The Silicon Review ^Asia

The self storage business, which offers customers a secure place to store valuables, has grown into a major industry within the last few decades. It is an industry in which storage space (such as rooms, lockers, containers, and/or outdoor space), also known as "storage units" is rented to tenants, usually on a short-term basis. The tenants can either be individuals or can be businesses. US constitute more than 70 percent of the world’s self storage facilities and have around 50,000 store houses in and around US.  According to the survey by the World Storage Association there are 15000 store house facilities around the rest of the world. The surveys points out that the industry is ever growing with higher demands from the customers who need to secure their valuables in a store house. The U.S. has an estimated 2.6 billion square feet of self-storage, according to the Self Storage Association. That's about 8.1 square feet per person, and that's growing.

The growth was slow till few years back, but now the country is witnessing enormous opportunities that make investors to invest more into this business. But the factors that make self-storage great for investors are not always appealing to communities. The only challenge that exists in this scenario is the approval from the authorities in accessing the land and finding a suitable place. This does not come without effort and that’s what makes some investors to step back from the business later. But with all this too, the business is grabbing much attention as the investors can raise the rents on existing customers by 5 to 10 percent every eight to ten months or so and the interesting thing is that they will stay which marks an assured growth for the industry.