As the end of 2025 approaches, the self-storage industry finds itself navigating two converging headwinds: an increasingly active development pipeline, and the growing signs of a K-shaped economy. While each challenge is significant on its own, the combination presents a more structural issue for operators, owners, and investors. Development activity remains elevated across many U.S. markets, and despite widespread acknowledgment of “overbuilding,” new supply continues to be delivered. Many people are still underestimating the pace and scale of ongoing development. This point resonates with what we are seeing on the ground, projects that broke ground during the low-rate era of 2021–2022 are now opening into a very different operating environment.
