I will be talking about a project that I have been working on for a year and that closed about a month ago.

You can read this entire episode here: www.bit.ly/3g9laZd

This property came into my inbox because I have been getting alerts for self storage properties for sale. It was a portfolio of one Self Storage property and three self serve car washes. It took 84 back and forth email messages, plus some phone calls to get all the information that we needed to analyze the property, to agree on a price, and also one year from my first communication with them to the closing.

Things to ask for:

- Profit and loss statement

- Tax returns for the last 2 yrs

- Detailed explanations on expenses

- What does it entail to manage and operate car washes

- Price for rental units on self storage

- Phase I report

- A list of multiple questions regarding the property, age of roofs, type of floor (asphalt, concrete), type of building, age of buildings, etc

Due Diligence period:

- Ongoing list of questions and follow up questions

- Recommendations for local lenders and credit unions

- Recommendations for local real estate attorney to review title and surveys

- How much would it cost to add credit card machines to the car washes

- Information for all the service providers that they currently use

- Finding a local property manager for both sets of properties

Example of things that you always must follow up on, until it gets 100% completed:

- I had to get quotes for putting internet in all of the car washes for not only the credit cards, but also for the cameras that I was going to be installing. And it turned out that for all of the car washes I had to get a different internet provider because not a single one of them could provide service in more than one car wash, they just did not have service in the other properties areas. That probably took three full days worth of work to find the best internet provider for every single location.

- I searched for the best provider for the Self Storage Facility that was 1. affordable 2. could take online rentals 3. could take credit card/bank payments. The previous owner did not have a website, and they were sending out paper invoices to all of their renters. So I had to get someone to create a website for us, and also to be able to accept rent, accept credit cards and also have people be able to lease things online. I found this very young startup that fit every single need for the property. And because they were so young, I really had to beg for them to take me as a customer. And that took a lot of following up, I said, Guys, I'm with you, I know it's not going to be perfect, but I really think we can be a very good first few customers. So let's get this going. And we got them to agree to that.

- I had to follow up with the guy that agreed to be a property manager and was not even responding to my phone calls.

- I had to follow up with the insurance company, I wanted to continue working with the same insurance that was the provider for the previous owner, because it was a good price, plus that insurance provider already had all of the information for the car washes. After three weeks of not getting a quote and also following up with the agent, she tells me whoops, the underwriter thought this was a renewal and send it to the wrong person in the office. And this was one week before closing. So I started Googling for highly rated insurance providers in that whole area and got quotes from everybody that I could get my hands on, We also had to make sure that this provider was real and reliable (there are horror stories about insurance companies being outside of the country and never paying things out), make sure the insurance provider is rated A++.

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