08 Dec 2025
The training apps, blogs, books, guidance, and seminars have increased 10-fold since COVID, allowing you to be an expert in a quarter of the time. For example, it used to take me a week plus to gather initial data on a location and the competition. Now with an app like Radius, you can get the same info in less than an hour.
There are whole teams, including franchisees, that will work with you every step of the way. There are local management companies that will run your facility and send you a check every month. The choice is Yours: Doing it on your own, hiring a management company, or choosing a self-storage franchise. Best to research all three to get the best service based on your time and situation.
Maybe even to the point where you don’t have enough to invest. Since just before COVID (Feb 2020), the cumulative inflation was 24.3 percent. A large new build before Covid may have construction costs of around $5MM, whereas the same project today could cost around $7MM. Using today’s inflation rate of 2.7 percent and a $ 9MM all-in ( land, construction & carrying cost), the yearly increase in cost would be around $243,000. That’s over a million dollars more in just 4 short years if inflation does not go out of control again.
Inflation is one of the many reasons people build self-storage, as it is one of the factors that increases the facility’s appreciation (value). Unlike many other businesses, self-storage has high fixed costs like the land and buildings that are not subject to inflation once completed, so inflation does not impact self-storage like other businesses. If we just raise our rates to match inflation, we make more profits. And often a great operator can raise rental rates 1 – 2% more than inflation for even great income and profits.
Self-storage is one of the most profitable real estate businesses. Many new investors (like me once upon a time) got tired of the 24/7 effort to own rental properties and sold to invest in self-storage. With self-storage, there are no more clogged toilets to clean, rooms to paint, or long-term losses because people do not pay rent and won’t move out.
People with high incomes love self-storage because it provides significant tax write-offs due to depreciation. And now, with Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill has made first year bonus write offs you will be amazed at the immediate tax advantages.
We have multiple franchise owners who have cash because they sold their businesses. They are never going back to work but are also not ready to sit on the beach every day.
If you're sold on self-storage, now is your time to build your financial future with self. The writing is on the wall. A recent Harris poll reported that a six-figure salary equates to survival, not success.
If you are ready, the facts don’t matter. Consider a partner, an SBA loan with 15% down, find a land deal offline, build in phases, find a value-add deal offline, or use your IRA (without penalties). If you own the land and are looking for a cash partner, I can help you with that.
No doubt, starting day one, you are going to have to be better than the competition. And use the right systems and technology to be super-efficient. But the secret is going to be your remarkable over-the-top guerrilla marketing. If you are not ready to be the number one marketer in your market, it is better not to start on a limited budget.
I built my first self-storage facility during the Great Recession of 2008. Going against all the naysayers was the best thing I ever did. My 8 % interest rate was not fun, but just like now, it was only temporary. When rates came down, I refinanced and started implementing my favorite tax-free cash flow strategy. This is a huge secret of the wealthy. They refinance their self-storage and take out a million or two and let the renters pay the loan. The money is tax-free since it is a loan, not a profit.
People moving is over half our business. Housing starts have been stagnant or declining for 3 years. We are just now seeing periods of increased home sales. Yes, there is a way to go, but I believe there is pent-up demand that will start buying in 2025 as interest rates come down and contribute to the long-term success of self-storage.
On average, 15% of renters are businesses. As the cost of construction and maintenance goes up, along with the difficulty of projecting ups & downs of business, more businesses are going to use self-storage. While not related to this article, a well-prepared and executed marketing plan for business owners will get you even more business renters.
People continued to rent during the recession, and I got a welcome head start while many people sat on the sidelines. Don’t be one of those people who say I wish I had gotten into self-storage 5 years ago.
Lenders, in many cases, will consider your land as the project deposit or part of it. If you're not ready to get into self-storage, you may consider the upside of having a partner who provides cash investment and manages the facility.
The second-best time is now. I agree. The past no longer exists.
Send me an email. Let’s have a 10-minute call. I would love to hear your goals or what’s holding you back.
As CEO of Storage Authority Franchising, Marc Goodin shares his passion, expertise, and unconventional wisdom with busy professionals to help them develop their own self-storage while they continue their careers. He owns 3 self-storage facilities that he designed, built, and manages. He can be reached at marc@StorageAuthority.com or directly at 860-830-6764 to answer your self-storage franchising, development, marketing, sales, and operations questions. His best-selling self-storage books are available at Amazon.
