Not to mention, with people getting married (or re-married) later in life, a lot of couples each already have their own set of everything, whereas when couples get together young, they build up a single house's worth of stuff together. When they combine households, that shits gotta go somewhere. A lot sell it, but in the meantime store it. Everyone I know who owns a storage unit is because they got married and suddenly had two houses worth of stuff.

This seems to be missed on this thread what they are often just a placeholder until local market conditions change

True, but states like Florida and Texas also generally have larger yards than Baltimore area homes. I would think homeowners there would more likely opt to pay a one time upfront cost to buy/build a shed instead of recurring monthly fees for a storage unit that, within six months to a year, total more than the cost of a shed.

Obviously this is generalizing what the "typical" situations are and assuming that these folks are good at these types of decisions so this comment and my previous one don't account for every storage unit user's situation. I'm also sure there's a huge spectrum that folks fall on between hoarder and minimalist.

I do, however, believe that there are likely very smart people who watch various market trends in order to make highly educated decisions about when the right time to build a storage facility would be. My previous comment was only intended to point out that a layperson like myself only needs to see the product of these smart people's decisions in order to get an idea of what they're seeing.

Very quickly you'll have a few thousand dollars spent. I always find it hard to justify the expense when after a year or two you'll have money to buy whatever one or two things you'll reuse. The only time it makes sense is when there is a set end date. Storage units take advantage of procrastination, people don't want to deal with the stress of throwing stuff away, even if it is the logical thing to do.

The biggest problem with busses is that they have to share the road with cars. This has two pitfalls:

1. busses get stuck in traffic

2. BRT infrastructure (i.e. Bus lanes) can easily be given back to commuter cars if some elected rep thinks happy drivers are better than happy bus riders.

Trains don't have these problems, especially if they are grade-separated.

Whattt I would take a sheetz over a 474773 storage unit anyway.

They should put a North/South subway underneath York Road from Towson to 33rd, then go under 33rd to Charles St, then go under Charles St. south (with a station underneath Penn) all the way to Fort Ave, and end the line at the front gate of McHenry.

Awhile back I was standing at the Mt. Royal Light Rail station and struck up a conversation with a guy next to me. He was convinced the the light rail used "Dynamic Scheduling". Made me LOL but it sure feels like that sometimes.

> It's generally a pretty small percentage of storage unit patrons

I could see the correlation but I have my doubts that only a small number of people are using storage places because they have too much stuff.

In states with homes that generally have no basements (think FL, TX, etc) storage space is often at a premium. Combine this with the typical 1960's home size/design and you have basically zero storage, unless you don't put cars in the garage.

I also think a large number of people like to hoard, to some degree. I know my parents and several of their neighbors hang on to shit they could have tossed decades ago. "But what if I need it some day?" I will admit, I used to fall victim to this mindset and had a closet that was useless because it was full of every kind of cord, adapter, spare part, etc. imaginable. Then I got rid of nearly all of it and reclaimed the closet knowing that I might have to spend a few bucks at Microcenter or Monoprice if I ever need something. Well worth it.

There's also some cultures that hang on to more stuff, like practicing jews who have a kosher set of kitchen stuff that they might bust out on the rare occasion. Some actually operate parallel kitchens with two sets of everything, including appliances. Lots of opportunities here to accumulate a lot of stuff that needs to be stored.

Right now I’m paying for a storage unit because I was priced out of my apartment and moved in with family in the interim. I’m not sure that selling/trashing everything and then rebuying when I move again would have saved money over the cost of a storage unit. I guess it all depends on how long I’m bleeding money for the unit.

That spot has the most eclectic panhandlers

Storage units are definitely getting filled up at a wild rate or developers would stop building them. They do a lot of research on the market and look at average household income and determine if there's a market for it. Americans buy a lot of stuff, gotta put it somewhere. The way I see it, small houses can't hold a lot of stuff, where are you going to keep your Christmas decorations? Where does your lawnmower go in the winter if you don't have a garage? Snowblower in the warmer months? We buy big things that we don't need for portions of the year, gotta put them somewhere.

On the mattress front, mattresses are super expensive. A store needs to sell between 5-10 a month to pay rent. That's some pretty low pressure sales considering when someone needs a mattress they really need a mattress. Landlords also love mattress stores (chain ones like mattress warehouse and mattress firm, local ones are typically for shittier centers, think something like Cromwell Field out in Glen Burnie) since they have great credit and require very little parking meaning the shopping center can focus it's parking on grocery store parking etc. It's a great business model so long as you don't get greedy like mattress firm did a few years back. Interesting story if you want to read about it look up mattress firm corruption or something like that.

Did you ever find this? I am looking for Rodolphe le Meunier’s Salted Churned Butter or Echire butter...

Thanks for sharing your insights. What your saying makes sense except for one thing. I can't wrap my head around the demand for storage units or mattresses. Are there really that many people renting and using storage units? And do people buy mattresses that often? I've kept the same one for 15 years and it's fine.

Dollar General is a small footprint Walmart. That town without enough room for Walmart can still be decimated :)

Commercial real estate broker here. Self storage is one of the hottest asset classes in the entire country right now. Things absolutely print money. Think about it, pretty minimal investment cost since you're effectively building a concrete box with some cages in it. Minimal payroll costs since you don't need more than two people max to keep the thing running. High rents per storage unit and they're pretty much guaranteed to fill up. Once one is stabilized (like 90% full) the developer sells it at a ~5% cap rate (cap rate is Net Operating Income/property value). The higher the NOI and the lower the purchase price when you bought the property, the more you can sell it for. Developers are making a killing on these things and have been for a few years now.

Mattresses cost like 50-100 bucks to make, the profit margins on them are insane.

I have no idea how psychics make money. Preying on the insecure I guess but I've never seen someone go into one.

Investors/corporations often erect storage facilities on property to offset costs while holding long term.

You should see how many there are by m&t. I think I’ve counted five in a three block radius.

The psychology behind paying money to keep possessions is unfortunate. Extremely limited legitimate utility for these places but humans are not particularly good at sidestepping they’re own weaknesses. So we have acres and acres of these things full of junk. Sad.

At the rate you’re paying I hope it’s a stock numbers matching ‘71 Charger R/T or something else that’s going up in value at pace you’re bleeding money to keep it.

I only have one item at the storage facility, lol

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I think this is a sign of a down tick in that area's snob appeal. It has grown at a feverish pace and all with the car being centric. There is no there there but ephemeral retail. As with all suburbia , once the luster is off the customers will start to fade.

I think you are correct. I have a relative who was administrator for a small town in north county NY. Their town started to see applications to build Dollar stores (they already have one) At a meeting of small town administrators, a state reps said that when a town starts seeing Dollar stores pop up, it is a sign of economic distress for that area. It also is a red flag to potential investors that things are going down hill.

My storage unit bill went up $100.00 a month from 150 to 250 . Evidently a big business.