With capital flow of both equity and debt having dramatically increased over the past few years, self-storage has become the golden child of niche real estate these days. Delivering higher returns and a more stable cash flow than other investments, self-storage is well positioned for the time being. A wise real estate investor once told me that “you are NOT in the self-storage business – you are in the real estate business.” Even though your self-storage business has an extremely reliable income stream, the real estate market has more to do with the value of your self-storage property then the operations of your self-storage business. With that being said, the question I have recently been asked is how can owners protect their value?