StretchLearn Course

Underwrite and acquire a self-storage facility with the numbers a real buyer runs

A complete beginner workflow for finding deals, calculating NOI and cap rate, modeling value-add, and stabilizing a facility you own

Preview Curriculum Back to Catalog

Beginner9 hrSelf PacedRegistered

Course Overview

What this course is designed to develop

This course teaches the underwriting and acquisition workflow that real storage buyers use, not generic real estate theory. You will normalize a seller's financials by stripping out personal expenses and adding back market management and insurance, calculate NOI and the going-in versus stabilized cap rate, model an SBA 7(a) or local-bank loan with DSCR, and build a value-add thesis from ECRI rate increases, tenant insurance attachment, and converting unrented square footage. You will assess a 3-mile and 5-mile trade area using square-feet-per-capita saturation, evaluate physical and economic occupancy separately, and write an LOI with the right contingencies. By the end you can pull a deal apart, decide whether the number makes sense, and know what you would do in the first 90 days of ownership.

Learning Outcomes

What the learner should be able to understand, build, or execute.

Read a self-storage rent roll and trailing-12 operating statement and separate physical occupancy from economic occupancy

Normalize a seller's financials by adding back owner expenses and inserting market-rate management, insurance, and reserves

Calculate NOI, going-in and stabilized cap rate, cash-on-cash return, and DSCR for a candidate facility

Build a value-add model from ECRI rate increases, tenant-insurance attachment, and absorbing vacant or unrented square footage

Evaluate a trade area using square-feet-per-capita saturation, competitor rates, and projected supply

Structure a purchase offer and letter of intent with the contingencies and due-diligence items that protect a buyer

Curriculum Preview

Inside the curriculum: a structured path from fundamentals to execution.

Preview the course structure, see how the modules build on one another, and understand the path this program is designed to take you through.

Module 1

Module 1: How Self-Storage Makes Money

Understand the asset class, the revenue and cost structure, and the metrics every buyer lives by before you ever look at a specific deal. Storage is a real estate business and an operating business at the same time, and the numbers behave differently than rental houses.

3 lessons

Why investors like storageContent · 45 min

Preview Enabled

The metrics that decide every dealContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Reading a rent roll and a T-12Content · 45 min

LMS Access

Module 2

Module 2: Finding and Evaluating Markets

Before you underwrite a building you must judge its market, because the best operations cannot save a saturated or shrinking trade area. This module covers sourcing deals and reading a location with real demand and supply data.

3 lessons

Sourcing deals on and off marketContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Reading supply and demandContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Touring and inspecting a facilityContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Module 3

Module 3: Underwriting and Financing the Deal

This is where a beginner becomes a buyer. You will normalize the seller's numbers, build the going-in and stabilized model, structure the loan, and translate your analysis into an offer that protects you.

3 lessons

Normalizing the seller's financialsContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Financing with SBA and conventional loansContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Structuring an offer and LOIContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Module 4

Module 4: Operating and Adding Value

Buying is the beginning; the returns come from how you run the facility. This module covers the operating levers that move occupancy and net income, and the value-add plays that turn a tired facility into a stabilized asset.

3 lessons

The first 90 days as an ownerContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Raising revenue with ECRI and ancillary incomeContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Filling space and the exitContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Built for Application

A complete learning path, not a one-off inspiration hit.

This program is designed around progression: focused lessons, structured modules, applied resources, assessments, and a course rhythm that turns information into usable capability.

self-storage investingcommercial real estatedeal underwritingcap ratenet operating incomevalue-add real estateSBA financingpassive income