[Archived]

I would make them at least 20 ft wide to enable slides to go out and walk around them, just my two cents worth Gary

[Glenn]

Ashley,

Al is your guy to talk to, he’s already in the business in KC.

Al?

[Travis]

AshleyRV,

We have been in the “diesel pusher only” storage business in KC – MO for 14 years.

We can arrange a tour. Send me your cell number on a private e-mail.

Ironhorse Coach Storage KC, MO. PC member parking with free 50 amp and DI wash available. Tom made me do it !

8 private stalls… water, electric, sewer,(inside each stall) 50 amp, electric lift doors each stall. 60′ by 15 1/2 foot…climate controled all steel building. no vacany 6 1/2 years $375

[Alvie]

Hello,

This perspective is from a rental customer. I keep a rental garage in southern California rented all year whether we are there or not. What I like about our rental facility is that it is gated, has camera’s and a manager is on duty M-F ($379 per month). The garages (about 100) have their own garage door with a slide lock latch so that you can attach a pad lock.

Our garage is 13 x 50 so we can’t put out our deepest slide if I’m centered, the other three slides can go out without hitting the wall. We have a 30 amp connection in the garage, water and sewer are on the property. The garages are not climate controlled so we definitely are not in the desert in the summer.

While we are at our residence in TN, I put our motorhome in an RV park. There are a couple rental facilities in the area. One is a large carport with 50 amp service that is gated with someone living on the property ($150 a month). The other is 20 miles from the house and is a huge indoor facility with all individual open parking places ($225 per month plus $25 if you want to use the 50 amp). I don’t care for the open type storage at that price as someone could bump your coach or have access to it. I like the security of an individual garage which we don’t have in our area. Hence the RV park rental which is only 8 miles from the house.

Ideally, I would like a condo RV Garage. There is such a facility in Beaumont, CA , near our California residence but it’s 33 miles from our house.

The best rental garage would have water and sewer in the garage with 50 amp service and be climate controlled. Some people may not want to pay the rental fee of unit equipped as such.

MM.

[Archived]

Al,

Your facility is exactly what I would like to rent in TN. You need to build more if you have no vacancy!

Mark

[Dick]

Thanks for your suggestions, these are very helpful! It sounds like we should offer a variety of options, some with wider spaces, some with more power, etc. I am new to the RV community, so this is a learning process for me. I really appreciate all of your help.

Al, I’ll message you directly 🙂

[Glenn & Rynada]

Al,

Wish someone would build a garage like yours on the east side of Tyler. All of the storage facilities are on the opposite side of town. It takes 20 – 30 minutes to get to them from where I live. Looked at having storage garages built in 2012, but it was going to take 6.5 years to get a return on my investment.

You have a nice storage garage and offer a great service.

Reese

[Bryan]

Reese

You touched on the problem with Rv storage. I have looked at building one of these numerous times. The return is just not there at current rental rates and the penchant of Rv owners to desire month to month leasing. Every time I considered doing this the return was much better leasing the space to a commercial tenant that would sign a lease of at least one year.

[Archived]

I would be concerned if I owned a storage facility beyond the financial aspects of it. Renters do not have the same mindset as owners. Because of that you as an owner of the facility have to really be vigilant and exercise strong control, or run the risk of potential liabilities.

Is anyone doing work in the space that presents a fire hazard? What risk as the owner do you assume for failures of the heating or AC system, a power outage, or a fire caused by another tenant? How do you protect your building against damage from an RV owner knocking down the door, or banging into the siding? What happens when a tenant leaves and in the space is a hundred gallons of anti-freeze, or engine oil, or some hazardous waste?

Who has to respond to that 2:00 AM phone call from the police? Who gets to listen to the complaints? Who has to go down after a storm to see the end has blown off the building? Who has to chase after the deadbeats to get them to pay up?

The only plus side is an owner of a new Prevost abandons the storage bay with the coach still inside and you have the right to auction it off.

[Archived]

I have been in the climate control storage business for almost 20 years, and still waiting to find a Prevost left in the parking lo as Jon suggestst, but i do find many interesting articles tenants do leave behind. With the tv show, Storage Wars, i have had to bring in security when conducting auctions as everyone thinks it is like a casino, where they buy the contents and expect to find a hidden treasure…

[Harry]

Dave,

The 6.5 years for an ROI did not include the cost for the land. When you add that to the equation the ROI moves out to approximately 10 years. Bad investment. The storage facility that we use to use charged a significant deposit and you made sure that you left your storage good unit in good shape.

The renters were responsible for any damage to your unit or grounds. My next door neighbor kept backing his motorhome into the frame of the overhead door. He got to buy a new overhead door for his unit. I ran into the gate as we were leaving and had to replace the gate. The cost for repairing the gate was a drop in the bucket when compared to the cost for fixing our motorhome.

Reese

[Brady]

Thanks for bringing up so many good points about risks we’ll need to consider, and liabilities associated with them. Hopefully we won’t have to be chasing deadbeats, but it is important to know who that lucky chaser will be if needed.

The expected ROI will be critical as well. 6.5-10+ years is a significant amount of time. A critical part of determining our ROI is rental rate.

Any suggestions for how to price this? What would you be willing to pay in rent (monthly) for indoor (climate controlled), secure storage with access to power in your unit, along with water and a dump station on site, within 15-20 minutes from your home?

Thanks again for your help!

[Corey]

I would worry far less about chasing deadbeats than to find a former tenant has left leaving you with some oil drums with PCBs.

Or some unidentified white powder.

Or a few gallons of some other hazardous material in a leaky drum and it has seeped into some cracks in the concrete.

Where I used to live a storage facility nearly went bankrupt when hazardous waste was intentionally left in a locker because it was cheaper to rent a locker, bring in the materials and never return. I think now storage facilities verify who they rent to, but I tip my hat to guys like Al who apparently runs a tight ship. It isn’t a case of sitting back and letting the checks roll in.

[Archived]

Your market / competition will dictate pricing in your area.

As an example, general household climate control rates are about $10 per square ft / per month for residential climate control storage…..

Boat / RV storage in my area rents for about .25 cents per square foot / per month. on a 15′ x 60′ storage unit for an RV = 900 square feet so if you doubled the rate for climate control at .50 per square ft x 900 square feet = $450 per month…which is about the top end limit someone here would pay for high end rv storage, Hence not a very good investment as why i have never built rv/boat storage. Just can’t get the return for the investment compared to climate controlled household storage…

I have a 4,000 square foot climate control storage building for my coach and i subrent to two other guys and it is the worse real estate investment i own ! go figure but want to protect my coach investement from all the moisture and hummidty we have here along the gulf coast….

[Archived]

Someone once said the depreciation on a new Prevost conversion can be about $1000 per day for the first three years.

So to call our coaches an investment might be somewhat inaccurate, but if I did not have my garage I would find even $450 a month to be cheap compared to the other costs of ownership, especially if the storage enable me to do limitied work on the coach. $450 per month is chump change compared to depreciation.