lthough I’ve spoken with Scott Humphreys many times, he still prefaces the conversation with this: “I’m just a small business owner that’s in the trenches every day. I’m not as exciting as the storage company CEOs that you’re often interviewing.”

Humphreys is being humble. As president of Canadian Self Storage Valuation Services and principal partner of its sister company, D.R. Coell & Associates, he definitely deserves a spot here, and as he demonstrated in our “Self-Storage Outlook” last year, he knows the industry inside and out. “Well, maybe this will help the big guys understand where some of the littler guys are coming from,” he says.

Humphreys grew up in what he describes as a “hardworking, middle-class family.” His father was in construction and his mother was an appraiser. So, it’s not surprising that his path would be similar. “I knew that real estate was something that I wanted to get into, but I took my time getting here,” says Humphreys. “I spent about five years in my 20s in Cabo San Lucas, just enjoying life and selling condos. Once that was out of my system, I came back to Canada, earned a number of degrees, including the Bachelor of Commerce and the Appraisal Institute of Canada’s AACI designation.”

Humphreys recalls being in a finance class when the markets were crashing during the 2008 financial crisis, and Bear Sterns, facing major liquidity hurdles, went out of business. “The whole class was looking at their phones, watching it happen in real time,” he says. “I remember thinking, ‘This is going to be an exciting graduation career.’”

Once he was armed with credentials, Humphreys was quickly snatched up by Colliers. “It was the No. 1 commercial brokerage at the time, with a valuation department handling all of Canada.”

Within a few years, Humphreys was the director of valuation, leading his own team focused on valuing shopping centers, office buildings, and development land. He spent much of his time assisting developer and investor clients, meeting legal teams, and working with municipal, regional, provincial, and federal governments. “I was doing all types of appraisals, including expropriation and litigation.”

Although Humphreys relished the role he had, he’d been longing to own his own business, and soon enough an opportunity arose. D.R. Coell & Associates, a well-established CRE valuation firm with 15 appraisers, was looking to sell as the partners were preparing for retirement. He didn’t hesitate. “I left Colliers in 2013 and I bought out all three partners in D.R. Coell.”

From there, Humphreys focused on growing the business. “I like the appraisal work, but I really love building teams. We had a lot of appraisers retiring, so I began finding new ones. That core team is still in place today, and they’ve all bought their own homes and investment properties, and it’s great knowing I helped play a part in that. We’re like a family now.”

There are two people he brought onboard who had a very unique impact. One was Candace Watson, owner of Canadian Self Storage Valuation Services. “Candace had been the No. 1 storage appraiser and was a big part of the Canadian Self Storage Association. I knew I wanted her on our team.”

Humphreys brokered a deal with her, acquiring her company in 2014. “She came on and trained up my whole staff at D.R. Coell, and I began learning a lot about self-storage. The business was still relatively small, but I could see it had a lot of legs.”

The other was Mishelle Martin, who would eventually become not just his business partner in 2014 but his life partner (the two married in 2020). “Mishelle has an extensive real estate background in appraisal and owns hotels and other types of investment properties with her family, so we just started building our new appraisal team, assembling development sites, and buying up industrial and office buildings that were undervalued.”

Canadian Self Storage Valuation Services (CSSVS) began to take off in 2017, when the firm started to get bombarded with calls inquiring about the viability of potential self-storage sites. “Most feasibility studies we were doing at that time were positive in terms of latent residual demand; we all recognized that the fundamentals of storage were very strong,” he says. “It’s a great asset class compared to some others, so we started to branch out and do feasibility studies more frequently across the country, and then those started turning into appraisals for construction financing. We would then do another appraisal when the construction financing was converted to a conventional mortgage. Quite often we are also asked to help facilitate the sale of the property upon completion, so we have been quite successful in that regard as well.”

Things remained hot through the pandemic and immediately after, but following the COVID boom, self-storage began cooling off a bit, a natural “return to mean.” Humphreys can’t say for certain when things might pick up, but he believes it’s going to be heavily tied to the residential real estate market and overall economy in general.

“We’ve gotten our asses kicked on real estate, and it’s due to a variety of things,” Humphreys says. “Interest rates obviously are a big one, you have the Bank of Canada, which has assumed that we have had this balanced economy, when in fact it’s not—we don’t even have a budget out yet. So, they’ve kept that rate high, assuming things were good, and they are not.”

Humphreys acknowledges that there has been some easing up on the interest rates, noting a recent rate cut. He also says other financial experts he speaks with expect more cuts in the future, which will ease the pressure on the residential side. Despite that, he feels the pathway to a new home for buyers will remain a challenge, especially because salaries haven’t been keeping up with the cost of real estate.

Additionally, per Humphreys, large construction companies are laying off hundreds of workers and developers aren’t moving forward with many projects as construction and land costs are too high. “The taxes, and development cost charges from the municipalities, as well as the never-ending green building step code additions, are making it impossible for projects to pencil.”

That’s why many multifamily developers decide to pivot to self-storage. They recognize that they’re building multifamily buildings at $400 to $500 per buildable foot, versus self-storage at $200 to $250. “In the last two years, we’ve had major multifamily developers going, ‘Damn, we’re not building any more units; we’ve got to get into an alternative asset class,’” Humphreys says. “They think that’s cheap, but it’s way more than it used to be. I remember when Class A was $150 per buildable foot. So, there’s been a massive increase in costs on the storage side as well.”

Humphreys then imagines the worst-case scenario for a developer looking at these types of numbers: Another facility moves into the market. What’s going to happen? “The occupancy is going to go down on every facility in the trade area, and your absorption period is going to get extended out longer. Your break-even point’s pushed out to year three or four … That makes it impossible to get a respectable internal rate of return for your investors.”

Although significant supply has been added over the last few years, and some storage facilities are struggling to reach stabilized occupancy, Humphreys wants to make it clear that it’s not all negative. “It’s just the perfect shitstorm,” he says unapologetically. “Occupancies are down, the economy sucks, the residential real estate market’s in the dumps, and a whole lot of supply was added by the COVID boom. But it will turn around. The fundamentals of storage are and will remain strong. It will just take some time.”

One issue that’s beginning to impact self-storage in some primary and secondary markets is the notion that storage doesn’t benefit the community. Humphreys says that a number of municipalities simply will not allow more storage, often citing that it doesn’t employ enough people. “I would guess about 50 percent of the municipalities have said no to new development,” he says. “They’ll require that a developer apply for a site-specific zoning and not support it, or just say that storage is not a permitted use anymore. They don’t understand how you can have a 100,000 square foot building and only employ three people. To them, it doesn’t benefit the local economy.”

Humphreys has helped numerous developers push back by explaining that in some cases, especially in urban centers, self-storage is over 50 percent business use, such as a wine-making facility that needs to store products or a bakery business that needs to store supplies.

“With that stuff out of the way, now they have more room to hire people on the warehouse floor. So, in its own way, self-storage does add more employment to the area.”

Self-storage can also keep some businesses afloat that otherwise would drown under the cost of building or renting more office space. “Maybe it’s a startup or an e-comm business that can’t afford office space, but they can afford storage space. So again, it’s helpful for growing companies in that way.”

Other businesses can be hurt by geographical constraints. “You can’t just create more industrial land. What’s there is there, and if it’s fully occupied, what are you going to do? Well, move the warehouse or trucking facility or whatever into a tertiary or rural market. Now it’s costing them way more in fuel and maintenance back and forth, which doesn’t make sense. The easy fix is to have a nice big storage unit in a storage facility that’s right in town and it solves all the problems. They don’t see that.”

If a developer is getting flak from a municipality, they always have an open door for clients and new businesses that need sales comparables, details on comps, lease comps, land comps, or market intel, Humphreys says. Anything to help them get their project approved. “It’s great when we can present the case that a market is clamoring for self-storage and watch them try to explain why they’re going to deny what their constituents want.”

I tread lightly when the conversation turns to politics. There has been a lot of changes in a short period of time, both in Canada and the United States. Carney replaced Trudeau, and Trump was re-elected following Biden’s four-year stint. Humphreys isn’t afraid to speak his mind when it comes to either politician or their policies.

“I didn’t vote for him, but Carney has been saying the right things—that we’re going to make Canada strong again, break down provincial barriers, and begin a new housing program backed with billions of dollars,” he says, noting that while the new administration is tougher on immigration than the previous one, he expects it’ll pick up again. “Nothing has come to fruition yet, but I’m hoping it will.”

When it comes to Canadian-U.S. relations, Humphreys believes Carney has the responsibility to represent all Canadians and push back against the U.S. and its tariffs to an extent, but also that the U.S. deserves to be able to stand up for itself a little better in these negotiations, especially with a self-proclaimed master negotiator at the helm. “I feel like [Canada] needs to give a little to get a little. That’ll help get the two countries back together. If we don’t, it’s like ‘You think things are bad now? Just wait.’”

Humphreys feels particularly bad for all small and medium-sized businesses. “I mean, they’re just absolutely screwed. Costs are way up. Prices and fees aren’t going anywhere. There’s less cash in people’s pockets, so they’re not moving, and many can work from home these days, so they don’t have to move. How are these businesses going to survive?”

Ultimately, Humphreys hopes that the U.S. and Canada can find a way to work things out better. “Together our countries are a powerhouse, and it feels like we’re at a pivotal point,” he says. “We just have to make this work for both countries.”

Though he has many years ahead of him in his career, I ask what he feels is his greatest accomplishment so far. After all, he’s earned degrees, bought companies, built teams, developed properties, and helped countless developers and investors along the way. He doesn’t hesitate when answering: “Hiring my future wife, Mishelle.”

Humphreys and Martin were simply business partners for years, but eventually that relationship evolved. “It’s so cliché, but we got together on Valentine’s Day,” he says, remembering the concern they each had about owning companies with employees together and being more than just business partners. “We were like, ‘Isn’t this a little taboo?’”

With that in mind, they spoke to their lawyer, who just chuckled. He told the couple that on paper, the duo was already basically married, with a 50/50 split on everything across the board. “That put us at ease, and so a little while later, we tied the knot, and we now have two beautiful daughters, Cali Rose and Laci June.”

Humphreys thinks for a moment and then smiles. “That would be our greatest accomplishment.”