Going into the self storage business, renting out storage units to customers is potentially a profitable business, though you would need to research the particular conditions in the locality before going into it.

In many areas there are actually enough self–storage companies to satisfy existing and potential demand, as the business has grown hugely over recent years. However there will still be areas without enough provision and areas where because of expected population growth, the need for more provisions can be realistically predicted.

So, once you have identified such an area of expected population growth you can look for existing facilities, and contact them to check whether they have spare capacity. If they have little or no capacity then you may have identified a need. You also need to check with the city planning department as to whether licenses for other storage facilities have been granted recently.

If not then it seems that you may

ell be onto a possibility and you then need to identify a site for sale or rent perhaps on a light industrial estate suitable for a facility to be constructed. You want to do your sums carefully in terms of the size of site and the number of units needed, because obviously you do not want to commit to an uneconomically large site, but if occupancy is high, then the larger the site the larger the profit in proportion to the finance needed to secure the site. This also applies to an extent to other overheads like security and management costs.

You will need to consult with professionals to get further than this, both in terms of managing the site, for which you may want to use a management company, and in terms of tying up the legalities of applying for planning permission, any licenses and insurances necessary and advice and drawing up water-tight contracts with your customers.