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21 Dec 2021

A year on: How rates have been affected in the cities of the top 5 markets

author

Jack Raistrick

Union Realtime

Read the full in-depth report here, which analyses each city separately and presents how we utilized the Radius+ platform.

Christmas is a time of the year in which self-storage units are in high demand. It's not uncommon in usual circumstances for people to store their extra possessions during this hectic period. Last year's holidays, however, were vastly different from the norm. The novel coronavirus pandemic caused a great deal of panic and uncertainty, in December 2020, the United States tragically witnessed its deadliest month of the Coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19 was at an all-time high and businesses were at a standstill, industries were in shambles, and cities were deserted. December 2020 was the first Christmas after the pandemic hit. A year later, we take a look at how this Christmas' (December 2021) storage rates within the top 5 markets compare to the previous year when the pandemic was in full flow.

As of 14th December 2021, the major cities in the top 5 Markets via Radius+ Insider were found to be Dallas, Houston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The study area was a 10-mile radius from the center point of each city and focused on the rates of All Units and Climate Controlled Units of the traditional unit sizes - 5x5, 5x10, 5x15, 10x10, 10x15, 10x20.

In the case of All Units, most of the cities within the top 5 markets had an increase in rates from December 2020 to December 2021. Dallas witnessed the largest increase with 5x5 increasing by 37% and the rest within Dallas increasing by at least 20%. Interestingly, 5x5 units saw a rate increase in all cities within the top 5 Market. In regards to New York, all unit sizes apart from 5x5 decreased in rates, with 5x10 reducing by 9%. The only other city to witness a decrease from December 2020 was Los Angeles and the 10x20 at 3%. It is also worth noting that compared with the average monthly rent, December 2020 saw that all units were lower. Whereas for December 2021 all units were higher than the average monthly rate. The only exception was New York, where the average monthly rate was similar to that in December 2020 and December 2021.

The rates for climate controlled units across the cities in the top 5 markets saw the majority increase from December 2020 to December 2021. Once again Dallas had the greatest increase of 39.5% for 5x5. Houston had an increase on all units by at least 12%, with the highest being 5x5 at 22.5%. The only cities where rates didn’t all increase were Los Angeles and New York. Los Angeles’s 10x20 decreased by 6% - the only decrease in rates for Los Angeles. Whereas New York witnessed 5x10 decrease by 6%, 5x15 decrease by 3%, and 10x20 decrease by 2% in rates from December 2020 to December 2021. In terms of the average monthly rent compared to December 2021 rates, it was found that apart from New York, all cities witnessed substantial growth. New York did marginally increase on the monthly average, apart from 5x10 and 5x15 which were lower.

To conclude the overall pricing trends increased in the majority of the cities, implying that self-storage units were in high demand these holidays compared to last December. The greatest increase was seen within Dallas, where all unit sizes increased by at least 20%.This highlights the resilience of Self Storage as an industry, as it has bounced back from the pandemic which devastated other industries. Houston had the greatest increase in Climate Controlled rates with its units increasing by at least 12%. Another interesting note is that New York seemed to experience the greatest decrease in rates apart from the average monthly rent compared with December 2020. As was reported by the BBC in January 2021, New York City moving firms confirmed a surge in demand since the pandemic began, suggesting that a lot of people left the city since Covid-19 has hit, leading to an oversupply in units.

Read the full in-depth report here, which analyses each city separately and presents how we utilized the Radius+ platform.

The findings were collected via the Radius+ platform, to find out more about Radius+ please visit www.radiusplus.com.

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