Just over half of the U.S. self-storage market – roughly 1 billion square feet of rentable space – is controlled by 100 companies that own and manage about 15,000 properties across the country, according to a RentCafe report. Four major self-storage REITs, along with U-Haul Holding Company, control 35.5% of the market, while the remaining 64.5% is held by a mix of large companies and smaller operators.
“These five companies are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, structured as C-corporations and are consistently profitable,” said RentCafe. “But despite their strong performance, the market is far from a monopoly, leaving plenty of room for smaller operators to grow and compete.”
Public Storage is the biggest owner of self-storage space in the country, followed by Extra Space Storage, U-Haul, National Storage Affiliates and CubeSmart. The rest of the top 10 includes non-REIT companies that own significant inventories totaling nearly 5% of the national self-storage stock. They include SROA Capital and Prime Group Holdings, which operate as limited liability companies, Merit Hill, which is a limited partnership, StorageMarket, which is a family-owned and privately operated company, and SmartStop Self Storage, a real estate investment company.
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Each company has a different business and operating model, but all of the largest self-storage companies share a preference for specific locations, including highly urban, migration hotspots with strong economies and growing populations, said the report. Four of the top five hold the majority of their properties in Texas, California and Florida.
Georgia is ascending as a self-storage hotspot, ranking fifth for new arrivals, while Texas and Florida dominate state-to-state moving trends.
New supply in self-storage properties this year is expected to reach 55.8 million square feet, down 11% from 2024. There is ample opportunity for growth in underserved secondary and tertiary markets, according to the report.
The 100 largest companies alone are projected to add 15 million square feet of new storage space this year, representing 0.8% of the total U.S. inventory, which now stands at approximately two billion square feet. U-Haul is leading in the expansion of storage space with nearly 3.5 million square feet added this year, up 11% from 2024. Public Storage has also scaled up its new construction to two million square feet, up 78% from last year. Extra Space Storage expects to add 567,000 square feet of new supply this year, a 33% decrease from the new supply last year.
Reliant Real Estate Management is expected to complete 522,500 square feet of self-storage space this year, an impressive feat for the company that ranks 22nd in size within the segment. SAFStor, which ranks 80th on the size list, is on track to deliver 482,500 square feet of rentable space this year.
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Kristen Smithberg
Kristen Smithberg is a Colorado-based freelance writer who covers commercial real estate, insurance, benefits and retirement topics for BenefitsPRO and other industry publications.
