Smartstop Self Storage REIT Q3 2026 Earnings Results & Report

Smartstop Self Storage REIT EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.51
• Consensus EPS: $0.50
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A
• EPS Beat Rate: 2 of last 8 quarters

Smartstop Self Storage REIT Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $81.78 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA), Inc. (NYSE: SMA) is a self-managed real estate investment trust focused on owning, operating and acquiring self-storage properties. Its facilities provide individuals and businesses with storage units in a range of sizes, along with related services such as online reservations, electronic access and tenant protection offerings.

The company serves customers primarily in the United States and also has exposure to the Canadian self-storage market. Its portfolio includes conventional self-storage facilities and properties offering vehicle, commercial and other specialized storage options. SmartStop markets its facilities through its SmartStop Self Storage brand and uses technology-enabled tools to support leasing, payments, customer access and property management.

SmartStop traces its operations to the broader SmartStop self-storage platform established by SmartStop Asset Management. The company became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SMA in 2024. Its leadership includes Chief Executive Officer H. Michael Schwartz, who has been associated with the SmartStop platform and its self-storage investment activities.

Smartstop Self Storage REIT Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Third-quarter same-store NOI increased 4.9% (5.1% at constant currency), supported by 2% revenue growth and a 3.8% decline in operating expenses. Adjusted FFO per share rose 9.4% year over year to $0.51, while operating margins expanded 190 basis points to 68%.
• Positive Sentiment: SmartStop raised its 2026 guidance for the fourth time, lifting the midpoint of same-store NOI growth to 2.25% and adjusted FFO per share to $2.03. The company also expects lower operating expense growth and higher capital deployment than previously forecast.
• Neutral Sentiment: The company prioritized occupancy, with average move-in rates down 5.7% year over year for the quarter; occupancy ended September at 92.1% and rose to 92.2% in October. Management said concessions were lower and some markets began to see move-in rates improve late in October, but did not provide a 2027 outlook.
• Positive Sentiment: SmartStop is pursuing growth through joint ventures, structured investments and acquisitions, including a Canadian venture that expands its operating presence by more than 30%; it cited mid-teens blended yields on a new sponsor partnership’s preferred and mezzanine investments. It also plans to market $75 million to $125 million of properties in non-core markets for sale in the first half of 2027, aiming to redeploy capital into markets where clustering can improve efficiencies.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management said expense improvements are partly structural—particularly payroll efficiencies and benefits from operating scale—but also reflect cyclical factors such as softer insurance renewals and property-tax benefits. Normalized cash flow leverage was 6.0 times, or 5.6 times assuming settlement of forward ATM shares.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to SmartStop Self Storage's third quarter 2026 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 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to David Corak, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategy. David, please go ahead.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

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, and 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.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Information regarding our use of these measures and reconciliation of these measures to GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and supplemental disclosure that we 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.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thank you, David, and thank you for joining us today for our third quarter earnings call. SmartStop Self Storage had a strong quarter of results, and we further reinforced our vision by executing on the pillars of our long-term strategy for shareholder value creation through the Deca Initiative, which we introduced in July. Let me first touch on our results for the third quarter. We posted strong same-store revenue growth of 2%, an operating expense decrease of 3.8%, and sector-leading NOI growth of 4.9%. Even with a modest currency headwind, on a constant currency basis, same-store NOI grew 5.1%. Operationally, 11 of our top 15 markets achieved positive same-store NOI growth. Our strong focus on expense control led to 190 basis points year-over-year growth in our same-store operating margins. This is our third quarter in a row of improved margins and the highest 3Q operating margin since 2023.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

This operational performance, coupled with overall efficiencies, resulted in an FFO as adjusted per share of $0.51, up approximately 9.4% year-over-year. With these results and good momentum into the fourth quarter, we once again raised the midpoint of our same-store revenue as well as our same-store NOI guidance, the fourth time this year. Lastly, we raised the midpoint of our FFO as adjusted per share guidance. The DECA Initiative is our multi-year strategic framework that stands for Disciplined Execution, Compounding Appreciation, through six defined pillars for outsized long-term value creation. As a brief reminder, the six pillars comprise disciplined capital allocation as an NAV creation engine, operational focus through clustering and margin expansion, investment in technology led by SmartStop.AI, leveraging third-party management to achieve capital-light scaling, our managed REIT platform, and targeting joint ventures that advance our clustering strategy by acquiring operating assets at scale.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

With this clear strategic focus, we are confident in our ability to create value through relative outperformance, margin expansion, and outsized FFO per share growth, all of which we've demonstrated with our 3Q results and announcements. To that end, on the transaction side, we announced an estimated $53 million investment in Strategic Storage Canada LP, a Canadian growth-oriented acquisition joint venture, which expands our Canadian operating presence by over 30% to 70 stores, a new programmatic investment partnership with an institutional sponsor who is an accomplished developer in the U.S. Our preferred and mezzanine investments carry blended in-place yields in the mid-teens and will also receive property management, rights of first offers, and a pipeline of future deals for investment and acquisitions from the sponsor's platform. During the quarter, we deployed approximately $32.3 million of bridge capital, the majority of which was to this sponsor.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

We also announced that we're under contract to acquire two on-balance sheet acquisitions for approximately $37 million, both in core SMA markets. From a funding standpoint, we priced CAD 200 million Maple Bond at 4.32% and approximately 2.4 million forward shares through our ATM program at an average price of $32.01. On the third-party management side, we officially rebranded Argus to SmartStop 3PM. Lastly, we announced a strategic asset management program aimed at the disposition of properties in select non-core markets to redeploy capital into core markets to further reinforce our efficiencies and clustering. On the performance side, our sector-leading same-store NOI growth of 4.9% was driven by our strong revenue management and growing expense efficiencies as we scale. This led to same-store operating margins of 68%, up 190 basis points year-over-year.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

We also posted year-over-year NOI growth of 4.9% on a constant currency basis in our 10 GTA SmartCentres joint venture properties. Our managed REIT platform posted 16.3% year-over-year growth of recurring revenues. This stellar performance, paired with a busy quarter on the transaction front, actually led to a reduction of normalized cash flow leverage to six times, or 5.6 times, assuming the full settlement of our forward ATM shares. The DECA Initiative was in full swing in the third quarter, and we're excited about what lies ahead for our company. Now I'll turn it over to James.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thank you, Michael. Starting with our operating performance, our same-store pool posted year-over-year revenue growth of 2%, with a 3.8% decrease in operating expenses, leading to an NOI increase of 4.9%, with quarter-ending occupancy of 92.1% and in-place rent per occupied square foot up 2.6%. On a constant currency basis, same-store revenue grew 2.1% and NOI grew 5.1%. We were very pleased with our operating expenses, with a year-over-year same-store decrease of 3.8% in the quarter, as the benefits of scale continue to manifest themselves in margin expansion. We saw a decrease in property taxes, property insurance, repairs and maintenance, and utilities in the quarter. Our move-in rates per square foot were down 5.7% on average for the quarter year-over-year, as we prioritize occupancy.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

This strategy was successful, as our occupancy was only down about 30 basis points month-over-month from August to September, and our move-ins were up 5.6% year-over-year for the quarter. In October, we gained occupancy from the end of September at 92.2% as of the end of that month. The result of all of this is that for the third quarter of 2026, we posted fully diluted FFO as adjusted per share and unit of $0.51, up approximately 9.4% from $0.47 in the third quarter of 2025. Turning to guidance, at the end of September, we adjusted our full-year 2026 guidance upward to reflect year-to-date results, as well as the impact of announced transactions. The highlights of those adjustments were a raise in the same-store revenue, same-store NOI, and FFO as adjusted per share ranges. Last night, we once again adjusted our full-year guidance.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

We raised our same-store revenue guidance from a range of 0.75%-1.75%, up to a range of 1.25%-1.75%. Additionally, we reduced our overall operating expense growth range from 0%-1%, down to a range of negative 25 basis points to positive 25 basis points. This results in an increase of our NOI growth midpoint from 1.65% up to 2.25%. We are now expecting capital deployment of $200 million-$220 million, compared to our prior range of $190 million-$210 million, and notably above our initial guidance range at the beginning of the year of $45 million-$65 million. Lastly, we are adjusting our FFO as adjusted per share guidance range from a range of $1.99-$2.05, up to a range of $2.01-$2.05, increasing the midpoint to $2.03, primarily driven by stronger same-store performance.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

As Michael said, we have a clear plan to continue executing on our growth strategy to drive value for shareholders. The results are beginning to demonstrate the potential of the Deca Initiative. With that, operator, we will open it up to questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Viktor Fediv with Scotiabank. Viktor, please go ahead.

[Viktor Fediv, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. My question is about your disposition plan. You plan around $75 million-$125 million of non-core sales beginning in early 2027. How advanced is the process, and do you expect the sales to be initially dilutive to 2027 FFO per share? How quickly can proceeds be redeployed? Probably some details on yield spreads as well would be helpful.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Great. Thanks, Viktor. This is Michael. Our strategic asset management program plays into the Deca Initiative in terms of the scale and clustering. This is all about clustering. In MSAs where we have 10 properties or more, we have been very clear, our operating margins improve by over 300 basis points. Where we lack scale and do not see a path to scale, we would rather recycle that capital into core markets where we can grow our clusters and efficiencies. We have initially targeted $75 million-$125 million. We expect those to close in the first half of 2027. There could be more after that, but this is kind of our initial plan. We have several properties being marketed right now. One that I would point out would be that we have two properties on the island of Nantucket.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

That is a tough market to scale since there is probably not 10 properties on the island. So those fit the bill, I think, quite well. Now with that, with pricing expectations, David?

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Yeah. Hey, Viktor. It's Corak. In terms of the pricing and how I think about accretion dilution, we expect the cap rates on these deals that we're buying to be fairly similar to the ones that we're selling. Remember, this is not a strategy that is divesting sort of the bottom of the barrel of the portfolio, as you see in a lot of the asset management programs out there in REIT land. Some of the markets like Nantucket, like Michael mentioned, are actually fairly low cap rate markets. For a pure sort of NOI, for NOI standpoint, I don't think there's a ton of accretion or dilution. But when you factor in the potential efficiencies here, I'd probably lean more towards the accretion in the short to medium term.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Just to say that these will all be 1031 exchanges, so there won't be any tax implications. Lastly, just something to think about, we're hoping that on potentially some of these dispositions, we could actually retain management of some of the assets. So that could lend itself again to the accretion side.

[Viktor Fediv, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Got it. That's helpful. As a follow-up on move-in rates trajectory. Currently, your move-in versus move-out spread is one of the widest within the public peers. Is your strategy still focusing on occupancy, for example, in October and then now in the beginning of November? Do you see that spread between move-in, move-out being narrower in 2027 as move-in rates are going up?

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Yeah. Hey, Viktor. Allow me to give you a little bit of color on the strategy that happened in the third quarter, and then I'll kind of transition on how that plays into October, and I'll probably steer clear of 2027, but maybe a little bit of thoughts into there. So, to your point, our strategy this quarter was representative of what we said on the call three months ago, that we were going to drive rate while at 92+% occupancy during the busy season. Then coming out of the busy season, we wanted to maintain a good base of that occupancy heading into the slower months. That's basically what 3Q looked like. You can see it in the move-in volumes during the quarter. Move-ins were up 5.6% year-over-year, and occupancy was down only 30 basis points from August to September.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

That's a much shallower seasonal step-down than typical. We ended the quarter at 92.1, which is actually flat with where we were in July. None of that came at the expense of revenue, right? Rents were up 2.6%, and same-store revenue actually accelerated into 3Q from 2Q. The web rates were down 3.5% for the quarter, but we used significantly less concessions. Going into the fourth quarter, the current run rate on concessions is even less. We're down 25% or 30% year-over-year, and that's a meaningful number. The reality is that we have several levers to drive occupancy, right? We found that customers have had a better response to rate than some of the other levers that we utilize. So we're using less concessions. We haven't pulled on the marketing lever as hard as we could have.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Every customer that we move in bears a rate that we can grow over a length of stay that continues to elongate. We're now at 32 months, and 36% of our tenants stay for over 24 months. Our revenue management system flexes between the rate and the occupancy, wherever it sees a better return. 2Q leans on rate, and 3Q leans towards occupancy. It's the same playbook. It's just to maximize NOI. Our strategy was very much the same in October, right? Our occupancy in October was actually up 10 basis points from the end of September at 92.2%. That doesn't happen quite often. For reference, again, higher than some of our occupancies during the busy season. Our concessions were down, as I mentioned, 25%, 30% quarter-to-date in the fourth quarter. Our move-in rates continue to be down as well, right? High single digits, low double digits.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

However, towards the end of October, we actually started to see a benefit from both move-in rates and concessions. We shifted the strategy in certain markets, namely Toronto, where our web rates today are actually higher than they were last year in the mid-single-digit range. In terms of that spread, I think we are going to start seeing some compression, but the strategy in the third quarter and into October wouldn't reflect that, right? We're just pulling different levers.

[Viktor Fediv, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Thank you.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thanks, Viktor.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Spenser Glimcher with Green Street. Spenser, please go ahead.

[Spenser Glimcher, Analyst at Green Street]

Yeah, maybe just a follow-up on some of your comments, David, a second ago around some of what you are seeing from an operational standpoint in the GTA. Just curious, has the Alberta five-pack, I mean, has that performed in line with your expectations in terms of the operations, and have there been any surprises there?

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Actually, this is Michael. It has actually exceeded our expectations. So let me just kind of step back and kind of give you kind of the overview from the Canadian operating environment. Our same-store pool in Canada consists of 13 properties. So same-store revenue in this pool was slightly positive on a constant currency basis in the third quarter, which was an acceleration from the second quarter, which was down 1%. That is a little bit bigger acceleration in the third quarter than our U.S. portfolio. Our occupancy in the GTA is 92.6%, so it is up 10 basis points year-over-year. For the full year, we do continue to expect the GTA to run modestly below the U.S. portfolio, primarily a function of tougher 2025 comps. The GTA did deliver 2.7% same-store revenue growth last year, and that was about 100 basis points ahead of the U.S.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Now, the revenue growth in our GTA portfolio has been, and we have kind of emphasized this, three times the U.S. over the past 36 months. In concert with that, our 10-property joint venture has a high occupancy of 93%, 2.8% year-over-year revenue growth. Our ECRIs within the GTA have been in the low 20s and with consistent attrition levels, and length of stay has been approximately 26 months year over year. The other aspect is kind of the question you asked was with respect to kind of the other Canadian markets other than the GTA. Our wholly owned Alberta portfolio has gained about 1,700 basis points of occupancy since we have acquired it in August of last year. In the third quarter, it posted year-over-year revenue growth of about 9.2%.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

In concert with that, if you take a look at our entire 29 owned properties within SMA, it posted revenue growth of 8.5% year over year, with occupancy of 92.3%. We continue to see strong lease-up in our recently opened managed assets in Montreal and our late-stage lease-up assets in Vancouver. Overall, the Canadian consumer remains healthy. I mean, bad debt is less than half of U.S. levels. It is about 1%, which is incredibly low. The macro uncertainty tied to tariffs has caused probably some hesitation in rental decisions in certain pocketbooks, I think, in the GTA. It is interesting, other markets like Alberta have been showing much steadier trends. I want to also emphasize that the structural demand drivers remain the same, an aging, downsizing population, the shrinking home sizes, continued urban densification.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Our GTA portfolio is truly an irreplaceable real estate, given the barriers to entry are significant, the cost to develop, development charges, and we now stand at 41 properties that are owned and managed in the GTA.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Yeah, Michael, if I can just add to that as well. In addition to the performance we have seen in the Alberta 5, which, as a reminder, was acquired at about 75% occupancy about a year ago in August, we have seen the full lease-up of that particular portfolio, which was, as Michael mentioned, above our expectations. Again, with some of our other announcements and our other transactions, we are adding to the clusters in those particular markets in Alberta, most notably in Calgary, which is going to really help with the efficiencies and economies of scale there as well. Yeah.

[Spenser Glimcher, Analyst at Green Street]

Okay. Thank you so much for that color. That's it for me.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thank you, Spenser.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Todd, please go ahead.

[Todd Thomas, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Yeah. Hi. Thanks. In terms of the investment outlook and thinking about 2027 a little bit, there has been quite a bit of volatility in the equity markets and capital markets more broadly, but just curious how you are thinking about the outlook for investments, just given the recent improvement in your cost of capital. Can you speak about whether that changes the outlook as we think about 2027, and does the composition of capital deployment change at all toward wholly owned acquisitions versus joint ventures and structured investments at the margin?

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Yeah, that is a great question. I think from an, let me discuss the acquisition environment. We continue to believe this is pretty amazing, I think, opportunity to transact in the storage market since the Great Recession. I think it has been primarily driven by a lot of developments and acquisitions that were either built on COVID numbers or bought on COVID numbers. As storage has kind of settled down and kind of bottomed and started to kind of move forward, some of these owners are kind of over their skis, and they may need to contribute additional capital to their properties for refinancing, and some of them, it is resulting in a wave of high-quality assets coming to the market. We are seeing a lot of attractive opportunities on the stabilized front, both in U.S. and Canada.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

We do think from a pricing perspective, there are some maybe properties that are probably a little high, but overall, the off-market deals have been pretty attractive, and we have kind of announced two of them recently, one in Las Vegas and one in Asheville. Look, we are not going to just chase volume or size for its own sake. I mean, everything has to be accretive on a per-share bar, and we like to emphasize that a $300 million transaction would move our market cap by 10%, and that is effectively meaningful growth for us. With respect to that kind of folds into the strategic investment that we made in Strategic Storage Canada. That investment is a prime example of kind of the opportunities that we are seeing in Canada. We have a growth-oriented acquisition joint venture which expanded our overall presence in Canada by 30%.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

It hits on three of our DECA pillars targeting joint ventures that advance clustering, acquiring operating assets at scale, third-party management, and disciplined capital allocation. This lets us deal with our Canadian platform without fully burdening our balance sheet, but it also, as James has discussed, it adds a meaningful presence in Calgary. Now we have nine stores in Calgary, and we have done that in kind of a de-risked manner. This also creates a really nice pipeline of growth in Canada, which is certainly a big target for us. Now, having said that, look, it is great to see that our recent stock performance for SmartStop Self Storage in the sector. We think it reflects the momentum that we are seeing in our business. Our balance sheet is in a good place.

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

We continue to stay disciplined in how we allocate capital. As we have done today, we will evaluate the right source of capital against the opportunities that we see to create long-term value for our shareholders.

[Todd Thomas, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Okay. That is helpful. Shifting over to operating expenses, down again this year, roughly 2% lower year to date. How should we think about the expense backdrop heading into 2027? I guess, how much of this year's improvement is structural or sustainable, or should we expect some normalization in expense growth next year against tougher comps?

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Todd, thanks. It is certainly the pertinent question based on the expense decrease that we saw in the third quarter, which we are very pleased with. Again, just as we mentioned in our opening remarks, it is the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin expansion for us, and it widened. It actually got larger sequentially from the second quarter. This is the highest third quarter operating margin we have had since 2023. We think a big portion of that is structural. As we mentioned, over our lifetime as a public company, in MSAs where we have 10 or more properties, we see roughly 300 basis points of margin improvement. That really, we saw more of those markets fall into that category once we had the SmartStop 3PM platform. It hits more of those markets, most notably Denver.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Markets like Miami, Denver, Chicago, we are seeing 250 to 300 basis points year-over-year margin expansion on a year-to-date basis. Some of the expense print that we have seen thus far this quarter and the year to date is cyclical. We had stronger property insurance renewals in terms of a softer property insurance market. We have seen some property tax benefits as well. The things like payroll efficiencies are real and are going to continue to benefit us as we move forward and continue the clustering through, whether it be acquisitions, joint ventures, third-party management. All of the above really help with that story. Just to echo again, as we mentioned on one of the previous questions, that is another part of that strategic asset management program. By migrating away from non-core markets, we are going to continue to reinforce those efficiencies.

[Todd Thomas, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Okay. Thank you.

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thanks, Todd.

[Operator]

Your last question comes from the line of Michael Mueller with JPMorgan. Michael, please go ahead.

[Michael Mueller, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thanks. Out of curiosity, do you have any expectations about the broader Canadian operating environment changing really in any way once PSA takes over operations of the portfolio that it bought?

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

A great question. To date, we have not experienced any notable difference in the operating environment thus far. It is hard to say. As I said on previous calls, I think the good news is, we compete with a lot of larger operators and regional operators and smaller operators on a daily basis in the U.S. and markets like Las Vegas and some other markets that have a lot of exposure from companies like that. We feel pretty comfortable that we will be able to compete at a pretty high level.

[Michael Mueller, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Got it. Okay. Maybe just one other quick one. When you look at the relatively muted move-outs compared to your move-in volumes, is that dynamic in the GTA similar to what you are seeing more broadly in the U.S.?

[James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Yeah. This is James. I will just jump in and say, we are seeing more limited vacates overall and more muted. I think we saw elevated vacates through most of 2025. What has been notable is, in terms of our ECRI strategy, which has been consistent, right, over the course of this year, both in the U.S. and in Canada, we have really not seen any sort of a material change in customer attrition as it relates to ECRIs. That even accounts for L.A. County. As those ECRI restrictions faded at the end of the second quarter, we actually saw less attrition than we expected, in that those customers stayed longer. We are seeing it in our overall customer length of stay is lengthening over the course of 2026. That is both in the U.S. and in Canada.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Yeah, and just to give you some numbers, Mike, our move-outs were actually down year-over-year in our GTA portfolio.

[Michael Mueller, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

[David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thanks, Mike.

[Operator]

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

[H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at SmartStop Self Storage]

Thank you, operator, and thanks for your time and interest in SmartStop Self Storage, the smarter way to store. I'd also like to thank our SmartStop team members in 41 states and provinces across North America. Have a great day.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• H. Michael Schwartz, Founder, Chairman, and CEO

Analysts

• David Corak, SVP of Corporate Finance and Strategy at SmartStop Self Storage
• James Barry, CFO at SmartStop Self Storage
• Viktor Fediv, Analyst at Scotiabank
• Spenser Glimcher, Analyst at Green Street
• Todd Thomas, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Michael Mueller, Analyst at JPMorgan