There is a song by the artist Beck that had a hook that went something like this: Where it’s at/ I got two turntables and a microphone. People are always trying to figure out where “it” is at. If recent indications are any proof, at least when it comes to real estate investments, the self storage industry is where it is at. [More]

The number of businesses that are failing around the country can be depressing. Some goods and services just aren’t doing well giving the current economic climate. In fact, in the last year the self storage industry had over $20 billion in revenue. [More]

If there is one thing that can be counted on in the business world it is the fact that a good idea is going to be copied by others. It will not be copied by just a couple, but by as many people as possible until a market is saturated. As long as a business is profitable, what’s wrong with emulating success? [More]

Over the last 15 years, the self storage industry has grown by approximately 65 percent; a rate of growth that is respectable for any industry. However, the rate of growth in new facilities has reduced dramatically over the last four years. Last year there were less than 250 new facilities constructed. [More]

Grubb & Ellis AGA US Realty Fund manager Jay Leupp predicted Wednesday that self storage real estate will bounce back before most of the rest of the real estate market, probably within a year or two.

“We see commercial real estate in the early stages of a three- to five- year recovery,” Leupp told an interviewer from Wednesday’s Fund Manager Five Spot feature, a regular feature featured by The Street in which prominent investment fund managers recommend stock picks in answers to five quick questions. “The sector recoveries will be at different paces though. We see apartments, health care real estate and some of the specialty areas, like self-storage, recovering very soon, over the next 12 to 24 months.” [More]

Extra Space Storage announced yesterday that it has closed a joint venture with a Harrison Street Real Estate Capital (HSRE) affiliate. HSRE and Extra Space each received a 50 percent interest in the joint venture, to which HSRE had contributed about $15.8 million in cash, while Extra Space contributed 19 wholly-owned properties in California, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The properties secured about $101 million in debt, which was assumed by the joint venture. Extra Space will continue to operate the 19 properties.

"There's a couple of reasons behind it: to generate a little bit of cash, to offload a little bit of debt into the joint venture," Extra Space's vice president of marketing and corporate communication, James Overturf, explained to the Salt Lake Tribune today. "It de-leverages us a little bit....But more than anything, it establishes a relationship with a really good joint venture partner." [More]