What is Self Storage?
In every city you will find self storage. The United States has an estimated 40,000 facilities, up from 30,000 just a decade ago. Facilities can be found in remote rural areas, dense urban areas, and everything in between. Many people are surprised when they learn that most were built after the early seventies.
The U.S. population is highly mobile. Job changes, graduation, and retirement are just a few of many common occurrences that cause relocation. When people relocate, they usually require storage. For example, realtors suggest home sellers make use of self storage to clear clutter from their house, thus making it show better. Homebuyers often use storage when waiting for their new place to be available for move-in. When families split, it often forces someone into storage.
We also have a tendency to not want to throw things out. This is because, by nature, we place a high sentimental value on many of our possessions. We tend to hang onto items that we will never use again. Self storage spaces are loaded throughout the country with such keepsakes.
Business use of self storage is soaring. The most common business type to use self storage has three employees or less. However, businesses of all sizes use self storage. Home-based businesses frequently use self storage to house materials or inventories. Handymen and landscapers store their equipment and supplies. Construction contractors rent spaces near jobs that they are working. Retailers use self storage to store seasonal displays and inventories. Distributors, handling a wide variety of products, are a frequent user of self storage.
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Self Storage serves as an excellent investment vehicle for both small and large investors. The investors come from all income levels and with a variety of educational and professional backgrounds. Some invest because self storage offers a relatively low initial investment and they know that they can get a quick production of cash flow. Others invest because they seek a stable cash flow and a solid appreciation of their overall investment value. For more on investing opportunities, see the Why Invest? article.
Self Storage is a young, vibrant industry that is finding ways to more effectively meet the advancing lifestyles and business needs of today’s society. Consider the business as a viable option to achieve your financial goals.
Self storage facilities generate significant “Other Income” from renting trucks and from the sale of moving supplies such as boxes, packing paper, and tape. But did you know that selling such supplies and renting trucks will significantly increase storage space rentals? This is because when moving, most people search for a rental truck and their moving supplies before they seek a storage space. A self storage facility that offers trucks or moving supplies has the opportunity to capture customers before the facilities that only rent storage.
Many years ago, U-Haul learned that a big percentage of their truck rental customers went on to rent storage space from other companies. Knowing that they had their contact with these customers in advance of the others, they expanded their offering. U-Haul now has over 33 million square feet of storage space being leased.