What the overhang actually was
For years the industry shipped record square footage, and rent growth paid for it. A market can only absorb so many new facilities before the new supply starts setting the price. That's what the last few soft-rate years were.
The numbers that say it's ending
Yardi counts 595 properties under construction — about 2.1% of total stock, down from the month before. StorageCafe puts 2026 planned new space at 52.9M sq ft, down 8.2% from 2025 deliveries. Construction starts are falling, which is the leading indicator. Fewer shovels in the ground today means tighter supply in 2028.
The honest counter-current: the 2026 delivery forecast was actually raised on a construction-start uptick. Near-term deliveries ticked up. But the long-run view still calls for new supply to fall to about 2.0% of inventory by 2027, and roughly 1.5% after. The near-term blip doesn't change the multi-year trajectory: it still declines.
Why moratoriums matter
Cashmere, WA passed a six-month moratorium on self-storage development. Elk Grove, CA passed a 2-year moratorium, effective immediately — 19 operating facilities, 2 under construction, the mayor citing "proliferation." Municipalities are slowing the building that used to flood the market.
Here's the thing: supply is being throttled by ordinance, not economics. Harder to build means less new competition — and it protects whoever already owns the dirt.
What the institutions are doing
Heitman and Nuveen are both publicly talking about the window reopening. Mom-and-pops are the acquisition target. Blackstone's BREIT is exiting self-storage to refocus on data centers — capital is reallocating, not disappearing. When the big money comes back at scale, the deals it wants are not the deals it left behind.
What this means for a buyer now
The invisible empire is still there: 70% of the roughly 50,000 facilities in the country are mom-and-pop, most of the interesting ones trade in the $400K–$2M range, drive-up, in markets the institutions won't visit. The window is buying before the flood.
But — and this is the honest part — occupancy is strong while rates are still soft. Don't buy a thesis. Buy a deal that works on its own merits, at the price today, with real underwriting. Rent roll. T12. County call. Expense ratio at 35–40%. If it doesn't work, walk. The deal you don't do is still the smartest deal of the year.
The bottom line
The overhang is ending. Supply is tightening, and the institutional money is warming up. The buyers who win this cycle are the ones who were already in the pond when the tide turned — and who ran the numbers on every single deal before they signed.
Run the numbers on this one: buy on the deal, not the timing.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Figures in these posts are historical results for those specific deals or the cited industry data, not projections, and nothing here constitutes investment advice. The math that decides a deal is the math you do before you sign — underwrite it yourself, or have someone you trust walk it with you.