07 Dec 2020
Originally posted on Sparefoot.com
After a pandemic-induced lull in acquisitions, self storage REIT CubeSmart plans to close nearly $644 million worth of deals in the fourth quarter of this year.
Through early November, the Malvern, PA-based REIT had wrapped up the purchase of only three facilities for a total of $74.7 million. But over the next several weeks, CubeSmart is set to close on the acquisition of 17 facilities for $643.9 million.
As a result, the REIT is on track to end 2020 having spent $718.6 million to acquire 20 facilities. By comparison, CubeSmart spent $246.6 million last year to buy 29 facilities.
Three-fourths of this year’s acquisition dollars are earmarked for the purchase, announced Oct. 27, of eight facilities in the New York City, NY, market from Storage Deluxe. The price tag for the portfolio, measuring 780,425 rentable square feet, is $540 million. Also under contract are nine facilities for a total of $103.9 million.
During CubeSmart’s third-quarter earnings report call Nov. 6, President and CEO Chris Marr said the company’s investment activity had “picked up steam” after a pandemic pause.
“I think it’s a good time to be in the self-storage sector. I think others want to be in the sector. I think people are generally pretty well capitalized. And I think visibility into the performance of the product is much better than it was three to six months ago,” Tim Martin, chief financial officer of CubeSmart, told Wall Street analysts. “So I think that’s going to be conducive to additional transactions and certainly a lot of interest.”
Author: John Egan. Thumbnail: Photo by icon0.com from Pexels
