These paragraphs are from Wiki.

At year-end 2009, a total of some 50,000 self storage facilities, owned by 30,235 companies, have been developed in the United States on industrial and commercial land parcels. There is more than 2.35 billion square feet of self storage in the U.S., or a land area equivalent to three times Manhattan Island under roof. The five large publicly traded storage operators (four REITs and U-Haul) own or operate approximately 9% of self storage facilities. More recently, in many metropolitan cities where competition among storage companies is fierce, better parcels of land near residential and commercial areas are being converted into self-storage once approved by zoning panels.


According to the "Self Storage Demand Study - 2007" (published by the SSA) one in ten U.S. households now rent a self storage unit. The growing demand for self storage in the U.S. is created by people moving (some 40 million Americans move each year according to U.S. Census data), and by various lifestyle transitions, such as marriage, divorce, retirement, a death in the family, etc.

The next time you get a personal jet in a locker you can hop aboard and go WAY out of state !

About half the lockers I buy have evidence of drug use.  About half have letters from prison in them.  That should tell you something.

It does tell me something though I would say I don't see it in half the lockers...less than half for me. Mostly I think it's just they can no longer cope for any number of reasons....many of which we have listed.

Mr. A....

That is BLOCKBUSTER news !  And the fact it is possible in more than one place even better. I'll let the major auctioneers in central California know about this. I don't know if it will fly or not. One greedy auctioneer will say "going , once, going twice..."and before saying "...going three times, sold" will pause after "going twice" and say anymore bids, I'm going to sell it", then he'll pause for about 15 seconds, and HE WILL sometimes get more bids and we keep going. His take on that extra $10 bump would be $2.50, and he wants it. HE ALSO WANTS THE BIGGEST CROWD HE CAN GET.

Boo.


Sorry, couldn't help it. 

Not a problem; that other forum is really going nowhere fast.

#10.....lost their job.
#9.......spouse left them holding the bag...and the storage bill.
#8.......incarcerated (that's former locker owner speak for IN JAIL).
#7.......moved from one city to another and forgot their goods in the locker.
#6.......paid bill on another locker at another location and their timing got screwed up.
#5.......died
#4.......lived (too hard, too fast)
#3.......just didn't give a rat's rear about the goods anymore.
#2.......dog ate the check that was in the mail.
#1.......(fill in the blank) special award goes to any of the 900 who have NEVER made a post before today.

The phone book is a good place to start too and saves gas !

100 views of this thread as of Wednesday Feb 9, 2011 but no one has anything to say...oh well, I do.

I am getting varied stories from other buyers in my area. Some auctions are having 75 or so "bidders" while others are only getting 30. Seems that time conflicts are accounting for most of this trend, with some smaller locations also getting the lower numbers.

Another few months needed to see real trends in bidder numbers.