Five Beginner Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Self-Storage Facility Let’s talk about five mistakes people are making when getting into the self-storage business today, especially people new to the...
Cap Rates, ROI, IRR – Which Matters Most in Self-Storage?
Even seasoned storage people sometimes get focused on the wrong metric when analyzing self-storage. If you're new to self-storage, it can be hard to understand all the financial metric slang and acronyms...
Tariffs, Trade Areas, and Self-Storage: Lessons From the “Big Short” – Pt. 2
Last week, we started a conversation about what I’m seeing in the economy, what may be coming next, and how that changes our self-storage strategy, based on research I dug into after hearing Michael Litt...
Tariffs, Trade Areas, and Self-Storage: Lessons From the “Big Short”
Some dots have connected in my mind recently that are reshaping how I evaluate self-storage trade areas moving forward. Surprisingly, this insight came from digging into the lives and current work of the...
Lease-up Marketing: A Strategy for Smarter Spending That Can Produce Real Results
The biggest issue I see today when leasing up new self-storage space is overspending for online marketing that doesn’t produce results. I see it happen far too often and have experienced it myself. If...
What Makes You Different? Winning the Self-Storage Lease-up Game With USPS
Let’s talk about converting potential self-storage renters into customers. Recently, I have written a lot about chatbots and high-tech stuff, but in the end, everything is only as good as a human sets it...
2025 Tax Reform: Possible Impacts on Self-Storage
Let’s talk about the new tax implications for self-storage owners and take a look at the good, the bad, and the potentially ugly parts of the massive tax bill recently signed into law and championed by...
Self-Storage Property Insurance Is Getting Ugly – Now What?
I hate to do this, but we are going to need to get political today. We will need to discuss insurance and self-storage. Part of our job as owners and entrepreneurs is to look at what is going on now,...
Not Sure What Features to Offer at Your New Self-Storage Facility? Let the Demographics Tell You.
Let’s discuss what features, what bells and whistles to add to your new facility or one you may be purchasing. But first, let me tell you a story. About half the time on workday mornings, I still head to...
Self-Storage Mid-Year Report 2025 (As Seen by Mark Helm)
Let me share what I’ve gathered about the state of the self-storage industry halfway through 2025. This is based on the latest Yardi Matrix data, Radius insights, REIT shareholder reports, and—just as...
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