How many rent storage space?

[Petrol & Powder]

Self-storage facilities are extremely profitable. They generate some of the highest returns per square foot of rental space and are inexpensive to build.

However, from a renters point of view, those metal boxes are expensive.

I understand the need to store items for a short term. Military members that get deployed, temporary jobs, relocating and the need to store excessive property while you search for permanent housing.
BUT, if you're just just storing property that you have accumulated and you will NEVER use it.......that stuff needs needs to go.

[MT Gianni]

We have used storage units when we were building in between houses and for relatives belongings before the trust was fully in effect. 14 months is our limit. Get rid of it or find a place for it.

[slohunter]

In my old neighborhood I would put stuff on the curb marked "Free" It would sit for weeks, put a $50 price tag on the same stuff and it would gone in minutes!

[john.k]

Im too smart for that....i just spent $50k on a new 60x40 shed to store $1 k worth of scrap metal.(cars and bikes)......still ,it impressed the neighbours......the ones who lodged objections ,anyway.

[slim1836]

I've got a 40' shipping container at the farm I store items in. Once I build and move out there I will need at least one more.

Slim

[GregLaROCHE]

I have a barn, but I’ve got so much crap in it I can never find what I’m looking for. I think when you have a large space available you tend to store too much. I’m starting to get rid of a lot of it. Given away or hauled to the dump. Of course nothing at all related to guns and shooting.

Slims idea about getting a used shipping container is a good one, as long as you have the place to put it and local ordinances allow it. My son is planning to get one. You can find 20 foot ones too.

[Petrol & Powder]

There are few events more liberating than disposing of stuff you don't need.

[SeabeeMan]

I don't rent a storage unit and only have while on deployments or when we had a boat but only a 1 stall garage.

I'm in far NW Wisconsin and I'm always amazed at the random little storage units in the middle of nowhere. Even on back roads it seems like you're not ever more than 10 miles from a storage unit rental. We're 8 miles off the highway and there are 4 places just on my drive from there to home. 5 if you count the roughly 60'x200' pole shed that is used for off season vehicle storage.

[2A-Jay]

We didn't rent a storage locker. Kept the stuff I would never be using again in my Garage/reloading room. Then started listing the stuff on FB Market Place with prices, everything sold in a week and I was $500 richer it was pure profit, Then the election happened during the Pandemic. Still bought 2 rifles and 20 pounds of pure lead with the money.

[David2011]

When we moved about 18 months ago I had to rent climate controlled storage for many of my tools, radio controlled airplanes and kits, reloading gear and over a ton of casting metals. It took a lot longer than expected to get a contractor to build the new shop but it’s done and I have about half of the cabinetry built. With a little luck I’ll start moving things from storage to its new home in a month or so so there’s light at the end of the old tunnel.

[GregLaROCHE]

There was a movie that showed a store that sold your stuff on EBay. I wish such places really existed. I would be glad to give 50% of the sale price, just for not having to go through all that is entailed to sell on EBay.

[HATCH]

I have a 20x16 climate controlled shop.
I have about $12000 tied up into the whole setup (concrete pad, stick built vinyl siding, electrical, mini-split)
My brother has had stuff in a commercial storage unit for 10 years.
I suspect that he has spent twice that much in storage fees.
We were discussing it this weekend and 1/2 the stuff in storage he isn't planning on keeping anyway.
And now since he bought a house last year he has enough space to put the other 1/2 of the stuff

[HATCH]

There was a movie that showed a store that sold your stuff on EBay.

40 year old virgin

[GregLaROCHE]

40 year old virgin

That’s right. I always thought it was a good idea.

[bedbugbilly]

The only time my wide and I have ever had a storage unit was when we were moving from our house of 45 years into a condo we bought in town - not knowing what we were going to need at the condo, which we had to go in and put new flouring in and paint during the time we listed the house, got it down to the bare minimum to show. It worked well for that . . . but to keep a unit just to store "stuff" seems like a waste of money to me. I have had friends who have had storage units for years - climate controlled units. You know . . .store books you'll never read, furniture you'l never use . . . clothes you'll never wear . . . kitchen utensils you already have multiples of . . . really valuable stuff like that. Then they would complain that they have to keep working because they haven't saved enough for reitirement.
do you get the picture?

Probably 90% of the storage units are just holding "stuff". This "stuff" could be liquidated for whatever it would bring - that money and the monthly rent a person is paying could then be invested in something that will appreciate and grow in value to benefit them when they retire. But a person has to finally "realize" that they have an "issue" of hanging on to stuff they don't really need or use. If you have had it in storage for a time . . . anything . . . and you haven't used it or needed it . . . do you really need it.

Worse yet are those . . . and I have seen this tie and tie again . . . even with my own family members . . . sho store stuff in barns and outbuildings. In Michigan . . and I'm sure other paces . . mice, coons, possum, etc. eventually get into ti and there is nothing worse that the destruction they do . . especially mice. It does a lot of good when you go to get that "important stuff" and find out it smells from mice droppings, urine or has been chewed on.

I'm not making light of this . . . in some ways . . . storage units and hanging on to stuff is like an addiction . . . no different than smokinging . . . . you keep paying good money to keep stuff that you really do't need . . but to you . . it has value . . which in theory what you pay each month for the unit SHOUKD be increasing the value fo the contents by the amount of rent each month . . . but doesn't . . . so it's a lot of money that is wasted . . . . a smoker will drop what $60 plus dollars on a carton of cigarettes . . . and then wonder why they do't have enough money to pay bills or save for retirees - and if they go through a canon a week - that's a minimum of $240 a month or $3,120.00 a year - $60.00 X 52 weeks - money that is wasted that could instead go towards retirement or be saved for unforeseen expenses.

Yep . . . makes perfect sense . . . . .

[1hole]

It has truly been said, "If our foresight was as good as our hindsight we'd be better off by a dampsight." ... or something like that.

No one has told me anything about the hazards of temp storage but I suspect few folk think of it as a long-term solution at first. But, bad things can happen in life and short term storage plans can become quite long.

As the costs of long term storage sinks in, we're faced with the question of, "After a long and expensive effort to save my best stuff, do I now toss it and be left with nothing to show for either the original investments AND the storage cost to this point?"; that's rarely an easy decision.

[farmbif]

I would not mind owning storage units.

[waksupi]

I do like storage unit sales, when the fees haven't been paid. I've made some good scores from them over the years.

[danmat]

I worked with a old guy when I was young, he was about my age now. We were talking about no garage space at our houses, he said I will never understand why someone would go spend 15 thousand on a new truck and leave it out in the weather because he had 100 dollars worth of junk in his garage.
When stuff starts pilin up I always remember him saying that.

[WebMonkey]

I only know one person who is getting his money’s worth on a storage unit. He has two very rare classic RHD Honda cars that he imported in over the years. One is one of 600 ever made worldwide. The other is the higher performance version of the same car but less rare. That one is his track toy. He lives in a small town house with no garage and is willing to pay for climate controlled parking space as the cars are so valuable. They are so small that both fit in the unit together along with all of his race tires/equipment.

Same guy has a Civic that he built into a rally car and actually took second in the Western division of his class last year. He stores all of his rally parts and gear there as well. Any gearhead who hasn’t been to a rally race is missing out! Volunteer to be a course marshal and then kick back and get a first row seat to the action.

the 100 acre wood rally went by my property this past weekend.