Storage Sheds

Devin,

Yep – we just bought a complex with six industrial sheds on it. They aren’t storage sheds as such…more like normal “work out of” sheds, but the business concept is fairly similar. We have kicked out some pretty ordinary ex-tenants, and are now getting quite a few enquiries from people who want to rent them. The majority, surprisingly, just want dry / lock up storage space…which suits us down to the ground and generally tenants who want storage space seem to want it for a rolling time. They say they want it for only 6 months, but that always gets extended.

We are constantly amazed at how much ‘stuff’ people have and need a place to put it all. It’s an expensive exercise to keep, and we are sitting at the end of the line so to speak with our hand out.

The full on storage facility that you seem to be refering to, we steered away from, as doing some research it appeared that most of those types of properties in Perth had offices with a full time person sitting there managing people coming and going…which killed the business idea for us. Of course, we could of hired someone to sit there and do that task, but we felt it introduced another person into the organisation that we didn’t know and trust implicitly…that was too big a step for us…just yet.

I think however the full on storage sheds business has it’s merits..we are seeing some of the overflow at our complex (we have a really big well established storage facility less than 200m away from our block) and it’s OK.

Dollar wise, the sheds are great, we shall eventually be at 16% gross yield, which is slightly better than we can find in houses. Picked them up for land value and are having a ball to tell you the truth. The tenants don’t whinge and carry on like pork chops, unlike their domestic residential counterparts.

The best part of it all, you are no hamstrung by pathetic tenants unions and the dreaded RTA.

Buildings are generally pretty low maintenance – although put up big chuncky bollards, you’ll probably get alot of heavy traffic with trailers etc…and we all know what those bloomin’ women drivers are like….[biggrin]

Good luck with it all.

Cheers,

Dazzling

“No point having a cake if you can’t eat it.”