Why can temperature‑controlled storage be a premium product or unnecessary?

Temperature-controlled storage is not just a feature. In many markets, it is a pricing strategy.

The demand data says more than 30 percent of renters are willing to pay extra for air conditioning and heating. Supply also matters: only about 34 percent of 10-by-20 units are climate controlled. When customers value a feature and the market has limited supply of it, operators may have premium pricing potential. But climate control is not automatically profitable everywhere. It must match local income, weather, customer use cases, construction cost, and competitive supply. We view this from the flip side: if around 30 percent of renters are willing to pay extra for temperature controlled storage, that means around 70% of renters are not. We prefer to avoid additional costs during construction- often a 25%+ increase to building cost- and high operating costs- utility expenses and maintenance of HVAC- by focusing on single story, drive-up, non-temp controlled storage. It provides tenants the most convenience of being able to load and unload right at their unit while most stored goods don’t need temp-control. Really the question is not whether climate control is good. It is whether the local rent premium justifies the cost and we find in many markets it does not.