Mr. John Colella serves as a Director of Investments at Merit Hill where his responsibilities include underwriting, evaluating, closing and financing investments.  Mr. Colella also is responsible for assisting in the sourcing and structuring of financing for the firm, and he has extensive direct relationships with multiple lenders that Merit Hill utilizes across the portfolio of assets.

Prior to joining Merit Hill in 2019, John worked in the CMBS group at J.P. Morgan Chase where he helped underwrite commercial real estate loans for both balance sheet and CMBS securitizations.  During his time at the firm, he underwrote more than $1.6 billion in real estate loans across all property types, including $283 million in self-storage loans. He worked directly on Merit Hill’s first balance sheet loan while at J.P. Morgan Chase for nearly two years, gaining significant insight and exposure to Merit Hill’s investment process and portfolio including visiting multiple Merit Hill properties prior to joining the firm.  Since joining Merit Hill, John has worked on 70 self-storage investments comprising 117 properties, 1 portfolio exit comprising 27 properties, and 84 financings totaling more than $4.0 billion in self-storage transaction volume.

John graduated from The College of the Holy Cross in 2013 with a B.A. in History and received his MPS in Real Estate Finance from Georgetown University in 2017.