Self-Storage Sector Maintains Steady Growth
Jul 18, 2016 | Barbara Byrne Denham and Victor Calanog | National Real Estate Investor
The self-storage industry is one that has not garnered much investor attention, but may start to, judging by the numbers. Vacancy rates continued to decline in the first quarter and rents climbed at a healthy rate.
The self-storage industry, like all property sectors, has a number of idiosyncrasies, including unit type. Most self-storage facilities rent units of many different sizes, from 5 ft. by 5 ft. to 10 ft. x 20 ft. and everything in between. Statistics are collected for five standard unit-size categories, and because every building has a different combination of unit types, rents are generally reported for the mid-sized category of 10 ft. x 10 ft. in order to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison for buildings, sub-markets and metros.
Moreover, most properties rent units that are climate-controlled, as well as those that are not. Accordingly, rents for climate-controlled units are higher than non-climate controlled units. These rents are reported separately, but they are not aggregated or averaged as the statistics on the physical space (net absorption, construction and vacancy rates) are.
