Non-REIT buyers dominated self-storage acquisitions throughout 2025, accounting for roughly 85% of transaction volume by deal count in both Q1 and Q2. That share has held into 2026, and the conditions producing it have not changed: REITs are preoccupied with the $10.5 billion Public Storage/NSA merger, interest rates remain elevated, and the roughly 75% of U.S. self-storage inventory still held by independent regional or local operators represents one of commercial real estate's largest unconsolidated opportunity sets. Private equity platforms, regional operators, and family offices are the ones moving on it.
Transaction velocity accelerated sharply through 2025. Q1 2025 closed at $855 million in total self-storage sales. Q2 followed at $755 million, with prices jumping 19% quarter-over-quarter. Q3 2025 reached nearly $1.6 billion, a 62% increase year-over-year. Through November 2025, approximately $5.9 billion had traded across 681 assets at an average of $145 per square foot. Industry forecasters expect 2026 to exceed 2025 levels as more sellers come to market and buyer underwriting stabilizes around current rate assumptions.
The deal activity visible in January through May 2026 confirms that expectation. Specific transactions range from sub-$10 million rural acquisitions to nine-figure portfolio sales. The common thread is non-REIT capital absorbing assets that larger institutions are not positioned to pursue at current pricing.
What Are Cap Rates Actually Doing in Secondary and Tertiary Markets?
Cap rates in the self-storage sector have stabilized after six consecutive quarters of expansion following the 2021 peak. The average capitalization rate across tracked transactions has averaged 5.8% over that period. But the average masks what matters most to buyers targeting secondary and tertiary markets.
Class A assets in primary markets trade at 5.0-5.5%. Class A secondary and Class B primary properties trade at 5.5-6.0%. Class B and Class C assets in secondary and tertiary markets trade at 5.8-6.8%, with some assets in smaller metros exceeding that range. The spread between primary market Class A and tertiary market Class B/C can run 100 to 200 basis points, which is a material yield premium for buyers who are comfortable operating in smaller markets.
The pricing disparity between REIT and non-REIT buyers further illustrates where the opportunity sits. In high-barrier coastal markets, REIT acquisitions have averaged as high as $293 per square foot in markets like New Jersey, while non-REIT buyers in the same state averaged $106 per square foot. REITs can underwrite at compressed cap rates because of their cost of capital advantage. Private buyers cannot compete on that basis in primary markets, which is exactly why secondary and tertiary markets have become the natural home for private capital.
Which Deals Are Actually Getting Done in 2026?
The deal log from the first five months of 2026 reflects a market where private and regional platforms are executing at pace while the mega-deal between Public Storage and NSA dominates the headlines.
10 Federal Storage, a self-storage investment platform, acquired a seven-facility portfolio in Arkansas in January 2026, marking its third new-state entry in a short stretch following recent expansions into Wisconsin and Iowa. 10 Federal's acquisition strategy targets stabilized or value-add assets in underserved secondary markets where population supports demand but institutional capital has not yet arrived.
StorageMart and Manhattan Mini Storage, which operate as affiliated platforms, acquired 20 facilities across Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, and New York in Q1 2026, while adding three properties to their third-party management portfolio. The scale of the Q1 push reflects a regionally focused operator accelerating consolidation in markets where it already has operating density.
North Palisade Partners acquired a two-property Philadelphia portfolio branded and operated by Extra Space Storage, totaling 199,288 net rentable square feet across 2,298 climate-controlled units. That deal represents a direct transfer of assets from the REIT sector to private ownership, the type of transaction that becomes more common when REITs are managing balance sheets around a major merger event.
Merit Hill Capital acquired the three-property S&G Self-Storage portfolio in East Troy, Wisconsin, for $7.9 million, covering 163,890 net rentable square feet in 827 units. That transaction prices at approximately $48 per square foot, well below national averages, reflecting both the rural Wisconsin market and the smaller-operator discount that frequently accompanies value-add acquisitions.
SROA Capital, which operates the Storage Rentals of America brand, acquired Wagner Ford Self Storage in Dayton, Ohio (51,395 net rentable square feet, 329 drive-up units) and continued its broader push through Midwest and Southeast markets. Earlier, SROA sold a 15-property Southeast portfolio to Washington Street Investment Partners for $98 million, a transaction covering approximately 832,000 rentable square feet across seven properties in Kentucky, seven in South Carolina, and one in Florida, illustrating that the largest private platforms are now active on both sides of the ledger.
What Did SROA Capital's $1.15 Billion Fund Close Signal?
SROA Capital's Fund IX surpassed its $750 million target to close with over $1.15 billion in total commitments, making it the largest private self-storage fund raised to date. Total primary fund commitments reached approximately $865 million, with approximately $250 million in co-investment commitments from limited partners, indicating a significant presence from family offices and institutional co-investors who wanted exposure beyond the core fund structure.
In 2025, SROA acquired 58 properties and completed construction on three additional assets, bringing its national footprint to more than 720 locations across 32 states. Fund IX had already closed 18 transactions totaling 284 properties and 13.5 million rentable square feet across 25 states prior to the formal close announcement.
The Fund IX raise communicates something important about where private capital sits in 2026. Institutional limited partners and family offices are not just buying individual self-storage assets; they are backing dedicated platforms at scale. The $1.15 billion close suggests that the LP community is comfortable with a prolonged consolidation thesis, not a two-year flip, which is consistent with a sector where 75% of inventory remains in fragmented ownership.
Why Are Small Operators Selling Now?
The debt maturity wall is the structural driver that most directly converts potential sellers into actual sellers. Across commercial real estate, a substantial volume of loans taken during the 2021-2022 peak are reaching maturity in 2026 into a rate environment materially different from when those loans were written. Self-storage assets held within industrial/flex CMBS structures face an estimated $3.7 billion in maturities during 2026 alone.
Small operators who took bridge loans to acquire or expand in 2021-2022 are now confronting refinance decisions in a market where rates have reset, valuations are below peak, and lender underwriting standards have tightened. For an operator whose facility was acquired at a 4.0% cap rate with 65% LTV bridge debt at 4.5%, the math today does not pencil at current rates. Selling to a well-capitalized buyer at current pricing, while not the return originally modeled, often produces better outcomes than a forced refinance into DSCR-challenged territory.
The seller-side data confirms this dynamic. Private investors accounted for 75% of all sellers in 2025. That figure represents the individual operators, small partnerships, and family-owned facilities that built the industry's fragmented base over four decades. With the buyer pool anchored by well-funded private platforms, the bid/ask gap that froze deal activity in 2023-2024 has narrowed enough to move inventory again.
What Markets Are Attracting the Most Private Capital?
Eight of the ten U.S. cities with the highest self-storage transaction volumes in 2025 had below-average storage space per capita. The pattern is straightforward: buyers are concentrating in markets where supply constraints provide a structural floor under occupancy and rates, rather than in overbuilt Sun Belt metros where a return to rate growth depends entirely on demand absorbing excess inventory.
Specific markets drawing non-REIT attention include secondary Midwest cities (Dayton, Ohio; East Troy, Wisconsin; Lakewood, Ohio), Southeast secondary markets (East Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina), and urban adjacencies in established coastal metros where small independent operators hold assets in high-barrier submarkets.
The Sun Belt markets that saw the most aggressive development between 2020 and 2023 remain complex for buyers. Atlanta and Orlando continue to carry elevated vacancy from oversupply. But secondary cities in the Southeast and Midwest, where development pipelines are minimal and population bases are stable, represent the cleaner underwriting story in 2026.
The Numbers Worth Writing Down
- Non-REIT buyers: approximately 85% of self-storage acquisitions by deal count in 2025, sustained into 2026
- $5.9 billion in self-storage assets traded through November 2025, across 681 assets at avg $145/sqft
- Cap rates in secondary/tertiary markets: 5.8-6.8%, with Class B/C assets potentially above that range
- SROA Capital Fund IX: $1.15 billion raised vs. $750 million target, the largest private storage fund on record
- SROA 2025 acquisitions: 58 properties, bringing the portfolio to 720+ locations across 32 states
- Merit Hill Capital/S&G Self-Storage (East Troy, WI): $7.9 million for 163,890 sqft (approx. $48/sqft)
- North Palisade Partners/Philadelphia Extra Space portfolio: 199,288 sqft, 2,298 climate-controlled units
- SROA Southeast portfolio sale: $98 million for 15 properties, 832,000 sqft across KY, SC, and FL
- 75% of U.S. self-storage facilities remain under regional or local ownership
- Institutional ownership projected to reach 45-50% by 2031, up from 39% today
The Consolidation Clock Is Running
The structural logic of self-storage consolidation is not new. What is new in 2026 is the alignment of conditions that makes execution more practical than it has been at any point since 2022. Motivated sellers are more numerous and more realistic on pricing. Private platforms have raised record capital and need to deploy it. The REIT sector is absorbed in its own integration activities, which frees up secondary-market deal flow from the REIT bid. And the operating advantage of scale (technology, pricing systems, management efficiency) continues to widen the performance gap between large platforms and single-asset operators.
The consolidation thesis does not require a major demand recovery or a rate cut cycle. It requires a 75% independently owned industry to continue selling at the pace it sold in 2025, and there is no indication that pace is slowing. Private capital has identified the opportunity. The question now is execution speed.
Sources
- SROA Capital Fund IX Surpasses Target Raising over $1.1 Billion in Total Commitments, Yahoo Finance
- SROA Capital Sells 15-Property Self Storage Portfolio for $98M, Multi-Housing News
- Self Storage Sales Reach Nearly $1.6B In Q3 2025, StorageCafe
- Q1 2025 Self Storage Sales Hit $855 Million, StorageCafe
- Q4 2025 Self-Storage Industry Report, SkyView Advisors
- Self-Storage Real Estate Acquisitions and Sales: May 2026, Inside Self-Storage
- Trends in Self-Storage Investing for 2026, Inside Self-Storage
- U.S. Self-Storage Market Institutional Analysis and Five-Year Forecast (2026-2031), MMcG Invest
- National Self-Storage Market Update: H1 2026, Matthews Real Estate
- The Maturity Wall Moves to 2026, Talonvest