LOS ANGELES—The millennial demographic ishelping to fuel growth in the self-storage industry, according toFred Cordova, EVP at KennedyWilson. Cordova recently represented the buyer in theacquisition of a three-property self-storage portfolio in LosAngeles and Riverside, which GlobeSt.com reported in a previous story, and is an expert in theself-storage sector.

“The global forces affecting the self-storage market are thedownscaling of households and how people live,” Cordova tellsGlobeSt.com. “The millennials aren't buying houses, and ownershiphas dropped down from 65% to 66% to 61%, so you have a huge demandfor apartment units. These new apartments are quite small, butpeople still have their stuff and they need to put it somewhere.Self-storage space is half the cost of living space, so it makessense to put the items you don't use that often in storage.”

Cordova explains that self-storage is becoming so popular thatlarger self-storage investors, like a Public storage, will out bidan office building or retailproperty for the space. “I have seen it happen,” he says.“The push is for multi-level, multi-story new product.” Location isthe most important selling point of the self-storage property.These units need to be no more than one to two miles from apartmentbuildings, because users won't drive further than that to accesstheir things.