From policy pivots in Ottawa to tariff whiplash out of Washington D.C., the self-storage sector in Canada is navigating headwinds and tailwinds that could shape the industry in 2026. Will the year bring stability or volatility? Eight industry experts weigh in!
David Allan, President, Apple Self Storage
Simon Berman, President, Avenir Properties/Montreal Mini Storage
Alex Burnam, SVP, Acquisitions, StorageMart
Bliss Edwards, EVP, SmartStop Self Storage
Jason Koonin, CEO, Bluebird Self Storage
Robert Madsen, President, Canadian Self Storage Association/U-Lock Mini Storage
Steven Scott, CEO, StorageVault Canada, Inc.
Patrick Wood, Partner, JBW Commercial Real Estate
How will 2026 compare to 2025? What trends might we see?
MADSEN: I’m cautiously optimistic—emphasis on cautious. Canadian operators have adapted to current conditions and are learning from the experiences of U.S. markets. Rate cuts on both sides of the border help, though they’re only one positive input, not a cure-all. I do think we’re dancing at the entrance of a possible recession. Public companies won’t say that, but it’s realistic.
ALLAN: We’ve had a two-year hangover since COVID. Move-in velocity is back to pre-pandemic seasonal norms, but move-outs have been elevated. However, I expect them to normalize in 2026. Ultimately, I think the winners will be the operators who professionalize marketing and pricing and pair product quality with data-driven acquisition and retention.
BERMAN: When the economy has a cold, the self-storage industry sneezes. That's how I feel things are going right now. People have less money in their pocket, so I expect 2026 to be much like 2025.
SCOTT: Despite lower immigration, weaker housing, and political uncertainty, this year has been pretty solid for us. Last quarter we posted approximately 5 percent NOI growth. I expect some more recovery next year for most, but it’ll be a roll-up-the-sleeves, operations-focused year.
EDWARDS: I see the market shifting from expansion to optimization, and how well you operate will define your success. Marketing, dynamic pricing, and technology-driven efficiency are the new battlegrounds. We’ll also see investors demanding cleaner, better data and a higher standard of execution.
Will things be different at regional levels?
SCOTT: Yes, so you must look broadly and hyper-locally. For example, parts of Toronto look overbuilt in a tight radius, yet the broader metro is actually undersupplied. Same with Vancouver, however it’s extremely hard to build there anyhow unless you pay a premium. On the other hand, Alberta, which I call our Texas, is growing thanks to easier entitlements and a lot of flat land, and Saskatchewan has experienced strong population growth with new projects coming. Then there’s Southern Ontario, which is constrained due to the greenbelt and entitlements.
WOOD: Calgary definitely remains strong, but I’d say Edmonton could tip into pocket oversupply. I think we’ll see new deliveries next year, but any openings in tough markets like Toronto and Vancouver likely started in 2021 to 2022, and have just gotten through Canada’s development cycle, which is often three to five years from day one to delivery. I’d expect lower deliveries in 2027 and 2028 because many are choosing not to start new projects.
KOONIN: Our development pipeline is steady: recent deliveries in Calgary, more coming in Quebec City, Halifax, Montreal—roughly a project a month for the next four months.
Will 2026 be good for development or a good time to sell?
EDWARDS: I’d say it depends on your discipline and capital. SmartStop focuses on growth that will outperform over the next cycle. Construction costs are stabilizing, land pricing has softened slightly in some submarkets, and debt markets are more rational than a year ago. If you know your market and can entitle efficiently, it’s a great time to build. If not, sit tight and let those of us who do move ahead.
WOOD: If you want to develop, financing for storage is available, but rates still aren’t what they were, and construction financing is tougher. And, if you want to sell outside of core markets, pricing may look off due to debt costs and cap-rate expansion. Opportunistic selling isn't what it used to be. If you’re overpriced, you won’t trade.
BURNAM: When it comes to occupancy, move-ins, and asking rates, everything is tracking below on almost every metric. I’m not sure that’s going to change in the near future. Whether you choose to develop or sell, proceed with caution.
Is the fear of oversupply in Canada real?
BURNAM: Restrictions in prime areas steer builders to where they can build, not necessarily where they want to. That can be healthy for existing owners by limiting oversupply, but remember storage is hyper-local: A market can look oversupplied on a headline basis while a one-square-mile pocket still pencils.
KOONIN: Outside the GTA, there are very few oversupplied markets. The U.S. averages 8 to 10 square feet per capita (20-plus in some cities), while most of Canada is under 3 square feet per capita. So, if you go by U.S. standards, 95 percent of Canada is undersupplied.
WOOD: It’s true that Canada averages far less square feet per capita than the U.S., but you can’t just map U.S. ratios onto Canada. Culture, housing stock, and metro patterns differ. Quebec is more European in storage demand; Montreal has “Moving Day” dynamics and different leasing cycles. In Toronto and Vancouver, headline “oversupply” in micro-pockets is offset by storage deserts elsewhere in the metro. In Vancouver, bridges are borders for demand; people don’t cross the bridge to store their stuff. You need to model trade areas very carefully.
ALLAN: Canada historically didn’t have fully saturated markets; now some do, which impacts move-ins and length of stay. With more options, customers feel confident that they can find space when they need it, so they don’t keep units “just in case” like they used to.
What type of development will dominate in the new year?
EDWARDS: SmartStop will continue with a dual-strategy: ground-up builds and conversions. It comes down to what pencils. In recent years, conversions haven’t made sense in many markets. High costs, poor layouts, zoning challenges, entitlements all made ground-ups more predictable. But with development charges creeping north of $50 per square foot in most urban markets, plus rising construction and servicing costs, sometimes converting an existing building starts to compete. So, in 2026, we’ll see more selective conversions, while ground-ups may win in greenfield or under-served nodes.
BURNAM: We’re 99 percent acquisitions. We might deliver one or two facilities a year across North America. We underwrite everything and submit offers, but we’re not seeing returns that meet our hurdles in Canada. In fact, we haven’t closed a Canadian deal in about three years.
BERMAN: When you convert or buy, it’s typically cheaper, but unless you gut it, the architect has to work with what they’ve got. It’s like asking an artist to create a masterpiece on an L-shaped canvas. There’s unit mix challenges, layout issues, and so on. That’s why we do it and others don’t; we take on challenges.
Will restrictions in certain municipalities make development difficult?
EDWARDS: I’ve spent my career in urban planning, so I understand the politics behind the policy. Self-storage doesn’t have to be the city’s least favorite child. The problem is how the industry presents itself. If you walk into city hall talking about “cap rates,” you’ve already lost. We talk about community fit, adaptive reuse, design quality, and sustainability. That’s why SmartStop has never failed to entitle a project in a new market, including in places people said were “impossible.”
BERMAN: I still think self-storage will be looked at skeptically by municipalities because while we can deliver nice properties, we can’t deliver jobs. They get stuck on that and wind up restricting where self-storage can build, funneling us all into specific areas, leading to oversupply. I don’t foresee municipalities softening on self-storage.
SCOTT: People who build and people who buy often see things differently. Since SVI does both, we see it from both angles. Restrictions can help protect existing properties, but they also make it harder to build new ones. Mixed-use projects may be one way to get your foot in the door if the city is pushing back, but in general, it’s just getting more difficult and entitlement friction is growing in several markets.
Will there continue to be more consolidation in Canada?
SCOTT: It’s going to be market by market. Assets trade less frequently here, culturally and structurally. There will be continued portfolio and one-off deals, but the type of churn we see in the U.S. is unlikely given our size and supply constraints in Canada.
BERMAN: I agree there will be more consolidation because the market can be challenging for smaller operators. Some just want to get out of the business naturally, and others are feeling squeezed by bigger operators. They’ve got better data, they can use the aggressive discounting model, and they’ve got the money to spend on marketing. It’s like the perfect storm for the independent operator.
WOOD: Roughly two-thirds of Canadian storage is still owned by small operators, and they face the same cost pressures as the larger guys without the big-company toolkits. So, we’re getting more inquiries from mom-and-pop owners considering selling, driven by retirement and economic pressures.
How is the housing market in Canada impacting self-storage demand?
BERMAN: Demand is driven by a lot of things that are very much outside of the control of the people in industry and the housing market is a big one. I don't expect any change in 2026 until we see a change in the general economy here.
BURNAM: I’d counter that transitional demand—people renting because they’re moving or selling their home—has been healthier in Canada because mortgages aren’t 30-year fixed. Most are five to 10, which creates refinancing opportunities and movement, and therefore more storage demand. In the U.S., many households with 3 percent mortgages aren’t moving.
KOONIN: Even though many mortgages reset over the next couple of years, and there have been some rate cuts, I still think affordability and inflation are going to make it tough for people to move. Targeting commercial tenants may be a good play. We don’t generally do “first-month-free” promos, but we’ll selectively use it to attract them. They rent larger units and stay longer. They may be 10 percent to 20 percent of the tenant count but 30 percent to 40 percent of the square footage.
BURNAM: Exactly; commercial is actually about 20 percent to 30 percent of many of our facility’s rent rolls. It’s the strongest, longest-staying base, and lately it’s been very resilient.
SCOTT: Canada’s borrowing costs are meaningfully lower than the U.S. We just had a 25 percent basis point (bps) interest rate cut at the last Bank of Canada meeting and may see another soon. Lower rates help free cash flow across the board.
EDWARDS: Canadians are pinching pennies right now. Sales have slowed, some buyers are nervous, and developers are cancelling or pausing condo projects. That creates shorter-term volatility and dents sentiment. But we shouldn’t confuse short cycles with structural reality: Canada is still dramatically undersupplied for housing and needs millions of new units over the next decade to close the gap. That mismatch, supply constrained but long-run demand intact, is the reason I’m not worried about storage demand once the cycle turns.
What are the biggest pressures on the industry?
KOONIN: The steep development charges some municipalities levy against us hurt. For example, in Mississauga, development charges might be around $7 million on one project. That alone can kill feasibility. Interest expenses are also massive, though rates have fallen from 8 percent to 10 percent to about 5 percent to 6 percent debt, which helps. But taxes are my top risk. That’s why we underwrite conservatively; we always assume big annual tax increases. Thinking you’ll pay $100,000 and getting a $300,000 bill will wreck an investment.
EDWARDS: Property taxes and development charges are absolutely the killers of good projects. Municipalities are often short-sighted, they see self-storage as a “low job density” use, which is ridiculous when you consider the ecosystem it supports: movers, contractors, retailers, and small businesses that rely on storage to operate affordably. The other pressure is entitlement friction. We spend far too much time educating cities on what modern self-storage actually is.
MADSEN: It’s definitely property taxes, which is why in B.C. the CSSA is pushing to remove business enterprise value from assessments. It isn’t fair to be taxed on intangibles like branding, reputation, lease-up momentum, operating systems—things that aren’t part of the real estate itself. That puts storage owners at a disadvantage compared to the neighbor next door. At the federal level, self-storage is still classified as passive business income, which roughly doubles effective tax on net business income. We’ve fought this for years, and while it’s not on Ottawa’s front burner while tariffs dominate, we will keep it alive and move when a window opens.
Are some pricing strategies, such as aggressive ECRIs, becoming an issue in Canada?
MADSEN: Pricing is a problem; I mean right now Public Storage Quebec has a class action lawsuit against them. It challenges the advertised $1 move-in special, alleging a mandatory administrative fee and lock rental mean you can’t actually rent for $1 plus tax. Quebec’s civil law system heightens risk there, but the warning shot is national: in a discount-heavy environment, promotions must be crystal clear.
KOONIN: I agree pricing is becoming more of an issue. Some operators imported U.S. tactics that Canadians dislike: rock-bottom move-ins prices followed by rapid increases. It’s perceived as a bait-and-switch, and Canadian consumers value fairness and transparency; they react poorly to “gotchas.”
WOOD: Exactly; Canadian consumers won’t tolerate the “$100 move-in followed by a $300 increase six months later” playbook. Some operators tried it, and the results haven’t been great. I can say, these tactics may have helped out some independents. When the big chains overdo increases, those mom-and-pops often pick up fleeing customers, even at higher headline prices, because they’re perceived as fairer and more stable.
EDWARDS: At SmartStop, we’re not shy about using introductory rates or rate adjustments; they’re part of a revenue management model that’s been tested and proven across our portfolio. The difference is transparency. Our customers know exactly what they’re signing up for. This approach works because it’s honest, consistent, and rooted in performance data. That said, every operator has their own strategy, and there’s room for different pricing philosophies.
ALLAN: I think the key is discipline. Discounting is one lever among many. We focus on matching price offers to segment and season, and on protecting rate integrity for long-stay customers rather than chasing occupancy at any cost.
BURNAM: In the U.S., some REITs slashed asking rates, but that didn’t really happen here. Even StorageVault, the biggest operator, generally kept asking rents high and focused on maximizing value at move-in rather than the “discounted price plus quick increase” U.S. model. That discipline benefitted the whole Canadian market, including us.
SCOTT: We chose to hold rates, accept lower occupancy, and continue reasonable ECRIs. Our view: NOI and free cash flow trump occupancy optics. We’ve never posted a negative NOI quarter, but many U.S. peers did. Our results suggest our approach has been more resilient.
What does the wave of institutional capital mean for the industry?
EDWARDS: It’s validating, not intimidating. The influx of institutional capital underscores that self-storage has evolved from “alternative” to “essential.” But the Canadian market still rewards expertise and local knowledge over scale alone.
WOOD: I agree and believe more institutional interest is coming. QuadReal bought Maple Leaf, and Brookfield has reportedly been circling Montreal Mini Storage. Everyone says they want to acquire “100 investment-grade assets” in five years, but there probably aren’t 100 truly investment-grade assets available here. So, that scarcity could push Class-A pricing up. In general, big buyers will look at one-offs when portfolios aren’t available. Prime Storage is buying singles and pairs across Canada. Mini Mall is active in both countries and recently bought a 12-property U.S. bundle; they shifted South partly for higher cap rates.
MADSEN: QuadReal and Brookfield are definitely two big institutional rocks tossed into the pond, and you can feel the ripples. They woke up other institutional players. I’m not seeing those new entrants immediately go on nationwide buying sprees, they are more focused on learning the market, but their presence invites more diligence, better data, and ultimately better banking familiarity with the asset class.
How is technology changing self-storage?
KOONIN: We’re not early adopters of technology for the sake of it. We value human touch: sites answer phones, the call center is staffed, and so on. Labor is a smaller percentage of revenue for larger, higher-priced sites, so service is a differentiator. I do think tech shines when it comes to crime prevention. We’re rolling out live-monitored cameras at most sites in North America and it’s reduced crime, catching offenders in the act. That’s humans plus tech plus AI working together.
EDWARDS: I agree; the operators who get that balance right will win. Tech is the engine; people are still the driver.
MADSEN: There’s been two big shifts. First, many operators are moving off legacy software to modern systems that integrate with other tools. Second, AI is now being used for routine tasks like answering calls, collections, and so on. It’s also changing pricing models by providing rent-increase strategies.
ALLAN: Plus, as more customers use AI to “pick a storage facility,” results will be more zero-sum. You don’t get 10 blue links; you get one answer. You can’t buy your way to the top if your product is bad. Basic hygiene suddenly matters—answering phones, posting real rates and accurate unit information, offering visuals or virtual walkthroughs. This benefits capable small operators too because quality signals are machine-readable.
Is the current political climate having an impact on the industry?
MADSEN: U.S./Canada politics are distracting for businesses and consumers. The ongoing tariff limbo is creating fear and indecision, which pushes consumers and businesses to delay moves, tighten spending, and cut projects and headcount. It also makes banks act more cautiously, so many storage developments are pausing.
WOOD: Policy uncertainty definitely causes conservatism in procurement and budgeting. Developers are trying to source Canadian components or tariff-exempt materials where possible.
MADSEN: That’s the one unexpected positive: The pressure is nudging Ottawa toward pragmatic resource and export policy. There’s more urgency to move metals and materials and to diversify exports, which could support broader economic health.
SCOTT: The constantly moving target does make planning hard, but I believe when it comes to tariffs, they will create winners and losers by city and sector. Automotive-focused regions like Windsor and Oshawa could see pressure, and some areas in Quebec and Ontario that deal in aluminum may be impacted. And while layoffs can give storage a short-term bump, they aren’t healthy long term. That said, some production will likely near-shore to Canada, which helps certain markets.
That's A Wrap
Thanks to all panel participants for your insight and openness! If you’d like to be on the 2027 panel, email Brad@ModernStorageMedia.com to sign up.
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2026 U.S. Self-Storage Outlook
The U.S. outlook will be published in MSM's print and digital January Messenger. Be sure to subscribe now to view it in its entirety once it drops. The 10-person panel consists of:
David Cramer, CEO, National Storage Affiliates
Sarah Beth DeFazio, Vice President of Sales & Development, Universal Storage Management
Korey Hanson, President of Third Party Management, Argus Professional Storage Management Powered by SmartStop
Shawn Hill, Principal & Founding Member, The BSC Group, LLC
Melissa Huff, Co-Founder, Lighthouse Storage Solutions
Joe Margolis, CEO, Extra Space Storage
Tommy Nguyen, President, StoragePug
Alyssa Parker, Senior Vice President of Real Estate, William Warren Group
Maurice Pogoda, President & Founder, National Storage Management
Noah Starr, President, TractIQ
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Brad Hadfield is MSM’s lead writer and web manager.
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