Dave DeMink - Self-Storage Coach

10/09/2026

Why I'm betting everything on self storage.

Three takeaways, even if you don't click:
1. Self storage held up through 2008 and 2020, when other assets struggled.
2. Storage demand comes from life events, not the economy.
3. That's why it barely moves in a downturn.

Comment 'FIRST' and I'll send you the 18-page first-facility guide.

Self storage held up through 2008 and 2020 while other assets strug...

10/09/2026

How much should a self storage facility cash flow?

A client asked me this on a live coaching call today, and here's the rule of thumb I gave them.

👉 If you buy the RIGHT deal with a real value-add opportunity, you should generally be able to generate about $2–$3 per square foot, per year, in cash flow.

Here's how to use it on a deal in under a minute (numbers are illustrative):

1️⃣ Find the square footage. If you know the price and the price per foot, divide.
$600,000 ÷ $50 per sq ft = about 12,000 sq ft

2️⃣ Apply the range.
12,000 sq ft × $2 = $24,000 a year
12,000 sq ft × $3 = $36,000 a year

3️⃣ Gut-check the deal. That's the ballpark annual cash flow a well-bought value-add facility of that size should be able to produce. If the deal only works with numbers far outside that range, slow down and find out why.

Now the important part: this is a generality, not a guarantee. Where a facility lands in (or outside) that range depends on:
• Where it is in the country
• The type and size of market
• What current rents are in that market

A 12,000 sq ft facility in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma and a 12,000 sq ft facility in the suburbs of New Jersey operate in completely different worlds, even though they're the same size.

So don't use $2–$3 a foot to underwrite a deal. Use it to quickly sort which deals deserve a full underwrite. And remember, it assumes you bought the right value-add facility in the first place.

Save this for your next deal review. 📌

10/08/2026

After 10 storage deals, if I had to start over, these are the 3 skills I'd learn first.

Not "how to find off-market deals." Not "how to raise money." These three. Every deal I've done since runs through them.

1) Know how the numbers connect.

Occupancy, income, NOI, and value aren't four separate stats. They're one chain:

• Occupancy (plus rent per unit) drives income
• Income minus operating expenses = NOI (net operating income)
• NOI divided by the cap rate = value

Simple illustration (made-up numbers, not a real deal): a facility brings in $300,000 a year and costs $120,000 a year to run. That's $180,000 of NOI. At a 7% cap rate, that's roughly $2.57M of value. Now notice what happens if NOI goes up just $20,000 a year: at the same 7% cap, value goes up by about $285,000.

That's why the chain matters. Every dollar of NOI you add (or lose) gets multiplied in the value.

If you don't know these metrics, you're borrowing the seller's opinion of what their property is worth. And the seller's opinion is usually their asking price.

2) Kill bad deals fast.

Most deals you look at shouldn't get a full underwrite. Build a quick screen and run every deal through it before you open the spreadsheet:

• Does the market have the demand? (What are nearby competitors' occupancy and street rates?)
• Does the asking price make sense against the actual NOI, not the "pro forma" NOI?
• Are there deal-killers you can spot in minutes, like a bad location, heavy deferred maintenance, or a price that only works with perfect assumptions?

If it fails the screen, move on. A bad deal killed in minutes is a win. A bad deal discovered six hours later is a total waste of time. Speed here is what lets you look at more deals without burning out.

3) Underwrite the survivors on today AND tomorrow.

For the deals that pass, do two underwrites:

• Today: what is this facility worth right now, on its actual in-place income?
• Tomorrow: where can you realistically take it over the next 3–5 years? Filling vacancies, bringing below-market rents up to market, tightening expenses, better management, better marketing online.

Great investors understand what a facility is worth today and what better operations could make it worth tomorrow. The gap between those two numbers is where your return comes from. Just make sure you're paying for today, not for tomorrow.

The takeaway: great investors don't find more deals. They just get faster at knowing which ones deserve a yes.

If this was helpful, follow along. I share what I've learned about buying and running storage facilities.

10/08/2026

"The bank said no" is not the end of a deal. Often it's the start of a better one. If a lender turned your deal down, here are four things to do this week:

1. Say the quiet part out loud. If the deal isn't bankable for you, it isn't bankable for anybody. The seller's buyers are now cash buyers only, and cash buyers take 10 to 15% off the asking price.

2. Don't stack two concessions against yourself. Putting less money down and paying a higher rate means you earn less twice. Give one, get one.

3. Show the seller your math. "Getting you to your number earns me 6%. You can get 8% in the bank without lifting a finger. So how do you and I solve this together?"

4. Call, don't email. When an owner emails you a price, pick up the phone: "How'd you get to that number? Let's close the gap."

Comment 'FIRST' and I'll send you the 18-page first-facility guide.

10/06/2026

Kevin, an incredible member of our coaching program, couldn't find a storage facility worth buying, so he bought a piece of land and got it rezoned to build one from scratch.

Then he found a facility he could buy.

It was a smaller facility at about 80% occupancy. To a lot of buyers, that looks like a problem, because 1 in 5 units is sitting empty. But that's what made it a deal. The empty units were income waiting to be collected, and the rents had room to go up.
So Kevin raised prices on the 10x20s and filled it to 100%. In his own words: "I have a couple people that would likely rent if I had any units available."

Kevin didn't find a hidden deal. He found one other buyer had already looked at and passed on, because they couldn't see what the numbers were telling them.

This is exactly what we are teaching in my brand new, Know Your Numbers 30-day Accelerator inside FIRST FACILITY. You'll learn to underwrite a deal start to finish, join our weekly coaching calls, get unlimited 1:1s with me and/or my partner Ken, and enjoy a private Slack channel so we can review your work.

You'll NEVER ask yourself again: "Is this a good deal?"

Comment ME if it's time to "go pro" on analyzing self-storage numbers, and I'll send you the full details and breakdown: what we cover, how the 30 days work, and how to join us.

Dave DeMink

10/05/2026

The fear that stops most first-time buyers isn't the down payment. It's the fear that the seller's numbers are lying and they won't catch it.

Here's how it plays out. A member got his due-diligence documents back and went quiet. He'd modeled the whole deal on the street rates the listing showed, about $6,200 a month. The rent roll came back at $4,600. Tenants who moved in back in 2022 had never gotten a single increase.

He wasn't wrong about the facility. He was wrong about which number he was buying.

The fix in one line: underwrite what the property collects, not what it advertises. Street rate is what the seller hopes for. The rent roll is what actually happened. Buy the rent roll, and treat the street rate as your upside plan.

Comment 'FIRST' and I'll send you the 18-page first-facility guide.

09/24/2026

The worst way to get started in self-storage is trying to learn everything about self-storage.

When I started, I couldn't underwrite a deal. I didn't know a single broker. I had no clue how to get financing. I just knew I wanted out of my W2 and I was done dealing with tenants and toilets.

I could have spent two years reading, listening, and "getting ready." Plenty of people do. They know the vocabulary, but they've never actually looked at a deal.

Here's what I learned: you don't become a storage investor by studying storage. You become one by evaluating real deals. Every deal comes down to three questions.

What is the property actually making? Not what the listing says it could make. Ask for the rent roll and the trailing 12-month income statement, and look at what was collected. The broker's "pro forma" number is a guess about the future. Collected rent is the truth about the past.

What are the real expenses? This is where beginners get burned. Sellers often run a facility themselves and leave out what it costs to pay someone else to do it. Property taxes usually get reassessed after a sale. Insurance, management, repairs, utilities, software, and marketing all belong in the number. If a seller's expense list looks too small, it probably is.

Does it still make money after the debt payment? Income minus expenses is your net operating income. Subtract your loan payment from that. What's left is your cash flow. If the answer is thin or negative, a great location or a "value-add opportunity" doesn't fix it on day one.

Run those three questions on 10 deals and you'll learn more than a year of studying will teach you. You'll start to see what normal looks like, where sellers stretch the numbers, and which deals are worth a second look.

Knowing everything about storage means nothing if you can't tell whether a property is worth buying.

My team and I are still buying and operating storage every week, across 10 facilities. I share what we learn along the way. If you want to buy your first storage facility, follow along.

Stop trying to learn everything. Start learning what matters.

09/19/2026

What if I told you I run a facility with ONE part-time employee? 👇

Storage runs at a 35% expense ratio or lower — no toilets, no tenants living there, and unit turnover is a sweep and a lock check, not a $2K+ remodel.

09/18/2026

Three things I look at on every single facility I own when I want to grow income:

Tenant protection/insurance
Fee structure (admin fees, late fees)
Rate management on existing tenants — not just what a new renter pays walking in

None of these are complicated. None of them require raising street rates or doing anything drastic. It's just steady, intentional attention to a few specific levers, applied consistently.

That's honestly most of what "growing income" looks like in this business — not some big secret, just discipline on the basics.

09/17/2026

1 in 10 Americans rent a storage unit.

Not because of a trend. Because life happens — moving, downsizing, a divorce, a death in the family, a kid heading off to college, a small business that outgrew its back room.

None of that is seasonal. None of it depends on the economy. It's just... life, constantly generating a need for a little extra space.

That's the part people miss when they think about storage as a "boring" business. It's not boring — it's just quietly, consistently needed.