A storage centre is not a shed with partitions in it. It is a business housed in a building — and a report that prices the building while ignoring the business is unusable.
1. An emerging market in Morocco: the context
Self-storage has developed wherever three factors combine: compact urban housing, sustained residential mobility — relocations, expatriation, inheritances — and a fabric of small businesses and online tradersthat need modest, flexible storage without committing to a warehouse. Those conditions are taking shape in Morocco's major conurbations, Casablanca foremost among them, and the first purpose-built centres have appeared there.
For the valuer, an emerging market means one thing above all: very few comparable transactions. Nobody can seriously produce an observed “price per square metre of self-storage” in Morocco. Direct comparison, already fragile on specialist assets, is simply inoperative here: the method has to rest on the real income of the operation and on robust consistency checks.
2. Why it is not a warehouse
- Hundreds of micro-lettings instead of one lease — where a warehouse is let as a whole to a single logistics operator, a storage centre markets dozens or hundreds of units of a few square metres each, with permanent customer turnover. The letting risk is granular rather than concentrated.
- A structurally higher income per let square metre — a square metre of storage unit lets for considerably more than a square metre of plain warehouse, in exchange for an intense management effort: reception, marketing, security, arrears and collection.
- A decisive lettable-to-built area ratio — circulation, goods lifts and plant areas reduce the space that can actually be billed. Two identical buildings can carry very different income potential depending on the quality of the partitioning plan.
- A unit mix that is actively managed — the split between small and large units drives both income per square metre and occupancy: it is an operating parameter, not a property datum.
- Brand and visibility matter — access, signage, local recognition and digital presence feed occupancy. Part of the value belongs to the operation, not to the bricks.
The comparison with an ordinary industrial shed is instructive precisely because it fails. Our Mohammedia warehouse case study shows how a conventional logistics building is appraised on a lease and a cost base; self-storage shares the envelope and almost nothing else.
3. The RICS methodological framework
The instruction is framed under VPS 3 of the Red Book — terms of engagement: purpose, basis of value, valuation date, assumptions. On substance, self-storage belongs to the trading property (VPGA 4) family: value depends on the trade carried on in the building, as it does for a hotel or a petrol station. In practice:
- Primary approach: income — from unit rents actually collected, observed occupancy and the operating cost base, the valuer establishes a normalised net income and, from it, the value of the asset in operation. On a centre still filling up, an explicit multi-year cash flow is preferable to a frozen capitalisation.
- Cross-check by depreciated replacement cost (VPGA 5) — the cost of rebuilding the shell and the asset-specific fit-out (partitioning, access control, CCTV, goods lifts), less depreciation. The method is set out in our guide to the DRC and DCF methodology for industrial assets. In a market without comparables, that floor is precious.
- Alternative use test — what would the building be worth converted to a plain warehouse or light-industrial premises, or cleared for its land? If the value in operation does not clearly exceed that alternative value, the self-storage project has not yet created any goodwill — decisive information for a purchaser.
4. The inputs to gather before the instruction
- Trading — the tariff grid by unit size, monthly history of physical and economic occupancy since opening, average length of stay, churn, commercial discounts granted, arrears.
- Areas — built area, net lettable area, partitioning plan, unit mix, land held in reserve for extension.
- Costs — staff, security and remote monitoring, energy, marketing and customer acquisition, insurance, maintenance, recurring outgoings.
- Property and legal — land title, planning conformity of the use, operating authorisations, fire compliance, and any lease or agreement where the property and the operation are held separately.
- Local market — the catchment (self-storage recruits within a short radius), existing competition and announced schemes, the profile of demand between households, small businesses and e-commerce.
Physical occupancy is not economic occupancy
A unit occupied on an introductory tariff, or occupied by a customer in arrears, is full on the floor plan and empty in the accounts. The only figure that can be capitalised is the income actually collected — which is why the valuer reconciles the occupancy report with the receipts ledger rather than taking either at face value.
5. The traps specific to Moroccan self-storage
- Capitalising a stabilised occupancy that does not yet exist — most Moroccan centres are still filling up. Treating the business plan's target occupancy as an accomplished fact means paying today for a trade that has yet to be built. The valuer separates the value at the valuation date from the trajectory, in explicit assumptions and in sensitivity.
- Confusing physical and economic occupancy — units let at promotional rates, or carrying arrears, do not generate the income the tariff grid displays.
- Ignoring the lettable area ratio — reasoning on built area mechanically overstates income potential.
- Importing foreign benchmarks without adjustment — occupancy levels, rents and multiples observed in mature European markets do not transpose to a nascent Moroccan one. They may inform a line of reasoning; they can never replace it.
- Overlooking regulatory and insurance risk — storing third-party goods, fire safety, the responsibilities of a bailee: compliance conditions the continuity of the trade, and therefore the value.
6. What the report is for
A valuation prepared to RICS standards on a self-storage centre serves concrete decisions: sale or acquisition of the facility, with the property and the trade broken out; funding, where the lender wants a DRC floor and sensitivities on occupancy; contribution to a company or the entry of an investor; and the arbitrage between continuing to trade and converting the building. Our reports are prepared by RICS-certified expertsand comply with Red Book standards. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation; it sets out its assumptions instead of hiding them.
Self-storage is a specialist instruction, quoted case by case according to the size of the centre, the trading documentation available and the purpose. For reference, our valuations start at 3,500 MAD excl. tax for standard assets, with a firm quote within 24 hours and delivery in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service. ReaConsult has been operating since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews.
Selling, funding or launching a self-storage centre? Have the trade and the building valued separately, with a DRC floor and sensitivities on occupancy.
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Note:this article sets out a valuation methodology compliant with RICS standards (Red Book, VPS 3, VPGA 4 trading property and VPGA 5 depreciated replacement cost). Planning conformity, operating authorisations and insurance obligations are governed by the regulations in force and by contract — confirm your own position with the competent authorities and your advisers. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation. To instruct us, see our contact page or the property blog.