330. The Self Storage “Reversal” Starts in 2026 (Full Outlook)
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
2026 could be the biggest year for self storage investors since 2008. What happens starting in 2026, and going all the way through 2030, could change your life forever if you’re in the game.
Read any self storage industry news, and it says the same thing: “Oversupply! Low Demand! Rate Cuts!” But this surface-level story doesn’t show what’s really about to happen. The self storage market is about to undergo a reversal that most operators have never seen. An “explosion” in wealth that will make many owners rich, not only in cash flow but in equity. This isn’t just speculation—I’ve got the data to prove it.
In today’s show, I’m giving you my full 2026 self storage industry outlook, sharing the seven factors that could trigger a ticking time bomb of demand that could explode in the coming years, bringing massive wealth to owners, while many investors will wish they had gotten into self storage earlier.
But not every market will see the same effects. Don’t worry, I’m outlining exactly what’s coming.
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- The wealth “explosion” coming for the self storage industry in 2026 - 2030
- One thing that will trigger a new wave of demand for self storage in America
- A 2008 repeat? Why we haven’t seen buying opportunities like this in years
- A supply squeeze like we’ve never seen: what happens when demand peaks as supply craters?
- Cap rate compression? This could be your last chance to get severely underpriced deals
- Markets with the most (and least) opportunity for rising storage demand in 2026 (and beyond)
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Grab AJ’s Newest Book, Growing Wealth in Self-Storage 2.0 - https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Wealth-Self-Storage-2-0-Post-Pandemic/dp/1735258865/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Self-Storage in 2026. What is going to happen to this industry? The self-storage industry has been hit really, really hard over the last three to four years. And in 2025, we saw the bottom, or a stabilizing effect across the industry. |
| 0:25.3 | We're going to get into and show you exactly what drove that stabilization. |
| 0:34.5 | Now, 2026 is the beginning of the reversal, and we know that because we already started to see it. |
| 0:39.7 | There's a few main drivers, which we will explain and go into that actually show us what is happening to self-storage. |
| 0:48.5 | I've been in self-storage since the early 2000s. After 2008, we really upped our business and started buying through 2010 and |
| 0:59.5 | beyond. We went through COVID and we prepared in 2021 for what I called the self-storage bubble. |
| 1:08.6 | And we knew it was going to be difficult. A lot of people got out of |
| 1:12.4 | the game. But these are cycles. And these cycles are actually something that we can see and look at. |
| 1:21.7 | Not because we're predicting the future. That's not what's happening here. But we recognize what |
| 1:26.8 | actually makes the business run and work |
| 1:29.0 | on a day-to-day basis. And these things follow, cause, and effect. We've seen it through the cycles. |
| 1:38.0 | 08, COVID, the buildup from 2015 and on. We amassed over 400 million in assets and we're across 12 states. |
| 1:48.3 | We own and build software systems within the industry and we pull huge amounts of data |
| 1:55.7 | and we are looking at this industry from not just the storage owner, but from the actual operations |
| 2:03.6 | and from the outside looking in the servicing of the industry. This is an industry that I specialize in. |
| 2:15.0 | I wrote the two bestselling books on self-storage and exactly how to get into the |
| 2:22.1 | industry, own and operate. And today, we're going to give you our 2026 forecast and beyond. |
| 2:30.1 | I'm going to break down in seven sections what is happening and what it means. |
| 2:38.4 | So you can know and understand very clearly the drivers. |
| 2:42.3 | This allows you to actually look at and understand individual markets, as well as knowing |
| 2:48.1 | what is going on in the whole space, things that you have no control over. |
| 2:53.4 | Those are the most important things to know and understand. |
... |
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