How Vertical Integration Fuels GROWTH in Self Storage

What happens when a college senior aiming for luxury development ends up dominating the self-storage industry instead? 

Scott Meyers sits down with Cory Bonda, co-founder of Prestige Storage Capital, to explore Cory’s unexpected journey into self-storage and how he scaled from moonlighting in Columbus to managing a rapidly growing, vertically integrated storage empire. 

The conversation dives deep into Cory’s acquisition strategy, the value of fixed-rate debt, lessons learned through explosive growth (and pandemic curveballs), and the cautious yet innovative approach Prestige takes with technology and AI. 

Listen For:

0:46 From Student to Storage: Cory's Accidental Entry into the Industry

4:02 How Prestige Storage Exploded Post-2020

6:22 Why Fixed-Rate Debt Fueled Smart Growth During Volatile Times

10:16 How AI is Revolutionizing Hub-and-Spoke Storage Models

16:28 2025 and Beyond: Strategy, Expansion, and the Top 25 Goal

CONNECT WITH GUEST: CORY BONDA

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Chapters

• 0:46 From Student to Storage: Cory's Accidental Entry into the Industry
• 4:02 How Prestige Storage Exploded Post-2020
• 6:22 Why Fixed-Rate Debt Fueled Smart Growth During Volatile Times
• 10:16 How AI is Revolutionizing Hub-and-Spoke Storage Models
• 16:28 2025 and Beyond: Strategy, Expansion, and the Top 25 Goal

Transcript

Announcer (00:03):

This is the Self Storage Podcast with the original Self storage expert, Scott Meyers.

Scott Meyers (00:12):

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Self Storage Podcast. I'm your host at Scott Meyers, and on today's episode we have a special guest at Cory Bonda with Prestige Storage Capital. Cory, welcome to the show. Appreciate it, Scott. Well, looking forward to today, I've been watching you and around the circles as we, well, we kind of cross paths in our markets here. You being in Ohio and me being in Indianapolis and roughly same size in terms of the amount of holdings that you have right now, units and capital. But before we go into that, tell Storage Nation a little bit about your story and how you get into self storage.

Cory Bonda (00:46):

Absolutely. Just like everybody never intend most of the time to get into self storage. I was a senior at Ohio State looking for my opportunity out of school. I was working for a big, sexy mixed use developer here in town. That was my dream to do those kind of projects. And unfortunately it was a small boutique firm. They weren't taking entry level associates at the time. So through Ohio State, there was a job hosting at Marcus and Millichap as a financial analyst. All it said was start at the end of the year, which in academics that could obviously meet in the end of the calendar year or academic year. This was November at the time, and they were saying they want someone to start January 1st pretty much right away. So I applied for the job, I got the job, had no idea what team I was going to be on, ends up being the self-storage team based in Columbus.

(01:47):

So that's how I got into the industry. I was underwriting 20, 30 deals a week as a goal while still trying to manage some of the escrow process as well. The team was growing rapidly at that time. So at first I was wearing both the hats, the escrow management as well as the underwriting. At the same time, I got connected with an individual in town who owned two smaller properties in town. Being Columbus, he owned two smaller properties, was buying a third and building a fourth. So he was a very high network individual using his own capital. I said, Hey, I have experience in management. I'm learning self storage. I could help you out. So I started moonlighting with him, helping him manage the properties, complete the financials for the bookkeeper as well as help anywhere I could in the pre-acquisition and pre-development was my big interest, and that rapidly grew.

(02:54):

2018, I left Marcus and Mill chap to work full time with my now business partner, and we were just looking for good opportunities if there's times, just like all of us, I wish I was a little bit more aggressive back in 2018, but I also joke that I wish I never went to college and just was buying properties in 20 10, 20 11. So obviously hindsight's 50 50, 20 18, we bought two properties, same thing with 2019 and then 2020 we decided to launch prestige, look to just start growing both in terms of geographic area as well as raising outside capital. So launch of Prestige in 2020, COVID happens. We were under contract on two properties. Both ended up not working out as everyone saw what would happen in the world. But in the back half of 2020, we were able to buy two small portfolios. So we bought probably eight properties in the last couple months of 2020.

(04:02):

And then from that point on, from July, 2020 until May of 2023, we had at least one property under contract any given time, I think 21, 2 and three. We bought 15 to 17 properties a year for an average total capital cost of 40 to 50 million a year for those three years. So a lot of rapid growth. We expanded the property management platform, we manage everything in house out of our corporate office here in Columbus. So we were probably hiring one or two corporate team members every quarter for those couple of years. And then 2024, just a lot of groups started to see pullback in the opportunities that we were looking at. So last year in 2024, we bought three properties, brought on a couple third party management properties, mostly in Ohio, opened a GV ground up development in Maryland. And then finally this year we've seen a couple more better opportunities. We purchased a deal in Michigan last month, or I guess that was in July now. And then a property of Arlington, Texas in August. And then we also solely a property, which is really rare for us, are only our third sale ever in July. So it's been a busy start to the second half of the year, and I'm excited to see what the next year or two has in store.

Scott Meyers (05:43):

So Cory, 21, 22, and 23, those are some stellar growth numbers. I would say 2022, there's activity in the marketplace because a lot of people were selling because interest rates were obviously very favorable for sellers, not as much for buyers. Tell me the strategy, were you just, I don't want to say, I know you are more targeted than this in your marketing efforts and sales efforts or acquisition efforts, but were you just finding some stellar deals at that time, or was the growth still just banking on what you just stated, which is you don't sell much and you're just banking on the future and getting solid deals to begin with?

Cory Bonda (06:22):

I think it goes back to our philosophy of fixed rate debt. Our entire balance sheet, the entire portfolio at this point is fixed, has always been that way. So it takes one key variable that change from 22 to 24 out of the equation. When people were worried about rate caps and other short term loans coming due maturities, we didn't have to worry about that. So some of our growth specifically as we're getting into that year two and three might not be hitting the exact pro forma that we were eyeing, but at least we were able to minimize the exposure with the fixed rate debt. A lot of those opportunities were off market where we were going direct to seller looking to, we were able to move pretty quickly, and we have pretty much our own capital. So that avoids some of the unknown with sellers.

Scott Meyers (07:24):

And I noted that you are pretty much vertically integrated. Does that include construction as well as management? You like to control the

Cory Bonda (07:32):

Whole chain? Yep. Control the whole chain. So management is obviously what I got started in when I first started in the industry and with some of our properties,

(07:43):

Some of our properties size as well as location, being able to manage it ourselves allows us to be the best asset managers that we feel that we can be of course. And then on the construction side, we've done four to five ground up developments as well as probably five to 10 expansions. So we're very comfortable in the development. We're no experts on it. We're not shaving cost per square foot off by having some sort of secret sauce on the construction side. But we enjoy historically doing ground up developments and expansions where we see the good opportunities, but we don't really see too many of those markets that we're looking in today. Yeah, and then we also launch our own protection plan that we started internally in 2024, and then we've started to market it softly to third party clients as well as well, like I said, that kind of same soft marketing on professional third party management.

Scott Meyers (08:55):

If you've got the capacity, I mean, it really depends the team that you build, if you build it for growth or for you build it for what you have in place, sometimes there's still excess capacity in the chain of the org charts to be able to, at least for us, it's, that had been the consideration to look the third party. Ultimately we, we've gone back and forth on it and we decided to just stay. And it seems like if we don't have a competitive edge in a market, in other words, the REITs are gaining all the traffic and we're spending marketing dollars to try to get eyeballs, and there's really not much to gain in efficiencies. And that's usually the decision for us to hand it off to the REITs unless we have a significant footprint in a particular market. But let's chat. I mean, you can't have a conversation in business these days without talking about ai, but especially since you've brought management in-house, self storage is, it's like a franchise. I mean, it's a series of standard operating procedures that you can implement and roll out, and it works at most facilities, each one having their own nuances in the market, having nuances. But we've seen some great efficiencies within this very simple predictable business model, and that is no easy business, but being able to march out by way of ai. Tell me how you're using AI right now within the operation side of the business and what type of results you're seeing.

Cory Bonda (10:16):

Yeah, I would say we're still very, very infancy stages of it. Just like everyone, I'm sure we utilize chat, EBT if I'm putting together a memo or an external email or anything like that, utilizing 'em more on the quick review and content side. But in the short term, we definitely see a lot more opportunities with chatbots and phone agents. That's going to be a huge opportunity, especially for a group like ours that does focus on hub and spoke. So we have 17 properties in the Grand Rapids market that we're able to manage from one hub. So we're incredibly efficient there with how we've been able to streamline our operations, and that's where we're looking to continue to grow to other markets. We have it in probably three or four other markets that we operate in, but not in the efficiency that we've been able to establish up there in Grand Rapids.

(11:23):

And being able to utilize a, not just functional, but a chat bot or phone agent that can excel in a conversation, it can really understand, okay, is this just a customer service issue where they got to pay their bill or maybe they forgot what unit they're in, or is it someone broing into their unit, the gate's not working? Or bigger issues like that as well as the beginning stages of the sales side of it as well, especially if all of our sales agents are busy being able to start to collect some of that basic information, I think that's going to be the next big advancement for us. And then continuing to be able to use it on the revenue management side. Having 25, 30,000 units if we have takes some of the weird pricing groups as well that you have, it takes a lot to be able to look at all those rates in an ever-changing market. So being able to utilize that intelligence to spot trends and changes both internally with your occupancy and move and move outs, but to be able to use that AI intelligence as well to just scrape data from the web to see where your competitors are feeling.

Scott Meyers (12:44):

I was fortunate enough to speak at the Self Storage Association Asian show in Tokyo a couple of months back. And the operators in Asia have very small facilities. I mean, they're very pressed to find any type of land to be able to build on or any type of building to convert. And that's throughout most of Asia and even parts of the Middle East. And so for that reason, you can imagine the amount of revenue generated per site and or per staff member is crucial and the ratios are pretty high. And so they're looking to utilize technology anywhere and everywhere they can just to get that NOI because the yield per site is difficult to be even just put one person on site, let alone two for these 100 to 150 unit facilities. And those are the big ones in the markets. So for that reason, however, what I've seen is I would say they're a little more advanced in terms of utilizing AI at all those levels that you just mentioned from the chat bots, from escalating, from a customer service to the sales side to security, even having the entire site covered by cameras that are driven by ai, that also escalates if it's just after hours or if there truly is a danger or if there's a fire and begins to operate in a triage mode and then escalates and sends those messages and those alarms to the appropriate places, if you will.

(14:04):

And some of the things on the sales side with a few of the sales bot that they have has been incredible. Unfortunately, some of those platforms aren't available to us over here, but I was just incredibly, it won't take long, but I was just incredibly impressed by that. And so we are moving as fast as the technology will provide without compromising the experience for our folks right now. And we're still on that cusp, but we, not everything works just yet and we just don't want our folks to recognize when we're utilizing it as much and people are getting there where they're comfortable with it at a certain levels, but when we push the boundaries of where they would expect to hear a person, a true human being, we want to have a human being there.

Cory Bonda (14:45):

Exactly. My goal even would be to get rid of the phone tree, the classic phone tree, Hey, welcome to prestige storage, press one to rent a unit, two to make a payment, three to talk to representative. If you can just utilize technology and get rid of that, that's a really cool experience that I've seen

(15:03):

In some other industries. I think I call it a DT, and I was talking to a AI agent before I got transferred. It was seamless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's getting there. It's getting there. Yeah. We always have a philosophy as well that we don't like to be the first big first mover. We like to kind of see what else is going on in the industry and if you'll get, obviously some of the changes that's happened, whether it's kiosks and how those have changed, that's a big investment to make. That's a big investment to make when they might be different in a year.

Scott Meyers (15:47):

I was comfortable in my twenties and maybe early thirties of being the first mover, but that was a little more bravado I think, than anything. And now it's an older, now that I'm over 30, now that I'm over 40, we don't move so fast anymore and we adopt that same philosophy. So the growth that you've had even into, it seems like a little bit of a slow down in 24, but what is 25 going to hold for you for the balance of this year and then heading into 2026 given the state that when this podcast drops, depending upon what interest rates, if they may be dropping as well, what's prestigious looking to in terms of their strategy for the market right now?

Cory Bonda (16:28):

Yeah, we're very excited for the future growth. The industry's only going to get more competitive. I don't think you've seen the fallout that maybe some other industries you're seeing some asset classes or the people might've expected. So there's still a lot of competition out there for high quality deals, a lot of equity chasing that. So we're going to continue to grow. How we want to grow five to 10 properties to a year is kind of our goal. Obviously we would love to increase that. This year. We made a lot of changes internally. We finished the rollout of a new property management software. We switched to Cubby for our property management. So we've been able to consolidate a lot of our major third party vendor softwares a pretty much into one. So that was a huge change that took place in Q1. And then we were able to start scaling again in Q2 and then into Q3 with a couple acquisitions. We have a couple of properties under contract currently as well. And then to kind of quantify it, our goal right now we're top 50 operator, probably have 46 I think in the rankings. Our goal in the next three to five years is to get to a top 25. So continuing to build on a platform that we have in order to get there. As I'm sure you're aware, the big jump from the numbers that are in the top 25 versus where we are currently.

Scott Meyers (18:08):

Yeah. What are the challenges? What are the headwinds that is going to maybe slow that process down a little better that you're going to have to overcome to break into the top 25?

Cory Bonda (18:20):

I think it's just continuing to stay true to our under underlying philosophy while still trying this, but you're competitive for deals. I'm sure you see it. The days are gone where you find a property that has paper, books and records. Everyone has at least some sort of management software and people are getting, for better or worse, getting multiple phone calls a day instead of multiple phone close maybe a week. And we're still at that point where 2022 is close enough. So maybe as we get a little further away, expectations would reset. But I like whether, I like to tell people it only takes one person to buy a property. We could be in second place on a bid sheet, but first place can be 10, 15% over us and we might have some advantage or something like that. But all it takes is one person above you.

Scott Meyers (19:16):

Well, Cory, I appreciate you spending the time with us today, and we'll continue to follow your progress as you march on towards leaping into the top 25. But before we leave for today, as you mentioned, much of that growth that you have comes from raising private equity as well. So if you would share with Storage Nation, how do people contact you in Prestige if they want to learn more about what you're doing and if they may want to come alongside of you and some of your projects?

Cory Bonda (19:40):

Absolutely. Yeah. If you're interested in learning more, you can shoot me an email directly. It's pretty simple. Cory, CORY, at prestige storage.com. Our website is prestige storage.com, and then our investor website is prestige storage capital.com.

Scott Meyers (19:59):

Awesome. Well, Cory, before we end today, I'd like to ask, as I do many of my guests, what is the book or maybe books that have made the most impact on you, whether it be personally or professionally?

Cory Bonda (20:12):

Yeah, it's always a good question. I would say the book that's made the most on me professionally is Sam Zell's memoir. He's obviously a real estate titan and a super interesting story, especially with how he's been able to grow through different cycles. So that's my easy cop out answer.

Scott Meyers (20:38):

It's a great read no matter how you slice it, just a glimpse into that man's brain as to how he operates and the way he looks at things. He is a cut above. He's not just somebody who is going against the grain that rose up maybe like a Richard Branson, and he isn't somebody like a Warren Buffett that just stuck to the principle. I mean, the guy's just a wicked sharp and just has navigated his business and his career extremely well. So yeah, I love that book as well and strongly recommend it. We'll put that in the show notes for anybody who has not read Mr. Zell's memoir. So with that, Cory, I look forward to hopefully being in the same room with you again at an upcoming trade show. If not, then we're not too far apart. So if you find yourself ping around in Indianapolis and looking at properties or anything else, or if I'm happen to be in Columbus, we'll get together and make it happen. Absolutely, Scott, I appreciate it. Alright, thanks Cory. Take care.

Announcer (21:33):

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