Ready to be inspired? Join us for this week’s Student Showcase, where we chat with self-storage rockstar Matt Glass. This young entrepreneur has done the unthinkable. He acquired six self-storage facilities in just three years! Matt will stun you with his secret, so what are you waiting for? Don’t miss this episode, and tune in now! Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just starting, this podcast is packed with actionable insights you can apply to your self-storage journey.

Get ready to dive deep as Matt reveals the secrets to his success, including:

• The unique strategy he used to identify and acquire profitable facilities.
• The financing hacks he employed to overcome limited capital.
• The key management practices that keep his facilities running smoothly.
• The biggest lessons he’s learned along the way.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Student Showcase: How This Self-Storage Rockstar Bought Six Facilities In Three Years With Matt Glass

Matt is one of my students, and that guy buys a ridiculous amount of storage facilities. I want him to come onto the show and talk to everybody. Do you have everything already? Let me add you as a host. Come on and introduce yourself to everybody. I’ll do my other stuff next episode. It’s fine. This is Matt. He has been in Storage Nerds for several years now. He’s bought a lot of storage facilities. He has gone through the whole process of getting out there and talking to owners. He’s grassroots in the way that I teach. I asked him to come on and talk about his deals and how he did it. You’re going to go over all of them.

I was on your show a few years ago, but we’ve progressed since then. We picked up some more facilities and have done a variety of purchasing styles. We’ve done cash, owner financing, traditional bank, and SBA. I can talk a little bit about those different things.

Let’s do one at a time. Do you have a picture of each facility that you could share when you’re talking about it?

I don’t, but I can give you our website.

Can you share your website? We need some visuals, something like your website. I want to hear about the stuff that you got all started. Let’s start from the beginning. Do you have all your facilities on your website now?

All six of them are on there.

Let me see that. Everybody else can go to your website. They can check it out. Which facility do you want to start with? Let’s start with whatever you want to start with.

We’ll start with the first one we got. The first one we purchased was in 2020 of July. We are Southeast Tennessee-based. My wife has a traditional W-2 job. We have two boys. We’ve been living overseas for the last several years. We bought three of the facilities that we purchased while we were living abroad. I wanted to come on and let you guys know that you don’t have to live close to your facility. You don’t have to live close to the one you’re trying to buy.

A good boots-on-the-ground person and some connections with a local bank are helpful in making that process take place. The first one we bought was in Benton, Tennessee. It’s small. My wife and I went back and forth and debated on purchasing it or not, but we came down to the decision of, “Let’s go ahead, purchase it, and use it to learn how to run a self-storage book.

Talk about when you’re doing all your different facilities.

I had never done storage before.

When you’re talking about your facilities, talk about how you found them. How did you run deal analysis? How did you fund it? How are you managing it?

The first one is Benton, Tennessee. As far as finding it, it’s in my in-law’s hometown. I drove by it multiple times. It’s a small facility, 26 units. I drove by it over and over again. As far as funding it, that was a cash purchase. We had some money available. We wanted to go ahead and make that purchase and learn how to run facilities without having to worry about making a monthly payment. That facility’s done well for us. It’s never dipped below 90% occupancy. It’s got 5 by 10s, 10 by 10s, and 10 by 20s.

 

As far as management, while we were living overseas, my father-in-law was my boots-on-the-ground manager. It is a simple facility to run. We have no utilities at that site. We have no debt service on that property. We have three bills. We have boots on the ground, annual property taxes, and annual insurance. Other than that, it runs itself.

It’s located in the heart of this little town. It doesn’t get a large car count, but it’s close to what people are on their way to and from. It’s right behind the post office. If you go to the post office, you can see us from the post office. That’s the first one that we bought. You can keep going, Stacy. Do you want to ask anything about that?

Talk about how you managed this on your own, and you didn’t get software. Now, you have everything. You did that now, but how did you manage this?

It was managed through Google Spreadsheets. We have transitioned away from that. We have 5 small facilities and 1 slightly larger facility. We use storage for our larger facility. We’re transitioning into the Unit Trac for our five smaller facilities because the price structure for the Unit Trac was better for us to put them on our property manager software. We set up PayPal with it through the virtual terminal with PayPal. I wrote all the letters, texted, and made phone calls.

With 26 units, it was not taking up too much time. I knew this area. I was born not far from here. I had an idea of how to be a good manager. Because of short-term rentals, I came from some level of customer service and how to deal with folks. I have found that storage is a bit easier as far as that goes. There are some short-term rental markets where folks are easy to deal with. There are some short-term rental markets where your guests can be a bit more challenging.

Self-storage is a bit easier as far as that goes. There are some short-term rental markets where folks are pretty easy to deal with. Click To Tweet

We’re in the Smoky Mountains. It’s extremely competitive. Some of our competitive advantage in the Smoky Mountains is dwindling away. We started exploring the idea of getting into self-storage. We purchased this one when COVID was going on. Thankfully, short-term rentals did good for us during COVID, but it did scare us a bit to the point that we said, “If all of our real estate is in short-term rental and something like COVID takes place, what are we going to do? What’s our backup plan?” We shifted over and jumped on storage quite a bit. We managed that one from a spreadsheet, PayPal, and a boots-on-the-ground manager. Anytime I came back to the US from overseas, I went to the facility, worked on it, and did this stuff, but I had connections in the area. That’s how we run that one.

What do you charge your boots on the ground person? How often do they come out?

It’s my father-in-law. We have more of an equity set up in this one than paying. If I were paying boots on the ground for this facility, I would pay approximately $50 a month in the winter and $75 a month during the summer. That’s simply for the grass. In this picture, we didn’t have our gravel down. We’ve done one capital CapEx investment since we purchased it. That’s why we put fresh gravel down. The building and the doors were taken care of. We’ve had to replace no doors. The roof is in good condition. It’s 26 units. You’re not making your house payment off this facility. However, it taught us how to do self-storage and how to get in there.

As far as finding it, this is a drive-by situation. As Stacy talks about the time driving for storage, this happened to be in our backyard. Statistically, this community is overbuilt. However, every facility in the community is full. We took the risk and went for it. Ironically, we do not have the nicest facility in this area. Our prices are probably at or above what the nice store facility is in this area because we are paying attention to the pricing. Every time we had to move out, we drove pricing up until folks got until someone said, “We don’t like this.” We were able to get the pricing up to where we wanted to be. We’ve done two rent raises since we purchased it and have not lost any tenants because of rent raises.

You have it here because people are asking about the Unit Trac. Everything is backed by Unit Trac, which is this newer software that came out.

It’s been out for a while in the last couple of years of me searching for facilities. Every once in a while, you’ll come up on one on Google. You’ll click on the website. It will come up. They all looked exactly the same. Once I started getting into it and we added more facilities, I realized I needed some better property management software than what I have right now because we didn’t have any property management software on our five small facilities.

Unit Trac charges you per unit. It’s a small fee, comparatively speaking. It’s more cost-effective for us on that one, for our small facilities. You still have reports. You can still run an analysis. You can still do those types of things in Unit Trac. It’s a competitor storage, but they’re not necessarily trying to get the same people that storage is.

 

There are some people out there that have large facilities. When I say large, I mean not the REITs large, but 100 units that use Unit Trac. A lot of the people that 100 units have more use storage and all their subsidiaries, whereas in Unit Trac, I’m transitioning to it now. They’ve been good. Their customer service is solid, but I don’t know as much about Unit Trac yet as I do storage. We have a facility down in Florida, and that’s the one that’s on the storage property management software. It’s about 175 units.

How does it work on your website? If you go to that one location that has storage, it takes you there, but on the other, these buttons will take you to the Unit Trac.

It should. I don’t speak the language, but the guy was good with getting stuff built into where they can rent a unit from our landing page here inside Unit Trac. There’s a track that way. Nicole has been my onboarding person. Their customer service team has been solid so far. I recommend it for small facilities.

Is it cheaper?

Yeah, it’s cheaper. It’s not significantly cheaper than storage, but it’s cheaper enough to make it worth doing it that way.

What’s your next facility?

The next one we purchased was about 3 or 4 miles from this location. This area is built well, but ironically, it’s a strange situation. We have this facility here. I knew a guy who was building a facility three miles away. He had a better location than me. He put in 18 units and 7 covered parking spots. I started contacting him. I say, “Let me buy this from you.” At that point, the other facility there in Tennessee was killing it, doing well, staying full, and driving up rents.

He kept saying no. Eventually, our facility was full. He wasn’t on Google. If you drove by, it’s the only way you could find this place. Every time someone called me, I started sending them over to him. The next thing you know, we had his facility up to 13 or 14 of the 18 rented, and multiple of the parking spots were rented. He finally got back to me several months after we started talking and said, “I like building the facility, but I don’t like running the facility.” Let’s work out a deal. We were able to own or finance the purchase of that one because of the way he had built the facility.

Which one is that?

It‘s on Ocoee. The first building is in 2021. We purchased that one using owner financing. If you’ve done this before, you realize you have raised your price and interest. You go back and forth until you both are more happy with the plan. We have a ten-year agreement on this property. It’s three acres, which is not a lot of land, but for this location, it’s a good amount of land. It’s right on a main highway going through here. We purchased this facility as I was filling it up. In May 2023, we doubled the size of this facility by putting 22 more units on here. Now, we have 40 units and parking in this location.

 

Are they concrete blocks?

The first building is a concrete block. He built it himself. He’s a construction mechanic-style dude. The new building that we put on is a group, Stacy Mueller. Mueller did the other building for us. They match color scheme-wise, but they don’t match.

It looks like they match.

They match color-wise. One is black, and one is the metal kit. We added 22 units, and we were able to fill it up in several months. We’re sitting at 90. We have one empty unit there as far as units go. We have one empty parking spot. There are approximately 50 units there. We have 48 of them full at this time.

How do you figure out what pricing you’re doing? 10 by 20 is $165. That seems high.

10 by 20s are sought after. People want those here in this location. Most of the time, we’ll land about $135 on those. If someone wants to pay $165, I’m not going to tell them no.

It’s like when they’re calling up, you’re saying, “We’ll give you a discounted rate.” Is that what you’re saying?

We do offer discounted rates for nurses, teachers, military personnel, and first responders. That’s a 10% across-the-board for anyone. That’s on our landing page up there. That one worked out well for us and our Florida location because there are a lot of retired veterans in Florida at that location. This is the Ocoee one. It’s been good for us. This will be our plan. This is a long-term hold for us.

For the Benton facility, we constantly have people interested in buying it. The only reason we haven’t sold it yet is that we completed a 1031 several months ago. I was trying to catch my breath after doing a 1031. The next time we get a great offer on that Benton facility, we’ll sell that one in 1031 into something larger.

These are four miles apart. The management is the same. My father-in-law is the boots on the ground. Google spreadsheet and PayPal are how this one has been done. Because the buildings are new, they’ve needed zero attention as far as maintenance. We’ve done some gravel. That’s about it. We’ve added some uncovered parking spots where we have a couple of semis parked. It’s been good. The location is great. This area is not growing fast. If anybody there’s ever done the Ocoee River, the whitewater rafting, this is on the road up to the Ocoee River. That gives you an idea of where we’re looking at.

Do you guys get a lot of parking?

Yeah, we do, pontoon boats, RVs, and campers. We have all three of those there. We even have a couple of semis. A few people have built RV parks because of the outdoor life here and the kayaking, all that stuff. Those RV parks limit how many vehicles you can have at your site. We’ve done some personal car parking for $40 a month. You need to park your car here. It’s 3 or 2 miles from the campground. There’s a good camping. There’s a lake, 3 or 4 miles from here. We’ve got some boats, RVs, and covered parking here.

Eric is asking, “What’s the cost that you paid to build and the process?

For the building portion, we used Mueller. I don’t remember the price per square foot on top of my head. When you use one of those, you’re buying their package. The ground was already level and flat. We did the concrete pad to put down. We used Mueller. We hired a contractor to come in and put the building together. Mueller’s price was good for putting the building together, but we were going to have to wait longer because they were further booking too far out. We found a guy in North Alabama to come up that my father-in-law knew. They put together the building in 48 hours.

I saw a fencer gate. That’s a funny conversation and debate that happens with owners. Of our six facilities, we have one that is fenced. The other five are not fenced. We’ve gone back and forth on fencing this property. The way this property is set up on both sides of the property, on the east and the west sides, there are some natural barriers. The south side of the front side of the property faces the highway. We’re going to put up a fence or a gate across the front.

It has these big dips that you can’t access by vehicle. You can walk up to it. Thankfully, we have not had issues. We haven’t had many issues. If you own a facility, you’re going to have someone try to break into a unit. That’s what happens. They get mad at their spouse, they think they know something that’s in this, or they’re out for mischief. These types of things happen. We work hard on having a good relationship with the local law enforcement sheriff’s office here. They’re making rounds through our facilities here in this county on a regular basis. That presence helps us maintain a good, secure spot. That answers that fencing gate question.

Do you have cameras?

We do not.

No fence, no gate, no cameras.

We have the ability to install cameras there, but we haven’t finalized that part yet. For the other one there in Tennessee, where it’s located, it’s not necessary. We have the ability, and we can do that. Stacy, you talk about this a lot. When you put a gate in, you think you’re saving yourself, but sometimes you’re creating more work for yourself and for your boots-on-the-ground people. To me, it’s an as-needed basis. It’s not needed for us. We haven’t done that.

When you put a gate in, you think you're saving yourself, but sometimes you're just creating more work for yourself and your boots-on-the-ground people. Click To Tweet

On these smaller properties, you have to say, “What’s the ROI going to be? How long does it take to pay off this gate?”

You’re dead on with that because when we first bought it, I was like, “Let’s get a quote to fence it.” You get the quote back and say, “That’s the entire return on investment. There’s zero chance. That’s not going to work. We’re out. We’re not going to do it.”

You’re doing fine. The next investment would be cameras. Cameras are not that expensive anymore. If somebody’s paying $165 a month for a 10 by 20, they don’t care about a fence, gate, or cameras.

The next one is the largest that we own. It’s in Frostproof, Florida. It’s in the middle of the state. If you haven’t been to Florida, you haven’t been here. I have family connections in the area. I knew this area already. This one was found through email and mailer. I did a brief period where I sent some actual paper mail. I did the work myself and sent it out to about 30 facilities that I thought had good potential for us. It was followed by an email.

Long story short, this is an SVA purchase. We made this purchase in March of ‘22. We were overseas. I do not remember when we closed on this one. It’s 160 ish units, give or take 5 by 5, 5 by 10, 10 by 10, and 10 by 20. My experience with SBA was that it took a long time. We had a patient seller, which made this work. When you have everything that they need from the seller and buyer, the SBA process. It worked for us because of how much money we were able to put down. With an inpatient seller, they would’ve walked on us, but they didn’t. They stuck through it. In the meantime, it worked out.

How long did it take for you?

It was at least six months.

They say they could do it in 60 days, but it takes six months.

There are some instances where it’s possible to do it in 60 days. I don’t believe an SBA in 60 days. I can’t say that it can’t be done, but it seems unlikely that it could be done in 60 days with how much is needed, necessary, and the demands of all the needs, the wants, and all the things that take place. It’d be tough to do that.

Did you have to sign 200 pages of documents at closing?

I don’t remember how many pages we signed. We did a virtual close because we were overseas at the time. It was a lot. There was no minimum amount. It was a lot of paperwork.

SBA is a variable-rate loan. How is that going with you now?

We had three years. We’re not to the three-year mark yet. The three-year mark is when we’ll know. Live Oak Bank has done our loan for us. They’re awesome. I recommend them. Their customer service is awesome. Not just through the buying process, but even through this ownership process, they’ve continued to take good care of us. I’m a big fan of Live Oak. They worked with us living abroad. If you have to go the SBA route or want to go the SBA route, give them a shout and chance, and let them go with it and make an offer for you.

The only thing with Live Oak is their minimum is $500,000 or $600,000.

It was $500,000 at this time. This facility was off-market. Everything we’ve purchased so far has been off-market. I have found all of them on my own. It exceeded the $500,000 minimum threshold at this time. We were able to use them for it.

Ask what the minimum is, and Live Oak is not the only bank that does SBA.

We talked to other 3 or 4 other folks, but we trusted the track record that Live Oak had. Stacy’s got her contact stuff in there. We gave him a run. He couldn’t find anyone that was going to beat Live Oak at the time. That’s why we went with him.

Since you did this one with an SBA loan, would you do another SBA loan?

Yeah, I would. Once you’ve done one with a bank and they see your payment history, I feel like it’s going to make it better. We’re self-funded. We don’t have partners. We’ve used our capital, piecemealed together, and borrowed from our own accounts to make these purchases. If you want to purchase a $1 million facility and you’re a normal person, it’s hard to come up with a down payment. SBA loans make that more manageable.

If you want to purchase a million-dollar facility and it's hard to come up with a down payment. SBA Loans make that more manageable. Click To Tweet

At the beginning, I remember they said 10%. Before, they were like, “No, we need 15%.”

They stuck to 10%. We got in at 10%. It felt like that because of the fees. There’s a good amount of fees involved in that. It might come down to where it feels like the fees are like that.

That’s one thing with SBA. There are a lot of fees.

When you consider the fees, that’s significantly less than an additional 10% to 15% down. This facility’s been good to us. We use storage property management software for this one. For the boots on the ground, we’ve had to go through 2 or 3 of them. I couldn’t rely on my father-in-law to take care of this one for me. The lady I have now is fantastic. I split my boots on the ground between two people. One guy is a handyman and grass, and this other lady is the face reaching out and meeting people there on occasion and doing that work. Both of them are awesome, especially her. We sent her a Christmas gift. She’s a good person. She lives close by. Her family helps her with it.

How did you see her?

I found her on a Facebook post. She ended up becoming a tenant because they were remodeling their house. She needed a unit. What do I pay for that one boots on the ground? For this, I’m all in at $400 a month in the summertime because of grass. I spend more money in the summer than I do in the winter because if they’re not cutting grass, there’s nothing for them to do. The grass is going to be much more, especially in Florida and the rain. They need more attention in the summertime.

If someone asks about it, it’s a flat rate per month. I feel like I’m taking care of them better if it’s a flat rate. I’m cautious not to nitpick and beg my people to do stuff. There are not that many emergencies in self-storage. What I do is say, “Next time you go, can you do X, Y, Z?” I send 2 or 3 items that, based on looking at my software or communication I’ve had with tenants. I’m realizing, “Can you take care of these couple of things when you go?” That’s how it works.

You got this one now going.

We shifted over to a 1031 exchange that we did here in 2023. We had a cabin in the Smokies. It was the right time to sell that one. We sold that in April or May 2023. We 1031 into a short-term rental here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the three self-storage facilities that you see are left over. We have two in Arkansas and one in Calhoun, Tennessee.

Which one are you first?

We’ll do Calhoun, Tennessee, first because it’s right here. Calhoun, Tennessee, is another. This is a bank. How did I find it? I did Google research, drove by it, and started courting the seller while I lived overseas. We went back and forth for a long time. We finally reached an agreement for me to keep everyone. Every three months, I’ll send them a text and give them a call. I was like, “Are you ready to sell yet?” They were like, “No, not yet.” Finally, he said, “I will sell.” I said, “Good, because I’m in the middle of 1031, I need to make this purchase.” This is a weird facility in the sense that it’s tiered. It’s multi-level. It has some strange sizes. It’s got 5 by 12 and 10 by 30s.

Is it on a hill? We have one of these.

It’s tiered on a hill. It’s got over under-storage. It’s got a 12 by 40 spot into it. I don’t even have that one ready yet. He’s trying to find someone who wants to put something large in there. That one is sitting. It does not have anything in it right now.

Do you have your units on the Facebook Marketplace?

I do not.

You should try a Facebook Marketplace and put that 12 by 40 on there. ‘We have all our units on Facebook marketplace. We get a lot of people that are like, “We’re a business working for a bigger space.”

In the past, I’ve gone to the Facebook Marketplace and sent inquiries about buying a facility if they’re posting there. Most of the people that are taking the time to do that are running the facility well. They’re not mismanaged. They’re most likely not trying to sell. In Calhoun, we got a good price for it. The appraisal came back over what we paid for it. We used a local bank here to purchase it. I’ve been in contact with the other facilities in the area. I don’t have any 10 by 10s here. If someone calls me for 10 by 10, I’ll try to refer them over to the other group. If nothing and I have matches, I ask them to send me their 5 by 12s because I have a couple of 5 by 12s open at this facility.

It’s concrete build. It’s been a little slower filling up because of the time that we purchased it. The three that we bought before this, whatever I had open, filled up. I still have two empty units of the 28. The tenants that I’ve had here, we’ve transitioned well over into taking over. They are paying on time. The guy that was there before would collect cash, go to their house, and do all that stuff. I’m somewhere in the middle of all technology and face-to-face contact. We’ve worked out a plan where these folks can still pay us in a way that they feel comfortable with. That doesn’t take too much of our time and energy.

Work out a plan where these folks can still pay us in a way that they feel comfortable and doesn't take too much of our time and energy. Click To Tweet

How close to the other two Tennessee ones are they?

Fifteen minutes and twenty minutes. It’s a different county. Ironically, I’m the boots-on-the-ground manager for this one because my father-in-law will help me with it. If I visit them, I’ll run up to the facility real quick. I went up to their house to watch a football game. I ran up there to put up a new sign that said, “Call us for our moving specials.” I’ll do some of that myself on that one.

Is it on Unit Trac or Storage?

It will be on Unit Trac.

What do you decide goes on Storage or Unit Trac?

The only thing on Storage is the Frostproof facility. If it’s under 50 units, I’m going to have it on Unit Trac.

Scranton and Amity is what we have now. Which one do you want to do?

Amity is good. I don’t have any family in Arkansas. I have no ties to Arkansas. If you’ve done a 1031 before, you realize that sometimes you take good deals, even if they’re not great. The three facilities that we purchased, the two Arkansas ones, are good deals. I don’t consider them great deals yet. We can build them up to great deals. They’re cashflowing assets. All we can do is cashflow. The photos on here are Scranton pictures on the Amity page. He and I have been talking about getting that updated.

On your 1031, how much money did you make on that that you had to go out and buy three facilities? How much were you trying to spend?

It was around $289,000 or $300,000.

You bought three facilities with $300,000.

We don’t own them out.

That’s what I’m saying. It was like you took that and split it into three deals plus the townhouse.

The cabin was great for us, but it was a twenty-year-old cabin. It needs this new air conditioner, roof, and updates. We’re like, “We’re not going to make any money at all in 2023 or 2024 on this cabin.” If you visited the Smokies or you ever looked at the Smokies, the house has cost more than they probably should there. We made a decision to jump on top of that and transition to self-storage. Amity is similar to the Ocoee property in the sense that the guy who I bought it from. It’s got four buildings. It’s 40 units. It’s ten 10 by 10s and 30 10 by 20s.

It’s a tertiary market. The guy that I bought it from was the builder, more or less himself. He said, “I like to build this thing, but I don’t like having to run this thing.” That’s where I was like, “I’ll buy this one from you.” It’s had zero maintenance since we purchased it. There have been a couple of move-outs at this facility since then, but it has nothing to do with us.

These things are turned over. There are ins and outs. We’ve had some move-outs working with guys to make sure that we’re advertising. We’re not paying for advertisements. We’re making sure that we’re hitting the Googles well there in Amity to make sure that we’re found and reachable. I’ve been on-site at this facility. I’m going in December and early January 2024. The guy who sold it to us has been good. It’s been an easy transition. He put the sign up for me. When I purchased it, I purchased a sign and mailed it to his house. He went up and put it on top of his billboard. He’s a good seller.

I love owners like that. I can tell you the owners of tertiary markets are nice.

That’s been my experience.

Was this full or not full? Is it mismanaged? What was the vacancy on it?

It was 40 units when we purchased it. The owner had a couple of units. There were five vacant when we purchased it. We’re at six vacant because we had two and one move in. The owner is scaling down his stuff because he doesn’t want to pay this to work. It’s not his anymore. We’re going to have one more move out from one of his units soon. People like the big units here. The location is on a decent road in town.

What are you doing for marketing for this and all your facilities? Are you doing Google ads? Are you barefoot or putting a sign-up?

We’re doing sign-up. We’re making sure that you get reviews on Google.

Your Google Business listing is good. I would suggest the Facebook Marketplace.

That’s a good thought, especially in the tertiary markets I’m in. People are on Facebook a lot. Our target we’re trying to hit is going to be on there. That’s a good idea. I’ll get that. Until this one, I’ve never had a facility with five 50 units. We’ve been fortunate and blessed not to have to do advertisements and not have to try. We had Google reviews and bought in markets where storage was still necessary and people needed it. We picked up the phone when they called and moved them in the same day. Once you do that, you’re ahead of the curve and a lot of these locations that I’m in.

What about the Frostproof one? That’s a big facility. Do you have a lot of vacancies there? Is that all filled?

Physically, it’s 100%. Economic is about 85%.

Our Florida ones are rocking and rolling.

The Frostproof facility has around 150 doors. Give or take, it’s 156. We have some parking down there. It’s right around that range.

What’s the square footage?

It’s 19,200. That one is fenced in, and it’s 2.8 acres. If you want to add a couple more units, we have the ability to do so.

You all should have units there for sure.

Let me clean up the gap between physical and economic occupancy. Building in Florida is more complicated than building in other places. In Tennessee, you go down there and say, “I’m going to put up a unit.” They’re like, “All right.” You get a piece of paper that says you can add a new store facility to your location. That’s about the extent of it.

In Florida, I’ve done enough research to realize it’s going to be a bit more challenging than that. It’s one of those that will come and happen. This hasn’t happened yet. My goal will be to have that happen before the three-year mark on the SBA loan. The Florida facility is large enough that we get a call a week from someone. All those folks are trying to call and make a buy or bid on trying to get it. That one is big enough for people to be interested in purchasing it.

How did you find this Amity one? I missed that.

All is on Google Maps. Growing up in the Southeast, I had never been to Arkansas. I didn’t know anything about it. I found this one. Two hours away is the other one. The other one is in Scranton, Arkansas. The Amity purchase was a bank loan with four banks in town. I had a couple of conversations with them. One guy came back to point a quarter below the other one. I said, “Unless I’m missing something here, you’re going to win this.”

He’s been good to work with. I haven’t met him in person yet. It was done through phone calls with him. I go back out to Arkansas. I’ll go out there, meet him, and put a face with a name. I do not have connections in town. He has to make some of these phone calls and see what’s an option and how that bank is feeling about storage. One was over 9% with his interest rate, and the other was in the high 7%. It feels like a big gap. That bank and seller have been good.

Were you like, “Let me call all the local banks in the area and see what they say?”

When I went out to Arkansas to do my due diligence, I met the owner of the Amity one. He was born and raised in Amity. I asked him, “Who do you use?” This guy is a hustler, buyer, or seller. He’s got real estate all over town. He said, “Here’s the two banks that I like.” I called both of them. I added one more to make sure. One of the leads that he gave me was the one that won our business. Their customer service has been good. They treated us well. Be good to them, and they’ll be good to you. You can get away with that in some of these markets.

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Before we move on, Eric is asking about your boots on the ground for this one.

It’s between 50 and 75 a month. In the wintertime, it goes by once a week, drives through the facility, and puts a lock on. We have a four-code padlock system. When they move in, they receive the code for the lock. It’s not even a digital code. It’s the scrolling one. They’re told to bring their lock. My manager will come pick up. There are two holes on the sliding things and on the latches on the storage units. They’ll put their lock on. My lock will still be there. My manager or I will go pick up our lock, take it off, and put it on another empty unit that we have.

In the wintertime, that’s it. In the summertime, they have to do some grass and weeding. The pictures aren’t up here, which is unfortunate because it’s a beautiful tertiary facility. It’s a brand new build and nice looking. It is pretty. This last one is Scranton. It’s 38 units. This is an owner-finance deal. We’re on 10 or 11 years. I can’t remember what it is. We got this one at a good price per unit or price per door. It’s weird in the sense that it’s got four larger units on each end, and the sides are all 8 by 12s. The ends are 12 by 14. The side units are all 8 by 12s.

How’d you find this one?

The same thing.

Why did you pick Arkansas? Were you like, “I’m going to call every state.” What were you doing?

When your back was against the wall, and at 1031, I had Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. I did everything in the Southeast, including West Virginia, except for the Carolinas. I didn’t want to get into the Carolinas. I was killing. I was searching Florida, Arkansas, and Missouri. I did a little bit in East Texas and Oklahoma.

This was before we had the VA. I spent a lot of time simply virtual driving. Because I had done it before and knew, I had taught myself or you learn to use Stacy’s program to learn how to switch over to satellite image and look at buildings. This one was on Google. They had a Google My Business page. Once you have that, you have the phone number and send a text. I sent a text to this guy. It’s on his cell phone. He replies, “Yeah, I’m interested in selling. Let’s talk.” That’s how that conversation started. We’re both happy with the price that we paid for that one. He was able to take the money and 1031 it into something else himself.

I’ll be transparent. Sitting here now, these are good deals. They’re not great deals, but they’re good. They’re cashflowing deals. They’re holds if I want them to be, especially the two Arkansas ones. They can be a little portfolio. Since we purchased these two in Arkansas, I’ve increased my search in Arkansas because if I get one more over there and get a little triangle of storage there. Someone a little bit bigger than me might want to come along and say, “Let me buy all three from you.” We’ll have that conversation.

 

You have your spot now. Focus on that and buy as many facilities as you can. Build a little portfolio. Somebody will buy it.

I’ve had two calls. One in Kentucky and one in Alabama. It’s the same thing where I’m finding these facilities. One is a climate control facility. One is a larger facility, and the numbers don’t work for me, but he’s got a group going to buy it from him out of Alabama. He’s ready to retire and move on. It’s about getting reps. I did the State of New Mexico. We used to live out that way in the area. New Mexico is an awesome state. On the group call, we’re talking about New Mexico. I started combing New Mexico because the area’s beautiful. I like to have a vacation out there.

New Mexico is a hidden gem.

This drives my wife crazy. There’s not all that much rhyme and reason to what I’m doing. I don’t have a perfectly, you know, scripted plan on how I’m going to find these facilities. I’m respectful to people. I don’t text them if they tell me not to. I don’t contact them.

How are you managing all of these now? Are you answering the phones? What’s happening?

I’m a key person. At this point, I still do phone calls. It has not got to where I can’t handle it. I rely on texting a lot. Everyone’s got this, but with his technology, I have a dropdown with my six facilities. I can click on each one. I can go in and send text message reminders. I can contact people and say, “What do you need? How can I help you?’ People will text and say, “Do you have anything open? I’ll text back, “I had 10 by 20 and 5 by 5. That’s all I have open now.”

I moved in someone into a 5 by 5. They show up. They’re like, “This is a closet.” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s a 5 by 5.” They said, “Do you have anything bigger?” A few hours earlier in the day, someone who moved out of a 10 by 20. I went from the smallest unit to the largest unit. He’s like, “I’ll take that one.” I transferred him to the system. Now he’s got the biggest one now. It went from $38 a month to $174 a month on that. I’m full on the 10 by 20s at that location.

How much time does all this take up all these facilities? How much time do you work on this? What does your day look like?

As far as working on what we own and not looking for more, I spend about an hour a day running our six facilities. I spend more than that looking for new facilities. I spend an hour a day on average. I have people set up to where they’re painted on the first of the month. The first through the fifth, I’m a bit more busy, maybe an hour and a half or two hours a day, but maybe even not. For a couple of my facilities, I had people grandfathered in to paint in the middle of the month. I’ll continue to let them do that because it’s broken up the work for me.

As we transition to Unit Trac, I expect that number to go down even more because of the features that Unit Trac has. I’ve been a bit lazy in getting all that stuff. I’ve got it uploaded. I’m onboarded with them, but I haven’t done a good job of digging into the Unit Trac and seeing what you can do for me, so I don’t have to do that before. I have to do that in the next couple of weeks. That’s the timing.

When you joined Storage Nerds, was it 2019, or when?

It was 2020.

From 2020, you have six facilities. Now what? Will you buy as many facilities as you can find? What are you doing?

My wife and I are transitioning into some of our thinking. We are still wanting to buy more facilities. I was working for facilities. We want to purchase a small business that cashflow. We can take that money and put it into real estate. We have short-term money and long-term money. Any facility I have, I’ll sell, minus my Florida facility, because it’s on an SBA loan, and I’m going to hold it for several years. After that three-year mark, I expect that I will refinance and pull a whole bunch of money out of it, or I’ll make a sale on that one and go up from 50 units to 100 units or from 100 units to 200 units.

It’s doable. Stacy’s program is solid. It works. For me, it was about having confidence from someone talking to me. If Stacy and I were doing calls and she said, “Yeah, this is a good one. I don’t know about that one.” That’s what I needed, especially when I first got into this because I don’t come from real estate or entrepreneurial families. I had to do this stuff on my own. Storage Nerds are awesome. I have a couple of people in there that I text on a semi-regular basis and say, “What solar lights do you use?” The owner mastermind is different quadrants of people that you’re getting to talk to about different things.

 

We appreciate it. Thank you, Matt, for coming. Everybody’s been asking a lot of questions. I appreciate everybody reading. Matt is the perfect example of, like, it doesn’t matter what you start with. You’re getting out there and buying stuff. He’s going to keep continuing to grow in the 1031 exchange and get bigger facilities. You could start anywhere. Matt shows that to us.

Twenty-six units was our first one.

Thank you everybody. We’ll see you guys at the next session. Thank you, Matt. Take care.

 

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• Matt Glass