Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 68 posts

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

#51

Post by Spooky23 »

josefresco wrote: post #7
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…

"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...

Buddy of mine does lots of odd lot things. He buys storage units once in awhile and gets big hits sometimes. He's gotten gun collections and snowmobiles, among other things.

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

#52

Post by tekalon »

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…

My husband and I considered getting storage for our couch. We don't use it, we don't host people over and it's taking up valuable space in our 500sqft apartment. We realized that it would cost more to put it in storage than just to buy a new one when we get a house. We're giving it away to my sister as a wedding gift (it's a nice couch and she would will it more than we would).

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

#53

Post by jtbigwoo »

seanalltogether wrote: post #47
boobsbr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Downtown Minneapolis had/has the same thing.

The interesting part is that most of the parking lots are owned by groups of moderately wealthy folks (doctors, mid-level corporate execs) who had bought super cheap in the 70's. The income they are able to make risk-free is a huge obstacle to redevelopment.

As an example, there's lot next to my old office that gets about 250 cars into a half-block lot. At six dollars/car/weekday plus extra money on weekends that's about $400k/year before taxes split among a dozen investors. (An incredible yearly return when you consider they probably paid less than $250k to buy a run-down building and level it back in the 70's.)

If somebody wants to buy that lot to build apartments, they're going to have two hurdles.

First, all of these guys are probably retired, so they're looking for risk-free income rather than capital. With interest rates below 3%, they're going to ask for $12 - 15 million so they can invest it in bonds and still get the same income. That's a ton of money just to buy land.

Second, most of these partnership agreements are drafted such that every partner has to agree to sell rather than a majority. If one guy holds out for $20 million, it could scuttle the deal.

Slowly but surely the parking lots are being replaced, but it's happening much more slowly than it should.

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

#54

Post by jtbigwoo »

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 a storage unit when selling my home. Apparently buyers like to look at nearly-empty shelves and closets.

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

#56

Post by JaakkoP »

hf wrote: post #50
JaakkoP wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, hopeful…

Happy to hear you like the 90% so much - thank you for the feedback!

As for the 10%, we have indeed found that quite a few customers end up not taking pictures, even though it's a requirement to qualify for the protection plan.

We would be happy to take those pictures, but I wonder if there's a way to do it so that it doesn't interfere with the customer's privacy. Drivers taking the pictures upon pickup comes to mind.

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

#57

Post by chockablock »

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…

Your examples are all actively-used items, which is a different kind of storage problem.

When items like those are no longer needed the trend among my peers is to donate (to friends with younger kids) or liquidate (on Craigslist).

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

#58

Post by chockablock »

newman314 wrote: post #48
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm torn--your comment history doesn't suggest that you are trolling, but then how could one have both kids and 1500 karma without knowing about *.craigslist/baa?

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

#59

Post by ijk »

AlexMuir wrote: post #49
bananas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suspect that, say, garage sale prices are much more likely to approach eBay prices than was the case in the '90s. Though the local-ness of yard sales probably means there are still arbitrage opportunities.

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

#60

Post by thinkling »

tpowell wrote: post #33

I don't know if they're international or not yet (I doubt it), but an Austin startup is trying to professionalize this unsexy market: http://www.sparefoot.com/

The web-enabled home-delivery version of storage: http://www.storrage.com/

You don't get your own storage unit; instead, they pick up labeled tubs from your house, and when you want them again you can request a specific one to be delivered. They don't take furniture and such.

(Disclaimer: I'm not connected to this company in any way, not even as a customer.0

Post reply on HN