Americans buy – and keep – a lot of stuff. That’s made self-storage a $24 billion industry, according to its major trade group, the Self Storage Association.

According to the SSA, 84 percent of all U.S. counties have at least one self-storage facility. It’s been one of the fastest-growing sectors of the commercial real-estate industry for the past 35 years, the group says – and nearly one in 10 American households rents them.

Just over half the storage customers say they expect to hang onto their units for just one to five months but the average stay was 10.4 months, Sparefoot.com, an online self-storage marketplace, said in a December 2014 report of customer trends.

In choosing a storage unit, customers said their top consideration was price, according to Sparefoot. Customers also considered — in descending order — security, location, access hours, cleanliness, friendliness and reviews.

Need to store your car? For many performance and class car owners, car storage is a compromise between deserting your automobile in a storage unit who’s facility was designed for cardboard boxes, not luxury automobiles according to The Vault of Naples.

Your car is likely one of the most valuable and functional things that you own, and sometimes you need a safe place to keep it in your absence. Self-storage facilities across the country have stepped up to meet the storage needs of car owners by offering safe, monitored space for you to keep your car. Whether you simply need a place to park it outside for a couple of weeks or are looking for a second garage to store your classic car, a self-storage facility near you may have exactly what you need.

To store your automobile, it’s important for car owners to follow the same basic, common-sense approaches to handling and storing cars that all automotive professionals observe. In this sense, collectors need to think and function as a risk manager.

Not only is it extremely dangerous to drive your car once out of storage without checking it thoroughly, it can also worsen damage that might have occurred. A single instance of neglect can lead to extensive and costly repairs.