Simply Self Storage is expanding its presence into Dallas and Houston by acquiring a 14-property self-storage portfolio. Simply Self Storage is one of the top five private owners of self-storage nationwide. Seven of the fourteen properties, which Storage Choice previously owned, are in Dallas.
“We are excited about the growth prospects in that market,” said Scott Levy, executive vice president of investments at Simply Self Storage. “It’s growth from the standpoint of population, and its growth from the standpoint of employment growth. It’s a place where folks seem to be moving to and want to live and work. With all of that, growth and population creates the need for our product, and that’s a good place for us to be.”
In its 2021 Texas Relocation Report, Texas Realtors reported that more than 500,000 people moved to Texas in 2019. From 2014 to 2018, the top cities for relocations were Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin.
“We face competition from very sophisticated operators to more regional and even one-off owners,” Levy told Dallas Express. “We’re happy to put our platform up against any of those, larger or smaller, and blatantly outperform them. We believe we can deliver a better experience for the customer and therefore create a better value proposition given the location and the amenities we offer and the service of our teams.”
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but according to a press release, the properties consist of 9,878 units with more than one million net rentable square feet, of which 633,058 square feet are climate-controlled.
“It’s our level of care for the customer and our genuine appreciation of what the customer is going through in terms of a stressful situation, which is requiring the need for the product in the first place,” Levy said in an interview. “It’s our ability to keep the property clean, to keep it safe and well-lit are all things that should make a customer feel better about storing with us and should ease their concerns about having their personal belongings be off-site from where they are currently.”
Locations include Canton Street and Slocum Street in Dallas, Harwell Drive and Sublett Road in Arlington, Keller Springs Road in Carrollton, South Kimball Avenue in Southlake, and Bryant Irvin Road in Fort Worth.
“All people have stuff so, the more people, the more stuff is the idea that we’re thinking about,” Levy said. “With Dallas, you see good inflows from a population perspective, good growth metrics, and it shows disposable income, which means people can buy stuff. When you combine all of that together, that’s what makes Dallas become a market that lends itself well for self-storage.”
According to Payscale, the average Dallas salary is $72,000, with incomes increasing some 1.6% during the second half of 2021. Typical positions in Dallas include project manager, software engineer, and operations manager.
“We know what our customers can’t store based upon what the requirements are in the unit or on our lease, but in many cases, we don’t always know what our customer does store, and that’s okay with us,” Levy added. “It’s their business, and we try to respect their privacy. Based upon these properties being considered stable assets and generally full from an occupancy perspective, there’s certainly demand in these markets for self-storage space.”
