Self-storage facilities have become a defining feature of American culture, according to Patrick Lemp, an appraiser and broker who focuses on the industry. “The history of self-storage probably goes back a long way, but the seventies is when it really got started, mostly with mom-and-pop-type operations,” Lemp said. “Later, it became an accepted institutional-quality asset class.”
The United States leads the world with approximately 90 percent of global self-storage capacity. According to the co-founder and CEO of Neighbor, an industry marketplace, there are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than there are Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Domino’s, Dunkin’, and Costco locations combined. Annual revenues are estimated at more than forty billion dollars.
Geographically, Texas has the most facilities among the fifty states, while Hawaii has the fewest. New York ranks third among cities by total number of facilities, after Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. Reno, Nevada hosts operations that pick up, store, and redeliver equipment for Burning Man attendees, while Wichita, Kansas was once named the Self-Storage Capital of the U.S.
Industry professionals attribute the market’s growth to what they call “the four D’s”: death, displacement, divorce, and downsizing—all life events that create collisions between stuff accumulation and practical reality. A 2022 survey by the Craftsman tool division of Stanley Black & Decker found that more than a third of the country’s residential garages were so full of overflow possessions that their owners were unable to park cars in them.
Units range from closet-size to cavernous spaces large enough to hold entire houses. Most facilities observed consist of single-story structures with closely spaced roll-up metal doors, though some owned by national chains such as Public Storage, Extra Space Storage, and CubeSmart resemble office buildings. Monthly rates vary considerably depending on unit size, from approximately eighty dollars for the smallest units to three hundred dollars for the largest.
Key facts
- The U.S. holds roughly 90% of global self-storage capacity
- There are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Domino’s, Dunkin’, and Costco combined
- Annual revenues exceed forty billion dollars
- More than a third of U.S. residential garages are too full for cars to park in, according to a 2022 survey
- Industry growth is driven by ‘the four D’s’: death, displacement, divorce, and downsizing
- Texas has the most facilities by state; Hawaii has the fewest