One of the hottest real estate segments in Canada consists of properties that you can’t live or work in.

StorageVault, the only publicly traded self-storage company in Canada, is a “strong buy” due to limited supply in an industry that’s in its “infancy” here, analyst Johann Rodrigues told clients.

The company is a “first mover into a hot asset class”, as the storage wars have just started here in Canada. South of the border, self-storage companies have been the best performing real estate class over the last five and ten years, he added.

“We truly believe that StorageVault is a stock investors should buy and ‘store’ away for a few years,” Rodrigues said in the note on Monday. “It’s at its nascent stage and substantial growth will follow as it gains scale.”

Raymond James initiated coverage of StorageVault with a six-to-12 month target price of $1.50, rating it a “strong buy 1.”

StorageVault, which owns and operates 21,000 storage locations in seven provinces including British Columbia and Ontario, closed at $1.26 on Friday.

Rodrigues said the sector’s funds from operations is expected to grow between three to four per cent annually through 2018 – a rare growth story in Canadian public real estate.

“Self-storage fundamentals look solid in the nearterm and StorageVault should be the beneficiary of strong internal growth and ample consolidation,” Rodrigues said in the note. “The asset class has delivered fantastic stock returns in the US and we believe that this will follow in Canada as the sector matures.”

FINANCIAL POST  |  Armina Ligaya  | Read complete article here.