NAICS 5311Industry group · 4-digitlocal market3 market records

Lessors of real estate

SoftwareSelf-Storage Management Software 531130

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in renting and leasing real estate properties. These establishments may operate (rent, lease, administer and maintain) their properties on own account, or they may subcontract the operation to a third party. This industry group also includes establishments that lease real estate from others, and sublease it to others. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 30,224
Under 10 employeesA: 92%
Establishments · USA: 136,410
Employment · USA: 600,728
Payroll · USA: $36.4B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–424,57281%

5–93,22911%

10–191,4135%

20–496912%

50–991911%

100–199720%

200–499420%

500+140%

Of 30,224 Canadian establishments with employees, 92% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario11,25937%

Quebec6,14520%

British Columbia5,62719%

Alberta3,31511%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Real Estate and Rental and Leasing, US · opened 2020

88.7%

1 year

70.3%

3 years

57.9%

5 years

45%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 531, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 531 Real estate

Owning is a capital business. Managing and brokering are service businesses with low capital — and low barriers, which is why they are crowded.

Who sets the price: Local rents, cap rates and interest rates.
The software it runs on: Property management and accounting, transaction management, listing platforms.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessFull studyfiled at 531112

Affordable & Social Housing DevelopmentWait

Canada has committed unprecedented capital to non-market housing and handed the application process to a sector that cannot use it: roughly half of all community housing units sit with several thousand providers holding fewer than 100 units each, and almost none of them employ a developer. The enterable business is the missing capability, not the building — but the federal window that paid providers to buy that capability closed on 2 February 2026, and until a successor opens, the buyer has the need and not the budget.

NAICS 5311123 sourced figuresOpen →

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 531130

Self-Storage Development & AcquisitionOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

The asset class has stopped compounding organically at the top, which is the number a new entrant should look at before a cap rate. Public Storage's same-store revenue was flat in 2025 — $3,765M against $3,764M — and same-store NOI fell 0.5% after falling 1.7% the year before. StorageVault's headline 10% growth is acquisition-driven; its same-store line was 4.1%. Buying at pricing that still assumes rent growth, against operators with national marketing spend and revenue-management systems, means paying for compounding that is not currently happening.

NAICS 5311303 vendors named8 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 531130

Self-Storage Management SoftwareOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Storable (EQT majority; Cove Hill Partners minority)

One private-equity roll-up already owns the stack. Storable was assembled by Cove Hill Partners from 2018 — SpareFoot and SiteLink in March 2018, storEDGE in August 2018, Select Merchant Solutions in April 2019 [B] — and EQT bought a majority in a deal announced December 2020 that valued it at roughly $2B including debt [B]. It now sells three management systems (Storable Edge, Sitelink, Storable Easy), the SpareFoot marketplace, payment processing, tenant insurance (Bader, Storsmart), call-centre and auction tools, and claims more than 33,000 facilities [C, vendor]. That is the payments-and-insurance attach model the salon, fitness and pet records found: the licence is the cheap part, and the money is in card volume and tenant protection riding on every move-in. The open challenger slot has just been funded. Cubby, founded 2022, raised a $63M Series A led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives in January 2026 and claims 400+ operators and 2,000+ facilities [B; counts C]. Tenant Inc. (Hummingbird) has raised about $37M, mostly from 100+ storage owners who use it [B]. Yardi sells Breeze Self Storage to small portfolios and its Self Storage Suite to large ones [B]. OpenTech Alliance owns the gate, kiosk and lien-auction layer (INSOMNIAC, StorageTreasures) [B]. A new entrant would face a $2B incumbent that owns payments and insurance, a Goldman-backed AI-native challenger, and Yardi. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor is private or inside a private parent, so no revenue floor can be built.

NAICS 5311307 vendors named3 sourced figuresOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 14

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
Public StorageNYSE:PSA	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	$4.5B	1/14
StorageVault CanadaTSXV:SVI	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	$335M	2/14
StorablePrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	3/14
CubbyPrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	4/14
Cubby StoragePrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	5/14
CubeSmartNYSE:CUBE	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	6/14
Extra SpacePrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	7/14
OpenTech AlliancePrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	8/14
OpenUnitPrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	9/14
SafeLeasePrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	10/14
Storage CommanderPrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	11/14
SwivlPrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	12/14
Tenant Inc.Private	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	13/14
Unit TracPrivate	Self-storage mini-warehouses531130	—	14/14

Who works here

The occupations employed in Real estate and rental and leasing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Tagged to this industry

Managers in construction and facility operation and maintenance

Concentrated in this sectorA

Insurance, real estate and financial sales occupations Mostly one sector 43.8%

Managers in construction and facility operation and maintenance Mostly one sector 10.3%

Support occupations in accommodation, travel, tourism and amusement services Mostly one sector 3.9%

Auditors, accountants and investment professionals Mostly one sector 2.2%

Logging, forestry, landscaping and other related labourers Mostly one sector 1.3%

Retail salespersons and non-technical wholesale trade sales and account representatives Mostly one sector 1.2%

Automotive service technicians Mostly one sector 1.1%

Security guards and related security service occupations Mostly one sector 1.1%

Graphic and interior designers Mostly one sector 1.1%

Photographers and support occupations in arts and culture Mostly one sector 1.1%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 11.7%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 9.6%

Accounting, insurance and related business administrative occupations Across the economy 5.4%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 3.6%

Office administrative assistants - general, legal and medical Across the economy 3.3%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1.7%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 1.6%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 1.3%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 1.1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 92% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

4 rows sit directly beneath 5311, and 9 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
53111	Lessors of residential buildings and dwellings	18,024	Affordable & Social Housing Development
53112	Lessors of non-residential buildings (except mini-warehouses)	9,969	screened at 5311
53113	Self-storage mini-warehouses	556	Self-Storage Development & Acquisition Self-Storage Management Software
53119	Lessors of other real estate property	1,675	screened at 5311

Alongside it, under 531 Real estate

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
5312	Offices of real estate agents and brokers	14,307	Real Estate Transaction Management Software
5313	Activities related to real estate	8,606	Appraisal & Property Inspection Software Property Management Services Property Management Software+1 more