A home on rent for your furniture storage amid Covid-19 pandemic

Self-storages spaces have seen a spurt in demand from professionals in big cities who have chosen to leave for their hometowns following the lockdown

The pandemic has taught Manmeet Singh that it’s far easier and cheaper to rely on a self-storage company than shifty flatmates to look after belongings in one’s absence. Singh, an IT professional, had been working in Bengaluru for a decade. As Covid-19 forced his employer to switch to work from home until at least the year-end, like many others, he too felt the urge to return temporarily to his native Ludhiana in Punjab.

He left early in June, but continued to pay over Rs 10,000 in rent for a flat he shared with two others in Bengaluru. His flatmates soon decided to vacate and refused to carry his belongings unless he paid a monthly sum. So, Singh contacted Storagians, a storage firm based in the city. And last month, the company’s packers and movers picked up his goods -- clothes, appliances, kitchenware, furniture and a bicycle — and shifted them to its warehouse.

Singh had expected his belongings to fit in seven cartons, but eventually there were 13. The company had quoted Rs 2,900 earlier; he had to pay only Rs 200 more for the additional volume. The entire exercise, including the transportation charges, cost him Rs 7,000. Now his 1bhk worth of possessions are housed in one of Storagians’s two warehouses in Bengaluru for a monthly rent of about Rs 3,200.

Self-storages spaces such as those provided by Storagians have seen a spurt in demand from professionals in big cities who have chosen to leave for their hometowns following the lockdown. The services they offer include storage of household goods and vehicles as well as space for transit storage for businesses.

Storagians was set up by Prasanna Kumar in a 10x10 ft room in 2013. Kumar, who used to work with an MNC, had to leave Bengaluru for several months for an off-site assignment. After packing off his goods in separate stacks to his home in Mandya, his in-laws’ place in Chikmagalur and a friend’s house in Bengaluru, he realised there was an untapped market for self-storage.

For the last two months Storagians has been getting two to four customers every day as compared to 10-15 a month earlier. The company is now looking to add another warehouse to meet the growing demand.

Like Kumar’s Storagians, Manjali Khosla’s Self Storage India also emerged from personal experience. Khosla, who worked in the pharma sector in Canada, set up the self-funded company seven years ago after she moved to New Delhi and discovered that one had to depend on friends and relatives or open warehouses to house the essential extras for a short duration.

Self Storage India caters to customers in Delhi and areas around, predominantly South Delhi and Gurugram. In the early days, expatriates from the US and Canada, where self-storage is a mature sector, used to be the only takers, says Archit Aggarwal, assistant manager, marketing, Self Storage India. MNCs that were setting up branches in Gurugram — where Self Storage India started out — and embassies in Delhi also began offering a customer base owing to their floating population of employees. “People who were renovating their homes, too, opted for our services,” he says.

During the lockdown, many start-ups in Delhi and around called up the company to store their furniture. And as people cleared up space at home to set up their workstations, furniture, gym equipment and other such items too found their way to Self Storage India’s facilities. The company charges around Rs 4,900 a month for a 1bhk space on rent.

Self Storage India has over 24,000 sq ft of storage space, which is now nearly full. Before the pandemic, its warehouse in Noida (opened in 2018) was at 65 per cent capacity. Due to high demand, the firm is adding another 3,000 sq ft under a franchise in Gurugram in October, and is planning to expand to other cities soon.

“We used to get 20-25 enquiries in a day until March. Now, it has gone up five-fold,” says Aggarwal, adding that the number of individual callers is far more than those representing companies.

According to Anarock Property Consultants, the self-storage segment is a direct beneficiary of an otherwise disrupted real estate marketplace in the post-pandemic world. It observes that the sector in India is still at a fledgling stage with a handful of organised players with limited space in the top cities. IT hubs such as Bengaluru are a focus area.

Globally, the industry is pegged to reach nearly $3.97 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 4 per cent during 2020-2025.