What to Do Before You Move into Your New Home

What to Do Before You Move into Your New Home

Moving house is always an exciting experience, but it can also be the cause of great stress. Whether you hire a removalist or whether you are moving your furniture into self storage, you still need to plan carefully to make certain that your move is a smooth one.

With a little planning, there is no reason why moving day cannot be a fun time. After all, you are moving into a new location, there will be new friends to meet and new places to visit.

In the planning stage, the move can totally dominate your life. You have to plan your packing, work out where the furniture will be placed in your new house, and then arrange for your old place to be cleaned.

Faced with these many challenges it’s important to have a plan of attack so that moving day can be as efficient as possible. Let’s take a look at how to go about setting up a plan.

• Start your planning as many months in advance as you possibly can. This gives you time to choose a removalist by obtaining as many quotes as you can muster, and it also gives you the chance to keep costs under control.
• Start packing your least used items a few weeks in advance so that you aren’t left having to pack everything on the night before you move. This also gives you a good opportunity to think about where the furniture will be placed once you arrive in your new residence.
• Label your boxes according to where they will be unpacked. This means you will have to plan the layout of your new house and make sure the boxes for each room are labelled properly so it is easier to unpack at the other end.
• If time allows, have your new house properly cleaned before you move in. Don’t rely on the old tenants or owners doing this for you. Check with the agent and try to get access to the house at least a week before you move in so you can be sure it is spick and span. It is also a good time to think about replacing any worn or old floor coverings, especially carpets.
• Take advantage of any time delays by doing some touch up paintwork. If necessary, you can have the inside of the house completely repainted in the colours you like so that you when you move in, it will feel like new.
• For safety’s sake you might want to consider changing the locks in your new house. Do it all before you move in and it will be one less thing to worry about.

If you don’t have sufficient time to perform all the preparatory work before you move into your new house, you might want to move some of your furniture into self storage. This will give you sufficient time to get all the painting and redecorating done before you finally move in.

Using Self Storage As An Investment

Using Self Storage As An Investment

With the boom of the Self Storage industry in the last few decades, more and more investors have been looking at our industry with dollar signs in their eyes! It’s a simple premise, similar to the passive income model of renting out apartments or homes to earn a bit of money and a lot of people are jumping on board.

Now what exactly do you need to be looking at in order to make investing in Self Storage worth it for you?

1. Do you want to own a facility of your own or would you rather invest in a self-storage real estate investment trusts (REITs)?
   While the idea of owning a business of your own sounds like a swell idea, the road to riches with Self Storage is hardly so simple. As with any business, running it is a huge task on its own. There are a lot of day-to-day operations that need to be handled in addition to backend administration that needs to be handled by a capable manager. Some self storage facilities come as a franchise – meaning that there is a winning strategy behind the brand and it could be the difference in striking out on your own and trying to break in to an already saturated market.
   But if you don’t have the capital to purchase your own facility and/or hire the staff to run it, there are other options available to give you a slice of the pie. Take a look at some publicly traded self storage investment products available on the market to give you your self-storage investment fix.
2. Maximise the potential of your investment by starting with good base features
   There are options to (again) join a big conglomerate self storage brand and own a franchise so that you hit the ground running but if you’ve decided to run a Self Storage facility on your own, there are some things that you can do right from the bat to give yourself a headstart.
   Look at the location of your facility! The surroundings and the demographics of the area around where you intend to build – this could mean the difference of who’s going to store with you and also whether there are any competitors near you. You’ll also need to look at hiring well-trained professionals to handle operations in your facility – managers and day to day staff to help with move-ins and not forgetting a good security system!
3. Be patient
   Again, getting into self storage is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It will still require your hard work and attention for the first few months and probably years before it starts turning a profit. Pay attention to your sums and the accounts of your facility and also keep an eye out to the occupancy rates at your facility. Is there anything you can do to attract more people to store at your facility? Advertising and low rental rates play a part too!

Getting started in self storage is an exciting and fulfilling journey and because the model has been proven to work, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work for you too! But set some reasonable expectations for yourself and work hard at it! And don’t forget that there are always other options than going at it alone including taking out a franchise or looking at the publicly traded self storage investment assets on the market! Good luck and happy earning!

Top Tips On Moving Across Town

Top Tips On Moving Across Town

Moving across town is the most common move, and it can be quite easy. A bit of organization can save you a lot of money, time and hard labor. It can also make the move a lot more fun, and you can even use self storage as a “secret weapon” against disorganization. The fact is, moving across town can be a great opportunity to really improve your quality of life and your peace of mind.

Getting set up for a move across town

A combination of scheduling and basic tricks will get your move over almost before you know it’s happening.

Note: Your time frame for moving in starts from the day you get the key. At this point you can get quite a lot of things done before the big move.

Start with your scheduling:

• Give yourself a time frame of about a month at least to get set up before your move.
• Categorize your move into these areas:
• The heavy stuff that needs to be moved when you move. This can stay.
• The heavy stuff that may not be needed in the new place, or may be suitable for storage.
• Domestic materials (kitchen and bathroom, etc.)
• Personal tools like kids toys, sporting materials, gardening and home tools, etc.
• Appliances and electronics
• The easy to move and special materials that you can move simply with your own car or even as hand luggage. Anything like bric a brac, family heirlooms, clothes, the lightweight things that take up a lot of space during a move and seem to take to forever to find after you’ve moved.

These categories help you organize your move simply and keep these materials together for better organization.

Moving by stages

Start packing all the easy to move stuff first. Move that in the minute you’ve got the keys to the new place and have a chance to run it over there. This saves a lot more space for the actual move as well, and simplifies unloading.

portable storage units can be used for the domestic materials. Get a few big containers, preferably good strong heavy duty type, and progressively pack the domestic materials and personal tools.

Any difficult pieces that can’t be immediately placed in the new home should be put in storage until you’ve got things sorted out. This is actually quite cheap, and much easier to live with than the sort of tangle it’s possible to create trying to place pieces of furniture and other large objects right in the middle of moving.

Domestic materials and useful things like the bathroom and bedroom stuff should be packed separately (preferably in their own storage containers) so you can find them easily when you make the move.

The heavy furniture and other causes of major hard labor should be organized the day before movement into groups. That will help the movers handle them and organize loading.

Moving across town isn’t difficult. It’s as easy as you can make it for yourself.

Storage Stories 7

Storage Stories 7

Super Cheap Self Storage is blessed with an amazing scheme of operations that benefit us as a business and also gives immense pleasure to our clients who don’t have to worry about transportation and moving charges when it comes to putting their things into storage. It’s quite something to be offering our clients an option to have a personalised pick-up and drop-off service that minimises any unnecessary work and coordination and we at Super Cheap Self Storage are very pleased and passionate about the way we carry out our business.

Our mobile modules have really been the talking point of our business model and we’ve got lots of clients who’ve actually given us a shout out for the excellent service that we provide with our mobile storage modules. Some of them even tell us about how things used to be for them before they found out about what Super Cheap Self Storage could offer them and how they struggled to get things done with other companies that didn’t offer such services. Needless to say, the mobile method has really changed the game!

I recall one of our long time customers telling us about an experience he had with trying to get his unit packed up. He had actually rented out a unit with a storage facility that was out of the suburbs area and closer to the side of the highway. Now he’s not a very young man, but neither was he very old – he could certainly manage a few boxes of things on his own. But he was a very busy business man who had to plan for an upcoming overseas trip and get all his items into storage before all that could happen. Imagine how stressful it was for him trying to get everything straightened out in time!

In any case, what makes this a remarkable story is actually how he managed to get everything settled in the end. He originally wanted to try bringing things down to the storage facilities on his own! That way he could arrange things within the unit just the way he wanted and liked. But after trying to bring things down to his storage unit on his own, with some help from his friends, he realised that it would truly take way too long to get everything organized and set up in time.

It was a rather funny sight, because our client only drove a small car – a tiny Hyundai Getz to be exact, so he definitely didn’t do too many trips before realising that there had to be a better way to get everything from one place to the next. After contacting a number of moving companies and asking for advice from friends, he settled with hiring a moving company to help him pack and ship his items from home to the storage facility and that was that!

Now that he’s storing with us, he definitely doesn’t have that problem of logistics to worry about any longer and he’s definitely saving money from having to hire additional parties to step in and help out!

Storage Stories 6

Storage Stories 6

As you know, in Australia, we’ve got some of the most deadly animals in the whole world around our parts. And sometimes, even when you’re living in the suburbs, the critters can find their way into your patio and kitchens and living rooms if you’re not careful.

It’s the same here at our warehouse premises at Super Cheap Self Storage ___________! Our state of the art security systems and 24 hour personnel keeps thieves and potential opportunists out, but sometimes, the possums, rats and sometimes snakes and scorpions seem to find their way on to our grounds and even into the units from time to time! This could happen when we are loading up the unit or when owners come by to check out their items at the facilities and we can never tell when there’s a surprise or 2 in there!

We actually have received calls from our concerned customers once in a while, especially since our units are entirely portable directly to their location. Seems like some of the critters like to lay dormant inside the mobile storage units especially while the whole thing is being transported to the location where our customers are – they’ll only come out once everything has stopped shaking and shifting about. But you’ll be glad to know that most of the time, the animals come out A-okay, just a little bewildered at the change of surroundings. It’s good to know the animals aren’t hurt when they do eventually emerge from inside our storage units, but it can be a shock to the customer who didn’t expect a stowaway together amongst their prized and treasured possessions!

One of the more memorable stories we’ve had is actually one of our removalists giving us a call rather frantically about having discovered a snake that must have slithered its way in somehow. After our customer had opened up his portable storage unit, the team was tasked to help unload the items within as part of our premium services and half way through unloading they found a 3-foot long snake! I can’t quite recall what snake it was, but they called me immediately with how we should go about to help the customer to remove the snake and continue with the move.

Cutting a long story short, we called animal control and told gave them a quick description of the snake and where it was situated. The fellow was rather sedated – probably from having been woken up from its hibernation and as long as we stayed our distance, everything should be okay. We were quite lucky that our customers were very understanding as we settled in to wait for the animal control guys to arrive with their tools and round the snake up. When they had gathered him up and left, we all had a good laugh about things together and continued to finish up the move for our customers.

We waived the time that we had to wait out the animal control guys for our customers and all in all, it was an interesting day for sure – a story to tell lots of friends and relatives about and definitely an experience to remember!

Storage Stories 5

Storage Stories 5

When it comes to self storage, most people have the same general idea – if they need to do a spot of upgrading at home, or just spruce up a room or two, they’re going to need to move things out while they go at it! And for that, there’s only one choice in all of Australia and that’s Super Cheap Self Storage! We’re the best and most convenient storage company in all the states and we’re happy to be entrusted with the safekeeping of your previous household items while you get things done.

Now over the years of operation for us, we’ve seen a great many things come in and out of our doors. You would actually be very surprised by who similar people are in terms of the things that they need to keep. And that includes all sorts of tools for anything from woodworking to major home improvement – screwdrivers and drills, jigsaws and sanders, chisels and axes, vices and clamps… We could probably open up a Mitre 10 outlet with all the tools we’ve helped people to store!

Furniture is also a big percentage of the more common articles – and you’d be amazed at how much stuff comes from IKEA! Almost everybody has the same side table or shelving unit! The interesting thing about storing items that are manufactured to be exactly similar is that when they come into storage, there are little nuances on each piece of furniture that somehow makes it special to each household. Some have been repainted and some have dings and scratches or even scribblings from the kids from time to time – something unique that identifies that piece of furniture as yours!

We have even seen some more unique and hard to come by pieces of equipment and furniture being stored in bulk too! And we’re definitely ready to handle all sorts of different things that you need us to take care of!

The more unique equipment type of items include restaurant kitchen appliances and apparatus; stoves and cold storage, state of the art machines that whisk, tenderise, broil or blanche… Thousands of dollars of business irreplaceable equipment that need a temporary home end up in our storage units because some businesses need a place to store their spare equipment and gear with us while they set up and/or expand their store fronts.

We’ve also seen extremely specialised tools used for mining and logging being loaded up into the storage units too. That could be because of the seasonal nature of some industries – self storage businesses are perfect for medium term storage periods for these businesses that may only operate a few months out of a year and require a safe and secure place to store items for the rest of the year.

And if you think that these items are really something to talk about, wait until you find out about the stash of heirloom furniture and priceless artwork that some people collect!

Whatever things might come through our doors, rest assured that Super Cheap Self Storage will do its utmost to take care of your items for you. Being well trained to manage and handle different items and with our inhouse insurance policies to protect your content from fire and theft, you can trust that we’ll do our very best to provide you with robust and professional self storage service for as long as you need us!

Storage Stories 4

Storage Stories 4

Michael Maloney who is the manager of the Gold Coast Super Cheap Self Storage facilities has quite a number of interesting stories that he has witnessed over the years – sometimes in shock, in glee, in laughter and sometimes in utter disbelief but most recently, an incident happened that had a group of the Super Cheap Self Storage removalists scrambling to help a customer out.

What happens when people are moving homes and getting stuff put away into storage is that at times, they can be pretty flustered and stressed out. It’s easy to be running around helter skelter and getting a bunch of last minute items packed into boxes before the moving and removals guys arrive. What happened was the Gold Coast facilities had a very special customer who was going to get married and he and his wife-to-be had taken a short term rental one of the Super Cheap Self Storage mobile storage units – not only did they have the stresses of moving home on their shoulders, they also had a wedding to plan!

Anyone who has ever gotten married knows that there are a thousand and one things to coordinate when it comes to getting things perfect for the happiest day of your lives, so you can imagine that while you’re in the midst of planning a ceremony and wedding party, as well as trying to get your things cleared up and shipped out to storage, things can get a little crazy.

And things got a little bit more than crazy for the groom-to-be!

He must have been in a big bluster the few hours before he called the Gold Coast storage facilities up asking for an emergency visit to his storage unit. Why? Because the wedding ring might have been left inside the storage unit and the wedding was going to happen the very next day!

Now if that isn’t going to cause a panic then we don’t know what else will! But Michael opened the doors to the poor man and allowed him to come in on short notice and even got a team of employees to assist him with getting his unit into a viewing space and helping him out in a frantic search for that precious little box which held the promise between man and wife.

It was a lucky break that the groom and his wife were pretty meticulous in labelling their storage boxes it didn’t take too long to find the precious ring and salvage it from the depths of the storage unit and right back on the way back home, crisis averted and sighs of relief all around.

We’re happy to announce that we were updated with the happy news of the married couple having their perfect wedding and everything going off without a hitch! The groom called in and gave our team a big thank you and a generous invitation to join in the festivities which we politely declined – all in a day’s work at the Super Cheap Self Storage facilities in Gold Coast!

Storage Stories 3

Storage Stories 3

In the Gold Coast live some of the most affluent people, the coastal region is the playground of some of Australia’s most cosmopolitan and urbane people. Especially because the nature of the city itself is active and lively yet with a coastal vibe to it, a lot of people from all over the world flock to its shores to retire and create vacation homes here.

Some of the items in the Gold Coast Super Cheap Self Storage warehouses are no less ostentatious and Michael Maloney who is the owner and manager of the facilities there can attest to some of the most amazing items that are held within the storage units that are housed in his warehouse.

For example, a while back, some clients that Michael is quite good friends approached him as they were looking for a good place to store some items that required a little bit more care and concern than normal everyday items that you would see going into the storage units. In normal circumstances this would mean a particularly valuable or sentimentally precious article from the household, furniture or maybe even some paintings.

Being AFRA (Australia Furniture Removers’ Association) certified, the warehouses and the removalists who help with the transportation and care of the items while in transit and in storage are top of the range and well trained to handle all sorts of different situation and it also helps that there is lots of protective padding and the like to ensure the safety of the items that are moving in. At the other end of the spectrum, there is also comprehensive insurance policies that are available for other items of the sort that owners need a little extra peace of mind about.

But in this case, the items due for storage that were in question were actually fresh off the boat from China. The clients were avid travellers and collectors of fine art and by a stroke of luck, they managed to acquire some rare and precious vases from their latest trip to the China amongst other similarly unique and special pottery pieces. The clients had their own insurance to cover goods of this nature but they still needed a safe and secure place to hold their delicate and priceless articles while they had a proper case and safe brought in to house their new acquisition and Super Cheap Self Storage was exactly what they needed!

Obviously a fair amount of discretion was required so that nobody caught wind of the previous cargo that would be stashed in the Gold Coast storage facilities for a while and rightly so since one of the vases was certified from the Ming Dynasty and was worth more than a block of units on the beach!

It’s been a real privilege to be entrusted by clients and customers who believe in the Super Cheap Self Storage way of doing things and the security and protection that we can provide and Michael has no doubt that this will not be an isolated case of the storage facilities holding valuable and important items within its walls!

Storage Stories 2

Storage Stories 2

Mark Sindone is the young manager of Sydney Inner West’s Super Cheap Self Storage facilities and over the years that he’s worked for Super Cheap Self Storage, he has gathered quite the number of stories to tell us about the self storage world! Being situated close to the city centre has opened his business to a unique group of people who store a myriad of items that you would not be able to believe and he’ll be sharing about some of the most interesting stories today!

For starters, Mark has to oversee quite a lot of day to day operations as the manager of the branch. And at times when there are removalists on leave or they are slightly understaffed, he takes it upon himself to help out a little with the daily operations within the storage facilities – and this includes unloading of storage units to be installed within the warehouse and sometimes just lending a hand to some customers who just need a bit of help to pack up their units.

One particularly memorable moment started out initially as a bit of a wonder – some of the removalists were helping out a customer to load up his storage unit and found that he had quite a number of rather interesting items going in! He had quite a number of gambling paraphernalia like poker cards and an assortment of souvenirs from the different casinos and associated places that he had visited. What stood out most about his collection of coasters, and royal flush key chains and $1 poker chips, was 2 old style poker machines. Yeah the guy really loved his pokies, and it was really quite impressive by the sheer variety and number of items he had kept over the years!

The 2 poker machines were the old school type, with big bertha handles and the owner was happy and proud to say that he had managed to acquire these as part of his collection relatively recently in comparison to the 1960s when they were originally manufactured – they were the pride and joy of all his casino memorabilia and he had them well wrapped and protected with bubble wrap and butcher’s paper to make sure that they would be safe from dings and other damage while being transported.

The customer shared that he was looking to set up a private collection eventually when he found a space to display everything and for the time being wanted to really just have his items in safe keeping. And with that in mind, he had contracted Super Cheap Self Storage because they were known for their special storage boxes made of plywood and allowed a very good quality of preservation while items were in storage.

So in the meanwhile, we’ll be taking good care of his items while he sources for the right location and place to showcase his collection. If all things go well, the Sydney Inner West Super Cheap Self Storage team just might be the first prestigious guests to the inaugral opening of the biggest collection of casino items in the near future!

Seasonal self storage more popular with homeowners.

Seasonal self storage more popular with homeowners.

These days it is not uncommon for a homeowner to maintain storage of items in a facility away from his or her home. Those people with long-term rental of storage location have found that as the seasons change so do their storage needs. Why clutter up your garage or attic seasonal only use a few times a year?

Self storage facilities see a spike in activity by customers when seasons change. In January customers will arrive with their unneeded Christmas and holiday decorations. Fake trees, boxes of ornaments and sparkly lights all locked away until the fall when they are needed again. This is also the time of year when people put into storage obsolete items they find around the house after receiving replacements as gifts over the holidays. Other people simply take advantage of sale prices in the holiday season to invest in large items such as new appliances, or furniture. All, replaced items often going to storage. People also buy things such as barbecues and lawn care equipment they will not need to use for several months — instead of keeping these things around the home people find putting them in storage units until they’re needed is the right solution.

When spring rolls around many people visit their storage space to switch their wardrobe, retrieving warm weather items which were stored in the fall and carefully putting away items which will not be needed until next winter. This is also a time of year when people will exchange sports equipment in the same manner. Why keep your snow skis in the trunk of the car when you are at least nine months away from using them again? Of course no one wants to that, or carry their golf clubs around all winter.

Storage spaces are the perfect repository for your seasonal sporting goods. This holds true into the advent of summer, when water sports become popular. Bulky items such as flotation devices can easily be stacked in an accessible location on top of heavier items without fear of damage to either item. This is also the time of year when homeowners truly appreciate the various size availabilities of storage units. After all as many people have learned it is much easier and convenient to store even watercraft such as jet skis, canoes and rowboats and even larger watercraft such as speedboats or even trawlers!

Self storage is growing in popularity as a climate controlled option for the storage of delicate machinery such as vehicles that are sensitive to changes in weather. Summer is also the time when people retrieved from storage warm weather road vehicles such as motorcycles and four-wheel-drive buggies. Why clutter your garage or backyard with vehicles better cared for in a climate controlled storage facility?

When the fall rolls around homeowners visit their storage unit again. School is starting so items for students are often hot on the list to retrieve from storage. This is doubly true for homes with children moving away to attend school. Old furniture is retrieved for the decorating of dorm rooms and off-campus apartments, luggage is brought out and dusted off for the long trip away from home. This is also the time when people put away their summer toys and retrieve their holiday ornaments. As the peak of the holiday season grows closer storage units also serve another, secretive purpose. Storage facility operators report homeowners sneakily using their units as a temporary hiding place for children’s surprise holiday presents.