22 May 2025
At the recent ISS World Expo, James McLean spoke with Andrew Capranos of 10 Federal Storage to unpack how their team continues to thrive in a challenging self-storage environment. From disciplined acquisitions to hyper-local revenue strategies, 10 Federal Storage shows how deep data and sharp execution can drive outsized results, even when others are pulling back. Strong fundamentals and smart plays still win.
James McLean: Hey everybody, I'm here with Andrew from 10 Federal, president of 10 Federal. Now, Andrew, I'm gonna put you on the spot. We're in a very challenging self-storage environment right now with all the headwinds from interest rates, you know, frozen housing market, but how has 10 Federal kind of gone against the narrative and had been so successful in this climate?
Andrew Capranos: Yeah, so, you know, I think there's a lot of things that we do and our team does well, but one of the old adages in self-storage is you make money on the buy. So you have to buy, right? And, you know, we use you guys for a lot of that data, not a plug for y'all, but, you know, we use your data to go out and help us identify the deals out there in the market. And there's lots of opportunities out there still in the market. I mean, this industry is huge. So one is, you know, we make sure that we're buying our properties, right? We're not overpaying, things like that. We're going in, you know, markets that are in high paths of growth that have good, you know, fundamentals and, you know, and then we operate it. So we've been in this business for a while. We operate about a hundred locations all over the country and we do them very, very efficiently. And I think I would say that I have the best team in the business. And I think that's part of our secret sauce.
James McLean: Now you guys definitely have a lot of heavy hitters on board and I love that you sort of highlighted these fundamentals as sort of your non-negotiables when acquiring new assets and running them. But, you know, I love that you plug Radius and I love data. And while data doesn't lie, it doesn't always tell the true story. And one thing that we're having some issues with in the industry is ECRIs, you know, this kind of uncertainty about what is a real upside of a deal and how can we actually see what your in-place rates are with very confusing web rates being advertised. How have you and your team navigated this in this climate?
Andrew Capranos: Yeah, I mean, we get this question a lot and people always ask like, you know, what's your strategy? What do you do? What's your, when do you, when you give ECRIs and things like that? And I would say we don't paint with a broad brush So, you know, I think with this environment, you have to take a very targeted approach and you have to use data and all the data that's readily available. And then, you know, we've been in business for a long time. So we've, we've accumulated a lot of data on our own so that, you know, when we do push through rate increases and things like that, we know what's going to happen. We track attrition and, you know, customer churn and, you know, forecasting what's going to happen. And all of that's very important to your revenue management side of your business. So I, that would be my advice out there is, you know, you don't want to paint your strategy with a broad brush. You want to take a very tailored approach to depends on the property. Depends on the strategy, the market, the, you know, what's going on in that particular local, you know, three mile radius and things like that.
James McLean: Awesome. I think that just goes back to one of the ethos of 10 Federal. Sort of your relentless innovation. And that you guys have always been really good about adopting technology and trying new things to stay competitive in this space. And clearly it's worked. You know, we've seen you guys being tremendously successful this past couple of quarters. Andrew, what is your forecast for the future of sales storage for the rest of the year? Where do you see the industry going? Have we bottomed out in demand? What are your thoughts?
Andrew Capranos: I wish I had that crystal ball. So, you know, I think everyone would love to know the answer to that question. What I can say is I'm very bullish on storage long-term. I think it's a great industry. You know, it's a fantastic industry. I wish I got into it even sooner. I think that's the sentiment for a lot of us. And I think if you look downrange, you know, there's been, you know, kind of truncated new supply coming in with, you know, it's harder to develop deals. So, you know, a lot of people backing out. Well, you know, we saw that during the GFC. We saw a big drop off on new deliveries. And then what that was followed by was a huge run in rental rates. So I think we're seeing kind of the same thing right now where, you know, we saw less deliveries coming on and for various reasons, right? You know, street rates were down, you know, financing was harder to get, things like that. So developers weren't developing at the same rate. We saw abandoned jobs or abandoned development deals all over the country. And, you know, so I would say a few things. One, if you can develop, it's a great time to develop because I think what we're gonna see in the future is a lot of pent-up demand that we're able to come in and help serve for our customers.
James McLean: Got it, and I love that overview. And Andrew, thank you for being so generous with your time and best of luck in the next couple of quarters. Congrats on your success.
