Storage Demand Scores and how claude can help you underwrite your assets

THE SELF STORAGE REPORT — EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode: Storage Demand Scores and how claude can help you underwrite your assets Host: Chris Berg — Abernathey Development Recorded: April 8, 2026 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-CRxi6-kVM Key topics: storagedemandscore.com now powered by TractIQ via API; SSA Self Storage Association demand study formula; 12.6% household usage rate and 125 average square feet per household; 3-mile and 5-mile radius household counts; Steve Kohn, CEO of Guardian Storage in Pittsburgh, and his 3x unmet-demand rule; 75,000 net rentable square feet sample run; nearly 1.4 million square feet of existing plus pipeline supply; 10x10 climate and non-climate rate pulls; building a CRM deal pipeline in Replit with Trello-style score breakdowns; dictating to Replit using Whisper; a custom MCP built inside a Claude project; stress-testing a 9.8 million dollar asking price to a 5.4% five-year IRR against a 20% IRR solve; 100 to 120 dollar per gross square foot hard costs, 5.5 exit cap; a zoning agent that scrapes city documents; SSA events in New York, Florida and Texas and skipping ISS Vegas Note: Speaker attribution reconstructed from raw captions. Light cleanup of transcription errors only; wording preserved. Timestamps and YouTube chapter markers removed. Turns marked [attribution inferred] could not be attributed with certainty. ————————————————————————————— Chris Berg: Welcome to the Self Storage Report with Abernathey Development. Thank you so much for joining us here today. I want to go through a couple things with you. One is I had a great phone call yesterday about storagedemandscore.com. And so I just want to answer some questions about that. Also want to say thank you to all of you that are going to storagedemandscore.com and using that as just — it's just, it's a tool to help you underwrite. And again, the whole goal is to help improve your returns for you, your investors, and then ideally give you a greater margin of safety. Chris Berg: Then in, uh, later on here, I want to share with you just some software that I've been cooking up using Replit and Claude. Um, I don't really know what I'm doing. I mean, last night I built an MCP. I don't even really know what that stands for. Something something protocol. But it's building some really interesting tools that are making my life easier as I'm going out there looking for assets and doing some underwriting. Chris Berg: So maybe this can become kind of a, uh, open-source, you know, show here that we share different ideas with tech and how we can better leverage it to, again, get better returns for our investors, um, increase our margin of safety, and maybe most importantly to save ourselves some time as we're going out there looking for great assets. Chris Berg: So let's jump in here to storagedemandscore.com. Again, a friend of mine called me. I want to remind you that this was really birthed from the SSA, um, Self Storage Association demand study. And then when I was at the New York SSA, Steve Kohn, been in the business for 38 years, he's the CEO at Guardian Storage out of Pittsburgh. He talked about when he goes in and does a development, what he's looking for is he wants a 3x on demand to give him that margin of safety to ensure that, hey, look, there's room here for this asset. This is something that people need. Um, and so if someone else comes in and wants to build as well, then, uh, he feels like, hey, I've got enough margin of safety here to be comfortable to put a shovel in the ground and a major, major investment. Chris Berg: So I'll walk you through this. Hopefully this will help you see it a little bit better. But basically, storage demand score, whether you're in acquisitions, whether you're in development, again, this formula is right from the Self Storage Association. So you want to look at what's the actual total demand in a market, which I'm going to share with you how we come up with this in a second, but quickly walk you through the formula again. It's the households within a 3-mile or 5-mile radius, whatever that distance is, and then you take times the usage rate, which according to the SSA, nationally right now, you've got 12.6% of the households within a 3-mile radius, 5-mile radius, whatever it is, that are using self storage, and then that average usage rate is 125 square feet. So that gives you the total demand, and then you go with the total supply, so current supply, pipeline supply, which I'll show you in a minute, and then total demand minus total supply, obviously, is unmet demand. Chris Berg: And then again, Steve Kohn from Guardian Storage is saying, "Hey, I want 3x my unmet demand to know that I feel very comfortable making this investment in this particular asset, putting a shovel in the ground, and obviously investing, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30 million dollars to build his storage asset." Chris Berg: So let's do this. Let's go over to TractIQ. And then I want to share with you — I'll just grab a random address, if you will. Here we are. Actually, let me grab another one. Let's go to this Extra Space right here. Let's grab this address. I'm going to copy this. Oops, I need to share this with you. Chris Berg: Also, I want to thank TractIQ. The storage demand score is now being powered by TractIQ, which you're going to see in a minute, but go over to TractIQ. I'm just going to grab this address as a simple example to share with you how this tool works and how effective it can be. Chris Berg: So all you've got to do is you put in the address, which obviously we just copied there from — thanks to TractIQ. Let's say I'm going to put 75,000 net rentable square feet in there, put in what that project looks like or what I think it's going to be. Click here for the demand score, and now this is attached to TractIQ, so it's going to pull the data for us. Chris Berg: And then I'll share with you how — so, here's what's great. So you can see here not a good demand score for this particular address within 3 miles and/or 5 miles. Um, what's nice now is it's also pulling out your rates for 10 by 10 in the 1-mile, 3-mile, and 5-miles. You got climate control, non-climate. So you can see the rates, which is obviously an important, important metric when you're thinking about demand drivers. Chris Berg: And then let's go down here — and I wanted to show you the 3-mile, cuz that's kind of the typical, obviously, metric that we utilize in self-storage. So you can see what it does is it pulls the total number of households in that 3-mile, uh, multiplies that by 0.126, or 12.6%, times 125, which is the average square feet that a family uses, uh, for self-storage. That gives you your total demand score. Here already within this marketplace there's a total, including pipeline supply, of almost 1.4 million. So you take the total demand minus the effective supply, come up with a negative number, you multiply that — excuse me, divide that by your total project size, and that gives you the score. Chris Berg: So again, even if you're doing acquisitions, you know, you can always put a zero or a very small amount up here for net rentable square feet for the proposed project size. But again, this is just a metric to give you an idea of, "Hey, how much demand is actually in this market?" based on a formula. A lot of people in this industry, they talk about supply, but very few people are actually talking about demand, especially from a formulaic perspective. So it's not the Bible, but it just gives you one more metric as you're going to maybe your investment review committee or as you're underwriting, to — and, "Hey, I can see very clearly here that there is unmet demand for the product that I want to put in this marketplace," just to give you some more margin of safety and ideally to decrease your return. Chris Berg: So again, you can just go to storagedemandscore.com. Thank you to TractIQ. They're now powering this via API. Put in your address, put in the net rentable square feet, hit the button, and it'll walk you right through what that actual demand score is. And again, I'll walk you through the whole formula and everything so you can have a pretty good idea of what you're looking at there from a demand standpoint. Chris Berg: All right. Now I want to jump into this. So this is some tech that we have built, um, from just a pipeline perspective. I don't know if any of you use Trello. I got to pull this thing so I can share this tab. So what I did is I'm using Claude and Replit, and I built an MCP, and I want to show you how that's actually making my life much easier from an underwriting standpoint. This is a first draft. Again, I just want to share this with you cuz maybe this can become kind of a crowdsource type show as you're finding cool tech stuff you can share with our audiences. As I'm finding them, obviously I'll be sharing it with you. Chris Berg: But so, this is a pipeline that we're utilizing. We built this really from scratch. Here's what I like about it. Um, I'll give you just an example. I can go into this particular sourced asset here that we found. Um, we've actually now — hopefully you can see this. I'll blow it up a little more for you. Um, but we've got a score breakdown on these actual sites. You can put in the asking price, lot size, square foot per capita, CC rate, population — I mean, there's obviously thing I can add it here. Chris Berg: I think this is one of the most amazing things that I'm finding. You're going to get hopefully blown away when I show you how I'm utilizing this MCP. But this is Replit. I don't want to get too wonky. I'm not a tech guy. Um, all I want you to really take away from this is that I'm literally going into Replit. I have this thing called Whisper. Hopefully you've heard of it, but I basically talk to my computer. And for example, here if I wanted to, um, add another key field to this, I could basically just go into Replit and go, uh, "Hey Replit, you know, add XYZ field in my key fields piece," and literally — let me go back to Replit here. But Replit will just go to work and just do it. Chris Berg: Maybe I should even just try this so I can — let's see, let's see if it works. Um, let's see. What do I want to add to my key fields? I'm just going to put XYZ and see if it does that, and I can always just take it out, but it's fascinating to watch how simple this is, cuz again, I'm just — I'm not a tech guy and yet it does it. So, in my key fields, I want you to add an XYZ in the key field. In the key field, I want you to add an XYZ key field. Chris Berg: Okay, there, it did it. So you can see I just spoke to my computer. I'm using Whisper. It goes into this. I'm going to hit run. And now this thing just goes to work. And eventually if we want, I can come back here and I'll put publish and you'll be able to see it. Chris Berg: Anyways, so that is how it works. So, but it's been fascinating to watch how incredibly simple it is to build out customized tech platforms as you're going out there and looking for great assets. Chris Berg: So with all that being said, what I want to share with you now is that, uh, again this is a first draft, but I want to share with you — I actually built an MCP. Uh, we'll just be patient with me here. This takes a little moment to bring up. And it gets a little bit wonky to share. But hopefully you can see this. And I'm going to make this full screen. Chris Berg: So this is just a very simple, like, underwriting piece. I got this in a Claude project. Um, I'm going to use this address to give you some ideas of what I built here. But what's cool is this is actually attached to that CRM tech that I just showed you. And so literally what I can do is I can say, "Pull the address out of the CRM and I want to do a stress test on the underwriting here." And then it builds this visualization grid, if you will, and it gives me an idea of what I can pay for land price. Chris Berg: Um, especially if I'm solving for a 20% IRR. Now this is not a great example, as you're going to see in a minute, but I just want to, again, show you how simple this is. Right now I can say, "Okay, I'm solving for a 5-year 20% IRR. I've got a 25-year am on my note." Um, and let's say that the rates are — I'm going to put my rates up to, we'll say 215 as an example, all right? So now what hard costs — uh, right here I've got 120. I'm going to say my construction cost, just for ease today, 100 bucks a gross square foot, all right? Then I've got, uh, an exit cap rate of, let's say, 5.5, I'll say. Here's my interest rate on the loan. Chris Berg: And this starts to walk me through. Now this guy's asking 9.8 million, okay, on this asset. Uh, he says he's in escrow with an industrial guy. But at 9.8 my 5-year IRR is 5.4%. Clearly this is a no. What's cool though is it comes down here and gives you some different metrics you can kind of look at, "Hey, what if I'm at 175? What if I'm at 225?" So it quickly gives you this grid. Chris Berg: But what I really love about it is I can go, "Okay, I'm solving for a 20. What can I pay here?" Again, this is a very rough beginner, but what I love about this is now it gives me a chance to go before I start bringing sites to my investment review committee, hey, is this realistic? Is the guy going to take 4.2 when he's asking 9.8? Probably not. I can take this thing off the board, not have to worry about wasting anybody's time with our investment review committee, but it allows me to really see, okay, what are some assets here that have got some potential, just by simply rolling through here. Chris Berg: So according to this very rough, you know, underwriting — I've got some underwriting models inside of the Claude project of this — shows you I can pay roughly 3.9. He's asking 9.8. That's probably going to be a no, all right? But what's cool is, like, I can also say, well, hey, what if my construction costs are 120? What if I'm in a more difficult area? My construction costs go to 120, but I know I've got — man, this is a really outstanding market where there's very low supply, there's great rates, and all of a sudden I say, okay, I can get 250 on a 10 by 10 real quick. I know my hard costs are going to be 120. Chris Berg: Now I can start to play with my land prices here and see, hey, what's going to be my five-year, seven-year IRR, just to give me a ballpark idea of what can I potentially put together for an LOI, bring to my investment review committee. You know, maybe we realize, hey, this isn't accurate. There's a bunch of, uh, development impact fees that now make this thing so I can only pay 3 million rather than, you know, 4.7, for example. Chris Berg: But I want to share with you, this is all done with an MCP inside of Claude. I'm not a tech guy. Don't really know how — I know how I built it, but I just talked to Replit and it builds this thing, when I have got this visualization grid. So, wanted you to take a look at this so you can begin to say, okay, what else is possible out there? What else can we be doing to leverage some of this tech to really help us, again, increase returns for your firm, for your investors, give yourself a greater margin of safety, put in better offers, and most importantly just save you some time, right? I mean, you and I both know if you're out there doing acquisitions and looking for assets, there's nothing worse than you just wasting time looking at sites that have got absolutely nowhere to go. Chris Berg: Next level for this thing too is there is a zoning engine that we do have in the pipeline. Again, don't want to get too wonky here, but I just want to share with you one more piece that you can take a look at, to give you an idea. So here I can, you know, click a button if I want to run a zoning agent on this and have it go and scrape, like, city documents. Let me make sure you're seeing this okay, cuz you're not right now, of course. Sorry about that. Chris Berg: Anyways, there's a zoning agent here where I can hit a button and it can go and scrape city documents, you know, help me do — from a zoning standpoint as well. So it's just fascinating to see that all this was built with Replit, me talking to the computer. It doesn't come out perfect the first time. I mean, that's one thing that's important to know if you start getting into this Replit and tech side of things, you know, you're going to have to do some different iterations. Chris Berg: I think one of the best things you can do is just go to Claude and go, "Hey Claude, this is what I want to build. Give me the copy and paste that I should put into Replit to build that." And it just kind of gives you a starting base. Um, for example, the MCP that I built last night, I had to go through several different iterations to get it to actually start talking to each other, but once it did, then you can see — and let me get rid of this cuz I just want to show you this one more time cuz I just think it's fantastic. Then you can see it spits out this opportunity. Uh, how do I do this? There you go. Chris Berg: Right now I've got this really cool, again, first draft, not a final, but situation where I can play around with. I'm trying to solve for 20% IRR, what can I pay for the land? You know, what kind of rental rates do I need and how does that impact, uh, my 5-year IRR, how does it impact what I can pay for the dirt? Um, pretty quickly, and it gives you some just different ways to examine and look at, you know, what if I'm planning on my exit cap is actually going to be a 6 rather than a 5.5? What does that do to it? Chris Berg: So, would love to hear how you're using tech, what you're doing to save yourself some time. Um, let's see if I can get myself back on screen. See, this is how un-tech and inept I am, and yet I'm building MCPs with Replit and some Claude. So I just — hopefully this shows you how simple this can be. Um, and so I hope you're having some fun with it. Would love to know what else you're doing or seeing out there from a tech standpoint to help make your life easier. Chris Berg: Um, this is the Self Storage Report. Please share this with your colleagues. Love to get some feedback from them as well. Uh, if you're going to ISS, I'm not going, unfortunately. I'm going to a bunch of SSA events. I was in New York in January, in Florida in February, in Texas in March, and so I was like, okay, I'm pretty much conference'd out. But would love to hear if you end up going to ISS in Vegas, um, what the vibe is, what the combos are. So please let me know that as well, and we'll see you back here soon on the Self Storage Report. — END OF TRANSCRIPT —