SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc. (SMA)
🔔 Watch stock
symbol.quality_heading
The business works in principle, but one material question is open. As long as it stays open, our findings do not carry a quality verdict.
Whoever buys today is betting that the self-storage market recovers from its oversupply, that same-store rents pick up again and that the 2028 refinancing succeeds at bearable rates — with a dividend that leaves hardly any buffer until then. Whoever waits checks three spots in every quarterly report (10-Q): same-store revenue growth (does it climb above 2 percent?), the ratio of distributions to operating cash flow (does it fall meaningfully below 100 percent?) and adjusted FFO per quarter (does it hold the mark of roughly $29 million?). The decision is yours.
symbol.quality_note
SmartStop Self Storage rents storage units across the United States and Canada, made the jump to the NYSE in April 2025 — and shows up in the top 20 of our FCF/market-cap scanner. We worked through the annual report (10-K) for 2025 and the quarterly report (10-Q) as of March 31, 2026, and we'll say honestly what we found: a decently growing storage landlord with 92.5 percent occupancy — but also a scanner hit owed to a gappy data series, a $194 million accumulated deficit, and distributions that consumed the entire 2025 operating cash flow. Not investment advice — just the acid test of what a screener hit is worth when the data series behind it is barely a year old.
Read the analysis
Stock Watch
This analysis is as of July 18, 2026. Stock Watch will tell you what's changed at SMA since then.
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Appears in These Scanners
This stock currently matches 8 of our scanner strategies — each hit links to the scanner.
Only genuine hits from verified scanners count; pure ranking metrics (P/E, P/S, and similar, which just sort the whole universe) don't count as a hit. View all scanners
Trading Day
Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.
52-Week Range
Current price 33.50 $ — 42% of the range above the low.
Lowest and highest closing price over the last 52 weeks. The marker shows where the current price sits within that range: close to the high speaks for strength, close to the low for weakness.
Basics
Performance
Technical Indicators
Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
NeutralGeprüft am 18.07.2026 gegen den Geschäftsbericht (10-K) GJ 2025 (eingereicht 27.02.2026), den 10-K GJ 2024 (12.03.2025) und die vier jüngsten Quartalsberichte (10-Q, zuletzt zum 31.03.2026): In den ausgewerteten SEC-Filings von SmartStop Self Storage REIT findet sich kein wesentlicher KI-Bezug. Die einzigen Erwähnungen von „artificial intelligence“ stehen in den generischen Risikofaktoren beider 10-K (Item 1A): einmal als Cybersecurity-Floskel („Information security risks … have generally increased … because of the proliferation of new technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence“; „new technologies such as artificial intelligence may be more capable at evading any safeguard measures“) und einmal als allgemeines Technologie-Adoptionsrisiko („Our use of or inability to adopt and deliver new technological capabilities … including artificial intelligence and machine learning, may put us at a competitive disadvantage“). Das sind Boilerplate-Formulierungen ohne konkreten Bezug zum Self-Storage-Geschäftsmodell — weder KI-Umsatzquelle noch belegter operativer KI-Einsatz noch ein konkretes KI-Geschäftsrisiko fürs eigene Modell; die vier 10-Q enthalten gar keine KI-Treffer. Nach dem Kriterienkatalog bleibt es damit bei „neutral“ (dokumentierter Negativ-Befund).
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
Filings Reviewed: 10-Q 2026-05-08 · 10-Q 2025-11-07 · 10-Q 2025-08-08 · 10-Q 2025-05-09 · 10-K 2026-02-27 · 10-K 2025-03-12
Rated on July 18, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
Analysts & Price Target
The price target sits 7.8% above the current price.
- Consensus
- Strong Buy
Combined picture of the price targets and recommendations of every analyst covering the stock. Price targets are expectations for the next 12 months, not promises — and they often follow the price rather than predict it.
Next Reporting Date
- Expected Earnings per Share
- 0.49 $
Expected date of the next quarterly or annual figures. Dates do shift occasionally — only the invitation issued by the company is binding.
Revenue & Profit
Cash Flow
Balance Sheet
Margins
Per Share
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· Total · per year
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The figures could not be loaded right now.
Source: fundamental data
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 0.00 | -114.40 | 61 | 5.40 | -0.50 | 11 | 11 |
| 2025: Q1 | -0.05 | – | 1 | -98.70 | -683.20 | 11 | 11 |
| 2025: Q2 | -0.08 | – | 67 | 12.90 | -6.90 | 8 | 8 |
| 2025: Q3 | 0.09 | – | 2 | -97.40 | 340.30 | 52 | 52 |
| 2025: Q4 | 0.05 | – | 1 | -97.70 | 201.00 | 14 | 14 |
| 2026: Q1 | 0.17 | – | 78 | 10,701.40 | 12.20 | 24 | 24 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
Tenth-largest U.S. self-storage operator with 177 owned facilities (92.5 percent occupancy, month-to-month leases) plus a capital-light management business spanning 273 third-party facilities — a robust, granular rental business without cluster tenants (10-K 2025).
Rank 16 (as of July 18, 2026) is a data artifact of the young listing: in reality the stock cost roughly 18 times its annual operating cash flow (about $1.8 billion against $98.7 million, data as of July 8, 2026) instead of at most 4 times — and at REITs, "free cash flow" captures neither the acquisitions (2025: a net $380.8 million in investing cash flow) nor the distribution requirement.
A GAAP loss of $8.8 million attributable to common stockholders (2025) and a $194.4 million accumulated deficit — but adjusted FFO of $95.5 million (+104 percent) and $28.8 million in Q1 2026, carried by nearly halved interest expense; the Q1 GAAP profit of $10.2 million contained $5.4 million of currency/derivative gains and $2.1 million of further one-off items (10-K 2025, 10-Q Q1 2026).
Distributions paid of $89.3 million exceeded 2025 operating cash flow of $85.0 million; in Q1 2026 the load stood at 99 percent (23.9 against $24.2 million), and at 83 percent measured against adjusted FFO — and the charter expressly permits distributions without limit from any source, from borrowings if need be (10-K 2025, Item 1A).
IPO proceeds paid off $647.1 million of expensive debt and $200 million of preferred capital; net debt fell to $1,098.2 million (94 percent fixed, rating BBB) — set against $459.0 million of 2028 maturities and $608.3 million in Canadian dollars with a computed $51.1 million book loss per 10 percent currency move (10-K 2025).
About 16 times annualized adjusted FFO and a dividend yield just under 5 percent (data as of July 8, 2026) are in line with the sector — but the 18.6 percent revenue increase stems almost entirely from capital-market-funded acquisitions while the same-store portfolio grew just 1.6 percent; further growth requires new capital (10-K 2025).
SMA is not a cash-flow bargain but a fairly priced market newcomer with a cleanly deployed IPO billion: the scanner hit rested on a data gap; in reality the REIT costs roughly 16 times adjusted FFO. Behind it stands a robust rental business with 92.5 percent occupancy, nearly halved interest expense and a monthly dividend yielding just under 5 percent — but also meager organic growth, distributions near 100 percent of operating cash flow, a 2028 debt wall and $608 million in Canadian currency. Whoever buys the stock buys the dividend and the discipline of management — not the metric. Not investment advice.
- SMA reached the research list via rank 16 in the in-house FCF/market-cap scanner (as of July 18, 2026; scanner data as of July 8, 2026) — the analysis deliberately discloses that this hit rests on the gappy data series of the young listing and that the metric is generally unfit as a buy signal for REITs.
- REIT specifics: what matters is FFO/adjusted FFO, distribution coverage, same-store growth and refinancing costs — the price-to-earnings ratio and "free cash flow" are systematically distorted by real estate depreciation and the distribution requirement.
- Price and valuation figures dated July 8, 2026 (about $32.80, roughly $1.8 billion market value); analyses are evergreen, daily prices are not a buy argument.
About the Company
SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc. ist ein selbstverwalteter REIT mit einem vollständig integrierten Betriebsteam aus über 1.000 Self-Storage-Fachkräften, das sich auf den Ausbau der Marke SmartStop Self Storage konzentriert.
| CEO Insider Trades (12 Mo.) | buying own stock |
|---|---|
| Employees | 1,000 |
| Headquarters | Ladera Ranch, CA |
| Website | smartstopselfstorage.com |
| IPO Date | 2. Apr 2025 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| H. Michael Schwartz | Founder, President, CEO & Chairman of the Board | 1969 |
| James R. Barry | CFO & Treasurer | 1990 |
| Joseph H. Robinson | Chief Operations Officer | 1975 |
| Wayne Johnson | Chief Investment Officer & Director | 1958 |
| Michael O. Terjung CPA | Chief Accounting Officer | 1977 |
| David Steven Corak C.F.A. | Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance & Strategy | – |
| Nicholas M. Look | Compliance Officer, General Counsel & Secretary | 1983 |
| Gerald Valle | Senior Vice President of Self Storage Operations | 1969 |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Insider Transactions
| Date | Person | Role | Type | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16. Jul 2026 | Mueller David J | Director | Sell | 425 | 33.38 | 14,187 |
Reportable transactions by officers and major shareholders from SEC Form 4 filings. "Other" includes things like stock grants and option exercises without a buy/sell character.
View all insider transactions →Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 31, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.