The Public Storage and National Storage Affiliates merger is the $10.5 billion all-stock deal that every investor is watching. It is also the deal that least resembles what is actually happening on the ground in self-storage acquisitions in May 2026.
The real Q2 transaction market is being assembled from deals in the $8 million to $20 million range, in markets that are not Phoenix, Atlanta, or New York. Cedar Creek Capital closed two North Texas facilities totaling $28.2 million on May 5. BuxBear Storage paid $14.1 million for a supply-constrained property on the Big Island of Hawaii. Merit Hill Capital acquired a three-property portfolio in rural Wisconsin for $7.9 million. Each deal reflects a different acquisition thesis, and each thesis is working precisely because it targets markets that institutional capital has largely passed over.
Non-REIT buyers accounted for 82% of all self-storage transactions in 2025 by count, paying an average of $111 per square foot. That figure is not a reflection of lower quality. It reflects where deal volume actually lives: in the sub-$25 million tier, in secondary and tertiary markets, where regional operators are running faster and smarter than institutional platforms built to underwrite nine-figure portfolios.
What Cedar Creek Capital Is Buying in North Texas
Cedar Creek Capital finalized two acquisitions in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area on May 5, 2026, adding 1,449 units to its Texas portfolio in markets that sit outside the oversupplied DFW core.
The first property: Yellow Door Storage at 3309 Fort Worth Drive in Denton, a 449-unit, 109,515-square-foot facility built in 2023, acquired for $9 million, or roughly $20,044 per unit. Denton sits at the northern edge of the DFW metroplex where University of North Texas enrollment drives consistent residential growth and self-storage demand without the supply density of closer-in submarkets like Frisco or Plano.
The second: an unnamed 1,000-unit facility in Little Elm, a rapidly growing suburb on Lake Lewisville, purchased for $19.2 million, or $19,200 per unit. Little Elm's population grew over 40% between 2020 and 2025, adding residential density faster than commercial real estate infrastructure including self-storage has kept pace.
Both properties were delivered in 2023 by original developers who built and are now exiting. The pattern is consistent across secondary Texas markets: developers who accessed construction financing in 2021 and 2022 at rates that no longer exist are selling to operators willing to hold through the initial lease-up period at a basis that the original developer could not. Cedar Creek's combined $28.2 million spend for 1,449 units represents a per-unit cost that would be impossible to replicate with new ground-up construction at current steel prices and financing costs.
Why BuxBear Paid $14.1 Million in Hawaii
BuxBear Storage, which operates 14 facilities across California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, acquired Storage Star at 16-151 Melekahiwa Street in Kea'au, Hawaii, for $14.1 million. The facility totals 60,118 rentable square feet in 707 drive-up units and vehicle storage, implying a per-unit price of approximately $19,944.
The Hawaii acquisition logic is structurally different from anything happening in a continental US growth market. Self-storage development on the Big Island of Hawaii faces genuine land constraints, permitting processes, and construction cost premiums that do not exist in Texas or Georgia. A new competitor cannot simply build across the street. The supply picture for Kea'au and the surrounding Puna district is effectively frozen.
BuxBear's Pacific Coast and Pacific Rim operating footprint creates natural management efficiency for this acquisition. Centralized operations, reservation systems, and marketing infrastructure already built for California and Oregon properties extend to Hawaii at marginal additional cost. The economics of the deal work because BuxBear can run the asset at lower overhead than a local independent operator who would need to rebuild that infrastructure from scratch.
"Our goal is to provide locals and visitors with high-quality storage solutions while contributing positively to the community."
- BuxBear Storage representative
Island self-storage markets represent a small but durable segment of the broader acquisition landscape. Supply constraints are structural rather than cyclical, which insulates operators from the oversupply pressure eroding margins in Phoenix and Atlanta. BuxBear's $14.1 million price implies a yield that works at current operating costs without requiring material street rate improvement.
What Merit Hill Is Doing in Rural Wisconsin
Merit Hill Capital's acquisition of the S&G Self-Storage three-property portfolio in East Troy, Wisconsin, for $7.9 million is the most explicitly consolidation-driven of the three deals. The portfolio totals 163,890 net rentable square feet across 827 units, implying a per-unit price of approximately $9,552 and a per-square-foot price of approximately $48.
Those numbers reflect rural Wisconsin fundamentals, not a distressed asset. East Troy, a village of roughly 3,000 people in Walworth County southeast of Milwaukee, has stable industrial and recreational demand from the surrounding area. The three properties, operated by S&G Edinger Investments LLC, are a classic independent operator exit: a family that built and managed a portfolio over time, now finding the operating complexity of three facilities without institutional management infrastructure more burdensome than the assets are worth to hold.
Merit Hill has deployed this playbook across the country. The company acquires independently operated portfolios in smaller markets where the per-unit economics justify the acquisition basis even without revenue upside from rate increases. CubeSmart will operate the East Troy properties under a third-party management arrangement, connecting them to national marketing, revenue management systems, and yield optimization tools that no local operator could access independently.
The result is an asset that earns more under institutional management than it did under local ownership, at a basis the seller found acceptable. That is the non-REIT acquisition market in its most efficient form.
The Broader Q2 2026 Deal Context
These three transactions represent a category that drove 82% of 2025 self-storage deals but gets a fraction of the coverage. The aggregate volume of sub-$25 million deals is where the market's actual price discovery happens, where motivations for selling are most varied, and where regional operator expertise produces the largest edge.
National self-storage transaction volume is on track to exceed the $5 billion recorded in 2025, with 65% of institutional investors surveyed by Cushman and Wakefield indicating they plan to be net buyers this year. But that institutional demand is concentrated in specific asset types: recently delivered Class A product in high-growth markets, stabilized portfolios with identifiable management upside, and geographically clustered assets that can be packaged for institutional exit.
Everything else, the new construction in secondary DFW, the supply-constrained island market in Hawaii, the rural Wisconsin portfolio, trades to operators with the market knowledge and management infrastructure to make those specific assets work.
Cap rates in primary, stabilized self-storage markets are running 5.0% to 5.5% in 2026. Secondary and tertiary markets with operational complexity command 6.5% or better. The buyers executing in that spread are not settling for lower-quality assets. They are paying for the opportunity to create value that institutional platforms either cannot reach or have not prioritized.
The Numbers Worth Writing Down
- Cedar Creek Capital: Yellow Door Storage, Denton TX, 449 units, 109,515 sq ft, $9M ($20,044/unit), built 2023
- Cedar Creek Capital: Little Elm TX, 1,000 units, $19.2M ($19,200/unit), built 2023
- BuxBear Storage: Storage Star, Kea'au HI, 707 units, 60,118 sq ft, $14.1M ($19,944/unit)
- Merit Hill Capital: S&G Self-Storage portfolio, East Troy WI, 3 properties, 827 units, 163,890 sq ft, $7.9M ($9,552/unit)
- Non-REIT buyers: 82% of 2025 self-storage transactions by count, avg $111/sq ft
- REIT buyers: 18% of transactions, avg $153/sq ft
- Self-storage asset valuations: avg $159/sq ft (down 12% from 2023 peak)
- Secondary/tertiary market cap rates: 6.5%+ vs. 5.0-5.5% for primary stabilized assets
Small Deals, Clear Logic
The billion-dollar mergers determine the ownership structure of the sector. The $8 million and $19 million deals determine whether the consolidation thesis actually generates returns at scale.
Cedar Creek, BuxBear, and Merit Hill are building portfolios with a specific rationale for each asset: new construction in DFW growth corridors where per-unit replacement cost is higher than the purchase price, a supply-constrained Pacific market with no credible new competition, and a rural Midwest portfolio that earns more under institutional management than it did under local ownership.
None of those deals will generate a press release from a REIT investor relations department. They are the transaction market that everyone in self-storage acknowledges exists and that the quarterly earnings calls never directly describe. The data behind them is as clear as anything in the sector right now.
Sources
- Self-Storage Real Estate Acquisitions and Sales: May 2026, Inside Self-Storage
- Cedar Creek Capital Expands Texas Portfolio With Two Strategic Self-Storage Acquisitions, EIN Presswire
- BuxBear Storage Kea'au, BuxBear Storage
- Storage Post Acquires Three Sofia Storage Locations in New York City, PrivSource
- Self Storage Sales Reach Nearly $1.6B In Q3 2025, StorageCafe
- Trends in Self-Storage Investing for 2026, Inside Self-Storage
- U.S. Self Storage: Market Trends and Sector Outlook, Cushman and Wakefield