The Hidden Gold Mine Everyone Skips: Self-Storage
Everyone’s obsessed with houses, flips, and “prime” real estate. Here’s the truth: the quiet cash machine is self-storage—and today’s guest literally wrote the playbook on making it work without getting burned.
Alese Johnston is a Certified Self Storage Manager, author of Beyond the Locks, and co-founder of Storage Trader, the first platform for fractional self-storage investing. She’s been featured in Inside Self-Storage, Modern Storage Media, and on industry stages. Before storage, she advised global banks in fintech. Translation: she’s seen the spreadsheets, the operations, and the human reality behind an asset class most people underestimate.
This is your no-BS guide to the niche that prints steady returns while everyone else rides the roller coaster.
Why Self-Storage Wins (Even When the Market Doesn’t)
Let’s be real. Storage isn’t sexy. That’s exactly why it works.
- Boring beats volatile. It’s not whiplash like stocks or crypto. Demand is driven by life events: moving, divorce, business inventory, and downsizing.
- Recession-resilient. People still need space when times get tight—and businesses need flexible, off-site storage more than ever.
- Operational leverage. Smart, simple systems and great customer experience can lift occupancy and rates without massive capex.
If you want one asset in your portfolio that just keeps compounding quietly, storage deserves a serious look.
The Biggest Myth: “It’s 100% Passive”
It isn’t. Storage is a business, not a parking lot for your cash.
- You have customers. They’re often in the middle of major life transitions. How you treat them determines retention and referrals.
- You have systems: access control, billing, collections, security, maintenance, marketing. Ignore them and you bleed revenue.
- You have reputation risk. One poor move-out or security slip becomes a story your market repeats for years.
Line to remember: don’t give your customers a victim story to tell.
Where Self-Storage Fits Right Now
- Migration patterns matter. Follow population flows, job growth, and housing affordability. More move-ins = more storage demand.
- Climate control is no longer optional. Old-school drive-ups bake at 30°+ above ambient. Heat and humidity destroy pianos, photos, plastics, and adhesives. Today’s winning facilities look like clean, modern, multi-story boxes with true temp and humidity control.
- Business users are gold. Contractors, e-commerce sellers, and service companies rent multiple units, stay longer, and complain less—if you run a tight ship.
Tech Is Changing the Game
Yesterday: gate codes and brass padlocks.
Today: app-based access, Bluetooth unit locks, 24/7 cameras, heat and motion sensors, real-time alerts, and integrated billing.
Tomorrow: fully automated leasing flows, smarter risk monitoring, and yes, fractional ownership at scale.
Tech won’t save a sloppy operator—but it multiplies a good one.
Two Ways In: Operator vs. Passive
Path A: Own and Operate
Ideal for builders, operators, and hands-on investors.
- Learn the playbook: revenue management, auction process, tenant laws, collections, marketing, and facility tech.
- Hunt “tired” mom-and-pop assets where better operations can raise NOI.
- Budget for upgrades that actually move the needle: access control, lighting, paint/signage, climate retrofits, web booking, CRM.
Path B: Invest Passively (Fractional or LP)
Ideal for busy pros who want exposure without the payroll.
- Use platforms like Storage Trader to source vetted deals.
- Underwrite the sponsor’s track record, fee stack, assumptions on rent growth, capex, and exit.
- Read the docs. If you don’t understand the waterfall, preferred return, or downside scenarios, you’re not ready to wire.
Either way, education first, allocation second.
The First 90 Days After You Buy (The Part Everyone Skips)
Alese’s book Beyond the Locks focuses on the most neglected zone: day 1 to day 90. Here’s the condensed checklist:
Communication
- Notify every tenant: ownership change, how to pay, who to call, what’s improving, what stays the same.
- Answer the phone. Fast. Solving issues beats losing units.
Access & Security
- Audit all codes, locks, cameras, lighting, and alarms.
- Roll out app-based access/Bluetooth locks if feasible.
- Document incident procedures. Train for them.
Collections & Billing
- Clean up delinquency. Standardize fees. Tighten grace periods.
- Move to automated invoicing and payments.
Brand & Sales
- Refresh signage, website, Google Business Profile, listings, and reviews.
- Turn on call tracking. Route every lead to a human or an instant online lease.
Facility Standards
- Paint it. Light it. Fix doors. Control pests.
- Temperature/humidity: verify and log. No guesswork.
Do this and you’ll protect the revenue you underwrote—and create room for rate increases without churn.
What Costs Investors Thousands (And How To Avoid It)
- Silence. Failing to communicate during transition triggers move-outs. Your underwriting dies with your occupancy.
- Fake climate control. “Ventilation” is not protection. If you advertise climate, deliver climate.
- No SOPs. Collections, auctions, security incidents, rate changes—if it isn’t written and trained, it isn’t real.
- Hiring for convenience. Friendly is good. Reliable, process-driven, and coachable is mandatory.
Due Diligence Snapshot (Operator or Passive)
- Demand: population growth, housing turnover, competitor rate surveys, occupancy trends by unit mix.
- Supply: pipeline projects, barriers to entry, zoning.
- Financials: trailing 24 months, delinquency roll, rent roll accuracy, true expense load (taxes post-reassessment, utilities, payroll).
- Capex: unit doors, roofs, paving, HVAC, elevators, access control, cameras.
- Legal: liens/auctions process compliance, insurance, vendor contracts, environmental.
If a sponsor hand-waves any of the above, pass.
Where Tech + Capital Are Heading
- Fully automated “no-staff” models for select markets.
- Smarter security stacks with real-time anomaly detection.
- Tokenized/fractional shares becoming easier to buy/sell as regs and infrastructure mature.
- Enterprise operations standardizing climate, auditing, and remote monitoring at scale.
The foundation stays the same: safe, clean, accessible space run by people who actually answer.
Final Word: Attention Is The Currency
Stop wasting attention chasing hype and dinner-table deal gossip. Start investing it in quiet compounding—with operators who communicate, systems that scale, and assets built for real life, not headlines.
If you’re serious about getting into self-storage:
- Operators: read Beyond the Locks, build your 90-day plan, then shop for under-managed facilities where your ops can create value.
- Passive Investors: study the Storage Trader insights, learn how to vet deals, then back sponsors with transparent numbers and a real plan.
Self-storage won’t win you cocktail-party clout. It will win you cash flow, durability, and leverageable equity. And if you’re building wealth for the long haul, that’s the only kind of attention that matters.