347. The Self Storage Industry’s “Blind Spot” That Big Money Can’t Touch (Yet)
Self Storage Income
AJ Osborne
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The self storage industry has a glaring “blind spot,” and it’s much bigger than you think.
In fact, it represents over 19,000 self storage facilities spanning 98% of U.S. cities. The REITs? The larger players? They’re not doing anything about it. They can’t.
But for you, the new or “smaller” self storage investor? You are uniquely positioned to take advantage of massive opportunities, the likes of which we may never see again in our lifetime.
Despite how far technology has come in the last 10-15 years, there are still thousands of mom-and-pop facilities that are hidden from public data. Why? Because they’re not online. They’re not marketing. They’re inefficient. And when it comes to market research, they’re invisible.
What does this mean for you?
In this episode, I’ll demonstrate how you can purchase one of these “undervalued” facilities, make operational improvements, cut unnecessary expenses, and increase revenue.
These opportunities won’t be around forever. We’ve just entered a new wealth-creation cycle, but there’s only a five-year “runway” to start your self storage business and scale your portfolio before self storage figures itself out.
The clock is ticking.
What you’ll learn in today’s show:
- The digital “blind spot” that is creating generational opportunities for small investors
- How to find and buy “undervalued” mom-and-pop self storage facilities
- The five-year wealth-creation “runway” before the next evolution of self storage
- Growing your net operating income (NOI) by optimizing operations and expenses
- How to unearth profitable self storage deals in secondary and tertiary markets
—
Grab AJ’s Book, _Growing Wealth in Self-Storage 2.0_ : https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Wealth-Self-Storage-2-0-Post-Pandemic/dp/1735258865
TractIQ: https://www.tractiq.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If there are 10 facilities, but 50 customers can only see or find two of them, |
| 0:05.0 | those two are now taking up 50% of the entire demand of the market. |
| 0:10.0 | That means you can find, own, and operate a facility in a market that has no good competitors, |
| 0:17.0 | just like you would in a first-tier market. That changes the game. Self-storage |
| 0:24.5 | will continue to consolidate. But we have a really good five years with a huge amount of |
| 0:30.8 | opportunities and wealth creation. There is a digital blind spot in the self-storage industry, and this has created one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities ever. |
| 0:48.1 | Now, we have probably a five-year run, but this digital blind spot is perfect for first-time investors or investors |
| 0:58.3 | looking to expand their portfolio. It's being ignored by institutions, large capital, and |
| 1:06.0 | large self-storage firms. So today, I'm going to break down how this blind spot occurred, |
| 1:13.4 | what it is, and how you can take advantage of it. You see, self-storage changed wildly with |
| 1:20.3 | the advent of online marketing and then analytics, data, and software. How this industry performs day to day has changed massively in 15 years. |
| 1:33.3 | But that's not been evenly spread. |
| 1:35.3 | You have to remember the average age in this industry is 67. |
| 1:38.3 | And first-tier markets like New York or Southern California or big markets, they were introduced to Reitz a while ago. |
| 1:49.6 | Second-tier markets came after 2008. |
| 1:52.6 | But third- and fourth-tier markets are largely untouched by major institutional players. |
| 1:59.9 | One of the things that makes all of this industry function right now |
| 2:04.3 | is data. That runs revenue management, dynamic pricing. That's how we analyze markets and how you can |
| 2:11.4 | see the spread in rates and occupancy where people are moving and on and on and on. It is this data that fuels the |
| 2:19.3 | software systems that run storage every single day that we all use. This is how investors allocate |
| 2:26.1 | capital. This is how operators run. But there is about 40% of the market that sits in a blind spot. And this blind spot has a lot of |
| 2:38.8 | inefficiencies. Inefficiencies create opportunity. And because of that blind spot, |
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