Bill Harvey writes some books !

BANANA BLOG #1: MIINI STORAGE

Americans have a lot of stuff -far more than most of the rest of the world, but the European Union is coming right along. “Having stuff’ is the same as ‘wealth’ -at least in the minds of the economist crowd, but is it really the right word to use and how much stuff it the right amount? It’s hard to say, but many people would agree it’s just too damn much. Whenever a sentence has the words “too much’ it is helpful to follow up with some numbers:

MINI STORAGE:

• In the US alone, the self storage market is valued at $44.37 billion or a modest or $13.45 for each of 330 million men, women, and children in the country.

• It is expected to grow and a compound annual growth rate of 2.37%. (Per the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the number was 2.5% for 2023 for the whole country.)

• The average storage unit cost is $85.14 per month or $1021.68 a year. At a modest 3% return, this would be $16, 406 at the end of the 10th year.

OK, so clearly we have so much stuff we don’t have places to put our stuff in our homes. How much space is that? Tomorrow I tackle the riveting issue of closets