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

Over Promise or Over Deliver Choose Wisely!

5 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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0:34

In this concise presentation, Joe Downs advises self‑storage investors and sponsors to adopt a conservative, realistic projection model rather than over‑promising growth. He outlines modest rent‑increase expectations of 2‑3% per year and steady occupancy growth of 2‑5% annually as the baseline for a stabilizing facility. The speaker emphasizes that sponsors should aim to consistently deliver more than these modest forecasts, positioning reliability and credibility as a competitive advantage in the sector.

Chapters

You want to be the sponsor who consistently delivers more than promised. You've heard the phrase overpromise, underdeliver, right? So let's take a peek at what a truly conservative projection looks like in practice. A conservative projection is grounded in realistic, sustainable growth rates for the self-storage sector. We're going to assume rent increases will be modest, typically in the 2 to 3% range annually. Occupancy growth is also slow and steady, maybe 2 to 5% per year as this facility stabilizes. If you're seeing more than that, you can push it, but these are projections we're talking about.