Strong Property Fundamentals
- Generate consistent cash-flow: No leasing improvements and minimal capital expenditures required in self-storage
- Outsized NOI growth: Publicly traded self-storage REITs have experienced average annual same-store NOI growth rates over 5% throughout the last 10 years
- Recession resilient: Best performing REIT sector throughout 2007-2010 recession
Favorable Supply/Demand Characteristics
- Strong demand for "A" quality product: Public self-storage REITs remain focused on new product; private equity and other large real estate investors have all publicly stated increasing exposure
- Lack of available supply: A disproportionate share of in-fill properties in top MSAs are owned by public self-storage REITs, who rarely sell core product
Challenges to Investment
- Small average deal size
- Fragmented operators and developers
- Difficult to scale in a meaningful and diversified way across municipalities
- Efficiencies in capital allocation, as third-party costs dilute returns due to small deal size
