Change in occupant profile
Known for storing archives and disused belongings of people and companies, self storage is experiencing a period of repositioning in the market. Driven by the rise of e-commerce, this type of space has been increasingly sought after by small and medium-sized digital retailers looking for places to store their inventory.
Attractive rents, flexible contracts, accessible location, freedom of access, in addition to security and good storage conditions are some of the factors that have aroused interest in these spaces.
The biggest beneficiaries of this type of operation are small and medium-sized companies, since the self-storage format provides freedom and accompanies the dynamism that this type of business needs. In fact, agility and the absence of bureaucracy are some of the purposes of self storage.
It is possible, for example, to access the stock daily, as digital retailers usually operate, which usually gather the orders of the day and then prepare the last phase of the logistics for the last mile delivery.
Opportunity for commercial property owners
With the emergence of this new tenant demand, a new opportunity has also emerged for idle commercial property owners: the ability to turn these locations into self-storage spaces and create new revenue streams. Commercial points, corporate slabs and even vacant areas in garages have been transformed into self-storage spaces.
Self storage still has a promising way to go in Brazil. According to the Mundo do Marketing website, the first self-storage company in the country emerged in 1993, in the city of São Paulo. This was already a popular niche in the United States, where more than 50,000 companies provide this type of service.
Brazil currently has 124,000 m² of self-storage space available in 724 units spread across 74 cities. The average asking price per m² is R$ 64.99, according to Abrass - Associação Brasileira de Self Storage. The greatest demand comes from cities with over 300 thousand inhabitants, which naturally should spread to other locations in the coming years, as it is a business model that benefits not only the players in the segment, but also owners of empty commercial properties, entrepreneurs in search for places to house its stocks and also the final consumer, who gains in speed of delivery.
