273. He Stumbled on Self Storage, and Now He’s Selling His Rentals to Buy More w/Derek Weaver
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This seasoned investor stumbled on self storage just four years ago, and now he’s selling off his rental properties to buy more. Why? Right now, new investors with limited capital can profit from self storage in rural markets where larger firms are unwilling to go. There’s cash flow, appreciation, and, surprisingly, plenty of demand!
In the last twenty years, Derek Weaver has dabbled in just about every area of real estate. He’s been a licensed realtor. He’s managed large rental portfolios for other investors. He’s even bought his own single-family and multifamily rental properties. His latest venture? Self storage! He had no idea what he was doing when he “accidentally” bought a dilapidated, 66-unit facility, but taking action and learning on the fly has allowed him to stabilize the property and add another three to his portfolio!
In today’s episode, Derek shares why now is the perfect time for new investors to start buying self storage. He’ll show you which types of facilities to target, how to maximize your square footage (and income) with portable units, and the systems and processes you need to scale your self storage business!
Insights from today’s episode:
- Why Derek is selling off rental properties to buy more self storage in 2025
- The pitfalls of financial freedom (and why passive income shouldn’t be your end goal)
- Maximizing your facility’s square footage and income by adding portable units
- The key advantages small self storage investors have over large firms
- Why you can’t beat Midwest property returns at the moment
- The systems and processes you need to manage your facilities from afar
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Email Derek:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think the best way to do anything, not only in real estate, just anything, is just to jump in and figure it out as you go. |
| 0:08.3 | And so many people forget this. |
| 0:10.4 | They think, well, I'm just starting out. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm small. |
| 0:12.2 | I don't have any advantages. |
| 0:13.9 | That is not true at all. |
| 0:16.0 | I think what appeals to a lot of people getting into real estate, maybe self-storage. You know, it's this passive income stream. |
| 0:22.2 | And I think that once you actually achieve that, you don't want it. |
| 0:30.9 | Welcome everybody to self-storage income. |
| 0:35.9 | And I'm excited for today's guest. So we're jumping |
| 0:39.2 | right into this. Derek, how you doing, man? Doing pretty good. I'm doing great. Now, you are, |
| 0:46.3 | hold on here. Let me get this right. You're in Michigan. Yeah, in Michigan. Kind of bitter, |
| 0:51.5 | bittersweet just recently came back to Michiganigan after being three years in florida all right |
| 0:56.8 | and you started investing in self storage at what age i started in 2020 so that would have been |
| 1:04.3 | about 33 how many storage facilities you have one more uh right now we have have four storage facilities and where are those located |
| 1:12.4 | what region all in michigan um basically in rural communities um is really where we've been focusing |
| 1:20.0 | so awesome now was this your first foray into investing like did you just jump right into storage |
| 1:27.3 | or were you doing real estate? |
| 1:29.5 | Like, how did you? I'm so curious because storage is always this thing where I'm like, how'd you |
| 1:33.1 | get into it? So basically, I got into storage by accident. I've been in real estate. |
| 1:38.2 | Actually, since I've been 18, the summer after I graduated high school, instead of just goofing around the entire summer, my stepmom paid for my real estate agent course to get my realtor license in Michigan. |
| 1:56.2 | So while I was enrolled at Wayne State, I was selling houses for people. And then also, you know, |
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