Self Storage Ventures | Kevin

Quick reintroduction: I’m Kevin. Firefighter. 36. Wife, 3 kids (5 and under) I bought my first house at 19 during the worst housing crash in modern history. Ended up buying about 50 more over the next 5 years. Quit two corporate jobs before 25. Moved to Australia for a year to figure out what I actually wanted. Turns out it wasn’t to sit behind a desk and work a 9-5 or to manage a bunch of homes. Today I own 12 self-storage facilities across 4 states (acquiring more each year), run a hard money lending business, and coach people getting into storage. Things I believe that most people in real estate won’t say out loud: * High occupancy can be a trap * Most coaching programs are marketing funnels disguised as education * Real estate isn’t passive. Run from whoever tells you it is. * A $500K storage facility in a small town will outperform a $2M multifamily in a “hot market” 9 times out of 10 * Automation is overrated if your processes are broken - you’re just automating chaos faster * You don’t need to quit your W-2 to build real wealth I post real numbers, real mistakes, real lessons learned, and real operations. No fluff. What’s one question you have about self-storage or real estate investing? Drop it below or DM me - I’ll answer every one.

@KrissBergTweets Love it!

@Storage_Venture Funny, we're in the middle of painting our storage facility this same color scheme.

Our occupancy dropped 13% in 1.5 years We bought this in Dec 2024 It was 98% occupied. Today we are 85% occupied. Revenue up 46% since purchase. Focus on what matters - money collected; not some occupancy metric that doesn't tell the full story.

@joelfarrellreal Sure. 11.5%

Anybody do 80% ltv cash out on dscr?

@BlueCollarBuX Hey thanks!

@Storage_Venture Love seeing fellow firefighters win 🔥

@redbirdracing @SMB_path Nailed it!

@SMB_path @Storage_Venture This and facilities with outdated procedures. No website, no google, excel bookkeeping etc

@SMB_path Finding a facility with below market rent AND in an area that has greater demand than supply AND in an area where the median income supports a substantial increase is very important

@Storage_Venture How much of the acquisition side of this is simply finding places that are under market on rent rates, acquiring, and then raising rates slowly counting on most people to not want to move their stuff over $10/month?

@ryman08 How’s Colorado

@Storage_Venture Banger post

Everyone waiting to feel "ready" to buy their first facility: You never will. The guy with 100 facilities doesn't feel ready either. Confidence is a goalpost that moves every time you get close to it. Stop waiting to feel ready. Start taking messy, consistent action.

@peterlikesgyros Nice work! 🎅

Storage facility #19 acquired. 458 units & 75k+ sf added to the portfolio. Sourced from a Christmas card sent to a batch of our most sought-after but unresponsive sellers 7 months ago. Sometimes you have to go back in order to move forward 🎅 🎄

@mindofachaser 💯

@Storage_Venture Could extrapolate that for life in general. Waiting until you’re ready to do anything you’ll end up waiting a lifetime.

@REDevManager you're doing all the right things!!

@Storage_Venture Oh it’s been messy. But great and fun.

@TheTruthfulSEO this is just for eduction

@Storage_Venture I'd want at least £150k for one of my kids. Must have cost half that to raise to teenagehood, need to make some profit for the stress. Now, where do you sell them?

You’ve got 50k for your child. Do you put it in a 529? Or do something else?

@theaymanarab poor kids

@Storage_Venture Put it as a down payment on a mclaren

@katalagaah unit trust?

@Storage_Venture Unit trusts

@sonoran4498 Never heard of her

@Storage_Venture Beth Kindig

@forgotv no, I want in their name should anything happen to my wife or I.

@Storage_Venture You keep it and give it to them when they are adults. Custodial accounts can go into limbo, and it sucks to watch.

@Webluck_Studio I have a number of 1:1 students - I enjoy it!

@Storage_Venture Have you ever thought about turning this into a masterclass? There's a real gap in the market for someone who actually knows this stuff to teach it properly

One of the biggest mistakes new self-storage owners make: They obsess over occupancy. We obsess over vacancy by unit type. Our operating playbook looks like this: → 92%+ occupied: Raise rates. Remove discounts. → 85–92% occupied: Hold rates. Test small increases. → Under 85% occupied: Get aggressive with marketing and promotions. → Waitlist: Increase rates immediately. Every unit size is managed independently. A facility that's 95% occupied overall can still have a problem if all the 10x20s are empty. Likewise, a facility at 80% occupancy might be leaving money on the table if every 10x10 has a waitlist. Occupancy doesn't tell you what to do. Unit-level demand does. That's how we make pricing decisions across our portfolio. Bookmark this as a simple pricing framework for self-storage.

@thenickjharris no tax benefit there though, and only 5k /yr

@Storage_Venture Put it in the new Trump accounts

@1nthearena Signed up for Trump Acct and put in the 5k for each. Will do 5k / yr for each kid. Then the play is to convert to Roth when they are around 20

@Storage_Venture look into the new Invest America/Trump accounts