Joe DownsCEO & Co-Founder, Belrose Storage Group. Founder, Storage Moguls.

COVID Didn't Create the Boom - It Fueled It

25 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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COVID accelerated an existing boom rather than creating it. New market participants who arrived during the pandemic mostly stayed after travel reopened, keeping demand elevated at a higher baseline. Upcoming: how HOA bans and municipal ordinances are accidentally building waiting lists.

Chapters

COVID didn't create that trend. It poured fuel on it. And when the fuel burned off, when travel reopened and people had other options, fire didn't go out. It just burned at its normal rate from a higher starting point. That's the answer to, is it just a COVID thing? No. COVID added participants. Those participants stayed. The structural demand story was true before COVID It became more true during COVID and it remains true now. All right, tomorrow, day 5, we're adding the next demand driver to the stack: HOA bans and municipal ordinances. Because it turns out that local governments have been inadvertently building your waiting list for you, and the trend is accelerating.