𝐑𝐇𝐖𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥.𝐜𝐨𝐦 
𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞.𝐜𝐨𝐦

I joined RHW Capital in 2019 as Director of Acquisitions. We operate Store Here Self Storage, a nationally recognized operator with roots in the industry dating back to the late 1980s and a track record across 130+ submarkets.

Before Store Here, I spent five years as a commercial real estate broker, completing dozens of office and retail sales and lease transactions throughout Los Angeles.

Today, we’re actively growing our portfolio through acquisitions and offering third-party management backed by decades of operational expertise.

Interesting headline to wake up to.

“Janus International Group, Inc. reported that its wholly owned subsidiary, Janus International Group, LLC, has completed an asset purchase of substantially all assets of Kiwi II Construction Inc., Kiwi II East Inc., and Metal Tech, Inc. These businesses design, supply, and construct self-storage facilities and manufacture related components.

Janus paid approximately $97.2M in cash to the sellers at closing. The company also entered into employment agreements with certain former owners and agreed to grant 1,806,571 restricted stock units to two of them, vesting in three equal installments on anniversaries of the grant date in 2027, 2028, and 2029, to be settled in common stock under its equity incentive plan.

The asset purchase agreement includes customary representations, warranties, covenants, and indemnification provisions, including confidentiality, non‑competition, and non‑solicitation commitments by the seller parties.”

Armand Aghadjanians

Bureau Of Real Estate

Real Estate License

University of Southern California

Armenian

English

Armenian Professional Society, Los Angeles

Emerging Leaders

Toastmasters International

Alpha Tau Omega

Store Here Self Storage

Director of Acquisitions

Avison Young

Commercial Real Estate Advisor

Colliers International

Purchasing $10M+ Self-Storage in Primary & Secondary Markets

La Cañada High School

Self-Storage Acquisitions | 3PM | Consulting | RHWCapital.com

Took down a large, aggressively priced deal a few months ago.

We’re actively looking for the next one — $7M+ acquisitions, ideally larger.
Criteria:

-Non-REIT managed
-No new supply within a 3-mile radius
-Top-50 MSA

Inventory is thin, which is not surprising. That said, with sentiment improving and a solid couple of months behind us, this may be a better window to transact.

Brokers or owners — if you have something that fits, happy to take a serious look and underwrite quickly.

Armand@StoreHere.com, or please call to catch up. 👋

Ballparking numbers

Total U.S. facilities: 55,000
Assume 75% are institutional quality.

REITs + U-Haul operate: 12,500 (estimated)
Other Top 100 owners: 16,100 (estimated)

So we’re talking roughly 12,500 facilities that are 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥-𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐩 100. That’s conservative IMO.

——

At 3% annual supply growth, you end up around 74,000 total facilities in a decade.

Now layer in consolidation: assume 2% per year of the institutional, non-Top-100 pool gets rolled up (most of the meaningful transactions are Top-100-to-Top-100).

Then add what we’ve seen for the past decade (below): roughly 50% of new supply ends up REIT-managed, plus some portion of new deliveries landing with other Top-100 operators.

Net: within a decade, you end up with roughly 10,500 facilities that are still institutional-quality but non-Top-100 operated.

So the “non-Top-100 operator” consolidation opportunity shrinks over time. But because some non-Top-100 institutional product is still being delivered, the decline is not catastrophic—more like a 20% reduction over a decade. And if you look at the Top 100, their portfolios are mostly growing as well.

But just to put it into context, that 10-12k figure of institutional but non-Top-100 sites is as many total sites that are in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina combined.

The population of all those states btw, is about about 1/3 of our country... or the entire size of Mexico or Japan.

So am I concerned about consolidation diminishing the ultra-investable universe over time? Even considering I have another three decades in this business, not really. The landscape is ever changing, but it’ll be there. 

Chart below is from Spring 2025.

No experienced investor I’ve heard of has a perfect record, or hasn’t been tormented by hindsight.

Self-storage analysts have virtually a 0% chance of being precisely right on a multi-year forecast. Statistically impossible to nail it. The potential spread from forecast vs. actual performance is arguably wider than most even recognize. 

Monthly P&Ls swing materially, small changes compound quickly… the spectrum of outcomes is vast. Add capital markets to the mix too.

When “red flags” emerge in conversations with others, the red flag is typically partial vision. Inconvenient probabilities ignored, adversion to stress-testing, etc.

The point of studying data isn’t to support a singular winning narrative. Data is interpretively open. The goal is to see as much of an incomplete picture as possible.

Data, narratives and models are very important. But ultimately, good 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 is vital. Howard Marks, Zell, name a famous investor or book, the core topic is usually about judgement and behaviors.

Good judgement often comes with scar tissue. You’ll notice the most experienced executives within the space speak very carefully, as they understand that focusing on only positive outcomes is a trap.

The broader your perspective, typically the better your judgement. That’s why we study and talk about the full gamut.

I’ve posted almost daily, often multiple times for roughly five years (1,500–2,500 posts).

One of the understated benefits is having a pulse on market psychology.

Is there euphoria? Are projects being pitched weekly? Etc.

Basically I’ve witnessed a progression of frustration → fatigue → disengagement.

Unfortunately, there are many I haven’t heard from in a couple of years, as expected. 

My calendar isn’t filled with people that want to learn more.

Many wanted to see the market grounded in reality rather than detached from it… seems we’re at that point. 

Our principals have seen this before many times over the decades. It ALWAYS takes longer than the broader market believes. But we’re several years into a behavioral shift, so it’s a pretty strong signal to prep and focus on the next chapter.

Interesting to see how the game has changed since 2009. 

BTW, our principals spent 20 of the 35+ years in the industry at one of these firms.

Snippet from a recent Trepp podcast episode:

“If I had to make one big call for 2026, it's that commercial real estate is going to stay in this measured momentum lane, but the market is going to get a lot more selective about who gets to participate in the upside. And what I mean by that is 2026 feels like a year where the gap widens between financeable real estate and everything else.

Properties with durable cash flow, that is, strong sponsorship, a realistic basis, healthy tent demand, and manageable near-term capital needs, those deals will refinance, transact, and even start to see pricing stabilize or recover in pockets. But assets that are still fighting fundamentals or have a big capital stack problem, those are going to keep running into friction. And that's where you'll see workouts, extensions with strings attached, and in some cases, jingle mail.

The borrowers will just simply hand over the keys because that is truly the simplest, most straightforward outcome. So the headline for me is more resolution, but not necessarily less stress. You'll see more maturities actually get dealt with either through refinancing, modification, or liquidation, and that will create clearer price discovery.

But it won't be evenly distributed across property types or markets... Which borrowers can bring fresh equity?

Which assets can support today's debt service? And which deals are still stuck between yesterday's rates and today's realities? So that's my big call.

2026 is a sorting year, not a broad rebound. And the winners and losers are going to look increasingly obvious as the year goes on…

…We've written about it of this bifurcation of the haves and the have-nots. I agree with you. I think in 2026, maybe the line becomes more clear or the markets become more divided in the sense that at this point, you still had some extension modification.

Then there's been some blurred gray area where properties maybe are holding on to hope. And in maybe 2026, you start seeing those properties fall off.

I think 2026 will continue this evolution of the haves. And I think people will be very eager to work with the haves, whether it be sponsors, borrowers, well-located properties with good tenant mix, as you mentioned, have strong cash flow. I think they're going to have a very competitive lending market to enter into because people want to make loans on good properties.

I think for the others, it's going to be a little bit more challenging. And I think potentially this private debt market that has really kind of bolstered or buoyed the have-not properties, you start seeing them be a lot more aggressive or taking action on some of those loan-to-own strategies where the operators are not able to fully meet the obligations. And so you start seeing some of these players get more active on the operation side and take some of these properties.

And so I think we're going to see a really strong year in terms of transaction volume.”

Sums up my take, curious on yours

Based on a REIT’s same-store NOI performance over the past 20 years.

Somewhat surprising.

From 2005–2011, I compared Texas to Southern California, then narrowed it to Dallas versus Los Angeles.

Texas is more volatile—higher growth, but with materially more supply. Taxes are reassessed, insurance could be worse.

California benefits from higher barriers to entry and more diversified demand. 

CA/LA was more steady, fairly safe depending on when you invest relative to the drops in TX/ DFW.

Ultimately if you picked both markets and invested 20 years ago, you'd see similar long-term gains.

I learned a couple of important things about “data” over the years. 

1) Data should be taken with a grain of salt and aggressively scrutinized.

A good example is the widely cited claim that the average first-time homebuyer age jumped to 40. That data came from NAR’s couple hundred question surveys sent to hundreds of thousands of people, with only several thousand responses. When you look instead at alternative datasetsc such as credit application data with a far broader sample, the results look very different.

The same applies to narratives like “BlackRock is buying all the homes.” Some of the most commonly repeated data points are, at best, overstated and at worst, simply wrong.

2) Data is often interpretive. Its utility is in the eye of the beholder.

How data is framed matters as much as the data itself. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt, including from people you respect.

Frankly, sometimes I’ll ask ChatGPT or Gemini a question I don’t know the answer to, only to realize the source they’re citing is my own LinkedIn posts. I don’t love that.

You can also look at national-level self-storage demand data, but just as one successful vegan restaurant in Los Angeles doesn’t make it a viable concept in Wyoming, bundled national data often becomes a mirage when compared to hyper-localized demand realities.

All that said: continuing to broaden datasets and refine interpretations is vital for us. There is a long road ahead and there are still many ways to deepen what we understand about this sector.

Pay attention over the next couple of weeks—we’re going to see meaningful changes to much of what I’m addressing above.

Curious, let me know storage folks 👇🏼

taplio

Armand Aghadjanians's Linkedin Analytics