Is Self-Storage Construction Actually Dead? The Shocking $320M Pipeline with Anne Mino

THE SELF STORAGE REPORT — FULL TRANSCRIPT Guest: Anne Mino (Senior Loan Officer, Live Oak Bank — the largest SBA lender in the U.S.; ~13 yrs at the bank, 6 yrs on the self-storage lending team; ~40 loans/yr closed) Host: Chris Berg (Abernathey Development — "The AI Storage Guy") Topic: Why construction isn't dead — Live Oak's record pipeline; SBA (504 / 7A) vs. conventional; using SBA to build a storage portfolio "further, faster"; 100% financing via the expansion product; what gets a deal a yes vs. a no; ideal borrower profile; certainty of close. Key data points (as of the recording, mid-May 2026): • Live Oak self-storage team: 5 lenders, storage-only, ~10 yrs; $1.7B portfolio, zero defaults. • 2025 (prior year) = best year ever: $240M closed — ~50% of ALL U.S. self-storage SBA loans that closed. • Current pipeline (only mid-May): on track for $320M. Mix: 75% SBA (504 + 7A), 25% conventional. • Pipeline by type: 46% construction · 34% acquisition · 12% expansion · 8% refi. Recorded: May 14, 2026 Source: original recording transcript (speaker-labeled) ======================================================== Chris Berg (00:55): Many people in the self-storage industry today are telling you construction deals are dead — they're done. Our guest today has a completely different storyline with what's going on with her pipeline. Welcome to the Self Storage Report. I'm Chris Berg with Abernathey Development, doing land acquisition. If you've got a great piece of dirt in California or Arizona that might work for self-storage, reach out and let me know. And subscribe here to the YouTube channel to be the first to know as we release these episodes. With us today, Anne Mino — she's a senior loan officer with Live Oak Bank. They're the biggest SBA lender in the country, and she's got some mind-blowing data about what's actually happening with deals in self-storage. Anne, great to have you. Welcome to the show. Anne Mino (01:40): Thank you. Great to be here. Chris Berg (01:42): Before we dive into the mind-blowing data, give people some background on you. You've got a tremendous amount of experience. How long have you been doing this, how many deals have you underwritten — so we can fully appreciate what we're about to hear? Anne Mino (01:56): I've been with the bank for about 13 years, and on the self-storage lending team for six years. I consider myself an industry expert — I write articles, do podcasts, lots of webinars, lots of education. Education is probably my favorite part of my job: helping people understand how they can attain this passive income stream, particularly people who don't have any experience at all. How many loans do I do a year? It feels like a ton — I'll say on average 40 loans a year. Chris Berg (02:44): If you're doing 40 a year, how many would you say you're underwriting — 5x, 10x that a year? Anne Mino (02:49): Good question. Honestly, I win a lot of my deals — I'm very happy with my flow. But for those 40 that I get across the finish line, let's say maybe I underwrite 70. Maybe less. I work really hard to retain my customers. Chris Berg (03:09): Bottom line, she's seen a lot of deals all over the country. Anne and I had a chance to visit yesterday, and this morning she said, "Hey Chris, I mined some data with the bank and here's what I found." My mind was blown. Can you share that with everybody? Anne Mino (03:36): I can. Let me back up. What you should know about our team: we've been doing exclusive self-storage lending for about 10 years. There are five lenders on my team, and all we do is self-storage. We have a $1.7 billion storage portfolio to date, no defaults. I like to tell people that — not to brag, but to say we're doing good loans for good people for good projects. We do say no a lot. Of the 40 deals of mine that make it into underwriting, maybe the other 30 I looked at weren't good deals. I always work with my customers to see what we can make work, and I do a lot of educating. But I do say no, and I want people to trust me when I say no — it probably means you should walk away from your project. So, some data I mined this morning. Yesterday, my team — the five lenders — had our biggest year ever: we closed $240 million in self-storage loans. On the SBA side, that's 50% of all the self-storage SBA loans in the United States that closed last year. Fifty percent of those were ours. That was our best year ever. Chris Berg (05:00): Let me pause for a moment — because when I go to conferences, everyone's almost in tears: "the business is the worst it's ever been, the worst I've ever seen." These are well-to-do veterans in the industry. And here you are saying you did your best year ever last year. And that was last year. Just to give people context — what's happening today, that you found out? Anne Mino (05:23): So today — mid-early May — we are on track to close $320 million. I'm going to knock on this little wood table. Things may fall out, but we're only in May, so if things fall out of our pipeline, they'll probably build back in. Right now, $320 million, which is staggering — and that's just what's in our pipeline, not even the new stuff coming down the track. We'll structure your deal however is appropriate for you. Right now, out of that $320 million, 75% is SBA — a mix of 504 and 7A — and about 25% is conventional. All you really need to know is that when you come to us, we're going to put together the right loan structure for your project and your long-term goals. Chris Berg (06:14): One step further — she's saying $240 million last year, best year ever; this year $320 million. And if you talk to anybody in the industry, "construction's done, nobody's developing." So what percentage of this $320 million is construction in your pipeline? Anne Mino (06:33): 46%. We're 46% construction, 34% acquisition, 12% expansion — and I want to talk about expansion in a bit because I think it's an underutilized product — and then 8% refi, which actually surprised me. I'm surprised there aren't more refinance requests right now, just because people are coming out of their three- and five-year fixed rates from five years ago, when rates were so good we don't want to talk about it. Chris Berg (07:06): Exactly. So, blown away that it's $320 million, especially given the storyline out there. I'd consider that good news, very intriguing. The piece I'm curious about — you're seeing so many deals — what are you seeing right now that's concerning you? Anne Mino (07:28): There is oversaturation in certain markets. You can take one state and break it into major metros — some are really overbuilt, some aren't. Location matters, now more than ever. When we talk about competitive analysis in storage, a three-to-five-mile radius is normally your competition. But today you have to pay more attention to what's going on beyond that radius. Are people moving there or leaving? Are there data centers coming? Are companies leaving? Austin's a great example — we saw this huge residential boom based on business, and that's already starting to wane. That's going to happen all over the place. And, as we both heard at the California show a week ago, paying attention to what's happening globally that then affects your market is more important now than ever. There are definitely saturated markets. But luckily for storage, there are still plenty of markets where people are moving and storage is going to continue thriving. Chris Berg (08:44): For the markets you're saying are potentially overbuilt — are you concerned about people not being able to reach their covenants? Do you see potential for distressed assets in the future? Anne Mino (08:56): Our portfolio remains really strong. We require feasibility studies from particular experts for all our ground-up construction projects, and those studies are coming back very conservative — more than ever. We are definitely seeing projects not working that would have worked two years ago. We rely so heavily on those studies that I feel really confident we're not going to have loans in our portfolio going bad. Our feasibility studies are so comprehensive — they go and say who's pulling permits in your area. Even if it takes you two years to get permitted, we ask for an updated study; the study can't be more than six months old. I just closed a huge construction line yesterday in Portland, and we had to get that feasibility study updated — if it didn't come back strong, I wouldn't have closed the loan. So once that project gets built, I know it's going to work, because they went back to the permitting office, saw who's pulled permits, and did all new demand research. I feel like we do it the right way. Chris Berg (10:07): I want to get into building wealth with SBAs. We had Brett Henry on last week — he talked about a point where he was using 11 or 14 SBA loans, and he's built a very strong capital stack now. Before we get into that — you said 46% of your deals right now are construction. Where are you seeing the majority of those? Scattered everywhere, or certain geographies? Anne Mino (10:35): The bulk of mine right now are in California — I do a lot of business development there. But we're seeing them in the states you'd expect: Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas. We're getting more in places like Iowa, Kansas. Oregon and Washington are good states for us. A little in New York. It makes sense — it's the states people are migrating to. The exception is California, because right now there's not a migration problem, but California has a huge population, so it's a no-brainer. And people are moving into tertiary markets out of the major cities, which is where they're building. Chris Berg (11:28): What do you consider tertiary in California? Anne Mino (11:39): An hour outside of LA. Chris Berg (11:41): Good to know. Let's talk about building wealth with SBA loans. What was really interesting is — if you say no to a deal, there's a really good reason why. Dive into that first so people understand who SBA is for and who it's not for. When we spoke yesterday, you mentioned a person with bad credit that, surprisingly, you probably still would have done the deal for. Anne Mino (12:23): SBA is there to put money in the hands of small-business owners who maybe don't have the ability to put 35% into a project — whether it's a $20 million construction project or a $1 million acquisition. Our clients run the gamut. We have absolutely net-new-to-storage people who maybe have a lower W-2 income and have worked really hard to save what would be a 10% equity injection on a million-dollar loan — that's part of our customer base. And then we have people on the very other end who use SBA very wisely: don't deploy all your capital in one place. If you use SBA the right way, you can go further, faster with the same amount of money. If you have $300,000 to invest over three years, and you're not putting 35% into each project, you may be able to pick up seven or eight deals without divesting ownership. In my opinion it's always worth it. You can't be focused on rate — SBA rates are going to be a little higher than conventional, depending on the product. Actually, right now our 504 product rates are very similar to conventional. But regardless, if you can put 10 or 15% into a project and do many projects without divesting your ownership, in the long run you're going to be doing better. And the expansion product — a lot of people don't know this: SBA will let us treat an acquisition or a construction project as an expansion of an existing facility, and we can do 100% financing. Once you own something, you can buy something down the street — as long as it cash-flows — with 100% financing. It still needs to look good on paper. Chris Berg (14:32): When you say "down the street," do you mean literally next door, attached — or down the street, down the street? Anne Mino (14:38): It could be six hours away. There's not a geographic limitation — it needs to make sense that it's an expansion of the first business. You can have them in different entities, which is what I'd recommend, but as long as we can justify that you're sharing resources. Ownership has to be the same, you have to have owned the first facility at least 12 months so you've got some equity, and it needs to be reasonable that you're sharing marketing and branding. So much of what we're doing these days is run remotely — a lot of my customers are in California running facilities in North Carolina. That would be a stretch for 100% financing that far away, but as long as it's logical, there's really no limitation. Chris Berg (15:42): And that's 100% financing, as long as the cash flows? Anne Mino (15:42): For the 100% financing, yes. Ownership has to match identically — can't even have a 1% ownership difference. Which is why I encourage people not to go raise a whole bunch of money for a conventional loan, because now you're married to all those investors. When you come back to do the second loan, if you want 100% financing, that ownership has to match. Chris Berg (16:07): What do you say to people listening thinking, "that's very intriguing, but boy, that's a lot of leverage"? Anne Mino (16:13): It is a lot of leverage. We're not going to do it unless it makes sense — it's got to cash-flow. I know what your expenses should be, I know what your expense ratio should be. This is where coming to an expert who knows self-storage inside and out matters. If you tell me you're going to have a 20% expense ratio, I'm probably going to do a deep dive: how'd you come up with this number? We're going to reality-test it, normalize the figures. I'm not going to do it if I don't really believe it's going to be possible. Chris Berg (16:48): So what makes you say no to a deal? Anne Mino (16:54): I'll give you an example. Customers came to me last week — there's a facility about 40% occupied, and they're telling me they'll get it to 83% in the first year. Immediately I'm looking at that going, that feels like a red flag. I'm gentle, but I go back immediately with questions: how are you going to achieve this? Walk me through your plan. And if they can't — even if they do think they'll do it — I'll say, I feel like this is a little unrealistic, this might take you two years. I can still do the loan, but I'd like to give you some working capital and an interest-only period to make sure it really works out. That's a case where it's not even a yellow flag — that would be a red flag for me, if it feels unachievable. Chris Berg (17:52): Let's dive back into who's the right candidate. Who's the ideal candidate, walk us through the process, and what problems can you solve for them? Anne Mino (18:08): My ideal candidate — I love all my customers. You do not have to be wealthy. You do not have to have huge W-2 income. What you do need is good credit. You need to come with a plan. You need strong recurring income. The amount isn't so important as a three-year history I can look back on and say, okay, we've got a track record we can depend on. We want to see you've got cash for your equity injection and then some post-closing liquidity. That's the number-one thing people new to storage maybe don't realize. A lot of people come to me saying "I have huge net worth," and I look at their balance sheet and everything's tied up in real estate. It's wonderful to have big net worth, but commercial lenders want to see cash — in checking, savings, stock accounts, easy to liquidate — so that if something goes bump in the night, your knee-jerk reaction isn't "I have to walk away from my storage loan." How much cash depends on how much you have going on. A really simple household without a lot going on — that may not be a very big number; we could be talking six to nine months of living expenses. A high-net-worth individual with a lot of loans out there is great, as long as we can see income supporting that debt — but I may want your post-closing liquidity a little higher. Do you have the capital to weather whatever storm is coming? Economic storm, personal storm — I never want to get the phone call, "Anne, I can't make my loan payment this month because of XYZ." I want to save people from themselves a little bit. Chris Berg (20:01): Let's go through a simple theoretical example. Say there's an asset I want to acquire — a million, two million, whatever you want. Anne Mino (20:15): Let's do a million. Chris Berg (20:18): Okay, a million dollars. I come to you and say, Anne, I think this is a really good asset, I want to do an SBA. Walk me through how it works — what are you looking for? And you mentioned six to nine months post-close liquidity — give me some more specifics. Anne Mino (20:37): It's very organic. Everybody wants a black-and-white answer, but it's very gray — we look at you holistically: your income, how many dependents, how much cash you've saved, how many businesses you own. If you're just qualifying this facility, I want to see your equity injection — on the SBA side that's 10 to 15%, depending on the product. When I say six to nine months of living expenses, I'm looking at your household debt. I pull both credit reports for you and your spouse, look at your minimum monthly payments, and I want to see your income is twice all of that personal debt. I don't care about the business debt — I want the business to pay that back — but I care about your personal debt: are you over your ski tips? Have you maxed out your credit cards? Pulled all the equity out of your home? All of that matters and helps determine how much cash I want to see. It's not your country club membership or private-school tuition — it's strictly what debt you have outstanding. Fifty percent of our decision is: are you a good credit candidate? The other 50% is: can this facility pay back this debt? If you make $40,000 a year but you've had the ability to save, save, save — or a rich family member left you some money — great, you've got cash. Can you borrow a million dollars for a self-storage loan? Yes, absolutely, all day long. And we want the big net-worth individuals as well. Chris Berg (22:53): What kind of credit score are you talking? Anne Mino (22:56): The 650s are minimum. Your credit matters — clean credit reports are important. It's not the only thing, but if we can only judge you in six or eight ways, that's one of the pieces of data we use. If you don't have good credit, I'd encourage you to start working on the programs out there to build up your credit and learn why it's important. Chris Berg (23:28): What kind of plan do you want to see from me? Do you help me underwrite the asset, or do I bring something to you? Anne Mino (23:40): We're consultative in nature, but I can't underwrite people's deals for them. In an ideal world, I want you to have a signed LOI, understand what you're buying, and be able to present to me why you like this deal and why I should do this loan. Then we work very closely with you to make sure expenses make sense and you've thought of everything. Did you think about snow removal? Have you gotten a really good insurance quote? Have you talked to the county about what taxes will look like? Taxes and insurance between a seller and a buyer is probably the biggest differential right now. I want you to get good numbers, because I don't want you to close and then find out your tax base changed, your taxes doubled, and now the deal doesn't work. Chris Berg (24:32): Anything else you want to add? Anne Mino (24:36): I think we should talk about problems we solve. One common thing in this industry is deals falling apart at the last minute — something we solve for better than other banks. I had a deal come to me last year — the gentleman was doing a conventional loan with a local credit union, and truly a week before they were supposed to close, that bank reneged and left them high and dry. I happened to know him; he called me. I'd already looked at the deal — he'd just gone with a different lender — so we had a relationship, I knew I liked the deal, I'd already given him terms. I closed that loan for him in 15 days. That's a little unheard of. I don't want everyone calling saying "can you close this in 15 days," because we do get that a lot — the seller wants to close in 30 days. But it's something we solve for. When you get a term sheet or proposal letter from me, you've got a bank behind you. I'm not giving out proposal letters willy-nilly — I know how to close loans, I know what's going to get approved. My closers, underwriting team — we all sit together. I walked to the underwriter and closer and said, I know this is going to be really painful, but we do this for this good customer. And we did. Fifteen days is unheard of. Now, they had their appraisal and environmental, so it was a nice clean package — that helped. That one was maybe a million and a half. Chris Berg (26:41): So you're definitely on his Christmas card list. Anne Mino (26:46): Absolutely — he sings our praises now. That's a tough call to get, for a bank to back out at the last minute. We know who we are, we tell you who we are upfront, and if I tell you I like your deal and can get it approved, I'm not messing around. Chris Berg (27:11): That certainty is super valuable. Anne Mino (27:15): It is. And I have a team behind me — all self-storage-specific: underwriters, closers, credit officers. Chris Berg (27:22): If people want to reach out to you — to close a deal in 15 days, or to get your help — how do they do that? Anne Mino (27:28): Email is my preferred method. Email me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can with a link to my calendar so people can schedule a call. I also host weekly office hours now. If you're not under contract or signed LOI, I might direct you to office hours — you can come in, and you may be the only person on the call. I do a PowerPoint that covers how you qualify and how the project qualifies, and it's a good way to get general questions answered. And I do personal calls all the time for unique situations or anyone under contract — we'll have a call within 24 hours of you reaching out. I post the office-hours dates on my LinkedIn page. Chris Berg (28:17): How do you sign up for office hours? Anne Mino (28:27): Just go through my LinkedIn — I don't like to do too many posts, but I'm doing one a week right now with a different date. I vary the dates and times. I have customers all over the U.S. We're headquartered in North Carolina, but I work in all 50 states — I try to be conscious of my California and West Coasters. Chris Berg (28:49): So it's not five in the morning — we appreciate that. Anne Mino — you saw her email a moment ago, so definitely email her with any questions. If you think SBA is the right path, Brett Henry utilized SBA very successfully. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. I'm Chris Berg, this is the Self Storage Report — we'll see you back here next Thursday. Anne Mino (28:54): Thank you — I've got to keep my California people happy. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]