279. How I Bought a $1.5M Self Storage Facility as a Complete Beginner w/Ben Kall
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Get my FREE self storage starter pack to learn how to analyze, underwrite, and operate your next storage investment: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/start-podcast
What does it take to buy your first self storage facility? Just ask Ben Kall, whose first investment was a $1.5M facility after having ZERO experience in the industry. Sounds like a big jump, doesn’t it? Thankfully, Ben is going to show you how to do the same today, explaining how to buy a storage facility (even with no previous experience in investing), work with banks, and manage a business. But don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds!
Ben has a handful of do’s and don’ts he’s sharing with us in this episode, and we go through everything! From structuring your loan with the bank to why you should treat your self storage facility like a hotel, seller financing and creative financing terms that are working for Ben, and building your buy box so you can achieve financial freedom!
Ben has grown quickly, going from zero self storage to 125,000 net rentable square feet in under a decade. He’s been able to take home six figures in cash flow (seriously!) and has amassed a sizable portfolio in a very short amount of time. This is a masterclass in buying your first facility and scaling up!
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- The do’s and don’ts of buying your first self storage facility
- The creative financing offers Ben uses to get sellers to accept
- How to negotiate with banks and lenders so you get better terms
- Why you want to treat your facility like a hotel and put convenience first
- Picking the right partners and why this is crucial if you want to scale faster
- The “buy box” you must build BEFORE you buy a facility
📷 Ben’s Businesses and Instagram:
https://www.waukeestorage.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ben_kall_/
Links:
📌 Make self storage management easier than EVER with our podcast sponsor Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/
📑 Our Self-Storage Feasibility Studies will help you speed up the process in understanding markets, potential risks, and analyzing the facility itself. https://cedar.cc/feasibility-studies/
🎙️ Do you have a great story to share on the SSI or AJ Osborne podcasts? You can now apply here!
https://form.asana.com/?k=TGU88eU0bFTFW1iHcckuTA&d=1203571084143207
📖 Get AJ's book that teaches you everything he knows about self-storage https://a.co/d/aRSKcSq
📉 Take advantage of today’s market conditions and invest with us:
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | First ever investment I ever got into was a stealth storage facility. |
| 0:03.0 | Got the lead and we were under contract in 24 hours and closed 30 days later. |
| 0:07.0 | Wow. |
| 0:08.0 | That is so rad. |
| 0:09.0 | And the thing that I didn't do when I got started is I just said, |
| 0:13.0 | I want passive income so I can be a dad that once I have kids, |
| 0:17.0 | I'm not in the outfield on my phone and running to go show a house. |
| 0:20.0 | That's all I knew. Now I know that I have refined exactly what I want. |
| 0:25.5 | But if you're getting started, write down what you want or what your goals are going to be and chase those. |
| 0:30.1 | Don't just say yes to something because it's an investment or your buddy who's never owned anything said it was a good deal. |
| 0:36.4 | So one of the things where I've had |
| 0:38.1 | success and gotten traction on creative financing or direct-to-seller is... |
| 0:42.8 | What's going on, everybody? This week we are re-releasing one of our top 10 episodes for you guys with none other than Ben Call himself. |
| 0:57.0 | We're going to be talking about buying your first storage facility, how tech has played a role in his business, how to scale what he's doing to compete, all of the juicy details that you guys obviously want to hear more of. |
| 1:09.4 | So again, as a special, we're re-releasing this this week. |
| 1:12.1 | You guys dive in, take notes, get out there, and hit those self-storage goals. |
| 1:16.6 | Welcome everybody to self-storage income. |
| 1:19.6 | And today we have another in-person interview here in the office with Ben Call. |
| 1:26.6 | Dude, I'm happy that you came out. This is great. |
| 1:29.9 | Second time here in Boise. I mean, Connor, appreciate you coming out here to have a discussion |
| 1:34.4 | with us. Yeah. Thanks so much, guys. As AJ you alluded to, I was out here a few months ago for |
| 1:39.3 | your guys' first ever event and was pretty shocked just to see Boise and how it kind of reminuses and reminds me of |
... |
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