase a facility.” What got me, as he started tearing up, is that he’s like, “I want to retire my wife. That is my goal. She’s a nurse. We have two kids. She has worked hard her whole life. I want to do this for her.”

The special part about John is that I always say I’m not the smartest one in the shed, but I’m the action taker. John was someone who was like, “I’m sick of talking about all the storage facilities and all these things that I have to learn. I’m going to go out there and do it.” Cause problems and bring them back to Stacy and me. We help you solve them. I wanted to talk a little bit about his story. He owns two facilities in the smaller Texas market. He will monopolize this market. He’s going to go buy two other facilities around a ten-mile radius. He’ll be the price leader.

He bought both of them for $600,000. They will be worth in 24 months $1.1 million at a 7.5% cap. Who would do this deal, with only $35,000 out of his pocket? I want to know. I want to hear it in the chat. Who would do that deal? That’s over $450,000 or $500,000 that you can you can pocket and then go 1031 to something bigger and better. I’d better see everyone in the chat. I can’t see the chat. There we go. Ricardo’s like, “All day long.” That’s in 24 months. That’s the power of commercial real estate, in addition to the cashflow that they will receive. Obviously, this is an example of one of our students. I want Stacy to also talk about Linda, who did absolutely the same thing, but even more incredible story.

Retired And Thriving: Linda’s Self-Storage Success Story

I saw somebody who asked a question. I want to make sure I answer it. This is Michael Jones. He said, “You’re saying these deals start as negative cashflow.” Honestly, the truth is there’s no one storage facility that’s like another facility. You have mismanaged facilities that you may have to come out of pocket on. You’ve got income-producing properties. You got conversions, like Bree showed, and stuff. Every type of facility and every type of way of making money are available.

Don’t think there’s just one way to do anything. Linda retired in her 60s. She had turned 67, and she retired. She’d saved up a couple of hundred thousand dollars for retirement. She lived in California. She lived in San Diego. She wanted to buy something that could bring some cashflow in for her. She’s a single lady. She came in and joined us. She started looking at all these deals. We showed her a lot of deals and put a lot of offers in.

Ultimately, this is the one that she ended up with. This is in Texas, near Abilene. It’s a little town right outside of Abilene. The owner lived in Dallas. He was an insurance guy. He had this big, huge insurance practice. He was focusing on that. He was not focusing on the storage facility. We ended up having a meeting with him, and then she flew out. She met the owner. It’s a smaller facility. Maybe it’s the same size as the one that we looked at. She went out there and she met the owner. He loved her. What happened is she made an offer right then and there.

She’s like, “What about $200,000 for this thing?” It was roughly around 10,000 square feet. It’s a big facility, honestly. It also has another piece of land on the back end that he ended up throwing in for free. She got this 10,000 square foot facility for $200,000. I think $225,000 is what they ended up with. He seller financed it for her. All he asked for was 10% down. She only had to come up with $20,000 to buy the storage facility. She bought one of those little tiny RVs she could drive. Every once in a while, she’ll go check on her facility and go hang out in her RV.

The storage itself, she cleaned up. She got it all leased up. That took a good couple of months to do that, figure it out, and stuff. The property in the back, the owner gave her for free because he didn’t want anything to do with it. He didn’t want to pay taxes or anything. People were using it as a dumping ground. She got somebody to bush hog it and cleaned it up. She started doing RV parking. She has the storage in the front, and then behind it, she has the RV parking.

She’s a retired woman who is managing this facility. She answers the phones herself. It keeps her busy. She loves managing this thing, honestly. She got maybe a $600,000 facility for $200,000. She probably put maybe $50,000 in it or something like that, to clean it up or whatever. She has this for her safety net. She got it, and she put money into it. I got her P&L and her balance sheet from her. I’m going to meet with her, go over her numbers, and make sure she’s running it properly and stuff. She’s so excited because she’s filling up her RV park that she got the land for free. That is Linda, one of the many students. She is doing great.

Actionable Insights: Your Self-Storage Takeaways

That’s super neat. I wanted to walk you guys through the final takeaways. We want you guys to come away with some big aha moments. That’s what Stacy and I care about. 1) We talked about hitting off-market deals, going on Google Maps. You’d better go out there and do that in your market of choice. See what mom-and-pops are out there because there are so many of them.

2) The negotiations and the three-part offers. Stacy talked about crafting those three-part offers. Seller financing is the cheat code. Putting 4 to 5 of these offers on the table instead of one gives you an opportunity to build your know, like, and trust with the seller and with the broker. You can also do this with a broker, but it’s putting that together. It’s a prepackaged.

3) We wanted to show you some of the students who are closing deals right now. We don’t just talk about it. Stacy and I are all about action and showing you the inside of what is happening, why it’s a buyer’s market, and how to take advantage of this time so that you guys can go out there and do it ten times faster. I want to see in the chat if you guys can go to the chat right now. What is one thing that you learned? I want to hear in the chat.

It could be one simple thing that you’re like, “That changed my mindset, or I appreciated how you did X.” I want to see in the chat. What is one big a-ha moment? The more we put this out there to the world, the more you’re going to take action and do it. Even to jog your memory, it’s always about coming around full circle and then going out there and doing it. Steve said, “Using the maps.” Drew said, “Finding off-market deals on Google.” Rebecca’s like, “Finding deals off-market.”

Anything else? I want to hear in the chat. Go to the chat. Don’t be shy. We want to know. “Action takers, all about it. Google Maps for off-market pricing.” Michael said, “You didn’t answer one question. Deals are starting with negative cashflow.” Michael, we’ll talk about this in our Q&A. Something important is that Stacy said quickly that you can buy with maybe a 4% to 5% return on your money, knowing there’s a pathway. There’s money on the table.

There’s a value to be had so that you can implement it. Even though you’re buying at what it’s worth today, it might only be a 5% return. Stacy and our students know there is a pathway to buy it at $200,000, $500,000, or $600,000, like our students. There’s a pathway to that $1.1 million. That’s what people are not thinking about. We have to look at what it is worth today based on its gross income of what it’s producing, not the future. What could it be worth in 3 to 5 years if we buy it and implement our business plan? That’s exactly what Stacy and I teach.

The Storage Deal Room: Your Fast Track to Ownership

That is why creative offers are so important. We know that. We get to calculate it and put it into perspective so that the owner can say yes or no to that offer. Would this be helpful to have someone like Stacy and me in your corner to put together the seller financing offers to walk you guys through some storage owner conversations? I want to see in the chat. Write yes in the chat if you want to buy your first facility in the next twelve months, and if it would be helpful to have a three-part or four-part offer written out for you.

Brian said yes. Amanda says yes. For the first couple of offers, sometimes, the scariest piece is pulling the trigger. I saw someone in the chat talk about analysis paralysis. When to say yes? When to say no? When to put that offer in? Stacy and I talked to a student. I said $1.9 million is way too high. They wanted $1.9 million. They wouldn’t budge. I said, “They’ll come back to us. Put in that $1.75 million.” We heard, “We would like to have a conversation.” That is something that Stacy and I are very good at, saying yes, no, and a number, and teaching you guys to do that.

We wanted to introduce you to the Storage Deal Room. This is where Stacy and I have partnered together to find, fund, buy, and operate storage facilities. This is something that has never been done before, but it is off-market. The Storage Deal Room gives you that unfair advantage. It is where we are finding these off-market storage deals. We are putting together in OM, like a broker, but we’re putting it together with the demographic data. We’re putting it into a three-part offer so that you get to say yes, no, or an offer in addition to helping book those storage owner meetings so that you come with either me or an acquisition manager and have an expert in your corner.

This is something that will help you guys buy your first facility ten times faster. You can go and search on LoopNet and Crexi and do all that, but it can take you 12 to 24 months to buy your first facility. We’ll talk a little bit more about the Storage Deal Room. We start on November 6th. It is a twelve-month acquisition program where we deliver to you off-market storage deals on a silver platter. We are capping this at five seats right now because we do have around 21 storage deals. We want to make sure that everyone is well seated with 3 to 5 good facilities so that they’re putting offers in. What this looks like and how it works is we’re going to go through the four pieces to it.

Stacy is going to talk about some of these pillars. Step one is we have our acquisition manager, and then we also have a virtual assistant team. Stacy has been doing this for four years. Fifteen of her facilities have all been from off-market deals, as well as mine. Mine has been from off-market as well as wholesalers. Our step one is that our team finds these mom-and-pop storage deals. Instead of you cold calling and doing it yourself, which you totally can, we actually start to understand what your buy box is. We build out campaigns where our cold callers will call the storage facilities and see who raises their hands.

Step two is that we build your deal package. We have too many actual deals right now, but we have a lot of people raising their hands. What we do for you who want offers is we actually build you an OM, offer memorandum, what a broker does. It puts it into a beautiful, nice little demographic cheat sheet. We also put all the financial numbers into a deal analyzer and then into that three-part seller financing calculator so that you guys can say yes, no, or a number. It’s absolutely up to you. You guys have to tell us.

Step three is we set up a seller negotiating meeting with you, the storage owner, an acquisition expert, or ourselves. We help facilitate that negotiation so that you can close that deal. A lot of people come to the table in off-market deals by themselves. Their job might be tech. They’re not sure how to negotiate. We want to make sure that this deal does not fall apart and that we actually put a real number out there. We safeguard you from overpaying, which is an important piece because a lot of people get excited in negotiations, versus we have to stick to our guts so that we aren’t belly up, and then we’re not negative in the future. We only want to buy good storage deals.

Step number four is we help negotiate and close these deals for you and help you get it to the finish line so that you can go do your due diligence and start operations, your 30-, 60-, 90-day operation plan. You don’t have to do this alone. A lot of people are like, “Where do I even start? How do I know it’s a good deal?” Having someone in your corner who has done multiple deals is something that is going to not only help you buy your first facility but also buy a good cash-flowing facility that helps you safeguard from risk 3 to 5 years later. How many people would say that would be helpful for you guys?

 

Absolutely.

Hands down. I was like, “Yes, Bob.” That’s something that I always talk about. I paid $100,000 to a wholesaler. I looked at hundreds of deals. I underwrote two deals a day for nine months. Being able to have someone on your team presenting you 3 to 5 good offers every single week, and then you guys going through and making sure that you say yes, no, or an offer, can speed up that process so that you’re getting off-market deals sent to you. Stacy is going to go over some of these pillars right now as well. What we’ll do is a Q&A at the end.

The Storage Deal Room Pillars: Find, Analyze, Negotiate & Close

Bree went over it. Finding owners who want to talk to you is the hardest part of the equation. Finding the owner who would actually have a discussion and give you the information that you need in order to run deal analysis, I call this the dirty work. What happened is that I didn’t want to do the dirty work anymore, like Bree. I hired a virtual assistant to help me do all this work. Build the list, call the owners, find hidden facilities that are not even on Google Maps, and build out that list as well, too. Start calling and talking to the owners. It involves training to train the person who is calling the owner to be able to have a connection with the owner.

Being good on the phone and stuff is the process, and it’s not easy. Over the course of four years, I have gotten good at finding facilities that are off-market and talking to owners directly, and then introducing the student to the owner, being there with them, and creating that connection. The student feels confident enough to be able to ask the questions that they need to ask, and then also maybe even go out and meet the owner face-to-face.

That’s what the first one is. It is finding those owners who want to work with you and creating that connection. Do you want to talk about this, or do you want me to talk about it, Bree? I’ll talk about it. Honestly, this is for us, the easy part now. Once we find the owner and contact them, we set up a meeting with the owner. It’s a virtual meeting. We introduce ourselves face-to-face with the owner. We start creating that connection.

We hear their story, like I said, with Laura and Janet, with Linda, or whoever it is. We’re hearing these stories of what these owners want. We are coming up with offers that will work with them and also work with us. We’re creating a win-win situation by coming up with these offers together. We are helping to submit the offer. It sounds easy, but it’s not. Honestly, it’s a lot of work. I call it the dirty work. To get to the point where you actually have a facility under contract is the hardest part of owning a storage facility. Most people give up because you have to put a lot of offers in. You have to meet a lot of owners.

You have to do the dirty work to find that facility. That is why I decided to start the acquisitions program. It is because I could see students struggling with this. I’ve never struggled with that. That’s why I have fifteen facilities. I buy everything. Ultimately, that is what the Storage Deal Room does. The hardest part of the equation is where we can help you make it as easy as it possibly can and help you build that confidence up so that you can feel confident to talk to the owners, ask the questions, meet them face-to-face, and go to the facility.

That’s where Bree and I are holding your hand, giving you a thumbs up, and walking you through. You don’t put the offering. A lot of people want that thumbs up. Yes, this is a good offer. After a couple of times, you’re starting to click. That’s the process. That’s us helping and getting you to get the facility under contract. That’s obviously the first part and the hardest part. After you get it under contract, there’s a lot more work to do, but it’s not difficult. It’s not stressful.

Stacy nailed that. Pillar number three that we also do for you is a pre-analyzed deal package. Every deal with the storage owner who’s highly motivated is like, “I want an offer.” We’re putting that all together. We’re getting all the financial information because a lot of people don’t know what a good deal looks like. Also, what do we need to ask the owner in order to put this into our deal analyzer? We gather all that hard work.

What Stacy talked about is that we gather all that information. We even do a supply and demand matrix. Most people don’t even teach how to do it. You can pay someone $1,000 to get a feasibility study, but we actually do this for you. It’s all included. We teach you how to look at a market and say, “Is this oversupplied or undersupplied? What money is left on the table?” Someone had that comment about negative money.

Being both owners and operators, we show you where this hidden money on the table is and how you need to extract it as an investor and then structure it the correct way so that you guys can profit from it in 3 to 5 years or longer, or however your business model extends that. We are putting these all on a table so that you guys can say yes, no, or a number, and into this offer cheat sheet, so that you can come to the table, as we always say, as a business partner, so that we can make this and solidify it to get it to the finish line.

The last little pillar is having Stacy and me as expert negotiators in your corner. This is something that we love doing. It’s our secret sauce, both of us. I love to negotiate and talk with sellers. It’s about getting to know their motivation and then also how you can solve their problem. It’s a long-term relationship with long-term people. Real estate, even storage, commercial real estate, is a relationship game. Both Stacy and I say, “Go the extra mile.” How do you go the extra mile so that you get these deals and not someone else? There are brokers calling these people all day long.

Stacy and I talk about this. How can you be different? We set you guys up for that to have success, so that you don’t look like you are a newbie, and you don’t lose these deals. We want to make sure that you are set up for success and that you’re looking through all these different corners and cobwebs to finalize it at the expert end. Those are the four different pillars. Stacy is going to talk about Laura, and then we’ll open this up a little bit at the end with Q&A.

I went over Laura and Janet’s deal that they partnered on together, so you guys have an idea of how that worked out. Another thing about coming into the Storage Deal Room is that you’re going to have access to everybody in the Storage Deal Room. You’ll be able to partner with them and meet people in the community. One thing I noticed about the storage industry is that everybody is an island. They do their own thing and stuff. Ultimately, when you get in, you’ll be able to partner with students. You’ll be able to meet everybody else and get deals done together. That’s something that is valuable within Storage Deal Room.

Limited-Time Offer: Join The Storage Deal Room Co-Founders

This is what we talk about. It takes one storage facility to change your life, to buy back your time. That’s our goal. Especially, even the Storage Deal Room is, “Go out there. Buy that one. Go out there and buy another one.” Stacy and I have a lot of urgency. For us, it’s not education. It’s a do-it, done-for-you program, where we’re out there saying, “Bob, what did you do this week? Did you submit some offers?” We want to come to the table with you and submit these offers so that you guys can actually get a deal under contract.

We talk about these things. Yes, we do put that education piece out there, but we are very much like, “They’re on the table for you. We want to close ten times faster.” It’s the urgency and the accountability to do it. That’s something that we both are very big advocates for. The Storage Deal Room is a place where it’s off-market deals done for you. As a DIY, absolutely, you can go out there and cold call all the owners. It might take you 9 to 18 months to close a storage deal.

You can go out there, read all the books, and do all the YouTube University, but that is very passive education versus taking action, going out there like John did to buy two facilities. Go out there, mess it up, build relationships, bring back your problems, and we’ll give you these deals as well. It is done for you on a silver platter so that you can ten times how fast you actually buy your first one, and then you go on and buy the second and third. Soon, you’re like Stacy, who has all fifteen of them, which is awesome.

I always say, and I’m not ashamed of this, my first deal, I paid a wholesaler $100,000. This guy made $100,000 off me, which I am totally fine with, but at the same time, I wasn’t given an opportunity of all these deals to pick from. I never thought I’d buy a facility in Louisiana, but it definitely pencils. It works. It’s a great facility for us, but Louisiana wouldn’t be the first state that I would have picked. Again, I was fine with paying $100,000 because he gave me a good deal.

Stacy and I are doing this for you. The people who have power are the people who have the deals. I talk about this with Bob and a few other people here. You have the power. If you have a good off-market storage deal, and you bring it to someone on the table, you can actually carve off a little bit of that equity as John did. Go get some family and friends that have money and are in tech or doctors, and help leverage that, or partner with other people, even in the Storage Deal Room, to do those deals.

The people who hold power in this business are the ones who have the deals. Share on X

Even in education or university, I know a lot of new students. Eighteen-year-olds go out there and spend $30,000 to $50,000 on an education, and praying times four as a parent that they’re going to get a six-figure salary right out of the gate. Nothing is guaranteed, but it is the people you surround yourself with and the tenacity that you go out there and you do it. You find the people. Stacy and I are very open. A lot of people don’t share their pricing, but this is what the Storage Deal Room is worth. This is what the price is. Our regular price is $25,000. We are bringing on only five people as the co-founders.

For that, it is a $20,000 full twelve-month acquisition program where we bring you 3 to 5 good deals. You are the ones who get to say yes, no, and offer. The whole goal of this is not only buying one. It’s buying multiple. I want you guys to know if that is something that’s a goal of yours. Something that we put towards is in these twelve months, you’re going to go out there and buy not only one, but buy 2, 3, or 4, however you want to do it. It is $20,000. Pay in full, or you can do a payment plan, which is $10,000 up front. It’s four payments of $3,000.

You guys will be the co-founders. It is going to go up as we add value to the Storage Deal Room and as we continue to build it out, because we know that absolutely, there is a need. There is a fast action bonus for the first five people who apply. We already have two people in right now, but if you guys apply, you will receive these bonuses. It’s the $5,000 discount for the Storage Deal Room. Also, you’re going to get one one-on-one coaching session with Stacy and me. You’re going to get an additional bonus. You can use it whenever you want, as well as Stacy’s proven seller call sheet, in addition to our due diligence checklist.

This is a 48-hour bonus. Once we hit five students, we are going to cap it at that point because we want to make sure that we have a lot of good deals for you guys, especially because we’ve been doing this. We’ve been doing acquisitions for four months already. We have 21 or more deals in our pipeline right now that need offers. We’re like, “We either are going to need offers or are going to have to go buy them ourselves.” We have way more deals than we do buyers at this point. You guys are going to be set up very well.

Again, you guys can apply now. We don’t just take anyone. We want to make sure it is a good fit. We want to have a conversation with you. We will get you started on our acquisition. We have a four-week workshop where we will go over underwriting. We will go over the foundations, how you were going to work with your acquisition manager, and then how you’re going to work with us in negotiation. You can apply right here. We want to have a conversation with you.

We are being very selective of the five people who come into our program. Make sure to answer the questions and then check your email. We have a video. Book a call with us. You’re not going to a salesperson. You’re going to get us when we get on the call because we are putting this together. We’re partnering on this. We’re not only thrilled. We know that this is going to change the industry and how people buy their deals ten times faster.

We wanted to make sure you guys see that, yes, you are investing your $20,000, but it’s not a program that you’re going to be educated in. A lot of people are like, “You’re buying the courses.” No, you’re buying the courses. Plus, we are going to give you deals. We’re doing it for you, so that you are doing the grunt work out there of cold calling, getting owners to raise their hand, and helping you through the negotiation.

Every quarter, Stacy and I meet with you for an operation meeting to make sure that you’re doing what you say you’re going to do. It is because a lot of business owners bought in 2020, and they didn’t execute their business model. They’re screwed. A lot of these owners are selling because they did not do what they said they were going to do. Now, they are in a pinch. Stacy and I are going to bring those deals to you guys and negotiate them well.

Not only do you buy them well in the forefront, but you also structure it well so that it cash flows and also increases its value and price. Stacy and I are very big on action takers. There are two types of people. There’s a Talking Tom, and then there’s the person who actually does it. Someone talks about a big game, “I’ve been wanting to buy storage. It’s an awesome investment. I want to buy it,” but they haven’t done anything. We want to speed this process up.

We want to help you move the needle forward and find the right deal so that you can bring it to the table. Either partner with someone and bring the money in, or you can partner with one of the students that are like, “I’m a doctor. I have money. I want to invest and do this with someone on the team.” You can either waste months chasing overpriced on-market deals, which there are a lot of right now that are over 30% overpriced, or you can join the Storage Deal Room.

We can lock in your founder seats. We can get everything started for you and then start giving you 3 to 5 good deals every single week. All you have to do is say yes, no, or a number, come to the negotiation table, and then close that deal. We’ve got five seats for you. We’re beyond excited about this program. It’s only going to get bigger and better every single month that we’re doing it. We want to take action takers, the people that are like, “Yes, I’m ready to go,” and the believers that are like, “If I invest this money, I’m going to actually do it. I’m going to take those action steps and take advantage of not only us as two experts on a mission, but also our acquisitions teams.”

Our goal is for you to buy your first one and then go buy another one right after that. You guys apply here. You will look at an application. We read through all the applications. We meet you one-on-one to talk about any questions that you might have about this program, in-depth, and anything else that you might have some questions about. There are 48 hours that you guys can apply. We will take a lot of the calls. We are starting soon.

November 6th is the start date. We do want to get people onboarded. We want to make sure you have your 90-day blueprint. We’re going to start giving you guys deals right away and saying, “Bob, do you want this deal? Do you like this one? What do you need out of this? Is it a go, or is this a pass?” Getting good at saying yes, no, or an offer number is what we want to do for you guys. We’re going to open this up for questions right now.

You can apply right here. We want to have anything that has come up for you guys over this webinar. We wanted to not only show you some of these meat and potato nuggets, but we wanted to make sure that they’re actionable. Anything that you guys have questions about in self-storage? I know a lot of you here are either first-time buyers or have had a couple of questions on your back of your minds in this market. We’ll take them in a row if you want to raise your hand. This is live.

We want to talk with you, but I get it if you’re driving or in the middle of a couple of things. Not a problem, but definitely put your questions in. Stacy, Brian said, “When looking at a facility where there’s some land to grow on, how do you decide how to use the land, more units, RV storage, covered RV storage, and closed RV storage? How do you figure out your best return for the space?” It is a good question, Brian.

&A: Maximizing Land Use & Market Analysis

I went over that in my session, which was competitive analysis. You do what’s called a feasibility study. The feasibility study is going to show you what you should be doing with your property. Also, are the prices correct on the units? What’s your opportunity? That’s why it’s called a feasibility study. It’s a competitive analysis. You’re looking at what everybody in the area is doing and what is needed in the area. From there, you decide. You don’t want to guess. There are a lot of people. I’m going to tell you. There are a lot of storage owners. They guess. It is what they do. They screw themselves over. You don’t want to be that person. You want to be looking at the best opportunity in the area. That’s a competitive analysis.

 

We do that for you. We are secret shopping in a five-mile radius, as Stacy showed. We actually have our acquisition manager call. We’ll call a lot of these facilities in that 5-mile radius. Either you can use Radius+, StorTrack, or any of these other data aggregators to figure out what that average rate looks like. We share that with you with your offer. You don’t have to guess. You can see what the market can bear. I’ve seen in some markets, Brian, we put in 67 RV. It was RV and boat parking straight away, within the first six weeks, on one of our facilities.

We uncovered. We learned in that area that people wanted covered RV storage. This was a long time ago, but looking at it from a different perspective, that is why it’s so important to do. That’s why I am very bullish on a market supply and demand matrix. You learn how to do this. We do it for you. My always thoughts are, “What is the area you need and the price per square foot?” RVs and boats are great, but you are taking up more space. Does your area need more climate control? Climate-controlled is a higher price per square footage in that market. Is there a big demand for RVs and boats? If there is, what is the best one for your business? Do your business plan, and then you do that. It is a good question.

Tamara said, “What could the self-storage transform into if they are in desert areas that are not making any income?” What you’re trying to say is that if there’s land, like in Arizona. What a lot of people are doing is back in the day, storage actually used to be land banks. People would come in, buy certain land, and wait for it to become the highlight. Stacy’s facilities in Georgia used to be on the outskirts. Now, they’re in the center. A lot of people will build storage facilities in phases.

What they’ll do, and we’ve seen a couple in our acquisition pipeline and funnel for our students, is they’ll build 10,000 square feet. They’ll wait maybe two or three years. They’ll fill it up, and then they go do it again based on the demand. They’ve built out maybe four of these buildings. They have some other space in addition to that in order to make an income, so that maybe you are testing it out and not maybe overspending, if that’s something that is not in your ability to do.

It comes back to the competitive analysis. She’s asking what you can do with these if we’re having a hard time getting leased up. There’s a lot of vacancy, maybe, or something like this. The truth is that the way the storage industry works has made the best marketer win. When you’re running a facility, you have to understand how to manage it properly. This is one thing that a lot of owners do not understand, and this is why they sell.

If you’re having trouble getting your facilities leased up, then you need to learn how to actually market those units properly. It’s a lot of price. Is it location, or is it what type of marketing that you’re doing? This is something that we talk about a lot in the Storage Deal Room. If you do decide to apply, you will get access to the Facility Owner Mastermind, too, which is where we talk about the management stuff. I had my Owner Mastermind. We were talking about AI and how AI is used inside storage facilities.

Once you get in, you’re going to have the Storage Deal Room, but you’re also going to have the academy and the self-storage school. You can start learning how to do this properly. Once you buy the facility, you make your money from how you manage it. If somebody is vacant, or they’re having a hard time getting the income that they’re supposed to be getting, ultimately, that’s because they are not managing their properties well. You should be running at an 80% to 90% occupancy rate. If you’re not doing that, then there’s something going on that you have to figure out. That’s basically what running them, the management, or the operational part of the program is about.

Stacy nailed it. I always feel very grateful to be in the storage asset class because we are in the business of renting space. A lot of people talk about laundromats, wanting to own car washes, wanting to buy a Menchie’s ice cream franchise, or anything like that. What we like to say is that, going through this new AI revolution, we are reverse-engineering. We’re buying an asset class that has no toilets, no tenants, no employees, and equals less issues. I want to focus on no employees. We’re having a hard problem finding good people, qualified candidates.

 

I have a friend who owns an RV dealership. She is selling RVs. She’s like, “I have such a hard time getting people to show up.” There are these employee issues. With storage, we don’t even need someone on site. We have remote management operations. In Stacy’s owner meeting, they talked a lot about AI and how we can use AI to reduce our expenses, increase our revenue, increase our customer service, and still have a human approach to it, always.

The biggest piece to this is that we only need boots on the ground and a call center. We have the ability to do that, and also cashflow. This is going to be a big play. There are a lot of mom-and–pop owners. Stacy and I talked to another gentleman. This is actually probably a good one for Ann. He’s in Washington. He built this facility. His family owned the property. He’s only 30% full. When I had a conversation on Zoom with him, he had an engineering calculator that had paper in the background. He would come into the office. He would sit there. He did everything himself. It was a beautiful facility.

He did not have a great website. He was not marketing. He was not increasing prices accordingly, as he filled up. Therefore, he was going to have a hard time. He’s bleeding money. This is a perfect opportunity for someone to come in. We’re going to put some offers on the table, take over, and buy a beautiful new facility that we can fill up with operations. I wanted to share with you some things that I’m excited about because I want to manage my facilities from my home or wherever I am in the world.

My goal is to reverse engineer. I want to own fifteen facilities in 3 to 5 years and still have time freedom. Even though I’m scaling, I want to scale responsibly, so that you’re still cashflowing, and you’re not increasing your work. Stacy works 1 to 2 hours a week on a Tuesday. That is the goal. It is to do that from anywhere in the world to have more time to go do what you want, when you want, with who you want, and still have a good cashflowing business in the background that is running fluently. It is without having to depend on a lot of these other resources that are going to become harder sometimes to come by.

Lots of positives for storage, especially as we drop into this AI industry or market as we explode into this next stage. It’s buy time. The urgency is that people are coming in. Banks are finding out that storage did well in 2008 and is doing pretty well right now. As people start to combine these facilities, this is the opportunity to come in and buy a facility that doesn’t have a website, or one that isn’t working well. That is going to be the juice. Bob had a question. I want Stacy to answer this because it’s a good question. He said, “I’m far more focused on cashflow versus appreciation. Is that a good strategy?”

Yes. That’s the answer, Bob. Honestly, nobody on this call has the same parameters as anybody else on what they want to get out of storage. If you want cashflow, great. Look at the facilities that offer cashflow. I would say for the most part, the way the industry is moving is that from 2015 to 2020, there were a lot of mismanaged facilities. There were a lot of mom-and-pop. A lot of owners had built stores. It wasn’t a big thing and stuff. That’s where you get this appreciation versus cashflow.

From 2020 on, everybody was buying all these facilities. What’s happening now is that people have bought the facilities. They’ve managed them to the point that they’re maybe 50%, 60%, or 70% full, or something like that, but they can’t quite get it to 90% full. What you’ll see for cash-flowing properties is that you’ll see there is some opportunity in trying to get the facility as filled up as you possibly can, but then, as a cashflowing person, you’re going to have to look at the competitors and see what the competitors are doing.

You have to be better than the competitors at managing the facility. That’s walking a fine line between how much money do I put in the marketing? How much money do I increase or decrease the prices by? Where are we at in the economy right now? Where are we at in the real estate market? All these factors play into the management of the property properly. You can do either way, cashflowing or appreciation.

Personally, all my fifteen facilities are appreciating. They started as mismanaged facilities. We stabilized them and doubled or tripled the value of the property, but we were coming out of pocket. We were managing them by doing a lot of stuff to do with CapEx and things like that. That’s the way I do it, but a lot of people buy facilities for cashflow. There’s every type of facility out there. We see every type of facility out there. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. What is the best way that fits your goals? All you have to do is tell us what that is. We will help you define that. That’s all you have to do.

One more thing, to add to Bob’s thing, and maybe a question here, is that the whole goal with Storage Deal Room is to give you good deals, but also to help you structure it correctly. When I bought my first facility, it wasn’t structured correctly. What that means is you get the opportunity. If you want to go with cash flow, maybe you can tell us that, or if you want appreciation. An example of this is a seller financing deal that we did in Aiken, South Carolina.

It was 45,000 square feet. The owner, no matter how we put offers in front of him, wanted $3 million. Was it worth $2.7 million? Yes, absolutely. We bought it for $3 million. He was okay with 0% interest. This is a $3 million seller financing purchase, which reduces your risk. You’re not taking money out with the bank. The owner is the bank. It has a 0% interest. The reason he was willing to do this was because he wanted his $3 million price.

This was a ten-year balloon. This is a perfect example of a cashflowing king property because guess how much his loan was on the store? A 40,000 square foot facility was $6,600. That was it. This thing with cashflow, $10,000 to $12,000 a month times twelve, so you guys can do the math, over $120,000 a year. It was a high-cashflowing property because you paid a little bit more for it. That is the structure of why we are very bullish on getting seller financing deals out, so you can structure it correctly.

One more thing, because I love educating, is another deal that we told our student not to do. This guy wanted a $1.9 million facility deal. It was only worth $1.7 million. The interest rate on what he wanted was 6% through seller financing. You’re overpaying for it. It’s not going to cashflow. It’s not worth it. I’d rather put my money in a high-yield savings account that makes 5% or 6% based on that. We said, “Don’t do it. Don’t budge your offer.” That’s the power of having some experts in your corner.

You’re going to let us know. Do you want cashflow or appreciation? What do you want on these deal fronts so that we can show you some of these better deals? We’re not brokers that get paid on that commission. We want to actually help you cross the finish line because that is what the Storage Deal Room is set up like. I hope that helps. Stacy and I have to jump to another call because we’re already late on this. I hope this was helpful.

We want to help you buy your first, your second, and your third storage facility and make it more accessible for you guys. Make sure to apply. If you apply in the next 48 hours, you get that bonus tacked into it as well as being a co-founder. We are beyond thrilled to start. We already have 21 storage deals in the container ready to go. We’re waiting for buyers. It is buy time. It’s go time while people put their pencils down during Christmastime and the holidays.

I’m getting calls right and left, people saying, “I made too much money this year. I’ve got $250,000 that I need to spend to offset X.” There’s a lot of opportunity on the table to take advantage of before we even start to get into 2026. Don’t wait. Be an action taker and take advantage of those opportunities. Have a wonderful rest of your day. We look forward to looking at the applications. We will talk with you guys later. Have a great day. Bye. See you.

 

Important Links

• Stacy Rossetti’s Website
• Storage Deal Room
• Bree Hartman’s Website
• Ms. Lillian’s Self-Storage
• Find Them Fund Them Run Them
• Regrid
• Self-Storage Facility Owner Mastermind – StorageNerds
• StorageNerds Academy

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FTC DISCLOSURE: Any income claims shared by my students, friends, or clients are understood to be true and accurate, but are not verified in any way. Any products, programs, or personal recommendations made in this or any email communication from Stacy Rossetti for 3rd parties will likely result in some form of compensation from said 3rd party. Always do your own due diligence and use your own judgment when making buying decisions and investments in your business.