Dave King, the managing director, is a great source of information on how Wentworth’s self-storage division has become extraordinarily successful, and he’s happy to provide a blueprint of how they’ve accomplished it. There are many elements, but it all boils down to soaking up everything about an industry—no matter how mundane it may seem at first. This is a key element to truly becoming an expert in your field and rising to the top, along with the undeniable value of having a strong, committed, and talented team.

King has always been interested in self-storage, even as a child. “Growing up, my family always had a self-storage unit,” he says. “Spending time at storage facilities as a kid made me wonder why people would store stuff instead of getting rid of it. This included my own family. We’d store holiday decorations, toys, and all sorts of miscellaneous things; and even though the size of our unit would grow, we never thought to get rid of anything.”

Fast forward to becoming an adult and starting his career as a general recruiter in Scottsdale, Ariz. As serendipity would have it, one day an opportunity to work in self-storage for a technology company came across his desk. “It was a company that built self-service kiosks for storage facilities called OpenTech Alliance. Since I was already interested in that industry, I interviewed for the job,” says King, who was hired as development manager for the Western U.S.

This would be the beginning of a long career in self-storage that went well beyond his initial interest as a child. “I spent five years working for that company, learning the business, going to trade shows, working with developers and operators. I was soaking up everything I could learn from everyone I met.”

As he networked with other self-storage professionals, King ended up reaching out to one of his clients, Westport Properties, which had approximately 55 storage facilities across the country under the US Storage Centers brand at the time. Around 2010, he was given an opportunity to join Westport Properties as vice president of business development.

During his time at Westport, King focused on growing their third-party management division and their co-op, the Storage Network Advantage (SNA). The third-party management and the SNA provided economies of scale. “In order to compete with large operators, we all needed access to better pricing when it came to items like cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, locks, packing tape, etc. We were banding together to get better pricing.” Contacting independent storage owners with these offerings led to growth and success for both divisions. This success would lead to King’s next step: storage acquisitions and development.

In 2012, his focus became the acquisition of existing storage facilities and locating land sites to develop. After thriving in his roles at Westport, as luck would have it, James and Jim Wentworth, founders of Wentworth Property Company, along with Tim Chester, one of King’s oldest friends, approached him for some advice on a complicated real estate deal they had in Scottsdale. Over the next couple of months, through the evaluation of the site, it became obvious that self-storage was the best use. One thing led to another, and King was hired by Wentworth Property Company. Then, in 2015, Wentworth Storage Company was formed.

Historically, whenever anyone wanted to invest in self-storage, basic research of demographics and supply and demand in any given area would suffice. “We used to be able to identify the best kind of deals by looking at the existing supply and demand and average household income,” says King. “Now there’s a lot more competition, and clients’ preferences vary greatly from one geographical location to another, so we’ve had to change the parameters around potential deals.”

In today’s world, there are more factors that go into site selection. The cost of housing and types of housing play a key role. What makes for a successful site in one part of the country can differ greatly from another part of the country.

They really pay attention to not only fulfilling demand but what type of demand. “More than ever before, our focus is building the right product for the market,” he says. “We also look for those trends that would cause longer or shorter stays.”

In some areas, it may make sense to build a multistory, climate-controlled facility, while in other areas drive-up storage is preferred. A common mistake is building multilevel products where drive-up products should go. Understanding the needs of your potential tenant is key. This type of thorough analysis is the difference between selecting or building a bad storage site or one that rents up quickly at good rates.

King also points out that market conditions are constantly changing. Rising interest rates, costs of construction, and fluctuating rents all play a factor, so Wentworth is always proactive to stay on top of everything. “Our team is regularly having conversations with industry leaders,” he says. “For example, bankers, brokers, institutional equity, and vendors all provide insights into the ever-evolving marketplace.”

There has been a lot of consolidation over the past 20 years in the self-storage business. In addition, there is a lot more competition. “Our opportunity to compete and buy value-add projects and land is getting more and more difficult,” says King. “There’s still business out there, but we must fight harder for it.”

Yet, despite all these challenges, Wentworth Storage Company still stands out thanks to their strong team and their ability to lean on their history of success, which King credits in part to their transparency when competing for opportunities. “Our track record and reputation mean everything to us,” he adds.

The increased competition in recent years has also impacted the way they conduct lease-up projections for the facilities in their portfolios. “When I first started in the business, we used to project a 36-month lease-up period for new deals,” says King. “But with as much need as there is for storage now, this number has decreased.” However, they’d rather err on the side of caution. “We hire third-party managers, and although we run our own projections, we also get theirs, then see how they match up. If their projections are longer, we go with theirs. We’d rather under promise and overdeliver when it comes to our investors and our partners.”

Wentworth Storage Company has found the perfect niche for their talents. They add value by physically improving existing properties or developing properties in markets with high barriers to entry and packaging them for sale to those who don’t want to do the heavy lifting. “It’s a great deal for both sides,” says King.

He’s also extremely proud of what Wentworth Storage has accomplished in less than a decade. “In total, we’ve purchased and built over $900 million in self-storage facilities. If you include dispositions, it’s $1.4 billion. We’ll acquire and put portfolios together, improve them (by capital expenditures like asphalt, security, new roofs, new doors, and painting), and then we hand them off to someone who just wants the cash flow of those properties. We’re proud of our track record. We miss out on deals very infrequently. We know what we like, and we’re good at finding it.”

Wentworth’s team members also pride themselves on being scrappy. They network a lot and have phone calls with anyone who will listen. They underwrite a hundred deals a month. “It’s been an amazing metamorphosis of this business,” says Dave. “And every time I think it will slow down, we find something else to do.”

For example, they took a break from purchasing facilities 14 months ago, when deals weren’t making financial sense. However, during that period, they acquired land, as well as zoning and permitting, while the market has been soft in terms of development. Now that the market is slowly but surely coming back, they’re starting to develop more properties.

Even when the waiting periods between doing one thing and the next may make it seem like they have downtime on the horizon, they’re still hard at work. “We’re always striving to improve our processes,” says King. “We like to educate ourselves on what’s to come. We look at past mistakes to improve on those. We never really sit around doing nothing. Although we base our success on buying and selling real estate, we’ve used this time frame to make ourselves better.”

Their business partners agree. “When I think of them, I think of sharp shooters—very sophisticated when it comes to uncovering different acquisition opportunities,” says Josh McArtor, managing director of Eastdil Secured, a global real estate investment bank based in New York City and Santa Monica, Calif. “They have a very sophisticated database to identify what areas of town they want to invest in, develop in, redevelop in. So, a lot of times, when I get calls from different sellers who are considering several companies to do business with, it’s very easy for me to recommend Wentworth Property wholeheartedly.” He adds that whether it’s unrented space or vacant products, King just loves the entire process. “He loves the art of the deal and the chase of finding a good investment.”

John Smeck, a Phoenix-based senior vice president of debt and equity advisory for Colliers International Mortgage Advisory, agrees. “We’ve done a lot of business with Wentworth and hope to do a lot more,” he states. “They have a great reputation, and our experience with them has been excellent. They have a very talented, hard-working team of people that are not just highly competent but just good solid individuals that are great to work with.”

Colliers has been working with Wentworth as broker and client since early 2021, and Smeck describes King as “one of those rare individuals who just really enjoys hard work and competition” and has “accomplished a lot in the self-storage sector. They want a win-win strategy that all parties look at each other and shake hands and say, ‘That was a good transaction for all of us.’ They believe the proper way to do business is to participate in transactions that are good for both sides.”

As any top-performing business can attest to, a good company culture is instrumental in achieving sustainable success. And at Wentworth, they are mindful of how to keep their team motivated.

“Overall, we’re pretty slow to hire,” says King. “We strive to focus on acquiring and retaining the right people.” Matching the right skill sets to each specific job role is a point of pride for Wentworth Property Company. “We identify their highest and best uses and try to keep them in that role, while at the same time giving them a lot of freedom to grow within what they already love to do.”

The company’s core ethics match those of his two most influential mentors: his father, who always taught him to keep people’s best interests at heart, and his first boss in self-storage acquisition, the late Barry Hoeven. “He stressed the importance of treating people well.”

There are many things that King loves about the self-storage business. First and foremost, it’s the people. “I love the people in self-storage,” he says. “This has always been my favorite. I’m friends with a lot of people I compete against. We share a lot of information. If I’m looking to buy something, I can reach out and tell them what I’m thinking of purchasing and ask them how business has gone for them there.”

He’s also quick to point out that the self-storage community as a whole is very down to earth. “Some guy who’s a millionaire will walk around wearing flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt. These are nice, generous, smart, and hardworking people. That’s a great part of our industry.”

Then there’s also the fact that it appeals to so many different people. “When I look back at my career in self-storage, it’s pretty diverse,” he explains. “I know about tech, automation, management, purchasing, and development; and at Wentworth, we have a team of really good investors and equity partners.”

King also points out that it’s worked well for him, even though he wasn’t particularly a good student when he was younger. “But I’ve always been good at networking, getting to know people, earning their trust, and showing them that my intentions are always good,” he says. “That’s something I learned from my dad—to always keep people’s best interest at heart and communicate well; and all of it has led to my success in this business, which has been unexpected and phenomenal.”

He also calls it the blue-collar millionaire business. “Really good people are always willing to share good information. We have so many like-minded peers who want the same things that I want: success in acquiring and building, as well as selling properties in portfolios.”

Finally, he loves that Wentworth encompasses all that is good about the industry: becoming successful while watching out for others as well. “A lot of people live off the income of these investment properties, which is not our strategy. We obviously want each individual property to be successful, but it is more about accumulating portfolios with an opportunistic approach. Sometimes we decide to sell and sometimes we decide to hold. It’s a big picture thing for us.”