In the third-largest investment sale ever in the self-storage space, CubeSmart purchased 36 self-storage properties for $326M. (Who knew that a place to keep old skis and your grandparents' cuckoo clocks would be so valuable?)

NGKF executive managing director Aaron Swerdlin (pictured) and managing director Kenneth Cox repped sellers Clarion and Private Mini Storage and tell us it was one of the most unique portfolios he's ever seen. Its Texas-heavy, with 28 properties in Houston, seven in Austin, and one in Charlotte, NC. Its size offered a chance for someone to enter the self-storage sector or the Texas markets in a big way. (If you're gonna dive in, you might as well make it a cannonball.) That drew a huge amount of attention, with over 50 potential buyers, including every major self-storage player. It was a speedy sale; Aaron says his team did a six-month process in three months.

CubeSmart already had a Texas presence but had been selling its Class-B suburban product over the last few years. This significantly upgrades the quality of its portfolio. This has been a year of massive self-storage investment sales. Aaron says the 10-year average is between $880M and $1.3B in sales, but this year will top $2B. And that's despite fewer sales than the long-term average. (Thanks, Storage Wars.) Pictured: A property at on IH 35 in Kyle that's part of the portfolio.