This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
WHILE Australia’s self storage sector proved resilient against the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, average storage fee rates are rising and occupancy has dropped over the last six months.
According to Cushman & Wakefield’s inaugural release of its Self Storage Performance Indicators (SSPI) series, which tracks the sector across Australia and New Zealand with the largest market sample size at more than 270 facilities, self storage performed strongly against the disruption and displacement of the pandemic.
In addition to strengthened demand brought on by the pandemic, changes in living and working preferences from the bi-annual data series commencement at March 31 2020, also worked in favour of the sector.
“The September 2022 results demonstrate continued strong revenue growth, with a return to stabilised growth anticipated into 2023 on the back of reduced discretionary spend, a softer housing market and increased new self storage supply,” said Linda Sharkey, divisional director of self storage at Cushman & Wakefield.
Over the last six months, each tracked Australian capital saw an increase in average storage fee rates, with Perth leading after a 10.5% increase to $310.30 per square metre per annum.
Brisbane followed with an 8.4% increase to $325.93, while Adelaide was up 8.0% to $282.11, with Melbourne up 7.3% to $331.39 and Sydney up 6.3% to $406.33.
Each capital also saw a decline in occupancy by area over the last six months, excluding Adelaide where there was a 1.43% increase to 92.1%.
Brisbane saw the greatest drop in occupancy at 90.0% down 3.38%, followed by Perth with 87.2% down 1.56%, Melbourne at 90.8% down 1.00% and Sydney at 89.4% down 0.80%.
Meanwhile revenue per available square metre (RevPAM), was up across every tracked capital, with Sydney leading after a 7.3% increase to $353.07 per square metre per annum.
Melbourne followed with a 6.8% increase to $301.68, Brisbane up 5.3% to $289.38, Perth up 3.6% to $262.94 and Adelaide up 2.6% to $246.03.
“The strength of the self storage sector throughout the pandemic has been remarkable. Markets such as Perth and Brisbane have seen incredible growth with RevPAM increasing 72% and 43% respectively since March 2020,” added Hugh Davies, associate director of VA Valuation Services at Cushman & Wakefield.
