The De Jong Self Storage Team at Colliers has launched a dedicated buy-side representation service for investors acquiring self storage assets, expanding the team's long-standing listing and advisory work. The move matters because it addresses a persistent inefficiency in the self storage market: buyers often go unrepresented and see only what is actively marketed, while listings are scattered across LoopNet, Crexi, List Self Storage, individual broker websites, and dozens of other sources.
Led by Executive Vice President and Founding Principal Tom de Jong, SIOR, the team says about half of its transactions this year have represented buyers rather than sellers. That shift reflects growing demand for acquisition support in a sector where buyers frequently underwrite deals using numbers built by sellers. The new service is designed to give buyers a more complete view of available opportunities and independent analysis before they commit capital.
The team has brought on Colin Phelan, who spent the past 10 years at a family office acquiring self storage properties, where he was directly involved in underwriting, financial analysis, and acquisitions. Phelan and Dylan de Jong are building systems that compile available self storage listings from across the market and categorize them by market, price, and other criteria. The team is currently tracking 453 active listings.
According to de Jong, the ability to quickly surface relevant opportunities is a core benefit. "If a buyer calls and says, 'I'm looking to get into the self storage space, and I'd like to spend up to $5 million,' we can send them 50-plus listings right away," he said. "Depending on the requirement, that could be anywhere from 20 to 100 opportunities." The team pools listings in one place, pre-screens each opportunity, runs a quick analysis and underwriting, and recommends which properties fit the buyer's buy box.
The service covers deal sourcing, operator-level underwriting, and support through closing, including debt and equity coordination and post-close operational setup. De Jong described the offering as an outsourced acquisitions function. "We're focused on building tools that help buyers be much more efficient," he said. "There are a hundred different places you can go to find listings. We pool all of that based on our years of experience, so buyers see the full universe of what's available. Then we do the screening, so they don't have to go through each listing to find the good and the bad."
The implications extend beyond convenience. By pre-screening and underwriting listings against each buyer's criteria, the service could help investors avoid overpaying for assets based on seller-generated projections and make more informed decisions in a competitive market. The De Jong Self Storage Team at Colliers provides full-lifecycle brokerage and advisory for self storage owners, developers, and investors nationwide, from site selection and development through stabilized asset sales and buy-side representation. Led by Tom de Jong alongside his son Dylan de Jong and Colin Phelan, the team has closed more than $2 billion in self-storage transactions across 32 states.
