Year-on-year Rate Trends for April – Small Units vs. Large Units

For operators and investors, insight into self-storage pricing trends is crucial for everyday pricing optimization and investment decisions. Being able to understand rate trends and current state of the market is invaluable in determining patterns in the market, where rates stand and where they’re going. Here, we analyze the year-over-year rate trends for the month of April, for insights into the change in pricing for small and large units in the top 15 MSAs. First, we calculated the average rates for April 2017 and 2018 for 5×5 and 10×10, for both non-climate controlled and climate controlled, using advertised Regular (walk-in) rates. We then compared the rates by calculating the trend.

Regular/walk-in rates for 10 of the 15 top MSAs trended upwards for non-climate controlled 5×5 units. The largest year-on-year trend increase were in Riverside, CA and Detroit, MI, trending upwards at 5.9 and 4.6 percent respectively. Oppositely, trends for 5×5 climate-controlled units in 11 of the 15 MSAs saw a downward trend in comparison to the previous April. The largest decrease in rates was in Dallas, TX which saw a 10.3 percent rate difference year-on year.

Like rates for smaller non-climate controlled units, rates for larger 10×10 non-climate controlled units also trended up across most MSAs in comparison to April of last year. Again, Riverside and Detroit saw the largest upward trend, at 7.4 and 8.9 percent respectively, which is a significant change in average rates. Trends for the larger climate-controlled units were split with just over half of the MSA rates trending downwards. Similar to rates for its smaller climate-controlled units, Dallas saw a significant change in average rates, from $141 to 129 in 2018 (a downward trend of 9 percent).

While having insights into such trends are important for decisions directly impacting your business, they provide only a partial view of the dynamics of a market. Understanding the pricing and inventory intricacies of your direct competitors along with local demographic information can provide you the best detailed insight into any market before making important decisions.