Executive Summary

Commercial buyers and private operators trying to originate self‑storage assets off‑market face a fragmented owner base, little centralized owner contact data, and weak deal signals beyond brokered listings; the US market is large (about 55,000 facilities and ~$165B of transaction value at an average $3.0M per facility) but discovery costs are high and broker fees routinely erode returns. As a result, acquirers spend disproportionate time chasing low‑quality leads or paying 4–6% in brokerage commissions rather than winning proprietary inventory. You could build a verticalized deal‑sourcing platform that combines facility‑level datasets (unit counts, rackable unit mix, estimated occupancy, and NOI proxies) with curated owner/LP contact records and an AI‑driven outreach engine that personalizes multi‑channel campaigns at scale. The product would include predictive scoring to prioritize outreach, A/B testing for messaging, CRM and transaction workflow integrations, and reporting that translates responses into dollar‑weighted pipeline metrics. The timing is favorable: buyers are expressly pushing for direct origination to cut broker fees, CRE data is moving toward industry‑specific datasets that make signals more predictive, and modern LLMs materially raise the effectiveness and scale of personalized cold outreach. With a medium competitive landscape and an 88+ revenue potential profile, there’s room to capture buyer economics if you can demonstrate consistent off‑market hit rates and measurable CAC reductions. To stand out you must prove superior data quality (fresh owner contacts, accurate unit/occupancy proxies), strong deliverability and personalization tuned to self‑storage vernacular, and tight downstream integration so responses convert to LOIs and closings; network effects with buyers and operators will raise switching costs. Be honest about challenges: owner contactability and low cold‑response baselines (single‑digit reply rates), ongoing data maintenance costs, compliance/privacy hurdles, and the need for human follow‑up to close deals—this is a build‑to‑scale, long sales‑cycle play rather than a quick win.

Market Opportunity

Off‑market self‑storage deal sourcing via data‑driven owner outreach targets a $165B = 55,000 self‑storage facilities (US) x $3.0M avg facility value (transaction market) total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 8-15% — rising CRE tech adoption and direct-sourcing spend growth.

Key trends driving demand: Verticalization of CRE data -- operators prefer industry-specific datasets (unit counts, occupancy, NOI proxies) for more relevant signals.; Direct origination push -- buyers want to reduce broker fees and win off-market deals, increasing demand for outbound tools.; AI personalization -- LLMs improve cold outreach effectiveness and scale personalized messaging over many owners.; SMS resurgence -- higher reply rates and immediacy vs email make SMS a key channel for owner contact..

Key competitors include Reonomy, CoStar / LoopNet, DealMachine, Apollo.io / ZoomInfo (adjacent outreach).

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Off‑market self‑storage deal sourcing via data‑driven owner outreach

Executive Summary

Market Validation

Market Opportunity

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