Why self-storage is turning into hot property

ANYONE ASKED to come up with their favourite literary home is spoiled for choice: Pemberley, Brideshead, Blandings, Jay Gatsby’s mansion, to name a few. The same holds true for workplaces on television: Los Pollos Hermanos, Dunder Mifflin and the swish Waystar Royco offices, for instance. Ask someone to come up with their favourite fictional storage unit, and expect a blank stare (the most ardent Neal Stephenson fans may recall the one where Hiro Protagonist lives in “Snow Crash”).Ubiquitous and unremarkable, self-storage solves a deeply American problem: what to do with too much stuff. A bunch of empty rooms near a highway is not the sexiest part of a property portfolio. Yet few property assets have matched their performance lately (see chart).