A New Career Opportunity for Retirees and Young entrepreneurs.
Retired folks aren't spending their free time puttering around the country in RVs or taking in 18 holes on the golf course. Rather, they're starting their own businesses.
When most people think of retirement, they think of golf games and RV trips. Not so with the current generation of retirees. Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation showed that people between the ages of 55 and 64 were the ones most likely to start up a new business.
Why, after working for 30 or 40 years, would people want to suddenly start working more? After so many years spent working for other people, they want to work for themselves. And, unlike many young people, they have the money and experience to do it.
It's one of the few small business investments that's low-risk, high-reward. Here's why:
1) You've got a good chance of success.
Self-storage has about an 8 percent failure rate, as opposed to other commercial real estate ventures, which have a failure rate between 53 and 63 percent. That's nearly six times as high.
2) You can pay your loan off quickly.
On average, self-storage steel buildings have about 80 percent occupancy. If that's the case, then even if you're paying off your land, materials, construction, and everything, you can usually get your entire loan paid back in about six years.
3) You don't have to hire the Seventh Fleet to run it.
You'll be managing yourself and maybe one or two other people for the day-to-day upkeep of your self-storage business. After years of working in giant buildings amongst thousands of other people, who doesn't want that kind of low maintenance?
4) You'll be entering a growing industry with demonstrated demand.
Self-storage has been the fastest-growing sector of the commercial real estate industry for the past 30 years.
For young entrepreneurs with business savvy, getting started in the self-storage industry could be the perfect outlet.