288. The Undersupplied Self Storage Markets That Everyone Else Is Ignoring w/Brady McDonald
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2025
⏱️ 39 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
Brady McDonald is not only a fellow self storage investor but also the founder of Barefoot Land Co., a company that specializes in acquiring and entitling land for self storage development. Only a few years ago, Brady owned a large portfolio of rental properties in Canada. But when he realized that “you can’t eat equity” and needed more cash flow, he packed up his young family, moved to the US, and started a business that sources land off-market, entitles it, and then sells it to other developers. He has even developed a couple of his own self storage facilities, too!
In this episode, Brady shares his journey into self storage investing, the major changes he’s noticing throughout the self storage industry, and the steps he takes when analyzing a market for development opportunities. Stay tuned if you want to know where rental rates are headed and where class A storage could take off in 2025!
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- Crucial metrics to look at when analyzing a self storage market
- Forecasting where storage rental rates are headed in the next 12 months
- The “smaller” markets where class A storage could explode in 2025
- Building a cash-flowing business to offset low-cash-flow investments
- Brady’s journey from residential real estate to self storage investing
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Barefoot Land Co.: https://www.barefootlandco.com
Brady’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brady.mcdonald84
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In self-storage, you can be the smartest operator in the world, but if you're in an oversupplied market, you'll get killed. |
| 0:05.8 | You can be an idiot in an undersupplied high-demand market, and you'll be wildly successful. |
| 0:10.2 | You'll look like a genius. |
| 0:11.5 | Genius. |
| 0:12.2 | The migration patterns have really, really driven real estate, and it's been wildly on you. |
| 0:18.5 | Some places are net shrinking, and other ones are net exploding. |
| 0:22.6 | Rates have to be above a certain level, and that's especially true with how much building |
| 0:27.4 | costs themselves have been driven up over the last four years. |
| 0:32.4 | Like you have whole sets of markets that do not make sense anymore. |
| 0:44.7 | Welcome everybody to self-storage income. |
| 0:47.6 | And today I have a guest with us. |
| 0:51.7 | And Brady is, well, I guess technically, |
| 0:53.2 | are you still a Canadian, Brady? |
| 0:55.7 | I'm working on exiting as we speak. We got about 17 more residential properties than I'm out of there. |
| 1:00.0 | Right on, man. |
| 1:01.6 | So you transferred over to the storage game and you specifically focus on land and development, correct? |
| 1:12.4 | That's correct. |
| 1:13.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.5 | Okay. |
| 1:14.1 | Well, why don't we hit on first real quick? |
| 1:17.8 | When did you come down? |
| 1:19.8 | When did you make the move? |
... |
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