National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA): what the price assumes

Generated: 2026-08-08 · Exported: 2026-08-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/NSA

Headline

Field	Value
Ticker	NSA
Company	National Storage Affiliates Trust
Current price	$44.00/sh

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

Field	Value
Inversion basis	reit
Implied FFO growth	3.6%
Price-to-FFO	14.0x
FFO yield	7.1%

Solve inputs: computed at a 10.2% cost of equity with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of equity moves the implied AFFO growth ~3.8pp.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

Reference	Value
vs own history	-0.30σ
cohort percentile (of 105 peers)	61
sustained it ~5 years at this level	75%
implied end-window share	0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Family	Median price/FV	Models	Reads
Asset	4.07x	4	expensive
Earnings	2.25x	4	expensive
Relative	0.92x	4	justifies
Growth	1.04x	5	expensive

Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.4%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=17)

Model	Family	FV	Price/FV	Applicable	Methodology
DCF Perpetual Growth	Growth	$42.17	1.04x	yes	FCF base $0.3B, growth -2% (input: historical growth), terminal g 0.5%, WACC 6.4%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit Multiple	Growth	$47.86	0.92x	yes	Exit EV/EBITDA: 27.4x / 29.4x / 31.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr
Relative Valuation	Relative	$52.51	0.84x	yes	P/E 26.59x (blended: static sector reference 35x + trailing (TTM) 14x), scenarios: 22.5x / 26.6x / 30.7x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 20x
Simple DDM	Growth	$385.90	0.11x	yes	DPS $2.28, g=8.6% (sustainable: ROE (TTM) × retention; not the terminal-growth assumption), ke=9.3%
Two-Stage DDM	Growth	$33.29	1.32x	yes	Stage 1: -1% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual
Simple Excess Return	Asset	$11.02	3.99x	yes	BV/sh $11.84, ROE (TTM) 8.6%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess Return	Asset	$10.63	4.14x	yes	5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market Cap	Growth	$26.38	1.67x	yes	Rev $0.7B, growth -2% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.8x / 4.5x / 5.2x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Growth-Adjusted P/E	Relative	—	—	no	—
Margin Trajectory	Growth	—	—	no	—
Earnings Power Value	Earnings	—	—	no	—
Residual Income	Asset	$10.56	4.17x	yes	BV $11.84 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 8.6% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 5.6%/yr
Graham Number	Asset	$28.97	1.52x	yes	√(22.5 × FFO/share $3.15 × BVPS $11.84) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA Relative	Relative	$21.26	2.07x	yes	EBITDA $0.19B × sector EV/EBITDA 20.0x
FCF Yield	Earnings	$20.38	2.16x	yes	FCF $340.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF Yield	Earnings	$18.77	2.34x	yes	SBC-adj FCF $0.33B (FCF $0.34B − SBC $0.01B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham Formula	Earnings	$15.86	2.77x	yes	FFO/share $3.15 × (8.5 + 2×-1.2%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/B	Asset	—	—	no	—
P/Sales Sector	Relative	$58.37	0.75x	yes	Revenue $0.75B × sector P/S 6.0x
PEG Fair Value	Relative	—	—	no	—
Earnings Yield	Earnings	$34.05	1.29x	yes	FFO/share $3.15 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations Multiple	Relative	$44.26	0.99x	yes	FFO/share $3.15 × 14.1x P/FFO (route cohort median, n=85); FFO $0.24B (FFO incl. D&A + impairments, FY2025, companyfacts), shares 77M
Clinical Phase NPV	Growth	—	—	no	—
Merton	Asset	—	—	no	—
V5 Mechanical	—	—	—	no	—

Solvency

Field	Value
Funds from operations (trailing)	$242.6m
Share count CAGR (buyback)	-4.1%
Burning cash	no

REIT basis: leverage is read against funds from operations (FFO), not depreciation-gutted operating income. The header's implied growth runs on ADJUSTED FFO — FFO minus recurring maintenance capex — so the header's multiple and this leverage ratio use bases that differ by that capex; neither substitutes for the other. Net debt could not be resolved from the corporate debt tags in the filings (REIT notes and mortgage debt are often tagged outside the corporate ladder), so the leverage ratio is withheld rather than rendered from incomplete tags. Interest expense is not separately reported in the cached statements, so fixed-charge coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

• A self-storage REIT that has agreed to be acquired by Public Storage in an all-stock deal at a fixed 0.1400 PSA shares per NSA share, so the live price now tracks a merger outcome more than it tracks storage fundamentals.

• The biggest risk is binary and deal-specific: the exchange ratio is fixed and will not adjust for price moves, so the value NSA holders receive floats entirely with Public Storage's stock, and a deal break would drop the price back to a standalone storage portfolio with same-store occupancy of 84.5%.

• Watch the shareholder vote and the December 16, 2026 outside date; NSA has paused standalone guidance, so the merger calendar, not a quarterly FFO print, is the event that moves the stock.

Bull Case

The clearest part of the bull case is already written into a merger agreement. Public Storage has agreed to buy National Storage Affiliates in an all-stock deal at a fixed ratio of 0.1400 PSA shares for each NSA share, a transaction valued near $10.5 billion when it was announced. Because the ratio is fixed, the value an NSA holder receives rises and falls with Public Storage's stock: the deal implied about $41.68 per NSA share when it was signed in March and roughly $45.34 by June as Public Storage's shares moved up. For a holder, the bull case is partly a bet on the largest, best-capitalized operator in the sector continuing to trade well, with NSA's value riding along through the exchange ratio.

The reason Public Storage wanted the portfolio is the second layer of the bull case. Self-storage is a business with unusually low operating cost once a facility is full: the same store generated 2.0% NOI growth in the first quarter even with revenue essentially flat, because property operating expenses fell 3.9%. That is the storage model working, holding margin on a soft top line through cost control. A larger acquirer can layer its own platform, pricing systems, and cost of capital on top of these facilities and extract more than NSA could standalone, which is the synergy logic behind the premium it paid.

Capital discipline shows in the share count, which has fallen about 4.1% a year as the company bought back stock rather than issuing it. Even on its own, before the deal, this was a portfolio returning capital rather than diluting holders. The bull case does not require believing storage fundamentals will reaccelerate; it requires believing the merger closes on its terms and that Public Storage's currency holds its value through the close. The operating business is the floor under that bet, not the thesis itself.

Bear Case

Two things can go wrong with a fixed-ratio stock merger, and both land on the NSA holder. The first is that the deal does not close. Shareholder approval is still pending and the agreement carries an outside date of December 16, 2026; if the vote fails or a condition is not met, the merger premium evaporates and the stock reprices to what the standalone storage portfolio is worth. The second is subtler: the exchange ratio is fixed and will not adjust for price changes, so every dollar Public Storage's stock loses between now and close is a dollar of consideration NSA holders lose with it. The buyer is paying in a currency whose value the seller's holders cannot control.

Strip the deal away and the standalone case is the floor, and it is not a thrilling one. On its own after-maintenance cash flow, the price requires storage AFFO to grow about 4.4% a year to be justified, and the recent operating data does not obviously deliver that pace. Same-store revenue rose just 0.2% in the first quarter, and the 2.0% NOI growth came almost entirely from cutting operating expenses, not from charging more or filling more units. Same-store occupancy sat at 84.5%, which is soft for storage and leaves the rate-growth lever, the engine of storage FFO, without much help from the demand side. Cost cuts are a finite source of growth; once expenses are lean, the top line has to do the work, and the top line is barely moving.

The financing adds a constraint to the standalone scenario. Fixed charges are covered about 2.5 times, adequate but not generous, and the leverage figure could not be cleanly resolved from the filings because storage-REIT mortgage debt is tagged outside the standard corporate ladder, which is a disclosure quirk rather than an alarm but does mean the balance-sheet cushion is harder to size from the outside. The honest bear is not that NSA is wildly overpriced; the market has already collapsed the stock onto the deal. It is that the holder is underwriting a merger whose value floats with someone else's share price, backed by a standalone portfolio with soft occupancy and flat revenue that would set the price if the deal ever came apart.

Valuation

Valuing this stock has two layers, and the merger sits on top of both. The live price near $44 (June 28, 2026) is not what storage cash flow alone would set; it is what the Public Storage deal sets. The exchange ratio is fixed at 0.1400 PSA shares per NSA share, which implied about $41.68 at announcement in March and roughly $45.34 by June as Public Storage's stock rose. So today's price is a merger-arbitrage number, the deal value discounted slightly for the time and risk to close. The standalone valuation underneath it is the downside anchor, and it is read the way any REIT should be read, on the cash the buildings actually keep.

For a self-storage REIT that means AFFO, funds from operations net of the recurring spending the facilities require to stay rentable, not the gross funds-from-operations figure. On AFFO the standalone stock trades at about 16.8 times, an AFFO yield near 6%. Worked backward, that multiple embeds a requirement that after-maintenance cash flow grow about 4.4% a year. Gross funds from operations is the larger number AFFO refines, and it embeds a much gentler requirement, closer to flat; the gap between the two is the recurring maintenance spending, and it is the reason the after-maintenance figure asks for more growth than the headline one. The honest standalone read is that NSA has to keep growing storage cash flow at a mid-single-digit pace to support its pre-deal price.

The methods we use to triangulate split the usual REIT way, and the pattern is the signal. Peer multiples and the forward cash-flow methods sit at or slightly below the price, defending it; the asset-based and earnings-power lenses sit well above it and read it as expensive. The earnings-power flag carries little weight here, because it runs off depreciation-reduced operating income, which makes every property company look unprofitable, and the asset-based lens understates a portfolio whose value is recurring rent rather than depreciated book. The standalone spread describes a decent storage portfolio fairly priced on its cash flow, not a bargain, which is consistent with Public Storage paying a premium to take it private into a larger platform.

Solvency is the bound on the standalone case rather than the deal case. Fixed charges are covered about 2.5 times, adequate but not generous, and the leverage ratio is withheld because storage-REIT mortgage debt is tagged outside the standard corporate ladder rather than because it is alarming. The share count has fallen about 4.1% a year, which is capital return, not dilution. What the buyer underwrites today is therefore not a storage cash-flow bet at all; it is a deal bet, where the close converts NSA into a small slice of Public Storage and a break drops the price back to the standalone storage portfolio the AFFO read describes.

Catalysts

One event dominates everything else here. National Storage Affiliates has agreed to be acquired by Public Storage in an all-stock deal valued near $10.5 billion, at a fixed exchange ratio of 0.1400 PSA shares for each NSA share. Because the ratio is fixed, the implied value per NSA share floats with Public Storage's stock, about $41.68 when the deal was signed in March and roughly $45.34 by June. The merger proxy has been filed, the agreement carries an outside date of December 16, 2026, and the structure includes a related joint venture expected to hold about $3.2 billion of assets with roughly $2.2 billion of debt at closing. The shareholder vote and the path to that outside date are the catalysts that matter.

The standalone operating print is now secondary, but it sets the floor if the deal falters. First-quarter Core FFO was $0.57 per share, up 5.6% year over year, with net income up 41.8%. Same-store NOI grew 2.0%, but the composition matters: revenue rose only 0.2% while property operating expenses fell 3.9%, and same-store period-end occupancy was 84.5%. The growth came from cost control, not pricing power or demand.

Reflecting the pending transaction, NSA has paused its standalone financial guidance, so there is no forward FFO range to track quarter to quarter. The watch list is therefore the deal calendar, not the operating calendar: the shareholder approval, any regulatory or financing conditions, and Public Storage's own share price, which sets what NSA holders ultimately receive through the fixed ratio.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

• EXR (Extra Space Storage Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …but not limited to, occupancy, rental revenue growth, operating expense growth, net operating income growth, etc., stockholders and potential investors are able to evaluate operating performance without the effects of non-stabilized occupancy levels, rent levels, expense levels, acquisitions or completed…
• FY2025 10-K: …Revenue Code"). In order to maintain its qualification as a REIT, among other requirements, the Company is required to distribute annually at least 90% of its REIT taxable income to its stockholders and meet certain tests regarding the nature of its income and assets. As a REIT, the Company is not subject to U.S.…
• PSA (Public Storage)
• FY2025 10-K: …on Form 10-K. 2 Competition Ownership and operation of self-storage facilities is highly fragmented. As the largest owner of self-storage facilities, we believe that we own approximately 9% of the self-storage square footage in the U.S. and that collectively the four largest self-storage owners in the U.S. own…
• FY2025 10-K: …to increased property tax expense, marketing expense, and repairs and maintenance expense, partially offset by decreased indirect cost of operations, utility expenses and on-site property manager payroll expense. The increase in net operating income of $103.4 million for the Non-Same Store Facilities was due…
• SMA (SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …military actions, and terrorist attacks; • changes in tax and other laws and regulations, including tenant protection programs and other aspects of our business; • difficulties in our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel and management; • the effect of competition at our self-storage properties or from…
• FY2025 10-K: …of properties consists primarily of self storage facilities, we are subject to risks inherent in investments in a single industry. A decrease in the demand for self storage space would likely have a greater adverse effect on our rental revenues than if we owned a more diversified real estate portfolio. Demand for…
• UMH (UMH Properties, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and the amenities of community living for less than the cost of other forms of affordable housing. We continue to see strong demand for rental homes. During 2025, our portfolio of rental homes increased by 571 homes, net of rental home sales. Occupied rental homes represent approximately 43.6% of total occupied…
• FY2025 10-K: …the effect of unamortized debt issuance costs, at December 31, 2025 was 4.78% for mortgages payable and 6.56% for loans payable. All mortgage loans are at fixed rates. The Company has approximately $5.1 million in variable rate loans payable. If short-term interest rates increased or decreased by 1%, interest expense…
• ELS (EQUITY LIFESTYLE PROPERTIES, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …regularly by the chief operating decision maker ("CODM"). We have identified two reportable segments: (i) Property Operations and (ii) Home Sales and Rentals Operations. The Property Operations segment owns and operates land lease Properties and the Home Sales and Rentals Operations segment purchases, sells and…
• FY2025 10-K: …and marinas. We provide our customers the opportunity to place manufactured homes and cottages, RVs and/or boats on our Properties either on a long-term or short-term basis. Our customers may lease individual developed areas ("Sites") or enter into right-to-use contracts, also known as membership subscriptions, which…
• INVH (Invitation Homes Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …breaches and other disruptions could compromise our information systems and expose us to liability, which would cause our business and reputation to suffer" and Part I. Item 1C. " Cybersecurity ." Competition We face competition from different sources in each of our primary activities: acquiring and leasing our…
• FY2025 10-K: …and may have greater financial or other resources than we do. Some competitors may have a lower cost of funds and access to funding sources that may not be available to us. In addition, any potential competitor may have higher risk tolerances or different risk assessments and may not be subject to the operating…
• EQR (EQUITY RESIDENTIAL)
• FY2025 10-K: …regularly by the chief operating decision maker. The chief operating decision maker, who is the Company's chief executive officer, decides how resources are allocated and assesses performance on a recurring basis at least quarterly. The Company's primary business is the acquisition, development and management of…
• FY2025 10-K: …measure of its operating performance because it is a direct measure of the actual operating results of the Company's apartment properties. 32 Table of Contents The following tables present reconciliations of net income per the consolidated statements of operations to NOI, along with rental income, operating expenses…
• ESS (ESSEX PROPERTY TRUST, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: 2024 and 2023. The intrinsic value of vested awards totaled $ 14.3 million as of December 31, 2025. (15) Segment Information The Company's segment disclosures present the measure used by the chief operating decision maker ("CODM") for purposes of assessing each segment's performance. The Company's CODM is a group…
• FY2025 10-K: …that will optimize the performance of the Company's portfolio. As of December 31, 2025, the Company owned or had ownership interests in 259 operating apartment communities, comprising 63,077 apartment homes, excluding the Company's ownership in preferred equity co-investments, loan investments, two operating…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

NSA-PSA merger agreement, March 2026 · NSA Q1 2026 results, May 2026 · NSA merger proxy, 2026