298. How to Scale (Fast) from ONE Small Self Storage Facility to Financial Freedom

Self Storage Income

AJ Osborne

Entrepreneurship, Education, Investing, Business, How To

4.9 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is buying self storage facilities a surefire path to building wealth? In this episode, we’ll show you why buying a small, mom-and-pop operation might be the perfect alternative to residential real estate. For those who don’t want the tenant headaches of long-term rentals or the unpredictable income of short-term rentals, this episode is for you!

Today, AJ and George are sharing self storage success stories from everyday investors who are increasing their facility’s value by six figures (while working full-time), using 10%-down SBA (Small Business Administration) loans to buy facilities, and scaling their income without the stress of other asset classes. The best part? These aren’t unicorn stories. They’re repeatable models rooted in solid deal analysis and smart operations.

Whether you’re just getting into real estate investing or you’re tired of tenants and toilets, we’ll show you why self storage gives you more control over your property’s revenue and value. We’ll break down the operating expenses you’ll need to consider when analyzing deals, what to make of cap rates, and how to quickly scale from small operations to much larger, high-value investments!

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

The pros and cons of buying self storage versus other asset classes
AJ’s simple, three-pronged business model for new self storage investors
Unearthing HUGE opportunity with under-optimized, mom-and-pop facilities
Buying facilities with 10%-down SBA (Small Business Administration) loans
Cap rates explained and how to (properly) analyze a self storage deal
Why self storage gives you more control over expenses, pricing, and valuation
Self storage operating expenses you can’t afford to overlook

Check out our Inner Circle:

https://www.selfstorageincome.com/inner-circle

Check out the video podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@AJOsborneOfficial/videos

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's way more upside than if you bought a home because what people look at home is the upside
0:05.6	the market creates. I'm going to buy it, it pays its bill, it'll pay down debt, and the market
0:09.7	will make its equity worth more. We look at storage as you buy it, you increase the income,
0:13.9	and you made it worth more regardless whatever the market is doing. I love that. And with small
0:20.3	storage facilities, that's easy to find.
0:28.3	What's up, everybody? Today, we are talking about a very hot topic that can be confusing to a lot of
0:33.4	people and make them even wonder, should I be doing this or not? And that is simply, should I be
0:37.5	investing in small storage facilities? And how profitable are these things? So we wanted to have a
0:43.6	conversation about looking at a going out and buying a small storage facility for a couple
0:49.6	hundred thousand bucks or whatnot. Is that really a profitable venture? What makes it profitable? What makes it
0:55.2	not? What are the risks? But when it comes down to it, how much money do these things really make?
1:00.9	And so I got back with me today. George, how you doing, buddy? Good, man. I'm excited to be here,
1:05.6	excited to talk about this. In town, in person. So that's good. Yeah, flew all the way here just for
1:10.7	this. That's right.
1:11.4	I think today is an exciting topic and something that people, you know, put a lot of thought
1:17.1	into because you're making these investments and it's like, do I, do I start small? Do I go big?
1:21.2	Can I even, what makes the most sense for me to do? And so something, something I think first off,
1:26.2	really quick with that is like,
1:28.2	before it's even like, what can this cash flow is, why are you investing in in the first place?
1:32.7	Like, why are you looking at storage facilities versus rental property versus all these other things?
1:37.1	Like it's, we talk to people all the time about, it's not about buying storage. It's about building,
1:42.6	building wealth. And so can you tie that into,
	...

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