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Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#41

Post by jdeibele »

bluedino wrote: post #16

I never understood friends who put things in storage. It was their used furniture and things they never used. But they'd gladly play $100/month to store it away for 2-3 years at a time. You're better off just selling it and buy new (used) things in a year or two. Not to mention the hassle of moving things to and from the storage unit!

I've only rented a storage unit a couple of times but for me there were two factors: one was knowing the history of everything that was in it. And the other was that I had chosen those items.

I liked knowing that nothing was damaged in ways that weren't easily visible, like something you bought used might be.

And I don't enjoy shopping so trying to get something just like what I had is/was difficult. And it's getting harder: manufacturers change models at an incredible rate. You have to read reviews all over again, etc.

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#42

Post by grecy »

I spent 2 years living in rural Central and South America, and of all the things that shocked me on my return to North America, the sheer amount of stuff people have was by far the biggest.

People have multiple cars, boats, quads, kayaks, tvs, couches, RVs, snowboards, skis... the list is endless.

I was dumbfounded that people have so much stuff, they pay money to put that stuff someplace.

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#43

Post by JaakkoP »

hf wrote: post #30

Coincidentally, this is something I have researched just last week for my area. I would love to store boxes upon boxes of things that I will need in another two years (eg. baby clothes), will sell eventually, or plain don't want around[0]. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the concept of self-storage presented here, quite similar in spirit to my local self-storage providers (henceforth: SSPs), is not…

Hope you don't mind me asking if you live in Texas? I'd love to ask feedback about my storage on demand startup remotegarage.com, as it sounds like it would serve your needs better than traditional self-storage?

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#44

Post by boobsbr »

pdeuchler wrote: post #19

This article misses the entire point of the self storage game, in that it's all about real estate. I'm not sure of the structure they have over in the UK but I'm quite sure it's the same type of thing, considering that land over there is much more valuable. Here in the US you'll find a vast majority of the land used for self-storage is owned by either investment firms specializing in commercial/self-storage real esta…

People do the same with parking lots in Brazil.

Buy some land in the city, and old crumbling house (which usually are big), and sit on it waiting for the value to go up, or some construction company wanting do build an apartment building on it.

What to do with the land while you wait? Make it a parking lot and car wash. Lots of buildings here only have 1 parking spot per apartment, and the tendency nowadays if for middle class families to have 2 cars.

Workforce for a parking lot + carwash is abundant and extremely cheap, they don't even need to have a driving license, and barely be able to read.

Quite a lucrative business.

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#45

Post by vxNsr »

bkmartin wrote: post #20
josefresco wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We now insist on up-front payment as the items people store are worthless to sell." Was this ever different? Boxes of CD's, videos and tube TV's don't sound that valuable. But reading into your comment, it seems it wasn't always like this...

It might now seem that way, but when you can put those things into a second hand shop for $1-$5 a piece someone's DVD, or CD collection can become quite valuable when its abandoned. Some people did/do store hundreds of cd's, dvds, and the like. A unit could have a thousand dollars(in real secondhand market value) of merch very easily.

Yup, there's a reality TV show [0] based on the premise that these units can hold real value.

[0]storage wars

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#46

Post by pjc50 »

rayiner wrote: post #4
ColinWright wrote: post #2

From the article: But there is one clear lesson from the storage story. If you want to be a millionaire, you'd be well advised to look beyond what's sexy. Quoting from Paul Graham: There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call "schlep blindness." "Schlep" was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It mean…

It's also a great example of the general principle that it's good business to try and figure out how to disproportionately leverage public resources. Say police protection and property enforcement was privatized. Under such circumstances, the cost of security for a storage facility would be substantial. But in a society where the public pays for security, it's "free" to create a business that presents an outsized tar…

You couldn't run this business in a libertarian state; nobody would trust you not to steal their stuff, and almost everyone would be so poor as to not afford your service. This is why there isn't a thriving self-storage business in Somalia.

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#47

Post by seanalltogether »

boobsbr wrote: post #44
pdeuchler wrote: post #19

This article misses the entire point of the self storage game, in that it's all about real estate. I'm not sure of the structure they have over in the UK but I'm quite sure it's the same type of thing, considering that land over there is much more valuable. Here in the US you'll find a vast majority of the land used for self-storage is owned by either investment firms specializing in commercial/self-storage real esta…

People do the same with parking lots in Brazil. Buy some land in the city, and old crumbling house (which usually are big), and sit on it waiting for the value to go up, or some construction company wanting do build an apartment building on it. What to do with the land while you wait? Make it a parking lot and car wash. Lots of buildings here only have 1 parking spot per apartment, and the tendency nowadays if for mi…

I recall reading that this was a big problem with downtown Denver back in the 60s or 70s. The whole downtown area was covered in parking lots because people were sitting on land waiting for it to go up in value. It was having a negative impact on trying to turn downtown into an attractive hub for more business to come in.

edit - found it http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/05/13/how-denver-repaired-it...

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#48

Post by newman314 »

davidw wrote: post #15
scottkduncan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see the overall demand profile for self-storage changing accordingly, i.e. it could be headed for a secular decline because younger demographics don't accumulate as many physical items? When I was brainstorming startup ideas once I mentally kicked around "AirBNB for self-storage," but liability issues and what I saw as a trend towards minimalism among those who would have been a target demographic as reasons t…

> younger demographics don't accumulate as many physical items? We'll see how that plays out as they age, which tends to include things like getting married, having kids, buying a house, and that kind of thing. For instance, our garage now contains 2 strollers, 2 kiddy scooters, 3 kiddy biycles of varying sizes, and one sort of push-tricycle thing. I didn't have all that crap when I was younger, either! I heartily ag…

What I would love is a site(s) that lets me get all that stuff used, in decent condition and quickly.

It kills me how much money is dropped on kids stuff that is not used for a significant period of time.

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#49

Post by AlexMuir »

bananas wrote: post #18
AlexMuir wrote: post #3

"Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Oxford University, says we have six times more "stuff" than the generation before us." I run a storage business and I can say that this is no longer the case with the younger generation. We used to store boxes of CDs, Videos, 14" Colour TVs, Desktop Computers, Hifis. Now all this is in a laptop and mobile phone, which people just take with them. We now insist on up-front paym…

I'll confirm this. I'm much older than the "younger" generation and I have virtually nothing compared to my parents and theirs. I can get everything I own in a 45l bag and a large box. They can't get all their crap in a 4 bedroom house with a double garage. Also as a side issue, yes you're right; absolutely nothing out there is worth much any more. The Internet and particularly eBay has laid waste to the value of thi…

Another effect of the internet is that it is now trivial to find out the second-hand value of something.

Re: Self-storage: The men who got rich selling empty space

#50

Post by hf »

JaakkoP wrote: post #43
hf wrote: post #30

Coincidentally, this is something I have researched just last week for my area. I would love to store boxes upon boxes of things that I will need in another two years (eg. baby clothes), will sell eventually, or plain don't want around[0]. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the concept of self-storage presented here, quite similar in spirit to my local self-storage providers (henceforth: SSPs), is not…

Hope you don't mind me asking if you live in Texas? I'd love to ask feedback about my storage on demand startup remotegarage.com, as it sounds like it would serve your needs better than traditional self-storage?

I don't want to sound overly enthusiastic, but I do think that this fits the bill 90% of the way. Great presentation[0]; pricing explicit and almost exactly what I would have imagined; and, of course, sane pick-up and delivery. I even hunted around for a spelling mistake to have something on the opposite side of the ledger. No such luck.

Alas, I'm a few thousand miles short of becoming a valued customer.

Now, hopefully, you're wondering about that last 10%: It's point 2 in your "How it works":

> Pack your things carefully and take pictures of the contents.

I'm sure legal would have a word or two to say about that, but: how much would it set me back if you did that, together with providing a rough description of the box' contents? This, then, would appear on my account page's List of Boxes.

The details are devilish, of course, and supreme caution is indicated: you don't want a prominent "take-a-peek" option to adversely affect the trust of your more privacy-conscious clients.

[0] Which, incidentally, doesn't appeal to me, as I am solidly in the tarsnap aesthetics camp, but we both know what to make of that.

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