PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Parul Butala has been promoted to president of AMERCO Real Estate Co. (AREC), the real estate arm of U-Haul Holding Co., the company announced, capping a rise that began three decades ago when she joined the organization as a staff architect. The appointment, made official on July 17, places Butala at the head of a division that manages the acquisition, development and upkeep of U-Haul's vast property portfolio, including 2,431 owned locations across the United States and Canada.
"I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as AREC President," Butala said in a statement. "I would like to thank Joe Shoen for his confidence in me and for this opportunity," she added, referring to U-Haul's chief executive. Butala succeeds Matt Braccia in the role, in what the company described as a move toward strategic continuity within its real estate operations.
Three Decades Inside U-Haul's Real Estate Machine
Butala's path to the top of AREC traces back to 1994, when she joined U-Haul and began developing her skills as a staff architect for the company's construction group — work that involved designing and overseeing the buildout of the self-storage and truck-rental facilities that make up the backbone of U-Haul's retail network. She later spent a brief stint on the company's Risk Management team in the early 2000s before returning to real estate, and has served as AREC's Director of Land Use and Planning since 2019, overseeing site selection and zoning strategy for new and expanded facilities.
A Division Built for Scale
AMERCO Real Estate Co., founded in 1974, is the property backbone behind one of America's most recognizable consumer brands. U-Haul International, AREC and their affiliated subsidiaries — all under parent company U-Haul Holding Co. (formerly AMERCO) — are headquartered together in the U-Haul Tower on East Thomas Road in Midtown Phoenix. The broader business Butala's division supports is enormous by scale: U-Haul operates a fleet of roughly 204,800 trucks, 136,600 trailers and 42,000 towing devices, alongside more than 1.1 million rentable self-storage units, serving millions of customers annually across more than 25,000 rental locations in the U.S. and Canada.
Managing real estate at that scale means AREC's decisions ripple through nearly every part of U-Haul's operations — where new storage facilities get built, how existing properties are redeveloped, and how quickly the company can respond to shifting demand in the do-it-yourself moving and storage markets. Butala inherits that responsibility at a moment when the self-storage sector nationally continues to see steady demand growth, driven in part by continued residential mobility and smaller urban living spaces.
