Self storage might not be the most glamorous commercial real estate market, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t attractive to investors.
A public real estate investment trust proved that notion right last week when it paid more than $180 million for a portfolio of self storage properties, most of which are located in Florida.
The REIT, Self Storage Trust II, acquired 10 properties in Florida and one in Baltimore, Maryland, from affiliates of the Mindful Capital Group, an investment and management company headquartered in Delray Beach.
Self Storage Trust II announced the deal last week without a price, but the individual sales began clearing public records on Wednesday.
So far, sales for all but one self storage center in Doral have been recorded. Altogether, the deals come out to nearly $182 million in South Florida alone. One of the Florida properties is located in Port St. Lucie and another in Naples, so they aren’t included in the roundup.
Here’s a breakdown of the properties and their prices:
- 189 Linton Boulevard, Delray: 900 units, 121,500 square feet, $30.79 million
- 2320 Northeast 5th Avenue, Pompano Beach: 870 units, 114,500 square feet, $18.58 million
- 10719 Southern Boulevard, Royal Palm Beach: 850 units, 92,700 square feet, $24 million
- 10325 West Broward Boulevard, Plantation: 910 units, 89,800 square feet, $36.32
- 2581 Jupiter Park Drive, Jupiter: 820 units, 87,400 square feet, $26.93 million
- 1341 State Road 7, Wellington: 730 units, 81,700 square feet, $21.92 million
- 8135 Lake Worth Road., Lake Worth: 830 units, 78,100 square feet, $23.1 million
- 10451 Northwest 33rd Street, Doral: 1,030 units, 71,500 square feet, undisclosed
Self Storage Trust II is a non-traded REIT sponsored by SmartShop Asset Management, a commercial real estate company that specializes in owning self storage properties.
On its website, the company breaks down its interest in the business like this: demand for self storage is driven by many common occurrences in life, whether they be birth, death, divorce, marriage, retirement or even more macro trends like shifts in the economy.
For this most recent acquisition, the proof is in the numbers. The 11 properties Self Storage Trust II acquired have an occupancy rate of 96 percent with 985,500 square feet of rentable space, according to its announcement of the deal.
All-told, the REIT’s portfolio includes more than 4.3 million square feet of rentable space across 39,630 storage units.
“We like the diversity of these assets across the southern half of Florida,” Wayne Johnson, chief information officer for Self Storage Trust II, wrote in the announcement. “There are 10 stores spread amongst five counties, each in dense and established markets.”