Following Self Storage Trends

Written by Tron Jordheim, PhoneSmart Director gives us the view from a storage insider.

Welcome to the Self Storage Blog, our diary of the self storage industry.

Last week I was in Las Vegas for the Self Storage Association’s Fall Conference. I was the discussion leader for two roundtables. One was all about demand waves from phones, web, walk-in and rental demand. This tied together lots of the self storage trends we watch. One of the people at the roundtable had a good follow-up question. He asked if we think that storage buyers call on Mondays and rent on the weekends.

Here was my reply:

Here are the general “stereotype” groups that we see in our call center:

There is a group that inquires on Monday or Tuesday and rents on the weekend that is large enough to cause a real ripple in the trend lines.

You also have

…people who call on Friday for the weekend.

…people who call on Saturday to move in the same day.

…and the people who call on Sunday and need the unit same day.

Then you have people who call at the beginning of the month for the end of the month.

…And people who call two months ahead.

By getting a feel for who is calling on a given day, we get a feel for how demand is building or softening and whether we are moving with the trend-line as predicted, or if something else may be going on.

For instance we did not know what impact, if any the 5th anniversary of the September 11th mass murders would cause. A 5 year anniversary can have a psychological impact. As it turned out, the weekend before 9/11/06 was one of the softest weekends for demand we have seen since the winter-time. And Monday the 11th was far slower than a mid Month Monday would normally be.