Self-storage transaction volume reached nearly $1.6 billion in Q3 2025, a 62% jump compared to the same period a year earlier, according to StorageCafe. The Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 pace held the momentum, driven by a combination of motivated sellers coming off pandemic-era debt maturities and buyers who had been sitting on capital during the elevated rate environment of 2023 and 2024. May 2026 is continuing that pattern: regional operators, private equity, and mid-market buyers are active across multiple geographic markets, executing deals ranging from single facilities to multi-property portfolios.
The largest story in the industry right now is Public Storage's pending $10.5 billion acquisition of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA), an all-stock transaction approved by both boards and expected to close in the third quarter of 2026. The combined company would carry a pro forma equity market cap of approximately $57 billion and total enterprise value of $77 billion, with more than 1,000 NSA properties across 37 states and Puerto Rico absorbed into Public Storage's platform. That deal is reshaping how the industry thinks about scale and concentration at the REIT level.
But the REIT mega-merger is not where most of the May 2026 transaction activity is happening. The action is in the regional mid-market, where buyers below the REIT threshold are absorbing a steady flow of facilities from operators who are pricing for exit now.
What Did May 2026 Produce in Transactions?
The deal flow in May 2026 is geographically diverse and operationally varied. Several transactions illustrate the range of buyers currently active.
Coro Realty Advisors acquired three Class-A self-storage facilities in the metro Atlanta market: a 551-unit property in Tucker, Georgia, an 837-unit facility in Marietta, and a 715-unit property in Sandy Springs. The three-site portfolio totals 2,103 units across three of the metro area's stronger suburban submarkets. Atlanta has been a consistent target for institutional and near-institutional buyers due to its population growth, employment base, and relatively disciplined supply pipeline compared to other Sunbelt metros that absorbed aggressive development through 2023.
SROA Capital, which operates the Storage Rentals of America brand, acquired Wagner Ford Self Storage in Dayton, Ohio. The facility offers 329 drive-up units at 51,395 net rentable square feet. SROA's continued acquisitions in Midwest secondary and tertiary markets reflect a strategy of expanding geographic coverage in markets where competition from the major REITs is less intense and per-unit pricing is more accessible.
VanWest Partners, operating under its ClearHome Self Storage brand, acquired Apex Self Storage in Pensacola, Florida: a 2021-built facility at 50 Coast Road with 16,650 net rentable square feet in 138 drive-up units. The facility's recent vintage reduces near-term capital expenditure requirements and positions the acquisition as a stabilized asset play in a Florida Gulf Coast market that has maintained demand support from demographic inflows.
Merit Hill Capital acquired the three-property S&G Self-Storage portfolio in East Troy, Wisconsin for $7.9 million. The portfolio will be managed and branded by CubeSmart, consistent with Merit Hill's established pattern of pairing acquisitions with third-party management from a major brand to extract operational scale benefits without building an internal management platform.
What Does the NSA Merger Do to Mid-Market Deal Flow?
The Public Storage-NSA transaction is an important lens through which to read current mid-market activity. When the deal closes in Q3 2026, Public Storage will absorb more than 1,000 NSA properties, creating a combined platform that will be the dominant player in many regional markets where NSA currently operates.
The near-term effect on mid-market deal flow is genuinely ambiguous. On one hand, the merger creates potential divestitures: regulators may require Public Storage to sell properties in markets where the combined entity would exceed concentration thresholds. On the other, NSA's third-party management program, which operated under the Participating Regional Operator (PRO) structure, faces uncertain integration under Public Storage, which has historically operated as a direct-ownership REIT. PRO operators who had been managed through NSA are now evaluating whether to seek alternative management arrangements or position assets for sale into the current buyer market.
Waterfall Asset Management's decision to sell its entire $10 million NSA stake, 297,700 shares, in May 2026 signals that some institutional holders are taking the merger announcement as an exit trigger rather than waiting for deal close. That capital is being redeployed, and some of it will show up in self-storage transactions over the next two to three quarters.
Which Markets Are Seeing the Most Activity?
The geographic spread of May 2026 transactions reflects a market that has broadened beyond the Sunbelt focus of 2022 and 2023. Georgia, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Texas all appear in the current deal flow.
The Midwest secondary market is attracting buyers who are pricing yield above appreciation potential. Dayton, Fort Wayne, and East Troy are not growth markets in the demographic sense, but they offer stabilized occupancy at facilities that trade at prices substantially below coastal market comparables. A buyer targeting a 7% to 8% cap rate in the current environment finds those markets more accessible than Atlanta, Phoenix, or Dallas, where cap rate compression during the last cycle pushed valuations to levels that are harder to justify at current financing costs.
The Southeast remains active but is bifurcating. Metro Atlanta, with Coro Realty's three acquisitions as a current example, is absorbing institutional-quality capital at pricing that reflects demographic fundamentals. Sunbelt markets that absorbed the most supply development in 2021 through 2023, including parts of Phoenix, Austin, and secondary Florida coastal cities, continue to work through occupancy headwinds that have softened seller price expectations and created a more viable entry point for buyers with a 3- to 5-year hold horizon.
What Is the Private Buyer Doing in 2026?
Two local LLC acquisitions in May 2026 represent a category of buyer that is often underreported but consistently present: The Storage Place in Fort Wayne, Indiana (423 units, 45,950 square feet) and the two-property Solid Ground Storage in Elgin, Texas (721 and 366 units at two locations), both acquired by local LLCs.
These buyers typically operate outside institutional underwriting timelines, can close faster than private equity, and are willing to acquire properties that require more hands-on operational attention than a large platform fund would target. In secondary and tertiary markets, they are often the only buyers moving at the sub-$10 million transaction level.
The presence of private buyers at this price level in May 2026 is a positive signal for the transaction market broadly. It indicates that seller expectations and buyer valuations have aligned sufficiently in these markets to produce closings, which was not consistently the case in 2023 and early 2024 when bid-ask spreads were wide.
The Numbers Worth Writing Down
- Q3 2025 self-storage transaction volume: nearly $1.6 billion, up 62% year-over-year (StorageCafe)
- Public Storage-NSA merger: $10.5 billion enterprise value, expected Q3 2026 close
- Combined Public Storage-NSA: approximately $57 billion equity market cap, $77 billion total enterprise value
- NSA portfolio being acquired: more than 1,000 properties, 69 million rentable square feet, 550,000 units, 37 states and Puerto Rico
- May 2026 Coro Realty Atlanta acquisitions: 2,103 units across Tucker, Marietta, and Sandy Springs
- May 2026 SROA Capital Dayton acquisition: 329 units, 51,395 square feet
- May 2026 Merit Hill Capital Wisconsin acquisition: $7.9 million, three-property portfolio, CubeSmart managed
- May 2026 VanWest Partners Pensacola acquisition: 138 units, 16,650 square feet, 2021 vintage
- Waterfall Asset Management NSA exit: 297,700 shares, approximately $10 million, May 2026
The Mid-Market Is Not Waiting for the Merger to Close
The Public Storage-NSA transaction will dominate self-storage industry analysis for the next two quarters. It is a $10.5 billion deal and its implications for market structure, competition, and third-party management dynamics are real. But it is not where the May 2026 transaction market is actually clearing.
Regional buyers like Coro Realty, SROA Capital, VanWest Partners, and Merit Hill Capital are running active acquisition programs in markets that the REIT mega-merger does not directly affect. Sellers who have been waiting for the buyer pool to deepen since the 2022 rate shock are now getting the market they were waiting for. The bid-ask gap that paralyzed many transactions in 2023 is narrower today, and the deal flow from May 2026 across Georgia, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Texas confirms it. The window that opened in late 2025 is still open.
Sources
- Self-Storage Real Estate Acquisitions and Sales: May 2026, Inside Self-Storage
- Public Storage to Acquire National Storage Affiliates, Public Storage Investor Relations
- Why One Fund's $10 Million National Storage Exit May Be More About the Public Storage Deal Than Storage Demand, The Motley Fool
- What a $10.5B Merger Could Mean for the Self-Storage Industry, Inside Self-Storage
- Self Storage Sales Reach Nearly $1.6B In Q3 2025 As Transaction Activity Jumps By 62%, StorageCafe
- VanWest Partners Acquires Ninth Self Storage Facility in Florida, PRNewswire
- Investment Firm VanWest Partners Launches Self-Storage Funds to Pursue Acquisitions, Inside Self-Storage