Many people that are in charge of apartment complexes consider it to be their responsibility to make the lives of their tenants a little easier in one way or another. Whether that person is the owner, a manager, or someone with a property management company, this is a commonly held belief. One way to accomplish this is to use parking space storage.
It’s not uncommon for people in charge of apartment complexes to try and find ways to help their tenants with clutter, in exchange for a nominal fee, of course. Storage solutions come in all shapes and sizes, which makes this task a little easier
But, how exactly do these kinds of storage units help with your tenants’ clutter problems? Also, how do these kinds of storage units help you as a landlord? Of course, helping tenants is nice, but even the most generous landlord wants to make sure that they’re getting a return on investment.
It costs money to have a property as well as to install storage units. As the world-renown hip-hop group known as Wu-Tang Clan once said, “Cash rules everything around me.” and even though they spoke that infamous line way back in the 1900s, it’s still true today.
So, let’s take a look at how storage units can help both you and your tenants in both the short and long term so you can decide for yourself if this would be a good solution for your apartment complex.
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Why Some Apartment Complexes Choose not to Get On-Site Storage
Before getting into the reasons why so many apartment complexes feel like on-site storage is a great idea, let’s look at some of the reasons why apartment complexes choose not to install on-site storage on their properties.
While it’s generally considered to be a pretty good idea to get on-site storage for a lot of reasons, it simply doesn’t work for some apartment complexes. If a property wants to get on-site storage there are workarounds, but here are a few of those reasons:
Not enough space.
Your property has a very finite amount of space. You can’t make more space appear out of thin air, so if all of your space is already being used for something else, there’s not much you can do.
Perceived lack of interest.
Adding on-site storage can only be as useful for you and your tenants as your tenants make it. If you think your tenants might not be interested you may be more likely to avoid
Small budget
Money is not an unlimited resource, and installing storage costs money. If you don’t have the budget, you simply don’t have the budget.
There are some workarounds that you can use for most of these issues, or at least ways to make it work if you really want to. We’ll cover those in more detail as the article continues on that way if you want on-site storage but don’t think that you’ll be able to swing it you’ll know your options.
That being said, sometimes it just won’t work for certain properties. For example, some properties really just don’t have the space for any kind of storage. Maybe their entire parking lot is used and they already need more parking than they have as it stands.
Most apartment complexes would be able to swing something, but let’s look more into the subject so you can be better informed and make the best possible choice for your property. Whether you decide it could work or it couldn’t, the important part is that you’re doing the research.
Helping Tenants with Clutter
As life goes on, it’s pretty common to collect knick-knacks, odds and ends, and the such. Some of that stuff is useful, like tool kits for example. Some of that stuff has more sentimental value with less functionality, like your mother’s collection of sad ceramic clowns.
Other things are just things that we like having. A lot of blankets, special cookware, Funko pop collections, etc. These things can take up a lot of space and if they aren’t used in your daily life, there’s a good chance that you’d want to have someplace to store them.
If you don’t have any place to store these things, you could end up with a lot of clutter. Clutter, in many cases, can make your home harder to clean because there isn’t a place for everything, but it can also have some pretty negative effects on the psyche.
You see, we might not exactly be nothing more than reflections of our environments, as people tend to say, but our environments can actually have a huge impact on our psyche, Cluttered spaces are more likely to induce things like anxiety and depression in people that reside within them.
Both the process of acquiring things as time goes on and the effect that a cluttered room can have on the psyche is just as true for you as it is for your tenants. Giving your tenants a place to store their extra things can help make their spaces easier to clean as well as keep their mental health in check.
In fact, because of the extra space that your tenants will have, there’s a better chance that your apartments will be returned in much closer to ready-to-rent condition than they would otherwise for a lot of reasons. There is one reason that is more prevalent than the others.
That reason is the lessened amount of wear and tear on things like walls and carpets from the tenants have to move and store things within their apartment. The less wear and tear the apartment gets, the quicker you’ll be able to turn the unit around once they move out.
Working Around Set Backs
Now, if your apartment complex is one that has one of the reasons to not get on-site storage that we mentioned earlier and you want to install some on-site storage for your tenants to use, this section is for you.
Here are the issues we listed earlier and how you might be able to work around them:
Lack of space.
This might seem like the hardest one to get around, but you can actually get storage units in all shapes and sizes. If you have a little bit of space to space you could make something work.
Perceived lack of interest.
If you think your tenants might not be interested in on-site storage, it could be worth your time to just ask them. You might be surprised.
Out of budget.
The money that you have available for this sort of thing might not be flexible, but you can always try financing it. Many companies will allow this.
This one has two solutions. The other is that you could shop around and see what deals are available. You might be surprised by this as well.
When it comes to on-site storage, your options are far from limited. Of course, there are some apartment complexes that won’t be able to make this work, but in most cases, it’s exactly as they say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Typical Tenant Reactions to On-Site Storage
After reading the rest of this article, you might be wondering how tenants generally react to the availability of on-site storage. The short answer is “positively” but we have a bit of time left so let’s expand on that a bit.
Most tenants feel grateful for the opportunity to have more space for their things, especially if you price the storage units correctly. Most people enjoy the prospect of not having to store the things they don’t need in their living space.
That means that generally speaking, you should be able to rent out most if not all of your storage units pretty quickly. That’s a great thing for you because of the extra cash flow that can bring to your property once everything is set up properly.
There are a few ways that you can go about making your tenants more likely to use the storage units. For example, making the storage units a pleasant color, adding a small garden, or doing other things that can beautify the space can make the storage area feel more welcoming.
Being on top of your security can help as well. That means picking units that aren’t easy to break into and setting up a security camera somewhere in the vicinity so you can keep an eye on things.
Finding Win-Win Solutions to Tenant Clutter
In the rental property industry, it can be hard to find things that benefit yourself and your tenants equally. Fortunately, when it comes to tenant clutter, there are some pretty solid solutions that can make both you and your tenants happy.
Whether you have a single property with ten units or you own or manage tens of properties with hundreds of units apiece, you can find solutions that work out well for your bottom line and can help your properties become more profitable than ever before.