Some of us look for VAs, cold callers, underwriters. I'm looking for something different: a closer. I do the legwork. I'll find the deals, build the seller relationship, underwrite the numbers, and get the first offer (or first few) on the table to narrow down what the seller actually wants out of the transaction. I'll get the deal to third base myself. I'm looking for someone to come in at that point, understand the deal, and help me close it out, whether that's one call or several with the seller, and get it signed. Compensation: $10k per closed deal, built into the financing and paid at closing. No closing, no payout. No equity in the deal, just a straight $10k fee. Doesn't matter if the deal even cash flows $10k in year one, you get paid regardless. I'll get it to third base. Come close deals for me. Bring them across home plate and put cash in your pocket.

We’ve talked about how to structure an offer in such a way that all options presented to a seller would also work for you. Basically, we don’t want to provide an option to the seller that we can’t work with. Presenting one offer only leaves them 2 options. Say yes or say no. Instead, assume they are willing to sell and present 3 purchase options. Cash, bank financing, and owner finance. No matter what they pick, you’re buying a facility!! Now check out this attached offer we received from a potential buyer. All options are seller financed but I give them credit for the multiple options presented. Have you made any offers lately and if so, how did you structure it?

Monthly or annual REVENUE - gives you a feel for performance. NOT their NOI, as their NOl takes into account their expenses and your expenses will be different than theirs since you won't run it the same way they do. And sellers often/nearly always skimp on their expenses to make the business look more profitable than it really is. Occupancy - both physical and economic (if they know it) - tells you about the local demand for storage Any recent repairs or deferred maintenance? helps you account for any large issues that may have happened of that you need to account for in your underwriting to price the deal right Reason for selling - this one is gold. Often tells you how flexible they might be. How they manage it - software (which one?), on-site manager, mom & pop system like pen and paper in a binder or 3x5 cards in a drawer (yes I've spoken with owners who do this), etc. Are they open to seller financing (aka taking payments over time / holding a note) - this flexibility can help you achieve a higher purchase price or down payment... etc, helps you structure the deal to meet their "needs and greeds" with selling the biz. Do they own it free and clear? If they want to sell it for $1M and they have a loan for $500k, they'll only be able to seller finance $500k, so you can structure your offers taking into account that they cant seller finance more than the equity they have in the deal. And before you end the call, ask if you can email them your contact info and a little about you. It helps them see you as more human, and it gives you their email so now you can follow up automatically even while you sleep using Schedule Send in gmail (or other email service)

This facility just hit the market again... And seeing it brought back a lot of memories because we used to own it. Here's the story. Back in 2021, another investor called me with a lead they didn't have time to pursue. At the time, I was very vocal about wanting facilities with 20,000+ square feet in the Southeast, and this one checked all the boxes. ✅ As we dug into the offering package, one number jumped off the page immediately... 👉 57% expense ratio. That was our opportunity. The facility was owned by a respected self-storage coach and several of their students, so we knew we'd have to look deeper than most investors would. When we started peeling back the layers, we found: • Expensive third-party management • High delinquency • Multiple abandoned units full of trash • Gates and cameras not functioning properly • Poor operational oversight And then we found something even better... Several units were listed as 5x5 units renting for around $25/month. The problem? They weren't 5x5s. They were actually 10x10s. Just correcting the unit mix added roughly 2,000 NRSF to the property on paper without building a single square foot. Think about that for a second. No expansion. No construction. No rezoning. Just better operations and better management. This is why I constantly tell people that value-add investing isn't always about building more units. Sometimes the biggest opportunities are hiding in plain sight. 📍 Purchased: November 2021 💰 Purchase Price: $560,000 Over the next 16 months we: ✅ Cut expenses ✅ Improved operations ✅ Fixed management issues ✅ Corrected unit data ✅ Increased revenue ✅ Added value 📍 Sold: March 2023 💰 Sale Price: $1.2 Million Now it's back on the market listed around $1 Million. The lesson? Most investors are looking for the next shiny object. The best investors look for inefficiencies. Value isn't always created with a bulldozer. Sometimes it's created with a spreadsheet, a phone call, and a willingness to dig deeper than everyone else.

A bottleneck for me is keeping up with too many leads to underwrite and make offers on. My VA is bringing leads, but I can't keep up with them all. I spend too much time underwriting a deal, doing a market rate analysis, figuring out what value add there is and where an offer would make sense for me and it doesn't allow me to keep up with all of the leads coming in. How can I spend 20 mins instead of 2 hours determining if a lead is worth diving deeper into? I do some quick math using their revenue, applying a quick 35-40% expenses and then applying a 8-10 cap rate to give me a very rough value, but going one step deeper (but not as far as a full underwriting), what are others doing? Do you treat these all differently or qualify them differently? - on market vs off market deals - How do you determine if a deal looks like a deal you could wholesale - a 3-5 year optimize and sell - and a buy and hold?