Self Storage Feasibility Study in North Carolina

North Carolina is a self-storage state in SBA terms

Self storage weighs heavily in North Carolina's SBA activity, and a 2.37x location quotient is the cell's headline. The state ranks 5 of 50 for the class, with 129 approvals worth $197.1 million from FY2017 to FY2026, and storage sits 12 of 39 among North Carolina classes. Loans are large: the median of $1.1 million is 1.15x the national storage median, and the central half spans $591,000 to $2.1 million. No single metric clears our distinctness screen; the distinction here is concentration.

A Live Oak book

Live Oak Banking Company holds 69 of the North Carolina storage loans, worth $140.2 million, the dominant share of the dollars. Bank Five Nine holds 11 for $6.5 million, First Community Bank 7 for $2.5 million and Pinnacle Bank 6 for $9.3 million. SBA 7(a) carries 116 approvals and SBA 504 only 13, and franchise units are 3.1%. Counties are spread thin: Brunswick, Gaston and New Hanover have 7 approvals each, and Forsyth and Wilkes 6, so no single market dominates.

Outcomes

Every one of the 59 North Carolina storage loans funded over FY2017 to FY2021 is still clear of charge-off, 0.00% to date and 0.00% for the five-year test. Cancellations are scarce as well: 6.8% of the state's FY2017 to FY2024 storage approvals, with the ceiling also 6.8% because nothing from those years is left undrawn. Annual approvals ranged from 5 in FY2018 to 20 worth $34.0 million in FY2021.

A storage study in North Carolina has to satisfy a lender who knows the asset well, in a state where many facilities have already been financed. Demand should be measured as rentable square feet per household in a radius suited to the site, against existing and planned supply, with achievable rents and lease-up pace by unit size. Construction cost, from land and grading to climate-controlled buildings, gates and cameras, should be bid by a contractor. Coverage should be tested at stabilised occupancy and during lease-up, when a new facility carries the most risk. The appraisal will use the income approach on stabilised operations, so the study's rent and occupancy assumptions must be ones the appraiser can verify from comparable facilities.

Outdoor RV and boat storage is filed under self storage with no separate code, so part of North Carolina's figures may describe vehicle lots rather than unit buildings.