SmartStop Self Storage REIT - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, welcome to the SmartStop Self Storage REIT Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the call over to David Corak, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategy. Please go ahead.

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during today's call, including statements about our future plans, prospects, and expectations, may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in our earnings release that we issued last night, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Information regarding these financial measures or use of these measures and a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and supplemental disclosure that were issued last night and are available for download on our website at investors.smartstopselfstorage.com. In addition to myself, today we have H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, as well as James Barry, our CFO. Now, I'll turn it over to Michael.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you, David, thank you for joining us today for our fourth quarter earnings call to close out the year as a New York Stock Exchange-listed company. I'll start with some introductory remarks on SmartStop and the industry before I hand it over to James to discuss the quarter. After that, we'll open it up for Q&A with James, David, and myself. Before we dive into the high-level remarks, a few highlights of our fourth quarter results. We posted a strong fourth quarter with same-store revenue growth of 40 basis points, an average occupancy of 92.3%. This capped off a year of sector-leading revenue growth of 1.6%, with average occupancy of 92.5%. Operationally, we were pleased with how the quarter started, the last six weeks of the year came in below our expectations.

We saw a more competitive pricing environment, paired with a higher-than-expected move-outs in several markets, most notably Asheville. 10 of our top 15 markets posted positive same-store revenue growth, and other areas of the business outperformed expectations. These included our recently acquired third-party management platform and property operating expenses. We reported FFO as adjusted per share of $0.55, up 29.8% year-over-year. For the full year, we reported FFO as adjusted per share of $1.87, up 10% from 2024.

We introduced our 2026 guidance, highlighted by same-store revenue growth of -50 basis points to +2%, NOI growth of -1.8% to +1%, and FFO as adjusted per share of $1.93 to $2.05, representing about a 6% growth on the midpoint. We had another robust quarter of activity. During the quarter, we acquired one Class A operating property on balance sheet in Orlando MSA, and a parcel of land in Canada that we intend to develop into a Class A storage in our SmartCentres joint venture. Our acquisitions have been Class A assets located in top markets. For the full year, our acquisitions totaled $369 million, inclusive of the Argus transaction.

Our managed REITs acquired four properties during the quarter, resulting in AUM at year-end of over $1 billion. That represents over $200 million of AUM growth in 2025. We also completed our first bridge capital investment, structured as a preferred to a third party for approximately $5 million, sourced through our third-party platform. Last, but certainly not least, we closed on Argus Professional Storage Management, bringing on board over 220 managed properties and 400 employees to the SmartStop team. Between Argus, our lending business, and our on-balance sheet acquisitions, we deployed about $61 million of capital during the quarter. We've stayed busy into 2026, recently completed the recast of our $500 million syndicated bank facility at an all-in cost of about 30 basis points below the previous facility.

We recently added Wayne Johnson to our Board of Directors. Many of you know Wayne from industry and the sell-side conferences over the years. He's a 30-year veteran of self-storage, and he and I have been working together for 20 of those years. He has been a key leader in the company's growth since its formation, and we're thrilled to welcome him to our board. Turning to the industry. On the operations front, 2025 was incrementally better than 2024, but certainly not as strong as a more normalized year in storage. We continue to believe that the recovery in storage is happening, but the choppiness in customer demand continues, as evidenced by our second and fourth quarter results. However, our strategy to maintain and build occupancy is working.

In the fourth quarter, we had another record-setting quarter of lead conversions, both online and through our call center. Reservations remain strong. We also posted the highest penetration rate on tenant protection in our company's history. The number of our customers on auto pay is up 250 basis points year-over-year. Our customers' health remains strong. Delinquencies remain at below average levels, and in fact, are down year-over-year. ECRIs remain healthy without change in attrition. Our length of stay slightly increased for the first time since the COVID era. Industry move-in rates continue to stabilize, but are still negative year-over-year, though significantly less negative than the previous 2 years. Those trends have continued into the new year. The demand is there, but it's driven by lower asking rents.

Move-in rents are down 8% year to date in 2026 across our same store portfolio. We have seen healthy increases in our overall occupancy, sitting at 92.8% today, even with some headwinds in hurricane markets. Our outlook for 2026 is thematically consistent with our original outlook for 2025. Improving supply picture should lead to a slightly better year than the prior year, with continued uncertainty and choppiness around demand. We still remain optimistic on the sector's slow and steady recovery in 2026. However, our guidance does not take into account a meaningful recovery of the U.S. single-family home market, nor any material changes in the broader economies in either the United States or Canada.

We also have a variety of capital deployment options at attractive returns at our disposal that we can execute on both in the near term and at an accelerated pace, given an improved cost of capital. For 2026, we're targeting an overall capital deployment range of $72 million-$96 million, consisting of acquisitions, bridge capital, development in our SmartCentres joint venture, and redevelopment and expansion projects. We are also investing in our technology platform, including our internal artificial intelligence capabilities, which have been and will continue to be a focus for us in 2026. We see a tremendous growth opportunity in third-party management, both in the U.S. and Canada, as well as through our multiple product offerings in the managed REITs.

Lastly, our guidance does not contemplate the formation of an institutional acquisitions joint venture, which is a priority for us in 2026. Taking a step back, we have accomplished a tremendous amount in our short time as a publicly traded company. Without a doubt, we are in a choppy self-storage market, with volatile capital markets and plenty of uncertainty in the broader economic environment. However, through all the choppiness, we have executed exceptionally well on the things that are within our control. With that said, our focus in 2026 is as follows: disciplined capital allocation strategy, which includes on-balance sheet acquisitions, development in our SmartCentres joint venture, expansions, redevelopments, and solar investments, bridge lending to support our third-party management business, technology platform, including artificial intelligence, and a potential acquisitions joint venture.

In addition, a focus on growing our third-party management business, the managed REITs, continued balance sheet optimization, and last but not least, executing on our property operations strategy. SmartStop's accomplishments over the past 10 months have built a strong, solid foundation for future growth to take advantage of an improving self-storage landscape. With that, I'll turn it over to James to discuss the quarter.

James Barry (CFO and Treasurer)

Thank you, Michael. Starting with our operating performance, our same store pool posted year-over-year revenue growth of positive 40 basis points, with operating expense growth of positive 2%, leading to an NOI decrease of 30 basis points. The FX impact from our 13 Canadian same-store assets was effectively flat for the quarter, with no change on a constant currency basis for the entire same-store pool. Revenue growth was below our expectations for the quarter, we were able to make up some of the underperformance with better-than-expected property operating expenses. This was due to some wins on property taxes, improvement in property and general liability insurance premiums, as well as muted advertising spend. We accomplished same-store revenue growth with limited marketing dollars, while maintaining strong occupancy of over 92%.

Our same-store pool ended the quarter at 92.1% occupancy, down 10 basis points year-over-year, while average occupancy was 92.3%, up 10 basis points year-over-year. These stats speak to the trends that Michael mentioned in his opening remarks regarding an increase in move-outs in the back half of the quarter, specifically in Asheville, which was facing a tough fourth quarter comp due to the impact of Hurricane Helene in October 2024, and saw a large decline in occupancy in November and December, ending the year down 540 basis points in physical occupancy. This drop was more than we had anticipated in previous guidance. Broadening out, the pricing environment in fourth quarter was more competitive than expected from both institutional and smaller operators.

Accordingly, we used concessions and discounting more than we had in the first nine months of 2025. Our web rates were down about 8% year-over-year for the fourth quarter, while our achieved move-in rates were down 11% on average. We moved into the first quarter of 2026, we once again put a strong emphasis on maintaining physical occupancy throughout the slow season. In doing so, we actually grew our occupancy, ending January at 92.7%, up about 60 basis points year-over-year, and more notably, up 60 basis points from the end of December. We moved into February, we stand at about 92.8% occupancy through this past weekend, roughly flat year-over-year, while move-in rates are down only 1% year-over-year.

On the external growth front, we acquired one Class A operating property on balance sheet in the Orlando MSA, as well as one parcel of land in Toronto within our SmartCentres joint venture, that we intend to develop into Class A storage, and of course, Argus Professional Storage Management. For the full year, our acquisitions settled approximately $368 million, inclusive of the Argus transaction. Turning to the managed REIT platform, our three managed REIT funds, inclusive of the 1031 eligible DST programs, ended the quarter with over $1 billion of assets under management. In the fourth quarter, we recognized gross fees of approximately $4.1 million. The managed REITs have a combined portfolio of 52 operating properties and approximately 4.5 million net rentable sq ft as of quarter end.

We also increased our loans and preferred investments to the managed REITs by approximately $20 million. The DST programs continue to successfully raise equity, and we are excited that SST X closed on its first property as that program gets up and running. Turning to our third-party management platform, we ended the quarter with 221 properties under management, in line with our expectations. EBITDA, net of acquisition expenses for the quarter, was approximately $670,000, and we continue to have near zero levels of unknown attrition, both on the property side, and no attrition on the employee side. The result of all of this is that for the fourth quarter of 2025, we posted fully diluted FFO as adjusted per share and unit of $0.55.

Turning to 2026 guidance that we provided last night, I'll give color on a few major pieces. We are expecting same-store revenue growth in the -50 basis points to +2% range, with operating expense growth in the 2%-4% range, resulting in an NOI growth range of -1.8% to +1%. For our non-same store properties, we're expecting NOI of between $18.5 million and $19.8 million. We are expecting managed REIT EBITDA of $13.3 million-$13.9 million. For third-party management, we are assuming EBITDA of $1.8 million-$3 million, in line with our yield communicated when we closed the transaction. I will note that we are allocating about $250,000 of SmartStop's G&A to third-party management expenses.

For G&A, we are expecting a range of $32 million-$34 million. In terms of capital deployment, first, we are expecting to deploy between $45 million and $65 million between acquisitions and bridge lending for full year 2026. Second, we plan to spend about $10 million on development of properties under construction within our SmartCentres joint ventures. Third, we are expecting to spend about $2.5 million on our solar initiative. Lastly, we began expansion or redevelopment projects on a handful of already owned facilities with an estimated spend of $16 million-$18 million. This does include the redevelopment of the vacated industrial space at our Newark, New Jersey, facility. The result of all of these updates is that we are guiding to an FFO as adjusted per share range of $1.93-$2.05.

Lastly, turning to the balance sheet. In October, we closed on a CAD 160 million term loan within our SmartCentres joint ventures, of which we are 50% owners. The loan is a five-year term and bears a fixed interest rate of 3.87%. We used the proceeds to pay off all of the prior existing JV level debt, which had an weighted average cost of 5.7%. With that JV debt issued in October, we have fully hedged our Canadian FX exposure naturally from a cash flow perspective. Additionally, 95% of our outstanding debt was fixed as of year-end. As Michael mentioned, our work on the balance sheet continued into 2026. Last week, we completed the recast of our $500 million syndicated bank facility. The facility matures in February 2030, with a one-year extension option.

Our all-in cost to borrow came down about 30 basis points based on a reduced pricing grid, and is one of the most competitive executions on the borrower side with leverage-based pricing. The credit agreement also has built-in language that would allow for a further pricing step down upon receiving an investment grade rating from S&P or Moody's Rating Services. The work that we've done on our balance sheet represents a tremendous accomplishment, putting SmartStop well ahead of a typical REIT in its first year on an exchange. The transformation of the balance sheet since the IPO sets us up well to execute on any growth opportunities moving forward. With that, operator, we will open it up to questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Please pick up your handset when asking a question, and if muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Viktor Fediv with Scotiabank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Viktor Fediv (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Thank you very much for taking my question. What are your baseline assumptions for move-in rate and ACRI at midpoint of same-store revenue guide? How should we think about cadence of move-in rate growth throughout the year?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Hey, Viktor, it's Corak. I don't wanna give exact building blocks, but I'll give you a little bit of a framework for 2026. on the move-in rent front, you know, we'll give some more color on this, but, you know, some of the markets have already turned positive. A little bit over half of our markets have turned positive year-to-date in terms of year-over-year move-in rents. There's other markets that, you know, supply markets that are still negative. You can probably imagine that Asheville is still negative and skewing some of those numbers. We think by sort of the end of rental season, on average, we'll largely be back to a neutral sort of inflection point.

On the occupancy front, you know, we're forecasting, you know, slightly positive results relative to 2025. Obviously, there's a big exception in there with Asheville, but that should, you know, kind of clean up as the year goes on. You know, we are up in occupancy year to date on an average basis, and we would expect that to sort of level out over the course of the year. In terms of ECRIs, you know, we're modeling out, you know, an at or better than 2025 levels, given the strength and the health of the existing customer. The exception there, of course, being the California wildfire-impacted assets, which we assume, as Michael mentioned, will be impacted for the full year.

Viktor Fediv (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Got it. A quick follow-up on your Q4 results. Obviously, your move-out volume was largely impacted by Asheville, but what was the actual achieved move-out rate for the average Q4?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

You're talking about specifically for Asheville, or are you talking about for the entire portfolio?

Viktor Fediv (Senior Equity Research Associate)

For the entire portfolio.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah, the move-out rate in December, and just on a monthly basis is about $1.39. Yeah, for the entire quarter of fourth quarter, our move-out rates were down about 5% on a year-over-year basis. They were down.

Viktor Fediv (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Got it. Thank you.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thanks, Viktor.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Juan Sanabria with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Juan Sanabria (Managing Director, Senior U.S. Real Estate Analyst)

Hi. Good morning. Just hoping you could talk a little bit about your joint venture strategy and the opportunities that you're looking at, whether the focus would be in the U.S. or Canada. Would you contribute any on-balance sheet assets, and kind of where you see cap rates today in the market?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think, from an acquisition perspective, there's just a tremendous amount of opportunity out there. I think, you know, from my perspective, I think it's one of the better overall aggregate transaction environments than we've seen, since, you know, the Great Recession. We are seeing a tremendous amount of high-quality deals either built and/or acquired at the wrong time, during kind of the highs of COVID with low cap rates and rental rates that were a lot higher. Then some of them with variable debt, some of them with, you know, bridge loans attached to them. The pretend and extend seems to be over.

Those kind of transactions come in the market, you know, based on our thesis that storage has, you know, bottomed and/or bottoming. I think there's a really nice, I think, risk proposition with respect to acquiring these, you know, top 25 markets. You know, we're looking for, you know, an institutional joint venture, a partner in the U.S. on acquisitions that can kind of complement, you know, what we've already built, you know, within our platform, and obviously provide, you know, a, you know, accretive returns to our overall and our aggregate shareholders. A lot of opportunities, from onesies to twosies to small portfolios.

You know, we've been, I think, more active, I think, in the last nine months, and we've been receiving a ton of calls with respect to people wanting us to put some value in our portfolio. What we have seen is many of those assets are underwater, as you can imagine. Some people are just trying to get out. We think it's gonna be a pretty tremendous opportunity with development being muted. Given the where we are with overall performance in this sector, I think that could keep development also muted for an extended period of time, which I think just creates a really nice, you know, acquisition environment for us.

Juan Sanabria (Managing Director, Senior U.S. Real Estate Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Then just for the follow-up on the Argus or third-party management business, how should we think about entering Canada, kind of the legwork that needs to be done to do that and what that could mean for business and earnings growth?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

You know what? There's no question that, you know, part of the Argus strategy was to, you know, expand into Canada in a meaningful way. I just want to reiterate one of the things that, you know, we focused on was, you know, the assimilation of the acquisition. You know, that was incredibly important. As I told my team, "You know, it's not broken, so don't try to fix it. Let's just make it better." From that perspective, one of the things that we talked about in the last call that we've executed on, we had our inaugural owners meeting in San Diego. Not only U.S., but we did bring in a few individuals from Canada that had existing portfolios, developments, et cetera.

We spent a good two days, you know, introducing SmartStop, but more importantly, demonstrating how, you know, we operate in and our entrepreneurial spirit. From that perspective, with, you know, our team up there and how long we've been up there, a lot of the communication that we had with these individuals has transcended into additional conversations. I think overall, from the Argus property management perspective, you know, we're pretty excited about that opportunity, and we think that is one of the really solid growth opportunities, not only this year, for over the next two years. I think one of the things that we did is we, not only U.S. and Canada, we spent a lot of time just listening to people.

That was incredibly important, and figuring out what they liked with the current environment of third-party managers and what they didn't like. What we found is one size doesn't fit all. There are certain people that want you to take care of everything and just send them distributions. There's other individuals that wanna be involved in some decisions, and then there are some individuals that wanna be involved in a lot more decisions. I think that we prepared ourselves in creating a platform that I think resonates with the different owner entrepreneurial operators out there. Finally, I think one of the biggest opportunities that we have, and I think it's primarily U.S. right now, is the existing owners that we have on our platform that have properties with us.

Some of them have numerous properties with other third-party managers. We've already have had some pretty solid discussions in regards to moving the, some of those over to SmartStop or the SmartStop Legacy platform. I think from our perspective, you know, we believe we're gonna see some very interesting growth in 2026 with a platform that's already up and running.

James Barry (CFO and Treasurer)

I'd say, just to add to that, and one of the takeaways from that owners conference, which Michael talked about, is, you know, our pipeline is filling up for some bridge lending opportunities as well, right? That's reflected in our guidance, and that's kind of why we broke out the capital deployment strategy the way we did, is we're gonna be very selective and disciplined in our approach. There are a lot of opportunities coming out of our conversations with our third-party clients to put out very attractive capital on a bridge lending basis.

Michael Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for that, guys. Appreciate it.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you.

James Barry (CFO and Treasurer)

No problem.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Todd Thomas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi, thank you. First, just following up on the growth outlook in 2026, I appreciate the comments about, you know, occupancy and, you know, ECRIs and rent trends. How does that sort of impact the cadence of revenue growth throughout the year, sort of, you know, first half or second half, just given some of the market shifts that you've experienced in Asheville and elsewhere, and, you know, just some of the comps that you're up against?

James Barry (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, Todd, without giving specific cadence, I think a lot of the growth year-over-year is just because of how lumpy the comps are, just gonna sort of depend on the comps. I think the exit rate as you push into 2026 and you look at where we are sitting in the first couple of months of the year, you know, we've got a nice headwind into the year, but then, you know, we've got some tougher comps as you get into the third quarter. It'll be a little bit lumpy like last year, but I think it'll be less lumpy as you go through the course of the year.

Todd Thomas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Then, you know, I wanted to ask about your two largest markets right now, Miami and the GTA. They both, you know, continue to perform above the portfolio average. You know, Miami growth slowed, but, you know, still one of the stronger markets. The GTA saw growth, you know, decelerate more sharply over the last few quarters, but it was one of the few markets that saw revenue growth improve, sequentially. Can you just talk about the outlook for, you know, those markets and what you're sort of anticipating in 2026?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Absolutely, Todd. You know, let me start with, you know, kind of our Canadian operating metrics. You know, on a constant currency basis, you know, as we reported, our same-store revenue was up 60 basis points in the fourth quarter. The GTA had decelerated. We had some tougher comps for the first three quarters of 2025, and was the only market in the fourth quarter to re-accelerate. The comps in fourth quarter of 2024 was actually at 5%. It was a much tougher comp than the U.S., which was negative. I'll also note that our move-in rates were actually up in the fourth quarter in Canada, about 1%.

Additionally, if you look at our joint venture SmartCentres properties that would meet our definition of a same store, they actually did even better at around about a 5.3% year-over-year revenue growth on a constant currency basis. You know, as we've kind of just conveyed, we're sitting here today in February with occupancy at 93.3%. That's up 80 basis points year-over-year. The gap is wider than our comps in the state year-over-year. Length of stay remains solid, actually up slightly year-over-year, and ECRIs remain intact. Overall demand remains solid. Our platform continues to capture, you know, outside amounts of demand. Now, that being said, we have seen a more aggressive discounting from competitors.

You know, we feel given our operational advantages, you know, our thesis on Canada remains unchanged. Our outlook on the GTA portfolio is that it will perform slightly better on the U.S. portfolio in 2026, even with tougher comps. Definitely some potential upside for some of the government initiatives going on that could spur some economic growth. We're also concerned that there could be some downsides there, too, if there's any economic pullback in Canada. U.S.?

James Barry (CFO and Treasurer)

I'm gonna dive into Miami, and Todd, if you'll allow me, I'm also gonna touch on our third largest market, which is the L.A. MSA as well, briefly. In terms of Miami, obviously, it was one of our top-performing markets in the fourth quarter. You know, we chalk that up to largely just the density of that particular MSA, not to mention our clustering, which also is resulting in enhanced margins and expansion in those markets. In terms of our outlook for that particular market, we do expect it to be at the portfolio average or slightly above average. It's mainly the Miami MSA. I will say that is not the same for other pockets of Florida, right? Where we have seen more supply.

I think when we see Florida supply numbers, a lot of cases it's on the outskirts, but whereas our existing Miami MSA assets are a little more in a little more dense pockets of that particular market. Turning to L.A. as well, the L.A. MSA, you know, this wasn't in our prepared remarks, but overall, we think that that market is strong, despite the fact that there are those two counties with ECRI restrictions. Our guidance does not assume any lifting of those restrictions for the entirety of 2026. To put it in perspective, that's impacting our overall same-store revenue growth guide by about 15 to 20 basis points, so a little less than, you know, some of our peers.

I will note, however, the L.A. MSA, as we define it, also includes other areas that are not in those counties, namely Orange County, and the rest of Southern California has performed quite well, where the very strong occupancies, and it actually still outperformed in the fourth quarter relative to portfolio average. We'd expect those counties to be above average producers in 2026 as well.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Well, we also know that you probably know that L.A. County has extended the price restrictions until March 29th, which is not a surprise to us.

Todd Thomas (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. That's all. Really helpful color. Thank you.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you, Todd.

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Thanks, Todd.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Michael Mueller with JPM. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Michael Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. I guess first, I think you said, move-in rates were down 11% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, and they're down 1% today. First, is that an apples-to-apples comparison? If so, how much of that improvement's been driven by actually rates that are improving as opposed to easier comps?

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Hey, Mike, it's Corak. I'll give you just kind of the overview of where we are year-to-date and maybe add a little bit of color on there 'cause I think you're onto something. When you think about, you know, overall metrics for year-to-date, things have improved since the end of the fourth quarter. For our 2026 same store pool, January ended the month with occupancy at 92.7, up 60 basis points year-over-year and 60 basis points over December, which is a really nice sequential trend. Importantly, rentals were up 12.5%, and move-ins were move-outs have normalized, right, from the end of the quarter.

As of this past weekend in February, Michael mentioned this, we're at occupancy of 92.8%, flat year-over-year, and move-in rates per square foot are down about 1% in February. About half of our markets have turned positive in terms of move-in rents per square foot in January, and about 65% of our markets have turned positive for move-in rents per square foot in February. You can kind of imagine, but the down numbers are kind of skewed by a couple markets, namely Asheville. If you exclude Asheville, all of those metrics improve pretty materially. One of the trends that we've seen this year and we saw in the fourth quarter, is that we are renting larger units than we were in the same period last year.

This is true of the past five months, basically. Specifically in 2026, our average unit size rented is up about 10% year-over-year. The implications there are that while the move-in rents per square foot are down, as we discussed, the actual rents per unit are up. Specifically, and we talked about this, Michael mentioned this, the move-in rents per square foot are down about 8% year-to-date, but the actual rents per unit are up 1% year-over-year. On all fronts, February results improved pretty dramatically over January. You know, we're hesitant to draw conclusions from those, but I think it does speak to sort of the health of the consumer that they're renting some larger units versus 2025.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

When you take a look at the aggregate portfolio in January, our in-place rents were up 40 basis points year-over-year, and in February, thus far, and I think that's through the 19th of February, our in-place rents are up 90 basis points year-over-year.

Michael Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you.

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Thanks, Mike.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Kimon Guelle with Baird. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Kimon Guelle (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Regarding your recently developed Nantucket property, I guess how has the lease-up been trending versus your original expectation, and when do you expect it to fully stabilize?

James Barry (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah. Thanks, Mason. In terms of Nantucket, as you can imagine, it's an island, right? You have a little bit of a captive tenant base there. Also, keep in mind, it was opened in December, right? There's some very, very significant and more material seasonality in that particular market relative to other markets in the States. I would say it's still too early to tell. It's been operating for probably about 50 days at this point. We're, we're monitoring it, and we're gonna continue to use the levers at our disposal to fill it up.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Just to convey that is a joint venture that's not wholly owned by SmartStop. We have a minority interest in that, and we obviously handle the property management activities. We've been on that island for some time, so we kind of understand the dynamics associated with Nantucket, and it tends to generate some really nice rents per square foot.

Kimon Guelle (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. On your managed rate, AUM growth, do you expect this to be targeted in any specific managed rate, or would it be kind of broad-based across the three that you currently have?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

As we've, you know, denoted, we've reached that $1 billion in AUM. The AUM is defined by, you know, the cost basis, not the true value of the portfolio. We have four additional developments in Canada that will, you know, that will come over the next, I think, 12 to 18 months. You know, we see the opportunity to grow AUM in 2026. However, you know, in 2025, we were a little bit obviously occupied with respect to the IPO, and then as we previously said, we transitioned over to a new managing broker-dealer, which did set us back from a timing perspective.

Having said that, we, in 2025, we did have some nice growth with respect to our DST or Delaware Statutory Trust platform. With respect to that, you know, we've launched four of those programs. You know, Blue Door One was a $30 million raise, which is completed. We're in the middle of the raise of Blue Door Two. It's about a $64 million raise, about one-third sold. Blue Door Three, which had some leverage on there for leverage. Those, the Blue Door One and Two are cash, effectively. You know, we just started the fundraising and with that. I think we are teed up for some more, you know, DSTs for the year to keep growing the platform.

I think as we move into 2026, I think we feel like we have a more stable product line between the DSTs, Strategic Storage Trust VI and Strategic Storage Trust X, and now that we are set with our managing broker-dealer partner. We are guiding modest increase in AUM, approximately $60 million. It's driven by the launch of some DSTs, the preferred in Strategic Storage Trust VI, and then kind of the relaunch of Strategic Storage Trust X that we think will get some traction. We're trying to balance out the timing of the potential acquisitions with which obviously can produce rather lumpy fee streams. On the expense side, though, we've had a full year of expense structure with our new partner, which is a more cost-effective structure for us.

We feel pretty good going into 2026 on the managed, REIT platform.

Kimon Guelle (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for the color.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Spenser Allaway with Green Street. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Spenser Allaway (Managing Director, Self-Storage and Net Lease Sector Head)

Thank you. On the capital allocation front, can you just remind us if you have a share repurchase program in place? If not, has the board contemplated the authorization of one, just given where the stock trades today?

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Hey, Spenser. We do not have one in place, nor do we have an ATM into place at this point. You probably saw, we put into place our S-3 shelf registration, which allows us to go out and do a variety of different capital features. We will put an at-the-market ATM program into place here in the not-too-distant future, as we've previously communicated, we don't have a repurchase plan in place at this point.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah, and, you know, I would just further, you know, convey that, you know, the following is that, you know, when we take a look. I guess the question is: How do you grow from here? How are we going to prudently deploy capital? One of the things I'd like to convey is you gotta step back. You know, we started this SmartStop on January 2014. We started with no assets, no liabilities, and no shareholders, but a business plan. We went out and raised every single dollar. We built a very solid management team. Man, you know, from Wayne Johnson, who's been with me for 20 years, to James Barry, 14 years, you know, Joe Robinson, seven, Mike Terjung, 17 years, Bliss, seven years, you know, David Corac, five years. A solid management team.

We've executed on our business plan. We've acquired $500 million of Class A self-storage properties in top 25 markets. That's increased our total capitalization by about 15%. We never had a cost to capital advantage as we've grown this company to a $3 billion or so total cap. Having said that, I think the question's relevant is that we are near our upper levels of leverage, and I think we're comfortable taking our leverage slightly above 6 as long as we can demonstrate a near-term path to organically delever from there.

I think the good thing for us is that we do have a solid amount of organic EBITDA growth, and we think there's a lot of growth potential in the third-party management platform, in addition to some growth on the managed REIT platform, the bridge lending, in addition to the SmartCentres, you know, joint venture. When we think about capital allocation in 2026, you know, we are guiding to an overall capital deployment of about $72 million-$96 million. You know, having said that, to break down our 2026 capital deployment guidance, you know, we'll have three to four properties under construction with the SmartCentres joint venture. Those development yields remain very healthy, high single digits, low to mid-teens on total return perspective and potentially higher.

The capital commitments are relatively low, we feel pretty good about the use of capital there. In addition, you know, we'll continue with our solar programs. We're expecting another batch of probably another 10 properties. Those have pretty attractive yields, about 10% before any tax incentives. We're also seeing a lot of opportunities in our current portfolio to expand, to redevelop. We're expecting to spend about $16 million-$18 million this year. Those returns look pretty healthy and strong. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit from that perspective. Last is a combination of acquisition and loans. With respect to the acquisition environment, both in the U.S. and Canada, but also the lending opportunities that we're seeing through our third-party property management.

One of the big opportunities that I've discussed and we are actively pursuing is this institutional joint venture in the U.S., specifically for acquisitions. You know, we're waiting patiently, you know, for the right partner, but we haven't baked that into any of our guidance. You know, what I'd like to do is just leave you that there are a ton of opportunities on many fronts for SmartStop, and we're gonna be very responsible from a leverage perspective and prudently deploy capital. We're gonna be patient, and we're gonna wait for our cost to capital to come back as the sector recovers. You know, with those, you know, factors in mind, we're not planning on buying back our stock at this point.

Spenser Allaway (Managing Director, Self-Storage and Net Lease Sector Head)

Okay, great. Thank you for all that color. I know you provided an operational update for the portfolio overall, earlier in the call, you noted that the Toronto market was where you expected to outperform in the year ahead. I'm just curious if there's any additional color you could provide on the actual year-to-date performance of the Canadian markets?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

I don't have that one.

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Hey, guys. Spenser, occupancy in the GTA right now has actually outperformed the U.S. year to date, so we're running it at, in the mid 90s, which is up about 80 basis points year-over-year, so it's outperforming the U.S. Meanwhile, the in-place rates are also sort of outperforming. We are seeing year to date, a better performance in Canada versus the U.S. That's the Toronto 13, you know, same-store property specifically. We also have, you know, properties in our non-same-store pool in the portfolio that we bought last year.

Those properties are, you know, in the high 70s, low 80s in terms of overall occupancy and are, you know, ramping up and leasing up in line with our expectations. We're happy on all fronts in our Canadian portfolio at this point. Just to put a bow on that, you know, we talked about the sequential increase in overall same store occupancy from December to January. That was more pronounced in Canada. We actually grew 130 basis points in our same store pool, and we ended January at positive 70 basis points in occupancy year-over-year, as of January 31st.

Spenser Allaway (Managing Director, Self-Storage and Net Lease Sector Head)

Excellent. Okay, thank you guys for the color.

David Corak (SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Michael Mueller with JPM. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Michael Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, just a quick follow-up. If you do add an acquisition JV, how do you size up what goes into that venture versus the managed platform? And then, you know, if cost of capital improves, do you de-emphasize the JV and just focus more again on balance sheet acquisitions? I mean, how are you thinking about those dynamics?

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Well, it's a great question, and as you can imagine, we've been sponsoring multiple programs for the last 20 years, you know, we understand the dynamics associated with that. First and foremost, as we always have stated, SmartStop Self Storage has a right of first refusal, you know, on all assets, whether development or acquisitions. When it comes to the joint venture, I think what we're looking is more I would consider elephant hunting. Much larger aggregate portfolios that we wouldn't be able to take down 100% on our balance sheet or within the managed REIT for the managed REIT platform. I think that would be the big aggregate differentiator.

Let's face it, where we're at right now in our cost to capital, you know what? That opens up the ability to do numerous joint ventures with acquisitions that we see. You know, when that changes, obviously, we're gonna be cognizant of the fact of our joint venture partner, but also, you know, our institutional and retail shareholders, and because we do want to keep growing on balance sheet.

Michael Mueller (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thanks, Mike.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Michael Schwartz for closing remarks.

Michael Schwartz (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Well, thank you, operator. It's been an exciting 10 months as a publicly traded company. You know, our team has accomplished a lot short period of time, which has nicely positioned us for the sector recovery. We thank our investors, both retail and institutional, for their support. We look forward to growing together in 2026. In addition, we look forward to seeing many of you at the Citi conference next week. I want to thank you for your time and interest in SmartStop Self Storage, the smarter way to store. Have a great day.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.