334. A “Wave” of Mom-and-Pop Facilities Is About to Hit the Market (Time to Buy)
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An entire generation is disappearing, and it’s going to shake more than just the self storage industry.
For years, we’ve been hearing about a “silver tsunami,” when baby boomers leave the workforce and start passing on their assets to the next generation of investors. But there’s another layer to this that people aren’t talking about, and it’s going to create a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy:
Baby boomers aren’t just retiring. They’re starting to pass away.
By 2035, we’ll have witnessed an unprecedented handover of not just residential real estate but also self storage facilities.
Now is one of the best times to invest in self storage because the facilities that are hitting the market are small, mom-and-pop operations that you can buy at a much lower basis than in years past. These unique buying opportunities, combined with institutional-level technology that is finally in the hands of everyday investors looking to increase revenue, could usher us into a new “golden age” for self storage.
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- The huge “wave” of mom-and-pop facilities that is about to hit the market
- Why the next 5-10 years will be one of the best times to invest in self storage
- The three biggest deal-killers that could derail your self storage investment
- How baby boomers retiring (and passing away) will reshape the U.S. economy
- Using dynamic pricing to boost your self storage facility’s revenue
🌳 Work with someone experienced in self storage loans at Live Oak Bank! https://www.liveoakbank.com/business-loans/self-storage/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Baby boomers are the disappearing generation. We have never faced this scale of a population in the United States shrinking. |
| 0:10.5 | The baby boomer generation is creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Gen Xers, millennials, and even the younger generation. |
| 0:18.6 | It is a short-lived opportunity. They retire and then they |
| 0:22.3 | pass away. And once that's happened, the assets are now in other hands. It's easier for you to do today. |
| 0:27.4 | It's easier to finance because banks will actually finance. It's easier to find. It's easier to |
| 0:31.3 | operate. And it's easier to analyze and lower your risk to make sure you're getting good deals. |
| 0:35.4 | And there's an opportunity to buy. |
| 0:49.6 | One of the greatest economic shifts that the United States has ever seen as taking place. |
| 0:54.0 | This is something that is unprecedented to the United States. |
| 0:59.3 | And all industries are going to be affected by this, including the self-storage industry. |
| 1:01.7 | And that is the baby boomers. |
| 1:05.6 | Now, we've heard a lot about the baby boomers retiring. But one side that people are not talking about is the baby boomers passing away. |
| 1:13.1 | Now, these numbers are staggering and will define in the next 10 years the United States. |
| 1:21.8 | It is something that will have the equivalent impact of the baby boomer generation coming of age and how it transformed |
| 1:29.7 | America. So what will this do to storage? And how is it going to affect our industry when we look |
| 1:37.4 | at the overall demand, supply, how users use storage, and everything in between. So to talk about this today, I got |
| 1:47.3 | George with me. George, how's it going, man? Doing good. Excited to be here. excited to talk about this |
| 1:51.4 | topic. I think it impacts the industry a lot. So it's going to be really good to dive into today. |
| 1:55.8 | I mean, after all, they invented it. That's right. That's right. They had so much stuff. |
| 2:02.5 | Baby boomers invented most industries and how we operate, which is true with every generation, right? So every generation |
| 2:09.8 | comes and they build infrastructure, everything else. The next generation, they add to it, |
| 2:13.8 | they destroy it, and they rebuild. And it's this ongoing transformation. But |
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