Things House Flippers Learned From Conferences in 2017

November of 2017 was an exciting yet busy month. We learned alot, stirring fruitful business conversations. The source of our education came from two different conferences. Uriah attended the NCSSA Conference in Charlotte and Katelynn, the Internet Summit in Raleigh. After our respective conferences, we came together and compared notes, in order to determine how we could apply the things we learned to benefit our business. We thought we would share some of what we learned, in case it could be applicable to you.

NCSSA Conference

The NCSSA stands for North Carolina Self-Storage Association. They describe themselves as “an Association comprised of a wide array of owners and operators whose facilities range from single location sites to large portfolios with thousands of rental units.  In addition, we have associate members that represent vendors who serve the industry as well as those individuals who are interested in getting involved.”
Self-Storage is an intriguing real estate investing avenue. It’s benefits include low turn-over rates, low maintenance, and potentially fewer headaches. Although we would not recommend this conference to “newby” storage investors, because they didn’t do any hand-holding, there were a few key points of information we walked away with:

1. SBA loans are available for buying or building.
2. Building of new storage has hit all time highs over the last 2 years
3. …because of this, an opportunity is present from new owners that built and didn’t plan well: anticipate a high foreclosure rate in the future.
4. Buying run down facilities and fixing them up (kind of like fixing up damaged houses) is a great way to get into the business, because you have automatic cash flow and can add value to the building in a few short months.
5. Secondary and tertiary markets have great margins for storage. (The big 3 story storage facilities on main roads in large MSA’s are pretty, but their numbers are tight)

The Internet Summit Conference

The Internet Summit is a massive conference with tons of information. Katelynn only attended one day, but plans to go to the whole thing next year. With an impressive speaker line up of Mitch Lowe (co-founder of Netflix), Seth Godin, Amy Schmittauer, and Natasha Mulla (Mashable), just to name a few, it was quite inspirational to hear. Our main interest here was foundational brand building. Here are a few bulleted points that we walked away with.

• Establish a brand strategy.
• Know your audience.
• Set clear, measurable goals.
• Create a content plan.
• There are three varieties of content:
  • Informational
  • Entertaining
  • Inspirational

What did you do this month that helped you achieve your goals? Do you have a house that needs work and you want to sell it as-is? Want to see more of our flips or see what services we offer? Let’s stay in touch!