•The self storage industry has been one of the fastest-growing sectors of the United States commercial real estate industry over the period of the last 35 years
•There are now approximately 46,000 “primary” self storage facilities in the United States as of year end 2009; another 4,000 are “secondary” facilities (“primary” means that self storage is the “primary” source of business revenue – US Census Bureau)
•There are approximately 58,000 self storage facilities worldwide as of Q4 – 2009; there are more than 3,000 in Canada and more than 1,000 in Australia.
•Fewer than 250 new self storage facilities came on line in the U.S. during 2009; the trend in new construction is down significantly the last four years
•Total self storage rentable space in the US is now 2.22 billion square feet (as of Q4-2009) [approximately 210 million square meters].  That figure represents more than 78 square miles of rentable self storage space, under roof – or an area well more than 3 times the size of Manhattan Island (NY)
•U.S. self storage facilities pay a total of more than $3.0 billion in property taxes to local government  jurisdictions.
•The distribution of U.S. self storage facilities (Q4-09) is as follows:  32% urban, 52% suburban and 16% rural
•The average revenue per square foot varies from facility to facility; however, here are the year-end data for 2008:  Traditional facility: $8.40 psf; Hybrid facility: $9.65 psf; Big Box facility: $11.07 psf; Conversion facility: $10.68 psf. (2009 year-end data is being processed at this time.)
•Primary U.S. self storage facility gross revenues for 2009 were approximately $22.0 billion [or a national average (mean) of $444,000 per facility or national average (mean) of $9.52 of gross annual revenue per rentable sq. ft. (all types of facilities combined)]
•Nearly 1 in 10 US households (HH), or 10% (10.8 million of the 113.3 million US HH in 2007) currently rent a self storage unit; that has increased from 1 in 17 US HHs (6%) in 1995 – or an increase of approximately 65 percent in the last 15 years
•At year-end 1984 there were 6,601 facilities with 289.7 million square feet (26.9 million square meters) of rentable self storage in the U.S.  At year end 2009, there are approximately 46,000 “primary” self storage facilities representing 2.21 billion square feet
•Nationally, at year-end 2009 all self storage facilities employed approximately 160,000 persons, or an average of 3.2 employees per facility
•The average (mean) size of a “primary” self storage facility in the US is approximately 46,200 square feet
•The top-5 self storage companies, including the 4 public companies (Public Storage, Extra Space, Sovran and U-Store-It REITS – Real Estate Investment Trusts) plus U-Haul (a public company/ non-REIT), own and operate some 4,750 self storage facilities, or about 10% of all primary facilities (or 9.5% of all US facilities)
•There are another 30,230 (non-Top-5) companies that own and operate the remaining 45,250 self storage facilities (an industry-wide average of 1.5 “primary” facilities per non-Top-5 company)
•An important subset of that total: there are some 27,650 small business entrepreneurs (90% of all self storage companies) who own and operate just one “primary” self storage facility
•There is a self storage space inventory of 19.2 sq.ft. per U.S. household
•There is 7.0 sq.ft. of self storage space for every man, woman and child in the nation; thus, it is physically possible that every American could stand – all at the same time – under the total canopy of self storage roofing
•More than 700,000 self storage units nationwide are rented to military personnel (4% of all units); however, in communities adjacent to domestic US military bases military occupancy can be from 20%-95% of all rented units
•SSA members value military personnel as self storage customers and traditionally extend special incentives and discounts to those with a valid military ID card, such as: 10%-30% discounts off rental rates, free months of rent, gift certificates, free use of moving truck, “one-dollar move-ins,” no rent increases while deployed overseas, waiver of security deposits, administration fees, etc.
•It took the self storage industry more than 25 years to build its first billion square feet of space; it added the second billion square feet in just 8 years (1998-2005)
•During the peak development years (2004-2005) 8,694 new self storage facilities (approximately 480 million square feet of space were added)
•Gross square footage of self storage “per capita” in the US (at the state level) ranges from 1.60 to 18.65 square feet
•83.9 percent of all US counties (or 2,634 out of 3,141) have at least one “primary” self storage facility
 

As the subject line says, post your YouTube "finds" here. When you post, please only post one or two; give other's a chance to post as well.

Here's a start; this one was originally posted by RATannahill in the Lookey Loos Part 3...March, 2011 section.

It is the National Anthem video and is 11 minutes long; I skipped through it.

 

On Wednesday, March 16, 2011 the new Storage War episodes start with the same 4 guys duking it out
for the goodies! (A&E on Cable/satellite)

Meanwhile, not too much going on in the thread link below where the producers of Storage Wars are looking
to recruit what I think is new talent for auctions in the Florida area...THAT should be interesting as well given what TreasureHawk and some others have posted about Florida.

Here's the SW producer link.

http://storageauctionforums.com/index.php?topic=752.0

There is another thread with a similar name, but it got corrupted by a fair amount of off-topic bickering and so I thought I would start one here...not trying to steal anyone's thunder, just trying to give a clean start to a PICTURE thread.

Please, if you don't know how to post AN ACTUAL PICTURE in a thread, learn how. Please don't ask here how to do it. Do some research on your own...here's a hint, look at the bbc tags above when you post an answer AND a picture.

I'll start with what I would consider one of my best finds. I got this in my 268th locker purchase in July, 2009.

After a beanie baby discussion in the Post your Pics thread, I found this offering in a central California Craigslist offering.


webs.lanset.com/rjsmovie/images/bennie.jpg

Maybe the seller of the above batch is having trouble selling because he called them "bennie" babies.

Then I found another where the seller was trying to line up 800 babies on his/her couch for a pic; I think that person wanted $1K for the babies.

Mr. A told me that the ones he is able to sell for big bucks are the rare ones, with the plastic heart intact and in the plexiglass case. I don't think either of the two examples above  meet those requirements. I took a batch of 2 dozen to the flea market last weekend; all clean, with heart tags, no plastic containers; sold 2 for $2 (total) and took other 22 to Goodwill.

This is a rare one; seller is asking $999.99 as starting bid:

webs.lanset.com/rjsmovie/images/beanie.jpg

First, I know there are a lot of variables in both inventory (large/small/old/new/etc) that will affect your response to this question, as well as variables in seller's approaches (quick vs. slow turnover) and there are probably things I haven't thought about, but let us hear your ideas.

Personally, I turn over big stuff (beds, chests, mattresses (yuck!) quickly because I don't want to move them or store them.

But on little stuff (better quality) I don't mind hold them for months sometimes (usually they will sell faster than that).

As an example: If I were paying $150 a month or so for a good sized storage locker I wouldn't mind holding on to something a little longer to make better money. If I had an item (say a double seat camp chair) that I wanted $20 for, I would keep it instead of selling it for $10 NOW. This would apply to many items in many categories. They don't take up much space and when I get the bigger $ figure it doesn't take many sales to plain pay for the storage area and essentially make it "free".
I realize the camp chair is a summer item also, but you get the idea.

For your consideration....sometimes a picture DOES say a thousand words.




If you like this one, let me know by posting in this thread and I'll create more.
The characters shown here are Auctionman and Newbie.

A friend of mine from California is spending a couple of weeks in Florida and sent me this link
so I could see how it's done there.

This is an auctioneer's web site. Maybe some of the newbies can use this if they don't already have it.

auctionstorage (dot) com