Below is a recent infographic from Sparefoot, one of the self storage industries largest aggregators.  One of the more interesting items on this infographic is the section discussing REIT owned facilities vs. Mom & Pop owned facilities.  Out of a total of 50,050 facilities, the five largest self storage companies only comprised about 1% of the total market.  Our industry resembles the Pizza industry in many ways.  Yes, Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Papa John's are huge companies with extensive marketing budgets, but they still have less market share then independent restaurants.
 

In addition the section on industry returns is great.  Compared to other industries self storage had higher returns, in 2011, then the health care, retail, and even timber industries.  It's fairly obvious why the self storage industry has received a flood of institutional money.  

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