Blackstone Arm Buys 14-Property Texas Portfolio

5741 FM 646 Road East

Blackstone-owned Simply Self Storage has acquired a 14-property portfolio totaling 9,878 units across Houston and Dallas. Newmark arranged the transaction on behalf of the seller, Storage Choice. Simply Self Storage expanded its footprint by more than 1 million square feet, including roughly 633,000 square feet of climate-controlled storage.

One of the largest properties in the portfolio is a 100,000-square-foot facility near Houston, in Dickinson, Texas. The 1996-built property encompasses 12 buildings across 7.8 acres at 5741 FM 646 Road E. Storage spaces range from 25 to 585 square feet and include RV and boat parking.

The asset is one of the nine facilities within a 3-mile radius, with 16.7 net square feet of storage space available per capita, considerably above the Houston penetration rate of 10 net square feet per capita, Yardi Matrix data shows.

Self storage in Texas

Texas has some of the most oversupplied self storage markets across the U.S., following the 2018 development boom. Still, both Houston and Dallas performed well year-over-year through October, keeping pace with the national rent increases of 8.5 percent for the standard 10×10 non-climate-controlled units and 9.8 percent for the same-sized climate-controlled units, a recent Yardi Matrix report shows.

Houston street rates increased 11 percent for 10×10 non-climate-controlled units and 14 percent for 10×10 climate-controlled units, year-over-year as of October. Projects under development accounted for 2.1 percent of existing inventory in October, registering no change over the previous two months. A low pipeline and healthy demand will likely continue to bode well for Houston’s self storage market.

Underpinning confidence in the two Texas markets, last month, Simply Self Storage acquired a seven-property portfolio in Houston and a facility in Dallas, from CubeSmart, according to data from Yardi Matrix. Simply Self Storage currently owns 29 facilities in Texas.