Pricing Your Self-Storage Units is a Science not a Shot in the Dark!!!

There is a science behind how you are going to price each unit in your self-storage facility. Each unit may be a different price than the one next to it depending on the day of the week that it was rented on or how your occupancy levels were at the time the unit was rented or how convenient the unit is. One of the most important things that you want to remember is that no unit is the same. Because of this, you want to have great software to help you track your pricing on your units.

There are several things that are going to affect your rates. The first is the market. Is the market oversaturated or undersaturated? If you are in an oversaturated market, you may have to lower your prices in order to get people in the door. However, once they are in, you can do gradual price increases. You can’t raise the rents on an empty unit.

Another thing that affects the rate of your self-storage unit is the location of the unit. The units that are close to the door or easy to access are worth more than the ones that are harder to get to. A good manager can upsell a potential renter by explaining that for just a few dollars more, they can have one of these convenient units instead of the one that they are considering. Advertise the cheap units and then try to upsell.

You are also going to change your rates based on the day of the week. There are a lot of people who want to move in on Saturday. This means that your rates are higher on Saturdays. However, Tuesdays are a little slower so you may have to entice people to move in with lower rates. This is part of why you want great software.

You should always be doing rent increases. You may not want to increase the rents on the entire self-storage facility at the same time. You may decide that you are going to increase the rents on 20% of the facility every 7 or 8 months. This way you are constantly increasing your revenue without risking a mass exodus.

No matter how you price your units, make sure that you create a system that allows you to receive the most revenue. You don’t want to be the mom and pop shop that never raises their rents, so they don’t make as much money. As always, happy investing.