292. How to Create Massive Value by “Converting” Old Buildings Nobody Wants w/Chris Genard & Ronald Fremin
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Self storage has been a “goldilocks” asset for the last 15 years, but it’s a little harder to find opportunity today. If you’re willing to get your hands dirty, though, you can create massive value with self storage conversion projects, and just one or two of these deals could make you VERY wealthy!
Today, we’re chatting with Chris Genard and Ronald Fremin—college friends turned self storage investors and co-founders of Safe Space Companies. By combining Chris’ acquisitions expertise and Ronald’s construction background, the duo has built a portfolio of 12 self storage facilities, nine of which were converted from old buildings—including bowling alleys, hospitals, and big box retail stores. In this episode, you’ll learn how buying these properties at a deep discount and repurposing them for storage can be a highly profitable strategy!
If you stick around, Chris and Ronald will show you the pros and cons of ground-up construction and conversions, how to find and analyze conversion deals, and the secrets to maximizing your square footage and increasing revenue. Whether you’re looking to buy your first facility, develop new facilities, or convert old buildings into storage, there’s something in this episode for you!
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- How Chris and Ronald built their self storage empire from scratch
- Turning a huge profit by converting old buildings into self storage facilities
- Creative ways to maximize your facility’s square footage (and revenue!)
- How to find and analyze potential self storage conversion deals
- The pros and cons of ground-up construction and converted facilities
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Safe Space Companies - https://www.safespacecompanies.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What other type of repurpose can you do with the bowling alley other than something like storage? |
| 0:05.0 | And that's where the instant value comes in because we bought the building with land for almost less than $10 a square foot. |
| 0:12.0 | You know, really you have this margin of safety of that lower cost. |
| 0:17.0 | So it's like at some point you can buffer a lot of expenses because the value of your entry, your basis going into it, so low. |
| 0:27.4 | So building new would all be the benchmark of what we could build per square foot. |
| 0:31.7 | But if we can require the land, the building, construct, and then be all in for less than we can build new, you make your money when you buy. |
| 0:45.4 | Welcome everybody to self-storage income. And today, Connor and I have some special guests with us today. |
| 0:52.3 | We got a couple of Louisiana boys that we met when we were down in New Orleans, and |
| 0:58.6 | they were doing some pretty cool stuff. |
| 1:01.6 | And so I asked them to come on here to talk to you guys about it. |
| 1:06.4 | And they had a project that they converted a hospital and all sorts of stuff. |
| 1:13.0 | So really fascinating deal for doing it. |
| 1:16.1 | Man, that's incredible. |
| 1:17.1 | I'm excited to dive into it. |
| 1:18.5 | I don't know a ton about either of our guests today. |
| 1:21.2 | Ronald, Chris, great to meet you guys. |
| 1:23.4 | Thanks so much for being here joining us on the podcast today. |
| 1:27.0 | Give us a rundown on who you guys are, what you guys do. |
| 1:30.9 | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 1:32.3 | Thanks, AJ. |
| 1:33.3 | Thanks, you guys for inviting us on. |
| 1:35.8 | As mentioned, met you guys down in New Orleans. |
... |
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