Hi gang!



Today I finally did it: I bought my 5th cargo warehouse, replaced another and right now I am very happy with my properties. Owning 1 small, 2 medium and 2 large warehouses is the perfect setup for me and I'm convinced that this is going to become very profitable in the longer run. Heck, even more profitable than the setting I worked with up to now (= 2 small, 1 medium & 1 large)!

Anyway, often when I play with friends I get asked about my properties; usually because all of them are in very specific locations (which is kinda hard to overlook) and because my friends know that there's usually a story behind my actions ;-)

So I figured.. why not share this with the entirety of Steam as well?

See: if you're going to expand your business and you want to have an efficient way of running things then it's usually a good idea not to "just" buy whatever property you can afford. No, instead go look at the right location(s) (= the right locations that work for you) and then go out and grind until you can afford it.

There's honestly no "best" here... Heck: in some cases the most expensive properties can very well end up being pretty bad in comparison ;)

But yeah... let's get started!

When it comes to the location of my properties I always try to keep things as efficient as possible, which basically means: trying to group things together, here's a perfect example of that. While I was still playing on PS3 I had an apartment in the Tinsel towers which I really enjoyed (most players went up north to get the Eclipse towers while others went downtown the Integrity way which usually prevented 'Tinsel' from turning into a war zone).

But when I restarted playing on PC / Steam I also got myself the Criminal Enterprise starters pack which provided me with a nice working place for free:

The Maze bank West CEO office...

The cool thing about this is that my CEO office is right next to my apartment, how's that for "living close to work", eh? ;-) My private garage is almost directly opposite from my office garage, which has been very useful for me (I have my own dedicated office mechanic for customizations). And this is also one of the main reasons why I kept Maze bank West instead of replacing it for something else. I actually turned this area into my own business district. Another reason is that Maze bank West isn't such a high building, which makes it a lot easier to land while you're in a helicopter.

I guess the only problem is that Tony keeps complaining because I live right next to the Bahama Mama's club, but ey ;)

And speaking of Tony....

My nightclub, also located in Del Perro...

The nightclub, where we operate a fully legitimate business, sits one block away from my home and the office. If I exit the office on the ground then I only have to walk through one alley to reach the nightclub, how's that for convenience?

Of course distance doesn't really matter too much, sure, but ey... I sometimes enjoy a little bit of roleplay so sporadically I actually do walk from one business to the other, even though I have plenty of cars stored away.

And finally, to complete the 'Del Perro part' of the tour:

The 'lingerie' medium sized warehouse.

When I just started with collecting special cargo this used to be my favorite warehouse because it sat so close to my office. I could deliver the vehicle (or land with my Buzzard) and then take off to the office, land on the roof and I was ready to start the next run in no time.

Of course nowadays I mostly rely on my Terrorbyte and this particular warehouse is obviously only used to store goods which we need in the nightclub ;)

Fortunately it got darker while I was working on this guide, which made it a lot easier to show you guys the rest of my properties. See, my neighbors around La Mesa (in Murrieta heights and El Burro heights) aren't very happy when people start taking pictures and such, they really value their privacy I guess. So I usually wait for nightfall before I show anyone around ;)

The Videogeddoon arcade.

On the, what I believe to be, Supply road located in La Mesa can you find the Videogeddoon arcade. We got it all! From plenty of cool retro videogames to the latest popular titles. We even have our own small adult section and a nice bar where you can get some refreshments.



Of course we also need some supplies for the arcade and fortunately for us Lester Crest was kind enough to provide us with a nice place to store our goods: the large sized Daniel Bros warehouse. What makes this such a perfect combination for me is that we can deliver cargo to the warehouse, hop over the fence so to speak, and then get into the arcade where I can use my workstation to set up a new deal for more contraband. Oh dear, how did that end up in the final edit?! Ignore that: nah, the real reason why this is so ideal is because we get to have some important R&R in the arcade after we're done with the resupplying ;-)

Speaking of which...

Sometimes my assistant comes across very special (and rare) products on the market. Because of their speciality it's usually best not to store these in a regular warehouse, and thus I managed to reserve a small warehouse just for this kind of special cargo:

The Celltowa small warehouse...

Also in La Mesa (obviously) and right next to an Ammu-Nation gunstore (as you can probably see on the minimap?) so this is obviously the most safest place to store these kind of items. You see, rumor has it that a lot of high end SUV's (like Ballers) get stolen around these parts, so we really need to be careful.

And speaking of vehicles.. I guess you guys might be wondering... with so much trafficking going on here, where do we leave all those vehicles? Good question!



The Celltowa 10 car garage is literally right around the corner of our small warehouse, which makes it really easy to pick up a Baller SUV after we delivered some special cargo and sell it to the Los Santos Customs just down the road.

Wait, what? We seriously need a new editor for these guides; how do these weird text snippets get popping up?! It almost makes it look like we're stealing Ballers, storing them in this garage so that we can frequently sell them, even if we can't find any on the streets.

Which is nonsense of course... we only store 'second hand' cars here and since we have our own mechanic to repair them we really have no need for that LS Customs. Of course, sometimes they do buy some cars from us but trust me: those are fully legitimate transactions!

And just as before... all these properties are also very close to my arcade, which is important to us!




Because there's a lot of business activity for the Steamy Exports in Eastern Los Santos I'm very happy that I could get myself a second apartment further south. Here in El Burro heights I have a nice apartment with a 6 car garage.

What makes this apartment so special is the fact that many surrounding locations are used in contact missions. Simeon wants a car in "El Burro Heists" and that car is almost literally parked in my backyard. When Martin asks you to disrupt a rival gang operation in the "Los Santos Connection" you'll be directed to an area with a laptop, that area is right across the road south from this house. Speaking of Martin... When he's full of Trash Talk then the mission ends in the junkyard which is roughly a few blocks south of here.

And although it's a bit further away than the above examples... when Gerald asks you to pick up some coke in a 'Flooded LS River' then you're pretty much 2 blocks away, still close enough to be worth mentioning I think.

Why this is such a big deal you wonder? Simple... although your map won't show it you can actually enter your apartment(s) when you're playing in a contact mission. Which is ideal if you end up with a lot of dummies or griefers (= people who try to kill their team members).

Just drive up to your apartment and wait it out. Optionally you could even turn on the TV and watch the show from there ;) Of course you do need to know where your apartment is and preferably how to get there without the use of GPS.

Finally... because this apartment doesn't have a large garage and because my mechanic doesn't seem to enjoy visiting this neighborhood I decided to purchase a vehicle warehouse just one block south-east from here (across the highway):



This warehouse is in Vagos territory which should keep any nosy intruders away from it. Easily reachable using a chopper (like the Cargobob) and even with a regular car (thanks to the highway just west of the warehouse).

Best of all... it is probably thanks to those Vagos in the area, but we managed to hire a mechanic who actually knows how to remove the trackers which LS Customs usually places in high end vehicles!

This is very important to us because many of our clients highly value their privacy, so having some kind of uncontrollable tracking device simply won't do it for them. We believe this is a government conspiracy to be honest... just try asking LS Customs to remove such a tracker for you: I'll bet they won't even allow you to bring the car in!

Which is why we had to take matters into our own qualified hands.

Because of all the good work which Steamy Exports is doing for the city we actually managed to strike a deal with the military and they allowed us to acquire one of their hangars, how about that? We decided to get the second-largest version because it sat closer to the runway than the default one. Unfortunately it turned out that the larger size was only an outside feature, inside all hangars are pretty much the same. Oh well.... In the end the main thing we really cared for was the transponder which allows us to fly over the military base without them immediately opening fire at us.




Having visited the hangar I couldn't resist grabbing one of my favorite helicopters, the Akula, in order to continue our tour. The Akula has a very useful feature: stealth mode. This allows us to visit these facilities without taking the risk of disturbing all the busy men and women who are hard at work inside.

As you can see on the mini-map this is another example of several properties which have been carefully grouped together. Which I shall demonstrate by visiting them using a bicycle which I borrowed from a friendly neighbor.



Our first stop is the economy research facility. Here we study the effects which the use of regular currency has on the market in comparison to digital transactions. Our study even involves the use of the Los Santos postal and sanitation departments, pretty impressive wouldn't you say?



Down the road to the south-west is our chemical recycling plant. We collect varies chemical substances which our highly trained specialists then turn into harmless nutritious powder that can be used to relieve the hard working Los Santos population of some of their stress.



En-route to the last facility in this area you'll find our bunker somewhat hidden away from the road. Here we store our mobile operation center which we sometimes use to coordinate specific missions that are requested from us through the SecuroServ network. We also used to conduct a lot of research in upgrading existing weaponized equipment but unfortunately the government stopped their funding so we had to cancel this.

However, we did manage to keep a functional shooting range where we train our armed personnel. We also started to conduct a new research to the effect of a weapons run.



And finally, right next to the Alomo sea, is our medical research facility. Have you ever heard the commercials on the radio which advocate the use of medicinal cocaine? We're putting that theory into practice by having our specialists perform several studies to its effects.

If you look at the left of the screenshot you'll already notice some kind of sick weirdo walking around, which proves that our efforts really start to pay off!

Quite impressive, wouldn't you agree?


Yes, the rumors about Steamy Exports being involved with an underground government facility are fully true. If you look at the mini map in my screenshots you'll probably see a globe icon which indicates the location of this facility.

Unfortunately, due to its specific nature, we are not allowed to share any details about it. But don't worry: it's not as if you'd find some flying cars in there ;)

The final property in the Senora desert can be found all the way east, passing the Alomo sea and right next to the eastern highway. Everybody knows about marijuana for recreational and medical use I assume? Well, here we study the effects which those plants can have on our environment.



Stored in an area with a carefully monitored climate we grow plants which we use to conduct these studies on, after which we use the resulting product to create ropes. Seriously... The Vanilla Unicorn is one of our best customers.



Back in town, and to round up our business tour, we have a garage which is right next to the Los Santos International Airport. Here I've stored my personal collection of convertible cars, all 9 that are available to us (the 10th car is the Grotti Carbonizarre but that one is parked in the entrance garage of my nightclub).

What makes this garage so appealing for me is because it was provided free of charge. That's an offer which is very hard to refuse, wouldn't you agree?

Rumor has it that many people own a workshop in the Maze bank arena and even more are said to have a private penthouse in the Diamond casino. Because these aren't really special locations I didn't include them in this tour, but I can show you my northern apartment in Los Santos which I use whenever I won something in the casino or when my neighbor Mr. Madrazo and me end up conducting some midnight business meetings.

2868 Hillcrest drive...

What makes this apartment so nice is its unique view over the city:



Unfortunately we can't go out onto the balcony itself but I guess that's a small price to pay for having such an amazing view.



And then there's some exciting news to share!

Because the roads around La Mesa can get pretty busy around, especially with so many of our properties located there, I really wanted another warehouse within close vicinity to my arcade, you know: just in case a traffic jam could hinder our resupply runs ;) I talked this over with the nice people working at city hall and they directed my attention to this abandoned rail yard which is pretty close to the arcade; they're almost directly opposite of each other with the LS river in between them.

There used to be a lot of attacks from gangs here, which is how I remembered the area, but now that we took over it's become pretty quiet. Although we bought this warehouse quite recently it's already one of our favorites due to its specific location and how easy it is to get there.

And we have a second expansion as well....



We acquired yet another (large) cargo warehouse in the northern area of Los Santos. While its specific use has yet to be determined it's likely that I'll use this to provision my yacht as well as my northern (more luxurious) apartment which I showed earlier..



Right next to Vespucci beach and one block away from our Del Perro business district can you find our private clubhouse. It provides a safe haven for several of our business associates who use this place to relax, have a few refreshments and discuss the several business opportunities that have reached us here.

The clubhouse has its own bar...

To make this even more exciting: remember our research facilities in the Senora desert? Many of its operations are coordinated from this very same exclusive location!

The clubhouse garage...

Any rumors about our club being involved with narcotics and/or funny money are completely false and totally out of proportion. Should you have such suspicions yourself then we encourage you to come and visit us on my yacht so that we can talk things over during a nice helicopter tour over mount Chiliad.

And this completes the tour of all the properties owned by the Steamy Exports company.

The main reason why all my MC businesses are located in the Senora desert vs. having some of them in town is because it's actually more profitable this way. Selling your products in the city is a lot easier because there are many more roads to take, which can be useful to come up with the most efficient routes (never blindly rely on the GPS!).

Owning the monitoring expansion in the arcade makes this even easier because I can log on while being a CEO to see exactly how much supplies each of my businesses has (before I had the monitoring station I used to rely on my clubhouse near Vespucci beach).

And well... I started out with a (free) clubhouse on Route 68 together with the counterfeit cash business. So it made sense to expand within that area as well, especially after I learned that there was also a bunker and a facility close by. The reason why I favor those two should be obvious: while you won't get to see the icons for all your MC businesses on the map you will see the icons from both the bunker and facility, no matter where you are. Although the bunker icon could be mistaken for a warehouse icon the same cannot be said for the Facility.

In other words... if I need to get to my MC businesses (I keep this running, so I sell regularly) all I have to do is go towards the Facility icon and I'll find the rest from there (the meth business is actually almost next to the Facility itself).


What can I say... special cargo is my favorite way of making money in GTAO. If you collect crates while also having the bunker and all three MC businesses working for you while the nightclub is also slowly acquiring goods then you got yourself quite the money maker on your hands.

The main reason I went for 5 is because this provides me with the best of both worlds... First: the small warehouse is used to store the unique items. This is very important if you operate bigger warehouses because the value of each individual crate goes up dramatically depending on the total amount of crates you have. So you really do not want some kind of curiosity item taking up precious cargo space in a large or medium sized warehouse!

Another reason is working in tandem. The missions to buy 3 crates are harder (and often take up more time) than those where you buy 2 crates. So now I get to choose.. either I go back to back with "3 crate missions" to fill up both of my large warehouses, or I take things easier by buying 2 crates for both my medium sized warehouses.

And if I really need a change in pace I could also go back to back between large & medium.

The advantages should be obvious... larger warehouses give you more profit but also take more time & effort to fill them up whereas medium sized warehouses can go pretty easy. It wouldn't be the first time where I finished a "2 crate mission" well within the cool down period.

And well... 2 million sales on large warehouses and 750k sales for medium sized warehouses? Not too chabby I think ;)


The (silly) story behind my properties. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!