I attended the ISS expo in LV earlier this year, and attended a great workshop presented by RK Kliebenstein. One of the main points I took from the workshop was that the average tenant is worth $1200, and what would you as an owner/manager spend to claim that $1200? We made some marketing decisions based on that information, including the purchase of a $20,000 moving truck to give to tenants free of charge, marketing pieces, etc.

I don't know why I never did this before, but today I stumbled on a software report that indicated that the average stay for my tenants is 32.5 months., or 2 years and 8.5 months. I then checked my average monthly unit rent, and it comes in at $150. I was amazed that for my facility, the average renter is worth $4875, over 4 TIMES the number that RK used. I assume his number is a national average, and my area does have higher rents than many areas.

I'm curious as to the averages for other facilities, am I just lucky or is this pretty common?

I can peg at least 5 rentals on the new truck we bought 3 months ago, according to these averages, it is now paid for and it has made an additional $4375!!

Way to go Storman!! Great numbers.

I will start looking around our software to see if I can generate numbers like that, or if I have to do it the old fashioned way.

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Wayne
All American Self Storage
Palmdale, CA.
webmaster@all-americanselfstorage.com

Make sure that avg stay is for all renters you have ever had, vs current population. If just current, your avg is skewed.

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Self Storage Management
Storage Career Center

It is for all tenants I've ever had, about 1000 total. (my facility is only 400 units). I was also pleasantly surprised to see that I have 48 tenants with me for between 10-14 years, and 9 tenants with me for 15 years or more.

2 have been with me for 18.5 years! This particular report doesn't show me which specific unit they're in, but if I apply the average rental fee to that number, they've given me over $33,000 in rent. How much you want to bet the stuff in there isn't worth a penny over $30,000?

Wow this made me go look at who has been here the longest. It turns out to be our favorite tenant 18 yrs in two units spent over $50,000 on the two units.
But then we have a lady with a 1967 mustang with factory air in one unit she has been here for 10 yrs. in a 30x25 that she has the stang and a few boxes her hubby says. She comes over and drives it around the site here. She stores it as her kids all want the car and she is not giving it to them. She is the only owner of this car and as a mustang nut myself i wouldn't give it to my kids. She just had it appraised and said it was well over $75,000. She has paid about $72,000.00.
Some people are strange when it comes to stuff.

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Proud Karate Mom

I used to run a facility in Stuart, Fl. I had one tenant that had been there 30 years (and I've been gone for 7 or 8 years) that was renting a 5 x 5 space, no a/c. Never saw or met them, just got a good (small) check every month.

Had another that had what looked like an old tour or Greyhound bus. It was rusting into the ground. But every month, I got a check from Colorado to pay for the space.

Go figure.

Bob (Astro)

Hi Storman,

I sat there listening to him as well and I thought $1200 that's not much, ours are worth more than that. I didn't have exact numbers in my head, but I've calculated the cost of different advertising vs. the ROI so I had a fairly good idea our tenants had greater value than $1200.

Our first phase is 11 years old, 2nd phase is 7 years old, so these averages are across the board. That is where the numbers below are a bit skewed but it still falls out quite nicely.

Our average tenant is staying with us 461 days, or basically15 months.

Our average unit rent rate is: $163.00

15 months at $163 = $2445.00

$100* for one customer at $2445.00 rent? Yes I think that is a pretty good return on our investment. So I concur, our customers are worth spending a bit of money to bring them in.

* We have a (never expires) $50 referral fee program in place. We pass out coupon cards and have it on our website as well. The renter who brings in a coupon card or internet printout receives a $50 rent discount at move-in and the referring person (if there is one) receives a check from me for $50.

I didn't factor in our website which costs us about $100 per month including the DSL line and hosting etc. That cost would be spread across all rentals, so it is negligible.

Even if you factor in our one remaining yellow page ad, and a couple of other advertising media we use, the total cost is still nominal per tenant considering their length of stay.

RK did a good job! He got at least two of us thinking!

Every year we calculate our average rental period. We use SiteLink (standalone) and their avg. rental period (from the Marketing Summary Report) is incorrect. They only factor current tenants so we use our moved out tenants report and days occupied column. This only considers moved out tenants so the number is conservative considering we are not factoring in our tenants that are still renting and have rented many years. 35% have been customers for over three years. Here's our combined 2007averages from our stores:
Avg Length of Stay: 12.8 months
Avg Rental Rate: $91.38
Avg. Rental $: $1,169.00

If we compare this to 2006, we increased our avg. rental value by $235. Not bad.

We also have free moving truck rentals at all our stores. Wish we could have $150 avg. rental rates!

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Danielle