Santa Clarita continues rapidly increasing its self-storage inventory marked by 70% growth over the last decade, surpassing 1 million square feet last year, according to data from Yardi Matrix.

Growth from this time period accounts for more than 40% of the city’s total inventory. This is “an aggressive pace that rivals Tier 1 urban markets,” says Anca Lenta, the real estate editor at StorageCafe, which is headquartered in Goleta.

“Santa Clarita is experiencing a storage construction boom that positions it as a standout submarket in Los Angeles County’s broader real estate landscape,” Lenta says. “…While national development slows amid softening rents and market saturation, Santa Clarita’s fundamentals continue to support expansion.”

Doug Ressler, business intelligence manager at Yardi Matrix, also notes that Santa Clarita’s inventory growth “is outside the norms of what we’ve seen in many markets.”

Reasons for this boom include population growth and housing stock expansion.

Between 2012 and 2022, Santa Clarita saw its population increase by 27% and its housing stock climbed 24% with the addition of more than 73,000 units, says Lenta.

Much of the county’s overall self-storage footprint growth is happening in suburban corridors and Ressler says Santa Clarita is a particular standout.

Despite a growing market, the county is still vastly undersupplied in comparison to other major metros in the U.S. Ressler points to L.A. County’s self-storage ratio of 2.1 square feet per capita to the national average of 7 square feet per capita.

Repurposing space

Social factors also play a part in the increased demand for self-storage. This includes a rise in multigenerational households.

“A recent survey found that 51% of adult children in the area now live at home, repurposing former storage spaces like spare rooms and garages into living quarters,” Lenta says.

Folks are also repurposing spaces to accommodate work from home or hybrid schedules, converting what used to be reserved for storage into home office workspaces, Ressler says.

Thus, as people are keeping items they used to have direct access to in storage facilities, Ressler says convenience and ease become essential.

“Close proximity is very attractive to people that rent or buy homes,” he says. “If they know that (a storage facility) is within a mile or two, it is very attractive to be able to sell said product or rent said product if it has self-storage in
close proximity.”

Technological upgrades to self-storage also contribute to customer interest such as options for 24/7 access and mobile unlocking systems. Additionally, Ressler finds these have reduced operating costs for the facility owners who rely on less labor to maintain business.

“This also helps reduce the cost point of what you offer to your consumer,” Ressler says. “So the newer technologies have been quite successful.”

‘Compelling’ investment

Investors have taken note of the self-storage demand in Santa Clarita, even those who had never previously dabbled in this sector, such as Intercontinental Real Estate Corp.

Along with LaTerra Development, Intercontinental recently snatched up a 100,000-square-foot self-storage facility in Santa Clarita for $27 million in an off-market deal. The property, which holds 784 units across nine buildings, has an average customer tenant length of six years.

The change in ownership comes with a shift in the operator as the facility will go from EZ Access Self Storage to Public Storage and will undergo a few upgrades and improvements.

In addition to Santa Clarita’s population growth, Jessica Levin, managing director and head of the West Coast for Intercontinental, said the city’s “sustained residential development activity (in) both single and multifamily homes,” as well as its renters accounting for nearly one-third of the population made the investment attractive.

“With a track record of resilient, long-term performance, self-storage has emerged as a compelling institutional alternative investment,” Levin says. “This opportunity marks a strategic entry point for expanding our exposure to what we believe to be a high-performing asset class poised for continued growth.”

In addition to acquisition interest from investors, Lenta points to construction financing as a lucrative move, specifically for the Santa Clarita market.

“As national forecasts point to a deceleration in self-storage construction by 2026, Santa Clarita’s momentum tells a different story,” Lenta says. “Population growth, economic diversification and persistent space constraints are keeping the pipeline strong and investor interest high.”