Here is the good news. I’m hearing from seasoned developers some of the REIT’s are being more forthcoming with rate info, if only on stores they own internally. That’s allowing for some people with longer term relationships with 3rd Party Management to get the information they need to make good decisions.
I can’t say this strongly enough, if you don’t have those relationships yet, it’s imperative that you find someone to work with who does. While platforms like Radius+ and PropRise are fantastic for scraping the web and giving data points, they are a surface level answer to gathering information and should not be your go to for underwriting new construction or even understanding an existing facility in a market.
Another big takeaway from the show was the proliferation of experienced players in the market getting into the debt/equity game.
ExtraSpace has a lending program that has been highly leveraged this year. StorageMart, the largest privately held owner of storage, has recently announced their platform for lending. Poverni Sheikh, a large and successful group out of Baltimore, pivoted into the space back in early 2023. And The Feldman Companies, headed by Mitch Feldman, one of the most respected and longest tenured developers in the space, announced at this show that they have a new debt/equity program in place. That’s just a few off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many that I’m missing.
My last big takeaway from the show is the power of relationships. I can’t express enough how special Self Storage is as an asset class. People are for more Eastern Philosophy in the space than any other area I’ve worked in (and I’ve been in a lot of them). What I mean by that is they take the long view of relationships.
I’m watching the power of that play out not only in Safe Storage USA’s world (we are currently working with a key partner who I first met two and half years ago and who treated me like gold even when I meant nothing for his business) but across the industry.
The recent announcement of the merger of SnapBox and Go Store It (Madison Capital Group) was made possible by a mutual equity partner that introduced the two groups. Upon meeting they realized they had some amazing synergies and that by combining forces could take advantage of each company’s strong suits without much overlap.
I continue to believe in the philosophy so eloquently laid out by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy in their book Who Not How. It truly is all about Who, and not about How.
I will continue to be grateful every day for the many amazing people who make this industry what it is.