Was their any noticeable effect on self-serve storage that you were able to directly attribute to the virus outbreak? 

Figure out what those attributes of the property are, and buy properties with those attributes! 

( Except for real estate taxes, expenses attributable to personal use of a rental property are not deductible.

Wouldn't it be nice to partner with someone in a very low tax bracket, attribute all income to him, and take all deductions on your own high-bracket tax return! 

His second point does attribute 2nd buyers and investors (encouraged by low rates) as soaking up some of the inventory slowly for years as one of those factors, among others. 

I needed certain information before closing WHICH I REQUESTED EVEN BEFORE WE MADE AN OFFER, as it was my original attribute for picking the property in a first place, and I am not able to obtain it myself.

This alone attributes to something in the range of +$16,000 replacement cost of a standard american single fam home.

A record 22,114 new jobs were attributed to businesses either expanding in Austin or moving to the city in 2020, compared with 13,562 in 2019, the chamber said.Nationwide, office vacancy rates rose to 17.1 percent by the end of 2020, the third consecutive quarterly increase, according to a report released in January by JLL, a commercial real estate services company.

What I'm curious about is how much of the impact is attributed to the staging vs the actual remodel itself. 

The amount charged represents a gross disparity between the price ofthe good or service and the price of the same good or service that wassold or offered for sale in the usual course of business during the thirty(30) days immediately prior to the peacetime emergency declared byExecutive Order 20-01 on March 13, 2020, unless the persondemonstrates that the disparity is substantially attributable tosignificant additional costs outside the control of the person; orii.