Americans own more large vehicles than the country has room to store. Roughly 25 million U.S. households own an RV, boat, trailer, or specialty vehicle too big for a garage or driveway, per StorTrack. Fewer than 5,000 facilities exist to store them properly. Three forces now line up in favor of anyone building the right kind of space. Demand keeps growing. New supply is slowing. Rents are setting records, led by the units built for boats and RVs. Here is what the data shows.

Demand rests on the fleet already parked

Ownership drives this market more than new sales. About 8 million households own an RV. Another 16.9 million plan to buy one within five years, per RVIA data cited by StorTrack. Add boats, trailers, and work trucks, and the count needing off-site space reaches roughly 25 million households.

New production cooled in 2026. RVIA cut its 2026 shipment forecast to a median near 314,000 units, and monthly shipments ran lower year over year through the spring. New powerboat sales fell about 9 percent in 2024 and stayed soft through 2025. None of this shrinks the fleet already on the road. Around 11 million registered boats sit in use today. Millions of RVs are on the roads. A slow sales year does not empty a single storage lot.

Regulation keeps feeding demand. HOAs and cities keep tightening rules on parking RVs, boats, and trailers at home. As lots shrink and density rises, off-site storage moves from a want to a requirement.

New supply is pulling back - creating opportunity

Construction has slowed since its 2022 to 2024 peak. Yardi Matrix tracked acres under construction at 2.3 percent of inventory in September 2025, down from 3.3 percent a year earlier and a peak of 4 percent in October 2023. Trailing 12-month deliveries fell to 3.8 percent of inventory, down from 5.3 percent.

Only 51 dedicated properties sat under construction nation wide in late 2025. Half of the top 30 markets had no new RV and boat storage being built at all. StorTrack counts more than 200 projects in its pipeline, yet supply still trails an ownership base of 25 million households by a wide margin.

Investment stayed active even as building slowed. Yardi logged 55 property sales in 2025, near the 57 in 2024, at over $570,000 per acre. Sales volume reached $256 million, well above the $164 million in 2024. Capital still wants the asset. Fewer operators are adding to supply. The ones who move now face less new competition in lease-up.

Rents hit record highs, led by protected space

Pricing tells the clearest story. Yardi Matrix reported annualized parking rents at $6.38 per square foot in September 2025, up 4.4 percent year over year. The strongest annual rent growth since Yardi began tracking parking. Rents bottomed at $6.06 in October 2024, then rose for eight straight months to an all-time high near $6.49 in June 2025.

Growth ran broad. All 30 top markets posted positive parking rent growth. Smaller units for personal vehicles and small boats led at 5.6 percent, while medium and large units suited to RVs rose 1.5 and 1.1 percent.

Enclosure drives the bigger premium. StorTrack shows enclosed units earning roughly two to three times the rate of open outdoor parking. Owners store assets worth six figures. Luxury motorhomes, high-end boats, and collector cars need weather protection and security, and owners pay for both.

Set this against the wider market. General self-storage rent growth stalled heading into 2026, with national advertised rates slipping slightly year over year as REITs pulled back. Dedicated RV and boat parking moved the other way and set new highs.

Where the rent growth is

Location decides the return. The strongest rent growth in 2025 landed in markets with high barriers and little new supply. Los Angeles rose 12.8 percent. New York and Connecticut rose 11.4 percent. Charleston rose 11.4 percent. Grand Rapids rose 10.6 percent. Chicago rose 7.7 percent. Los Angeles, Charleston, New York, Grand Rapids, and Detroit saw no new deliveries in three years.

Oversupplied Sun Belt metros told the opposite story. San Antonio grew 0 percent. Houston grew 0.5 percent. Jacksonville, the Southwest Florida Coast, and Dallas all trailed. Across those markets, trailing 36-month supply ran near 19.7 percent of inventory, well above the 13 percent national figure. The lesson for site selection is direct. Chase demand in markets starved of supply over markets that are already saturated.

Build for the highest-paying units

Enclosed, secure, Class A space earns the premium. Design for the vehicles filling those units. Wide drive aisles. Tall clearances for motorhomes and fifth wheels. XL units above 541 square feet. Reliable access on every opening.

A boat and RV facility lives on large openings, some 14 feet wide or more. Those doors can face heavy daily use and constant weather threats. Slow door lead times delay your certificate of occupancy and push back the first rent check. Fast, dependable large doors keep the schedule intact and the units earning.

The window favors builders right now. Supply is slowing, rents are setting records, and the most protected units hold the most pricing power. Build enclosed, build secure, and build in markets where demand outruns supply.

SteelBlue builds the large roll-up doors these facilities depend on, with lead times of four to six weeks. Reach out to talk through the openings on your next project.

Sources

Yardi Matrix, National RV & Boat Storage Report, Fall 2025. Parking rent trends, unit-size rent growth, construction activity, property sales, and market-level rent performance.

Yardi Matrix, National Self-Storage Report, February 2026. General self-storage rent trends heading into 2026.

StorTrack, Vehicle, RV & Boat Storage market data, February 2026. Ownership base, purpose-built facility counts, enclosure pricing, and development pipeline.

RV Industry Association (RVIA). RV shipment forecastsand RV ownership research, 2025 to 2026.

National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA). U.S.recreational boating and new powerboat sales data, 2024 to 2025.

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