Should I buy a house for my games?

kstillin

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Well, I got word yesterday that the storage place where I have a bunch of games and junk is not going to be available after 12/31.

I'm renting two 16X20 cages for $150/month.

Pretty cheap or I'd have been out of there before now.

Anyway, they said there is another storage place that would give the same deal to their customers, but I really doubt that. This is the cheapest place I've heard of. It's a shame this place is closing because it's really cool. Not climate controlled, so it can get hot and cold, but it's fun to hang out there. Power for games is included and people can drop by outside of regular business hours, but the owners policy is that it is for warehousing only.

There are about 25 games there, and bunches of parts/monitors/general junk on shelves.

I could put some kind of storage building on the back of my residence lot, but the wife likes me not being underfoot all the time. I like to have a place to 'go' also.

Now...
There's a small house in my old neighborhood- maybe 800 - 1000 sqft. Old house, probably needs some work, but the lot is very nice sized. They're asking about $70K and the thing that got me thinking about it was the 'monthly mortgage price' that popped up on the screen- about $274/mo.

Are any of you thinking what I'm thinking?

I know that taxes and insurance would probably bump it up another $150 or so and then there's power/water/such. But damn.

Also, my mother and sister rent an apartment currently. This is in their old neighborhood and I'm not sure if they'd consider moving there, but that crossed my mind also. I mean, how can I think about my games before my own family? Hell- even if they moved there, my sister would probably let me put some storage/GAME building on the lot.

I don't know. I've got about two months to think it out and probably less than that to move on this property.

Your thoughts are welcome..
 
So if you buy the house..you'll be charging your Mom and Sister rent to cover the mortgage? Would you still be putting a large storage building on the property?
 
Up until recently I had many of my games in a storage location where I couldn't play them or work on them. However I recently started renting a larger space where I was able to set up my games and play them as well as having tons of space for my parts and my repairs. This has made all the difference in my enjoyment of the hobby.


If you decide to buy the house I do not suggest having tennants, especially family. I would have a guest room in the house for short term guests but nothing more. Unless you want to shift hobbies from games to home repair/improvement projects I don't suggest you have anyone live in the house full time.
 
Well, it would only make sense for my sister if she wound up paying less than she currently is, which is probably $600/month. If she lived there, then I'd feel like I should be paying $150 or so which is my current bill, but then I'd have to put up a storage building and one thing leads to another and it's not as pretty an option as initially.

My main thought is before I pay over $200 a month to store some stupid games, I'm going to do something better with it.

I've got a friend that has storage in the same place and he's looking for some option also. He currently pays about $75/mo.

That's not including Chip, who is paying a portion of my $150, but his best option would be to get out from under storage fees entirely, since he's a single guy with a home of his own.
(a home that's rapidly filling up with GAMES!!)
 
Your real cost would probably be double that $274 if not triple.

Zillow values my house at 20K over what I paid for it and it pops up $267 as a mortgage payment.

I have a mortgage at 4.5 percent and my payment with property tax and insurance is $640.
 
Can someone help me understand the logic of renting storage units for arcade games? I understand a short-term rental (one year or less) to accommodate a temporary living arrangement or perhaps you scoop up a bunch of games in a bulk buy....but otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me.

If you are paying $150-$200 a month to store 15 games on average then it only takes a few years of storage fees before you exceeded the value of the average game. I know there are some old school operators paying on storage units for a decade or more only to turn around and sell off the games for $200 or $300 a pop on average.

The math doesn't add up for me.....
 
Oh I knew it was bad math.. and now that I have a house with a basement I'm getting out of storage as fast as possible. But at the time I either had to get rid of some games(which I did do) and pay to store the rest as I had no place to put them. I even kept games over at a friends place in his garage until he sold that house..then those games went into storage. Paying for storage in this hobby is not a good long term solution.. for sure.
 
Can someone help me understand the logic of renting storage units for arcade games? I understand a short-term rental (one year or less) to accommodate a temporary living arrangement or perhaps you scoop up a bunch of games in a bulk buy....but otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me.

If you are paying $150-$200 a month to store 15 games on average then it only takes a few years of storage fees before you exceeded the value of the average game. I know there are some old school operators paying on storage units for a decade or more only to turn around and sell off the games for $200 or $300 a pop on average.

The math doesn't add up for me.....


There are a ton of reasons to store games. Mine were in a rented storage location for about five months before I moved them to their current location. I am still paying rent at the new location but it is less than what I paid for the other location and I have set them up for play. To build a place on my property to do the same thing would cost me significantly more money. Also, this location is easier to find for people swinging by and close enough to work that I can slip out and go play a few games during the day; not that I would do such a thing.
 
Here's the answer-

Without storage, I could have maybe 10-12 games.

With it, I can have maybe 40 games. Logical?

And it's not just storage- it's like Oryk- I want some place where they're set up and playable, or fixable and able to be staged.

So, when you add that to the equation, you can't just balance out the storage fees versus the 'value' of the games. These games won't be worth anything when I'm not around anyway.

Kerry




Can someone help me understand the logic of renting storage units for arcade games? I understand a short-term rental (one year or less) to accommodate a temporary living arrangement or perhaps you scoop up a bunch of games in a bulk buy....but otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me.

If you are paying $150-$200 a month to store 15 games on average then it only takes a few years of storage fees before you exceeded the value of the average game. I know there are some old school operators paying on storage units for a decade or more only to turn around and sell off the games for $200 or $300 a pop on average.

The math doesn't add up for me.....
 
Buy the house, take mortgage deductions off your income tax, put all your games/parts there, if you fix or sell games you are a small business, take tax deductions for house upkeep, tools, equipment, electricty, etc.
 
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