US REITs and Lodging: Slowly But Surely? Thoughts on Private Storage Company Meetings

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US REITs and Lodging: Slowly But Surely? Thoughts on Private Storage Company Meetings

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23 Jul 2026 14:25:42 ET │ 9 pages

US REITs and Lodging

Slowly But Surely? Thoughts on Private Storage Company Meetings

CITI'S TAKE

We met with management from some of the largest private owners,

operators and brokers in self-storage and our takeaways were: 1)

fundamentals are slightly better than last year and expected to modestly

improve from here, but the recovery will be gradual (not strong), 2) Eric Wolfe

regulatory fears, particularly in NYC, were greater than Citi expected, 3) +1-212-816-2640

the discounted move-in rate strategy (with aggressive ECRIs) is unpopular eric.wolfe@citi.com

among private-owners, even when these portfolios are managed by public

Nick JosephAC REITs, as it’s viewed as being an inhibitor of revenue-growth and

attracting regulatory attention, 4) NYC boroughs have seen some recent +1-212-816-1909

nicholas.joseph@citi.com weakness for unexplained reasons, 5) certain Sunbelt markets, like

western Florida, will “never recover” given excess supply, and 6) while Nick Kerr

supply is waning, there’s frustration in certain markets that small +1-212-816-2036

developers continue to build (and lenders finance these projects) even nick.kerr@citi.com

when they aren’t economic (achieved rents remain flattish while

construction costs keep going up).

Regulatory Fears – We underappreciated how much anxiety certain

owners/operators had with regard to New York’s new licensure requirements (i.e. all

NYC facilities must have a license and comply with the requirements). The fear

stems from onerous restrictions (e.g. certifying weekly that common areas and

unoccupied storage units are free of allergen hazards) which potentially increase

costs (e.g.