The Benefits Of Building Your Own Storage Unit

If you have space in the garage, placing a few stacked boxes in a corner will do for storage. But over the course of life important things tend to accumulate and you might start to run low on storage space, particularly for items you rarely use. If this happens, you’re going to want to invest in some long-term storage solutions.

With around 26% of new houses for sale being only one or two bedrooms, and following a general trend of downsizing, storage space is only getting harder and harder to accommodate in houses. At some point, most people will eventually find themselves with a lack of room and piles of mess.

At that stage, you can either downsize, or a better option would be to get a designated storage unit to store your items.

Renting or building

Regardless of your reasons for needing some space to store your items, the most pertinent question is where it’s all going to go.

The classic solution is to devote an area of the garage to storage, but that’s often a short-term solution. This is because people often prefer to use their garage for its intended function of parking cars, or want some room for tools, gym equipment, or wine, for example. So having items stored in the garage prevents you from using the space for these reasons.

Money and time costs

To start off, determine just how long ‘long-term’ storage is for you. If you’re living in a rental house or are planning to move out within the next couple of years, it might be easier for you to simply rent some space out in a storage facility for a short amount of time. This will save you the time and money it costs to install your own storage facility.

On the other hand. if you’re homeowner with no short-term plans to move, you might want to consider investing in building your own storage unit. Unless you’re expecting all of your belongings to go down in volume, if you have a problem with storage space now this will translate to a permanent problem with storage space forever.

This makes investing in have your own storage unit infinitely more preferable the longer you’ll need to use it for on a pure cost-based scenario.

The downsides of renting storage

Consider the cost and the need for a car

On average, you’ll pay about $250-500 per month (in major cities) to hire out a storage space. You’ll need to calculate how this long-term cost compares with the cost of building and having your own storage unit.

Depending on where you live, the location of rental storage spaces could be anywhere from a five minute drive to a thirty minute trek away. If you’re living in an urban centre, that’s going to increase the issues due to the difficulty of car travel.

A car is pretty much compulsory if you’re going to be wanting to rent space. You’ll need to be able to transport items to and from it, and if you’re using a lot of space you’ll have to take a few car trips to empty out your storage locker. So you’ll also need to factor in this cost.

Nature of the game

Secondly, the distance required to physically reach the rental space is unlikely to be on the short side due to the nature of the business. Storage areas tend to be located on industrial land rather than residential land, mostly due to the relatively lower price per square metre. This is great for driving down prices, but is not preferable for driving and will make reaching a storage locker a pretty significant trip. Even worse, the more desirable the location of your own house, the less likely you are to be parked on top of the sort of real estate market that would allow a rental storage facility to thrive nearby.

Dealing with the demand

You also have the strange phenomenon of dealing with the industry itself. Home storage facilities are extremely profitable. In fact, today they’re worth $752 million AUD, and are projected to be worth $809 million by 2020.

With this, you have an industry that knows how much people need it, as well as large occupancy rates. With units currently sitting at 88% occupancy levels throughout the country, there’s a significant chance that large suburban areas’ facilities will have enough potential candidates that you’ll have to jostle for the few remaining lots left at inflated prices.

Specialised vs. general storage

As a quick aside, you might need a separate storage space for specific, locational items, such as a pool shed or gardener’s shed. Not all houses can easily fit such necessities in a freestanding shed, and so you might find yourself having to potter the cleaning supplies or the lawnmower through the house to reach the backyard. This can be extremely inconvenient and time-consuming.

If you’re not considering a storage unit for long-term storage, but are instead looking to invest in a specific area for specialised equipment, then you can skip discussions on whether you want to rent or build and move straight to determining what kind of storage is right for you. The longer distance, need for a car, lower accessibility, ongoing costs, and the overall inconvenience that comes with a rental for something you’ll be using regularly won’t be worth it.

Storing it yourself

Now, none of what we’ve outlined so far makes rental storage necessarily a terrible idea. But as the average value of a house increases exponentially the more rooms you put in it, and keeping an entire room for storage alone is a very large ask, there are ways around this that make self-solutions more palatable.

This is where outdoor storage solutions offer accessibility and choice. By choosing to offload your storage into an area that isn’t designated living space or the garage, you effectively sacrifice garden or wall area to free up your own living quarters and cut down on the cost of rental storage.

There are two ways to do this: firstly, you can invest in a shed, or, if space is a premium, you should strongly consider a personal storage locker.

Personal storage lockers

A personal storage locker or unit can mean anything from a small gym-style combination locker to a huge container, but for the purposes of this we’ll be roughly talking about the size of one of our Tidy Titans.

Personal storage lockers are innovative units that are erected by the side of a wall, and designed with optimacy in mind. If you’re investing in storage, you need it to take up as little useable space as possible, and have it work in the confines of your space.

Tidy Titans fit within a variety of homes; they’re slim, durable (made from 50mm steel stud frames), secure (featuring Tamper resistant keyed locks), and have adjustable door-fittings for different specifications.

Advantages of personal storage

We’ve talked a bit about the downsides of renting, but what are the advantages of storing under your own terms?

Cost

Firstly, you have the obvious flipside of cost, which comes out in the favour of a shed or personal storage unit. A Titan garage will cost you a couple of weeks of rental storage , and you’ll have the unit for the rest of your time at that property.

As always, we’d recommend applying for a free online quote if you’re looking to compare prices, because no house is the same, and everybody’s requirements are different.

House value

Let’s also not forget that any modifications you make to positively impact a house will increase any future selling price you might get for it. A shed or personal storage facility can be a big advantage for families that don’t want to pay that identical $250 minimum weekly.

If you’re building a Titan Tidy, you’re probably in it for the long-haul (or at least the medium-haul), but don’t discount the future just yet. If you do sell, it’s good to have as many value-adding factors as possible.

Accessibility

Do you have items that are bulky, but you use them every once in a while? It’s a lot easier to walk out to the garden than it is to drive to a location, load up a car, and drive it right back (and maybe another trip if you’re transporting multiple items).

Having a unit in your own backyard gives you the ability to keep specialised items nearby, and occasional use items still useable without preparation. You won’t have to depend on the opening hours of the lot (if it’s not drive-in anytime), or the location.

Considering investing in storage?

There’s no time like the present, especially if you’re paying hundreds a week on rental storage. So if you’ve crunched the numbers, and building personal storage seems the right option for you. To find our more about how a Titan Tidy storage locker can work for you, call us on 132736 or get an online quote today.