Client Self-Storage Trends during Covid-19
The self-storage industry provides a different perspective of what’s going on locally due to Covid-19, which I thought you might enjoy reading about.
College Students
- Many students are moving home to continue their education online and have picked up their items to take home or have left them in storage, hoping to return soon.
- Usually students rent apartments year-round and leave them vacant or sublet them in the summers (particularly overseas students). Now that they are learning remotely, they are having moving services pick up their items from their apartments and bring them to self-storage without coming themselves to the storage property.
- Others have come back to town to live in Santa Barbara for online learning and have picked up their summer storage (mostly city college students).
Recreation
We have seen a huge uptick in RV and boat storage inquiries, as camping and outdoor activities are the new alternatives for a vacation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Real Estate Trends
It has been proven that staging your home prior to putting it on the market will bring a better value. Clients will often store with us to make room for staging. The two biggest trends in that regard:
- Homes are selling faster – we had one client who recently moved into a large space and their home sold in 3 days, so they ended up moving in and out of their storage space very quickly!
- On the other hand, the market is short of inventory as many people do not want to show their homes during Covid-19. We are seeing fewer clients using storage to ready their homes for the market.
More Out-of-Town Clients
As I am sure you have read, many people are moving away from big, populated cities due to health and safety concerns in volatile times. We are seeing out-of-town clients coming from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. These clients store their entire households while they look to buy something in the area.
Adult Children Moving Back to Family Homes
Due to health concerns or job losses, many adults are moving back home to live with or help care for elderly/immunocompromised parents. These clients are in search of a storage space for the contents of their apartments or homes elsewhere or to clear out a room at their parents’ home for their arrival.
Construction
If you live in the Ranch, you can’t help but notice all of the construction going on with new homes and remodels. This trend is true all over town and the nation. With an uptick in construction site theft and out-of-town contractors picking up work locally, contractors are renting what we call ‘Itsy Bitsy’ or ‘Petite’ spaces, the size of a front hall close,t to store tools.
Finding Space at Home for Home Offices
Due to the transition to remote work, many clients also need more space at home for a home office, adding exercise equipment, or making room for an online student or adult child.
At Patterson Self-Storage, we transitioned to contactless self-storage early in the pandemic, for the safety of our customers. Managers help clients rent spaces over the phone using DocuSign, although we are still able to help clients on-site, with social distancing and masks required at all times. It is not as rewarding as greeting our clients personally in the office, but it will do for now.
Stay well, everyone! Trudi
