Frank DeSalvo and David Perlleshi are self-storage investment sales brokers who have worked together for five years.
They recently left Sands Investment Group to join Franklin Street to build a national practice serving self-storage owners and investors.
“Frank and David are leaders and innovators within the self-storage industry who bring an impressive track record of maximizing value for their clients,” said Franklin Street CEO Matthew Harrell in a statement.
Founded in 2006, Tampa, FL-based Franklin Street is a full-service commercial real estate advisory with $7 billion in transaction value.
DeSalvo and Perlleshi are based in Charlotte, NC, but spend half their time on the road in search of new opportunities.
We chatted with the duo about their new assignment and their current view of the market.
With the current economic news suggesting a downturn is ahead, what headwinds do you see emerging for self-storage owners?
“In more secondary and tertiary markets, I think we could see a decrease in occupancy as consumers start to re-evaluate where money is going,” said DeSalvo.
“There’s been a lot of new development happening with bigger players in the space. [Development in] smaller and tertiary markets will force some of these owners to become more creative in managing their properties,” said Perlleshi.
How would that impact the buyer pool for self-storage properties?
“It’s going to somewhat diminish as we face less liquidity in the market and a higher cost of capital. Having said that, I think that self-storage is well-positioned to combat both an economic downturn as well as rising interest rates given the quick nature of the way that value-add can be taken advantage of inside the asset class,” said DeSalvo.
What is the opportunity that exists for your firm right now?
“I think that self-storage as an asset class is still fairly under-explored and under-saturated. I think there’s still a lot of runway there for a deal to happen in that space, especially small mom-and-pop facilities that haven’t traded to a significant degree pre-COVID-19,” said DeSalvo.
“I would say a lot of our competitors in this space are fractured in terms of the national footprint of where the home base is and where they office out of. With our national expansion plans, we plan to have teams based in the top MSAs throughout the country,” said Perlleshi.
