Arlen Nordhagen, president and CEO of National Storage Affiliates (NYSE: NSA), joined REIT.com for a CEO Spotlight video interview at REITWorld 2016: NAREIT’s Annual Convention for All Things REIT at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge.
National Storage Affiliates recently closed on the $650 million joint venture acquisition of iStorage. Nordhagen said the company has about another 30 assets under contract, or recently closed, bringing the year-end acquisitions total to about $1.3 billion.
The pace of acquisitions in 2016 has “mostly been driven by the interest of sellers in finding good buyers at a time when cap rates have pretty much hit their low,” and are unlikely to go higher, Nordhagen said. “We’re very interested in finding high-quality assets at today’s prices,” he added.
Nordhagen underscored the continued strength in the self-storage sector.
While some slowing in same-store growth has occurred, “that’s from extremely high levels,” he explained.
“We’ve been really pleased with the demand we’re seeing. There is new competition in some of our areas, but for the most part, it’s not sufficient to create any kind of problems for us,” Nordhagen said.
The self-storage sector has enjoyed net operating income growth of more than 5 percent per year for the last 20 years, even in times of excess capacity, Nordhagen stressed.
“We’re very bullish on the sector and continue to look for good acquisitions,” he said.