This is one of a series of stories we are sharing to show what’s inside Cubesmart. You not only get a peek inside our customer’s storage unit, but also a peek inside what is important to them. Thank you to Miranda White, a customer of our CubeSmart store in Washington, D.C., for sharing her story with us.
Miranda White has an eye for real estate. She knows what drives people to purchase a property. She also knows what turns them off, which is too much clutter, darkness, a lack of flow. She visits the CubeSmart store on Upshur Street NW in Washington, DC, daily, gathering furniture and accessories from her inventory in order to decorate other people’s homes for potential buyers.
“I’ve been at CubeSmart for as long as I’ve been in this line of work, basically. I started with one unit and now I have four, so CubeSmart has really helped me grow my business,” she says.
Miranda never expected to go into home staging but with an art history degree from Georgetown University, an entrepreneur father and an antique dealer mother, the idea of running her own company devoted to creating appealing spaces wasn’t too far off the mark.
In a business like Miranda’s, inventory is the greatest investment—she charges clients to decorate the homes but also to rent out the furniture and housewares as needed—which is why she really appreciates the clean, easily accessible facilities at CubeSmart.
“I have a real sense of security leaving my things here. It’s close to where I live and where I work. The teammates are really helpful and will accept packages for me when I’m not here, and make sure they’re placed in my unit,” she says. “You don’t think of hanging out at your storage place, typically, but I do.”
Miranda loves the creative aspects of her work, the constant flow of new properties. Her clientele are realtors and developers, typically high end. Her neighborhood is one of the top in the country for property flippers and in the competitive DC market staging has become de rigueur.
“Because most people start their search on the internet they’re not going to get excited about a bunch of white rooms. Staging it gets it off the market more quickly and helps it sell for more money.”
She reminds her clients that their personal taste is not what will sell the house, but rather, the ability for the buyers to see themselves in the space. Often that means asking the sellers to put their things into storage.
“Sometimes, it’s about helping people let go. But I’ve had buyers who reconsider selling once they see what their home can look like. And on the flip side I had a realtor actually dissuade a potential buyer because she realized that what they loved was the staging and not the actual house.”
Miranda understands the attachment people have to their homes, more so especially because she and her fiancé Matt recently survived an electrical fire in their apartment building. Luckily, no one was hurt and even though they lost many of their personal belongings, she had backup furniture stashed away at CubeSmart, so in the end the event wasn’t nearly as traumatic as it could have been.
After they get married Miranda and Matt, who met playing in a kickball league, will start looking for a place of their own to buy, ideally in the same neighborhood.
“I’m looking forward to that, to finding a new place and for us to build our new aesthetic together.”
We’d love to hear how self storage has positively impacted your life. Share your #HumansofSelfStorage story in the comments.
