The self storage industry is changing once again. A new cycle has already emerged, and we’re back to a familiar era of lower occupancy—but with it come better deals to be found. The market is drastically different from when we first started in the 2000s. Still, whether you’re a brand-new self storage investor or a massive private equity firm, the fundamentals remain the same. 

AJ and Conner are walking through the evolution of our self storage business. From a couple of partners and a few small facilities to hundreds of employees and huge self storage projects. We scaled from nothing to over $300M in self storage, but the processes we used can be applied and repeated even by the smallest operator! 

We’ll reveal the business “ecosystem” that makes up our self storage holdings, how self storage is changing, what’s coming down the pipeline, and answer YOUR questions on the show with topics like how to lease-up fast, uncover competitor occupancy rates, and get financing.

For more on finding, buying, and running storage facilities, check out AJ’s new book Growing Wealth in Self-Storage 2.0. 

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

🌳 Work with someone experienced in self storage loans at Live Oak Bank! https://www.liveoakbank.com/business-loans/self-storage/ 

🎙️ Do you have a great story to share on the SSI or AJ Osborne podcasts? You can now apply here! https://form.asana.com/?k=TGU88eU0bFTFW1iHcckuTA&d=1203571084143207

📉 Take advantage of today’s market conditions and invest with us: https://cedar.cc/invest 

What goes into a self storage development deal? You’re about to find out! Today, we’re breaking down the first self storage facility we ever built—everything from the property’s financials and the construction timeline to how we ultimately turned a $4.3-million project into a $13-million self storage business that generates over $350,000 in annual cash flow!

In this episode, AJ and George will show you how to take an initial concept and turn it into a fully stabilized self storage facility, step by step. The truth is that many developers approach self storage from the wrong angle, so we’ll show you what to focus on before getting started—like narrowing down your target customer and building with them in mind to the dangers of cutting corners on quality and focusing more on upfront costs than revenue potential.

But that’s not all. We’ll also share some of the things we wish we knew before building our first facility and the biggest lessons learned that saved us thousands on future projects. Whether you’re curious about the development side of the self storage industry or seriously considering your own development project, you don’t want to miss this one!

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

Helpful Articles: 

🌳 Work with someone experienced in self storage loans at Live Oak Bank! We seriously love them. https://www.liveoakbank.com/business-loans/self-storage/

Want to increase revenue at your self storage facility? Want tenants who will stay the longest and pay the highest rents? Today’s guest owns over 20 self storage facilities and has managed more than 100. He’s so good at what he does that we’ve even brought him on to help with our bigger facilities. In this episode, he shares his playbook for attracting the best self storage customers—and raising rents on tenants least likely to leave. 

Kenny Pratt has over two decades of experience in commercial real estate. He was the Director of Operations at LifeStorage, responsible for maximizing income growth. He knows the secrets of the REITs and proved it by starting from scratch with Crescendo Properties and Crescendo Self Storage Management. Now, he owns 25 self storage facilities and runs all of them successfully, even with REITs nearby.

What’s the optimal self storage customer? How do you get tenants to stay for longer? What are the “pain points” you can solve immediately to increase occupancy and revenue? And why should you never let your facility manager be the one making the sales? Kenny shares two decades of self storage secrets to put you on the financial freedom fast track with your portfolio! 

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

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Crescendo Self Storage Management - https://propertymanagement.storage/ 

Kenny’s LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennypratt/ 

Reset: How to Change What's Not Working - https://www.amazon.com/Reset-How-Change-Whats-Working/dp/1668062097 

Want to increase revenue at your self storage facility? - https://www.selfstorageincome.com/blog/how-to-increase-revenue-in-self-storage-investing 

Want to know how to value a self storage facility? Stick around and we’ll show you! In this episode, seasoned appraiser Tim Garey breaks down the entire valuation process—and shows you how to get the right valuation.

With more than twenty years of experience, Tim oversees a team of thirty appraisers nationwide at Cushman & Wakefield’s Self Storage Advisory Group. He has appraised all types of properties, from shopping centers and golf courses to industrial buildings and, of course, self storage facilities. In this episode, Tim will share how and why he got into the self storage industry before walking you through the entire appraisal process, step-by-step.

Whether you’re a buyer or seller, Tim offers all kinds of helpful tips for working with appraisers—like the types of information you need to provide to ensure that the process goes as smoothly as possible and why it’s in your best interest to build a relationship with your appraiser. But that’s not all. He’ll also share why ordering your own appraisal could hurt your deal, and why self storage has seen a recent influx of private money!

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

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Cushman & Wakefield

Email Tim: [email protected]

Make self storage management easier than EVER with our podcast sponsor Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/ 

🎙️ Do you have a great story to share on the SSI or AJ Osborne podcasts? You can now apply here! https://form.asana.com/?k=TGU88eU0bFTFW1iHcckuTA&d=1203571084143207 

📖 Get AJ's new book that teaches you everything he knows about self-storage https://a.co/d/aRSKcSq 

📉 Take advantage of today’s market conditions and invest with us: https://cedar.cc/invest 

Building a storage facility may be easier now than it has been in the past five years. With so much of the competition out of the market, top-tier building companies are completing projects faster. And with higher tariffs on pause, now may be one of the best times to lock in pricing before they rise again. But maybe this is your first storage facility construction project or your first facility in general. What should you know BEFORE you start in 2025? 

We brought Forge Building Company, the experts in self storage development, back on the show to give a 2025 update. They’re sharing the biggest opportunities for building in the 2025 market, the pitfalls that only experienced developers know to avoid, how to get your project passed by the city, and what’s happened to material costs since the latest round of tariffs. 

Development demand has shrunk by a whopping 20% - 30%, so this could be the perfect time to get into the game before rates drop and demand skyrockets back up. Plus, Hamish Bell and Melissa Anderson from Forge even share the new types of “space” modern self storage facilities are adding to increase revenue AND make the city happy. 

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

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Attend the Self Storage Income Live Event!  https://www.selfstorageincome.com/live-event 

Forging Ahead: Construction Resilience and Opportunity in 2025 - https://forgebuildings.com/forging-ahead-construction-resilience-and-opportunity-in-2025/ 

Forge Building Company - https://forgebuildings.com/ 

Interested in Building? Email: [email protected] 

📌 Make self storage management easier than EVER with our podcast sponsor Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/

🎙️ Do you have a great story to share on the SSI podcast? You can now apply here! https://form.asana.com/?k=TGU88eU0bFTFW1iHcckuTA&d=1203571084143207

📖 Get AJ's book that teaches you everything he knows about self-storage https://a.co/d/aRSKcSq

📉 Learn about our current investment opportunities at Cedar Creek Capital: https://cedar.cc/invest 

Want to invest in self storage but feel like you're on an island? You don’t have to do this alone. Whether you’re buying your first self storage facility or looking to scale your portfolio fast, we have tools, resources, and, most importantly, a community to tap into—stick around and we’ll show you how to find everything you need! 

In today’s episode, Conner and George share what Self Storage Income is all about: community, action, and growth. We dive into how the Inner Circle was born and how it has evolved into a one-stop shop for investors looking to fast-track their success. Complete with bookkeeping, virtual assistants (VAs), feasibility studies, coaching, and connections to self storage loans, deals, and brokers, this level of access is the game-changer most investors miss!

Huge changes are coming to the self storage industry. Large operators are buying up mom-and-pop facilities, and the window of opportunity is shrinking fast. If you want the secrets to finding, funding, and running a profitable self storage business in 2025, you won’t want to miss this one!

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

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Schedule a Call with Our Team - https://www.selfstorageincome.com/learn 

Need Money? How to Buy a Self Storage Deal with Partners (ep 293) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYlCTzQQykg 

Occupancy is often regarded as one of the most crucial metrics for self storage operators—but that’s a mistake. While we’d love for our facilities to be 100% full with the highest-paying customers in the area, this is rarely the case. In fact, higher self storage occupancy rates could be slowly killing your facility, making you less money and lowering your facility’s value by tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Jonah Hall, President and CIO of Cedar Creek Capital, knows (arguably) more about self storage occupancy than anyone in the industry. He’s the reason why while occupancy rates were dropping over the past few months, our income was going UP. That’s right, fewer customers, fewer storage rentals, and more revenue. How is that even possible?

If you own a self storage facility or are planning on buying one, this is crucial information that could help you earn tens of thousands more every year. We’re talking about how to raise rents even when occupancy is low (and not lose customers), the biggest mistakes we made when taking over facilities, and the different types of “occupancy” plus which you should pay attention to most. We’ve tested these strategies across dozens of facilities, so you don’t have to.

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

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Whether you’ve got one self storage facility or twenty, you own a self storage business. And, if you’re like most of us, you want to keep growing. But you can’t be the one changing the locks, picking up the phone calls, answering the emails, and repairing the units while building your portfolio. If you’re doing this, you’re on track to have just another job instead of a fully fledged, profitable business. So, you’re tired of doing all the work. Who do you hire first?

Today, we’re talking about teams. These are the people who will take your storage facility business to the next level. You might have zero employees or just a handyman and virtual assistant. Or, you could have full-time staff on the backend. Wherever you’re at, we’re sharing how you can scale faster, smarter, and WITHOUT making the same mistakes we did so you can work less, make more, and build your business faster.

When we started, we were the ones shoveling the snow, repairing the units, changing locks, and answering calls. This quickly became too time-consuming, so we were forced to hire. Now, with $300M+ in self storage, our business has radically changed, but the steps we took have not. Follow these “levels” of leadership, and you’ll be able to make self storage your full-time business, or at least a more passive income stream that takes care of (much of) itself.

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

Leave a Review for AJ’s New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Wealth-Self-Storage-2-0-Post-Pandemic/dp/1735258865

The self storage industry has a data problem. How do you narrow down self storage deals? Which metrics matter when analyzing markets? How do you even find self storage data? These are just a few questions new investors have asked but have long gone unanswered…until now. Today’s guest is tipping the scales toward small investors and giving them the tools to compete with institutional players!

Today, we’re chatting with Noah Starr, CEO of TractIQ, a self storage platform that arms everyday investors with the information they need to make better, faster decisions. Noah quit his corporate job to start a self storage business, only to realize that it was difficult to find the data he needed to buy with confidence. Even in 2025, new investors still rely on surface-level metrics—through no fault of their own.

But now, Noah is democratizing the data that institutional buyers have used for decades so YOU can analyze deals properly and stop taking chances on your investments. Tune in as he shares how to identify high-opportunity markets, which signals drive self storage demand, and how TractIQ helps investors find profitable self storage facilities in seconds!

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

Self Storage Income Live Event 2025 https://www.selfstorageincome.com/live-event 

TractIQ https://tractiq.com/ssi 

Noah’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-starr 

Get my FREE self storage starter pack to learn how to analyze, underwrite, and operate your next storage investment: https://www.selfstorageincome.com/start-podcast 

📌 Make self storage management easier than EVER with our podcast sponsor Tenant Inc. - https://www.tenantinc.com/

Is buying self storage facilities a surefire path to building wealth? In this episode, we’ll show you why buying a small, mom-and-pop operation might be the perfect alternative to residential real estate. For those who don’t want the tenant headaches of long-term rentals or the unpredictable income of short-term rentals, this episode is for you!

Today, AJ and George are sharing self storage success stories from everyday investors who are increasing their facility’s value by six figures (while working full-time), using 10%-down SBA (Small Business Administration) loans to buy facilities, and scaling their income without the stress of other asset classes. The best part? These aren’t unicorn stories. They’re repeatable models rooted in solid deal analysis and smart operations.

Whether you’re just getting into real estate investing or you’re tired of tenants and toilets, we’ll show you why self storage gives you more control over your property’s revenue and value. We’ll break down the operating expenses you’ll need to consider when analyzing deals, what to make of cap rates, and how to quickly scale from small operations to much larger, high-value investments!

What you’ll learn in today’s show:

Check out our Inner Circle: 

https://www.selfstorageincome.com/inner-circle 

Check out the video podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@AJOsborneOfficial/videos