[MCN] STUFF : The Wall Street Journal August 6, 2023 -- Is There a Limit to Americans’ Self-Storage Addiction? - Billions of Dollars Say Nope

[Lance Olsen]

The Wall Street Journal August 6, 2023

Is There a Limit to Americans’ Self-Storage Addiction? Billions of Dollars Say Nope

As a pandemic-inspired boom ends, entrepreneurs and giant corporations alike are counting on customers to keep accumulating more stuff than they can squeeze into their homes

By Ryan Dezember <https://www.wsj.com/news/author/ryan-dezember>
https://www.wsj.com/articles/self-storage-addiction-investors-80e0a14b <https://www.wsj.com/articles/self-storage-addiction-investors-80e0a14b>
Excerpts 
America's storage addiction made Mike Wagner a wealthy man.

Wagner quit his physical-therapist job the day before he bought his first self-storage facility in 2011. It cost $330,000 and was losing $2,000 a month, but he got it cranking out cash, added units and sold for $1.8 million, the first of several lucrative turnarounds.

Stories like this have inspired droves of would-be small investors to try their luck, and now the 41-year-old is milking the storage craze in a new way. His investment-coaching business, The Storage Rebellion costs $297 a month to join. He charges $779 for a video-training course, with lessons on lien laws, valuation spreadsheets and partnership agreements. For $995, Wagner will hop on a one-on-one call for 90 minutes, and $2,995 buys a daylong training session at his home office in New York's Finger Lakes region.

There are self-storage facilities around the world, but nowhere have they been more popular to rent and profitable to own than in the U.S., thanks to Americans' propensity to accumulate more stuff than they can squeeze into their homes.

The bullish case for storage is made by America's pack-rat ways. Market researchers estimate that more than one in 10 Americans lease storage space. In June they paid an average of about $165.55 a month, down 1% from records in January, but about 20% more than in June 2019, according to a KeyBanc analysis of debit and credit card data.

The storage customer is typically described as irrational, because they are willing over time to pay far more than the value of whatever they are storing. People are often in a pinch when they search for "storage near me." Death, divorce and disaster create demand. So do marriages, babies and new jobs.

Even savvy storage investors become ensnared. "I've had one six years," said Christopher Merrill, CEO of $56 billion property investor Harrison Street, which owns 119 storage facilities and is looking for more. "I've probably paid for the stuff six times over."
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