26 Sep 2024
Curious about self-storage financing? In this video, James McLean chats with Anna from Live Oak Bank, the largest SBA lender in the self-storage market. With 52% of the market share, Live Oak Bank continues to grow even as other banks pull back from lending. Anna also highlights their expanded conventional financing program, which supports everyone from new self-storage operators to large institutional investors.
Learn how the self-storage industry thrives and why it's becoming a popular investment choice. Watch now for insights into self-storage lending trends!
James: Hey everybody, this is James with Radius+. I'm here with Anna from Live Oak Bank, and now Live Oak Bank handles 52% of the market share for SBA loans for self-storage. So we always love checking in with you, seeing what you're seeing in terms of volume with the projected rate cuts in the United States. So what have you been seeing, Anna?
Anna: Yeah, so I would say in general volume is down, especially for acquisitions. But interestingly enough, a lot of banks have gotten nervous and are not lending. So I would say we're actually doing more this year. So we're, you know, we're up year over year, but I think a part of that is we are in a down market, but we're also picking up the slack from banks that don't want to finance right now.
James: Terrific. Now Live Oak Bank has just seen those SBA loans. We have a new lending program that allows like current operators or even institutions to get financing for deals. Can you talk about more about that?
Anna: Yeah, we were known for a long time as an SBA shop, and we're very proud to be the largest SBA lender in the country. But over the last few years, we've developed a really robust conventional financing platform as well. So anywhere from a mom and pop starting a, you know, self-storage business all the way up to large institutional investors and funds, we are now financing, you know, all things self-storage. So it's been a really interesting thing working with different types of customers.
James: 100%. You know, self-storage became such a major food group for capital markets groups. So it's awesome to see you guys getting involved in that, allowing more people to enter our industry.
Anna: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I've been in self-storage lending since 2015. And at the time, people from other real estate asset classes that I knew were like, oh, you're in self-storage. And now they're like, oh, you're in self-storage. So I think self-storage really kind of blossomed during the pandemic. People really saw it. So we're seeing a lot of our conventional lenders, our large multifamily or like office people that are kind of switching horses and moving to self-storage because they see the value in the industry, which is great.
James: Well, Anna, thank you so much for your time. And thank you so much. You guys do.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely.
