2024 certainly wasn’t a standout year for self storage. Lower home sales led to fewer movers, and fewer movers meant reduced demand for storage space. Now, 2025 has brought its own challenges. Home sales still haven’t returned to their long-term averages, and the combination of tariff uncertainties and looming recession fears is causing businesses to hesitate when it comes to hiring and expansion. 

United States Existing Home Sales

With all of this in mind, you might not expect a strong leasing season ahead. For context, the leasing season—roughly from May to August—is critical for self storage, as it sustains us through the slower winter months.

To get a clearer picture of year-over-year performance, we created the chart below. Since we continually add new facilities, the best way to compare performance across time periods is to examine the percentage of units rented in our facilities relative to the total number of units available. 

Facility Rental Activity

Green:  January 1, 2024, and January 1, 2025  
Pink:  April 20, 2024, and April 20, 2025

Here’s What the Data Shows:

January 1, 2024……….0.10% of our available units were rented
January 1, 2025……….0.18% of our available units were rented
April 20, 2024................0.24% of our available units were rented
April 20, 2025…………..0.30% of our available units were rented

This represents an 80% increase in rental activity year-over-year as of January 1 and a 25% increase year-over-year as of April 20.

Of course, I recognize there are countless variables influencing these figures, and we could analyze this to the point of paralysis. However, I’m always on the lookout for broader indicators of tailwinds and headwinds. My sense is that we’re witnessing some of that pent-up demand for storage beginning to flow into the market, just in time for the start of the leasing season.