Looking at building some self storage units, who’s done it and what advice would you offe?

Climate will have better customers less defaults
Larger units stay longer than smaller do 80/20 mix
Look for high traffic and population area
Apartment and small homes are good for business

It's damned expensive in the immediate DFW area. We have enough Christmas and Halloween stuff that it takes about 540 cubic feet of space to store. Additionally, we take the hard top off the Jeep in summer and that has to be stored as well. We also keep stored the major part of our survival preparations for our family in the event of emergencies, so this takes up a good bit of space, too.

The cost is so high in the immediate area, that we went an hour north of here and have a brand new secure storage of 15Wx30Lx14H for only $95 a month. I connected pulleys to the beams and can drive the Jeep into the storage then lift the hard top up and out of the way. That space near here would go for $265 a month.