Have you been feeling the heat recently?
If you're like most operators, the answer is yes. And it makes sense. Most markets have become much more saturated in recent years.
Combine that saturation with a dip in demand, and you have a recipe for struggle and competitive markets.
We sat down with John Chang from Marcus & Millichap. During the talk, we asked his advice on how to handle increased competition this year.
Question: "How can you handle increased competition in 2024?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: 2024 State of the Industry, Tommy and Melissa were joined once more by John Chang of Marcus & Millichap. He broke down what trends and insights he could offer for the self storage industry heading into 2024.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what John had to say:
As an operator, again, looking into 2024, it's a roll-up-your-sleeves year.
This is what I'm saying in terms of pretty much every property type, certainly in office, apartments and industrial. It is a roll-up-the-sleeves kind of year. Where you sit down, you look at the local competitive landscape, and you really have to nail down your rates.
You have to sharpen up your marketing strategies, your advertising, your online presence, and really get dialed in to compete this year because it's going to get a little tougher.
There's new units, there's new supply coming online. There's people going through lease-up. There's a lot of new competition with the REITs and the institutional investors.
And so it's a roll-up-the-sleeves kind of year.
When I'm talking to the owners and the investors themselves, there's a lot of the old timers, the ones who've been in this business a long time, who are starting to move out of the sector. They're saying, "You know what? This is great. I've made tons of money. This has been a fantastic investment. But I don't want to play anymore. It's getting more and more complicated, and I don't want to take my game to the next level. I'm going to cash out. I'm going to cash out some of my chips or all of my chips, and I'm going to move on."
And that's creating opportunities for people who are still growing in the space.
I talked to a lot of syndicators who are expanding, adding more facilities. I talked to a lot of private investors that are getting in and being aggressive in their growth.
So it's going to be an interesting, dynamic year. It is a year where operations matter. How you manage your facility, how you are interacting with your customers matters. And this is a maturation process.
It's just becoming moresophisticated, if you will."
—John Chang
