Bolt storage investor update
- Brian Ross
- Dec 20, 2023
- 2 min read
One of my goals in my five year plan is to continuing invest excess capital into real estate syndications. I follow quite a few multifamily focused syndications, and a couple self-storage syndications.
What is a real estate syndication:
Real estate syndications are like the ultimate teamwork in property investing. Picture this: you pool resources with a group of investors to tackle a big, juicy real estate deal. It's like having a real estate dream team on your side.
An update on Bolt Storage as a whole (from their investor letter in December 2023)
We now have 267 active investors (many across multiple deals) who have placed $42.5 million in capital with our team.
The Bolt Storage team consists of 47 individuals (12 USA, 10 Colombia, 25 Philippines). We have a fantastic team that is committed to operating our properties at high standards while remaining nimble to adapt to the ever changing market conditions.
With our investors, we own and manage 62 self storage facilities consisting of 13,073 units and 1,858,522 net rentable square feet across eleven different states.
In 2023 we returned over $3,000,000 to investors through quarterly cash flow and promote distributions.
At the beginning of the year we also returned $2,000,000 of investor capital through a cash out refinance.
Most of our properties are performing in line with expectations despite the challenges the current market is presenting.
Total portfolio cost basis: $109,139,354 ($80,266,170 basis on all properties acquired before 05/31/2022)
Current portfolio T-12 NOI: $9,336,590.
Current portfolio debt yield: 12.35%.
Current portfolio value at a 6.5 cap: $143,639,846 (109,139,354 cost basis).
Current portfolio debt: $75,611,086 across all assets. $65,361,319 across assets acquired prior to 5/31/2022
Debt maturing in 2024: $11.5 million across 6 properties, generating $1,988,283 in annual NOI (17.2% Debt Yield). We have a lending commitment to refinance
$1.4 million of this debt already and expect to have that completed near year end.
Debt maturing in 2025: $21.6 million across 13 properties, generating $2,692,344 in annual NOI (12.5% Debt Yield).
Debt maturing in 2026 or later: $42.5 million across 15 properties.
Key Takeaway
Overall, it seems like the self-storage market has weakened significantly. Whether it has bottomed out has remained to be seen. A weak housing market (low sales) = low self-storage demand.
It seems like the risk/return profile is not there. However, I would continue to focus on looking at multifamily syndications. People always need a place to live and housing supply imbalances will force more people to rent in the future (unless the housing supply increases significantly).
