If the economy is faltering and jobs are being lost, it may be time for you to make some cuts yourself.
No, this column isn't about body shaming, but let's take aim at those extra pounds of junk in your home that end up costing you money, even in a real estate market where prices have fallen nearly 20 percent.
The self-storage industry thrives on our obsession with consumerism, and Canadians are overflowing with stuff, closing the gap to Americans, who have almost twice as much self-storage per capita.
Companies like 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, which has more than 175 franchise stores in Canada, the United States and Australia, are targeting this consumption, and a variety of decluttering companies have emerged to help individuals lose weight.
“We are beginning to experience something unprecedented, the largest generational transfer of waste, as many baby boomers downsize. Families are faced with a choice: Does the waste need to be stored or left out?” said James Alisch, chief revenue and operating officer at Vancouver-based 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
Your basement full of treasures will eventually be sold for pennies, donated to charity, or thrown away. And what it costs you is a piece of your living space. If we estimate the value at $1,000 per square foot, which is not unreasonable in today's Toronto market, it is an expensive storage solution.
There's a wave of television shows centered around horror stories about hoarders, but it's really not uncommon for the scrap company to arrive at a home and find a room uninhabitable because it's being used as a storage unit. Confession: I have one of these rooms.
The Ontario Municipal Property Assessment Corp. said two years ago that the province has 7.3 million square feet of commercial self-storage space, equivalent to the total ice surface of about 2,200 NHL rinks.
This number has increased by 11 percent in three years since 2020 and there is no reason to believe that it has slowed that much since the only brake affecting the market today is a slowdown in real estate transactions.
Self-storage thrives during residential activity, including downsizing, expanding and moving out.
Danny Freedman, interim chief executive of Forum Make Space, which invests in about 28 storage properties from Vancouver to Quebec, said large institutional investments are still happening in Canada.
“The tailwinds are leading to more expensive homes, which is leading to smaller and smaller spaces, and people are still buying stuff,” Freedman said. “There just aren’t the same amount of garages and basements and places for people to store their stuff.”
The storage manager said there was a spike in usage during the pandemic, but that has since declined somewhat. However, as construction costs also impact the sector, supply is not growing as quickly, which has a positive impact on prices.
“It’s not so much whether real estate prices go up or down, but rather the number of stores,” Freedman said. “There are a lot of non-economic circular requirements for storage. People die. People get married. They have babies. These are things that drive people to move and get storage.”
As property prices began to rise, people stopped moving as frequently. They may have had a baby, but with mortgage costs higher, they stayed where they were and made ends meet. Commercial rentals also make up about 25 percent of the business, but can also double storage capacity for temporary reasons during difficult times.
Colliers said rental growth has been more modest in recent months, largely due to new supply. However, the real estate company said buyers remain confident in the long-term fundamentals of the self-storage asset class, which they view as resilient and cash flow stable.
Oliver Tighe, executive vice president at Colliers, said there is no single factor that impacts self-storage. Nevertheless, the sector has been recession-resistant in the past because people need it even in bad times.
“There has been a massive increase in the construction of self-storage facilities over the last 24 months, but that is now slowing,” said Tighe, who puts the supply of self-storage facilities in Canada at four square feet per person, compared to nine square feet south of the border. “The U.S. population is much more mobile (and requires temporary storage solutions).”
The Colliers executive agreed that there is a direct connection between shrinking home sizes and increasing demand for self-storage in Canada.
“People think self-storage is a temporary solution, and that's never the case,” Tighe said, adding that the average term can be 24 to 36 months, even if the consumer thinks it will be three months. “Almost all customers stay longer than planned because it's easy and low cost to give up storage. But people want that month-to-month flexibility for convenience.”
Even as the condo market continues to struggle, Tighe says self-storage will continue to thrive because losing your home means you need a place to store your belongings. “Relocation is a driving force in self-storage,” he said.
StorageVault Canada Inc., Canada's largest publicly traded self-storage company, reported in the second quarter that it still had annual revenue growth of 6.3 percent despite headwinds from the housing market.
The Bank of Nova Scotia said this warehouse rent index itself shows that rents in September 2025 had increased by 5.2 per year for the year. Analysts covering the sector at the bank expect rising home sales to continue to drive the market, as will home renovations.
Moving companies, which are somewhat related to the self-storage industry, are also excited about a recovery in the housing market in their sector.
“People just aren't moving,” said Nancy Irvine, president of the Canadian Association of Movers. “People just aren’t sure what’s going to happen economically, so they’re hesitant to move.”
This is comparable to a pandemic where people moved across the country to work from home. “We couldn’t keep up with the work, we didn’t have enough bodies,” Irvine said.
Today, there is a glimmer of hope for movers as office mandates prompt people to return to cities. “We are hearing anecdotal reports of this from members,” Irvine said.
Some of these people may also want to store their belongings as they consider moving 100 percent back to urban cores, and moving companies benefit because they store the contents.
Freedman said storage will always be the more cost-effective option for the consumer in terms of space compared to a larger home.
“It doesn’t compare at all,” he said, noting that even renting a condo for your stuff would be more expensive than a more compact locker.
The lesson is actually to clean up, which is why many companies see a business model for people who have a hard time doing it on their own.
The reality is that this isn't the case for most people, so storage may be a better option than paying today's price for rooms full of junk. I mean treasures.
• Email: gmarr@postmedia.com