DETROIT—Pogoda Companies has just sold a 749,436 square-foot portfolio of 12 self-storage facilities located throughout the state of Michigan to one of the industry's big players for $61.3 million. Sales of this kind have become quite common for self-storage companies. As reported in GlobeSt.com, soaring revenue growth, rising occupancy and limited new construction has perked up investor interest, pushing down cap rates to historic lows and encouraging consolidation.

This portfolio has 5,505 units and 498 RV/Boat parking units. The sales price equates to $81.79 per square-foot, which Pogoda officials say is the highest price ever paid for a self-storage portfolio in Michigan. The buyer, Orlando-based Simply Self Storage, one of the nation's larger owner/operators, was represented by Marcus & Millichap's Charles D. LeClaire and Adam Schlosser.

“Cap rates for self-storage are at historic lows,” said Maurice Pogoda, president of the Farmington Hills, MI-based Pogoda, in a prepared statement. He did not return a phone call seeking additional comment. “We were able to achieve a phenomenal price based on double digit year-over-year growth that started in 2011.”

“The growth rates in the industry are gargantuan,” Marc Boorstein, president of Chicago-based MJ Partners Real Estate Services, told GlobeSt.com. His firm issues quarterly studies on the industry and recently found that the revenues for Public Storage, the largest owner-operator in the US, increased 5.4% in 2014 and three others did even better. Extra Space, CubeSmart and Sovran all had revenue increases of more than 7.0%. In 2013, the same companies all saw revenue increases between 5.3% and 7.7%. “The increases in rents and revenue are unbelievably consistent.”

Still, for an industry that has seen consistent growth, new construction has been scarce. According to F.W. Dodge, there were only 78 new construction starts through the third quarter of last year, including renovations and alterations. And although Spencer Kirk, chief executive officer of Extra Space Storage, estimated that developers will launch between 300 and 500 new projects in 2015, Boorstein pointed out that in 2005, the peak year for self-storage, developers delivered 3,665 new facilities.

At the time of the sale, the properties in the Pogoda portfolio were about 85% occupied. Pogoda did tell the SpareFoot Storage Beat that “we thought that we were probably topping the limit of where these particular properties would go, at least under our management.”

Boorstein said that one of the things that make buying well-located and well-managed self-storage properties so desirable for the big players is their ability to use technological sophistication, economies of scale, and advanced revenue management systems to push up occupancy and squeeze out even more revenue.

For example, Public Storage, which has 2,250 sites in the US and nearly 200 in Europe, saw its occupancy rate hit 93.5% at the end of 2014, up from 93% in 2013. And Extra Space Storage, with 1,088 sites the second largest, had a rate of 91.4%, compared to 89.5% last year.

“We are still very bullish on Michigan and have 28 other properties that we own or manage,” said Pogoda. “We will continue to look for value-add opportunities to grow our portfolio.”