The Norris Group Real Estate Podcast

Niches Within Niches: Scaling in Self-Storage Real Estate with Joe Downs | Part 2 #922

• The Norris Group, Craig Evans

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In Part 2, Joe Downs continues his story, diving deeper into his transition into real estate—from early partnerships in wholesaling and flipping to building a scalable business in self-storage. He shares the challenges of navigating commercial real estate, key operational strategies, and how technology is reshaping the self-storage industry. Joe also reflects on the importance of staying adaptable and always learning in a fast-evolving market. 


Joe is a lifelong entrepreneur with a track record of success across the securities, mortgage, hospitality, and real estate industries. As co-founder and CEO of The Belrose Group, he’s built a powerhouse firm specializing in the self-storage sector of commercial real estate—expanding it from acquisitions to include development and consulting. Known for spotting “niches within niches,” Joe brings a sharp eye for opportunity and a passion for educating others. He’s a featured speaker at the Self-Storage Academy and Mastermind, where he shares his insights as both a visionary leader and a hands-on investor.



In this episode:

  • Joe Downs’ path from hospitality and radio sales to real estate investing
  • Partnering in house flipping and wholesaling: early lessons and wins
  • Challenges faced in commercial real estate and strategic pivots
  • Breaking into self-storage investing and spotting niche opportunities
  • Key operations and marketing strategies in self-storage success
  • How digital tools are transforming the self-storage industry
  • The value of adaptability and lifelong learning in real estate




The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669.  For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.


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Narrator:

Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we'll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here's your host, Craig Evans.

Craig Evans:

Hey, welcome back for part two with Joe Downs, let's get started. So I do want to go back though. I want to ask because one of the things that was interesting to me, partly because I've got some background in that as well. But so you owned a bar and restaurant?

Joe Downs:

You're not gonna let me skip that part?

Craig Evans:

Yeah, I'm not so, give our audience, you know, kind of just, just a brief...

Joe Downs:

...private investigator?

Craig Evans:

So not just like, hey,here's the name of our restaurant, and here's what, but you know, briefly, what got you in it, but more importantly, what did you learn out of that?

Joe Downs:

Yeah, so I did, every young males. I think it's in our DNA that if the opportunity to own a bar is in front of you, it's like, you can't say, No, I don't. It's like the hottest woman in the world asking you to dance right? You're gonna say yes. So I had to take that opportunity. Now it wasn't out of the blue. I bartended at the bar that I ended up owning for nine years. So remember I said I always had two jobs. So even while I was a financial advisor, I was bartending Thursdays and Saturdays.

Craig Evans:

Okay.

Joe Downs:

And which was great for any number of reasons, but there was, a it was actually villain of a college bar, and it got shut down because the owners were morons. But that's another, that's besides the point. And so they wanted to reopen it. And here was my exit from the financial advising world into'I'm going to be a business owner', and it's going to be a bar and restaurant. Because that's the path I should have always been on, because, according to my mom, some distant cousin in Ireland owned a bar too. So it must be in my blood. So I knew the front of the house, the bar itself, because this was such a college bar that, you know, I was like one of the head bartender. So the only thing I didn't do was order the alcohol every day. That part was easy, so, but the restaurant part, I didn't know we had to, we had to shut it down, redo it, kind of turn it into a more of a pub than just a bar. And the, that's it was great. It opened up. We were gangbusters. This was the first, kind of, not first mistake, but the first big mistake I can think of that it made in my life in the business world, but, and this is what I tell people all the time, is, you in my my analogy that I use based is based on this experience, is you have to keep your head in the kitchen. You got to know what's going on in the kitchen. And for me, that was literally the kitchen. And I didn't, I trusted the chef, and I allowed him to do the ordering. And you know, not only was food walking out the door with some of the cooks that we ended up catching because we saw cameras and stuff, but the chef was just ordering whatever he wanted. And you know, it was, it was a chef's dream, because he got to be creative every week, which I thought was great, not realizing, hey, he's being creative. He's not being judicious, or, you know, today we say he's not value engineering anything, right? He's it's all. He's an architect, and it looks perfect that he's got an unlimited budget. And sure enough, the food was great and the specials were great, but they weren't. I was losing money, and unfortunately, couldn't succeed itself, so ended up losing maybe 100 grand there, which was what year and a half of college the average college today, except I learned a lot more, I think, and I had to re took a couple months off. Had to reinvent from there. And then my brother in law,I knew I needed to work, but I didn't know what the next move was, so he took a job in sales, radio sales, advertising on the radio for a conservative talk radio station. And that's actually how I got into real estate, which was where I wanted to be my whole life, but foolishly thought I, well, I will say two things. I foolishly thought I didn't know how to get into it. And two, and maybe more importantly, and I'm just recognizing this self. So a little self reflecting in this intervention you have on here is I don't think I tried hard enough, if I had, if I really wanted it, then if I had someone, if I was pushed, I probably could have broken in, but I don't, I don't know I, I think I wanted it, but I didn't know how to try hard enough. I don't know. Maybe I just didn't know how to try hard enough then in life, who knows? So it took a circuitous route to real estate. But I'm where I belong, and I'm where I'm where I love being. And how did I get there through radio, you ask? Since I know you're going to ask, you not letting any stilly though intrigue here.

Craig Evans:

I was going through next.

Joe Downs:

My, one of my clients that came along, and this was just serendipitous was a, it's called Real Estate Riches, and they put on a, you know, there were no podcasts back then, or if they were, they were the first podcast, but he was they, we did everything by seminar, not webinar, but live seminar. So they advertised to our listening audience, because we had the right demographics, terms of age and, you know, who had money, discretionary income, etc. It was a because conservative talk radio, and it was, you know, am radio, so that's who the audience was. And it was perfect audience for if you're going to advertise on the radio, that was the audience. And we would put about 100 people a night, two nights in a row, once a month in a hotel for a seminar. And they would teach people how to buy rehab and either rent or flip single family homes, Real Estate Riches. And they were pretty successful. And I learned how to do that. I started doing it. I think I probably started wholesaling first, because I was broke, coming from losing, you know, everything I had, and actually owing money. So it was more than broke. I was broke and in debt, but I scrounged up five grand and and pay it was that's all it cost, by the way, five grand and paid for a mentorship. And I think I started Wholesaling Houses first, and then I got a partner, because, again, money and we, I think we rented a few, flipped a few, or we tried to rent them and flipped them. I don't remember. It's easy. It's a long time ago, but, you know, moderate success, but making money in real estate as my third job, because I was still bartending because I still bartending at another bar, just because I was broke. That was a common theme. And starting out in radio sales without a book of business. So, you know, draw and then what I made bartending. And then on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I was out looking at property, so three jobs, and then another client was a that came along. I actually sold them. The first one came out of nowhere, but I went and pitched them, was a developer. There was a developer I knew and actually, the week of 911, one of my buddies and I were, there was nothing to do that week, market was closed. So we were, we both belong to a golf club, because it was doing okay, but it was a single guy, right? So then it was not an expensive club, but we both fall into a golf club. So we went there, play golf. Every day was nothing to do. And one day we were having a few drinks, sitting around, saying to ourselves, like this, and I knew I wanted to be done. That was the week. I was like,'Alright, this is it for me.' And were, he said, what are you going to do? Like, how do I get into real estate? Or, no, sorry, we what we said was, who's the well, we were just joking, like, who's the wealthiest guy? You know, let's do what he does, type of thing. And and then it got serious. And I was like, hey, seriously, 'Who do you actually, like, who's in your phone? If you call them right now, they'd say, Hi Jamie, or Hi Joe.' And mine were both guys in real estate and one was a developer, and one of multifamily. And I was like, That's it. That's where I'm going. I'm going to find a way in. So selling radio was just the stepping stone. I did not know. And this is maybe part of the message is, 'you never know when one door closes, another one's going to open' and just just, you know, take the next experience and be open to anything. Because I didn't go into radio thinking this is my pathway into real estate, but it ended up being my pathway into real estate, right? So anyway, the developer comes along the they want to sell these high end condos, and their their demo unit was across the street from our office, and so I ended up I would go over, I became friendly with the head sales guy, who was the broker, and when I didn't feel like going out on the road and selling, I would just go over there and we would shoot the ship for a couple hours, or he'd text me, like, what are you doing? You know, it's a rainy day, no one's coming and go, everything out. And anyway, he had a friend who was looking for a sales guy, and he was in 1031 it was starting at 1031 exchange tenant in common company and buying multifamily office buildings. And needed a sales guy to raise the money. And I interviewed with them, and I didn't, I wasn't in commercial real estate. It was barely in real estate, you know, dipping my toe in residential with some, you know, flips and wholesales and stuff. So I had to learn commercial real estate, but he what he needed. He knew he could teach me that he needed, you know, what I brought to the table otherwise and, you know, ended up, ended up in that business, and that was fantastic. And that that's when I, you know, what a great ride. Raised $93 million of 1031, exchange money in a couple years, and then it all went poof, almost overnight. But it was the writing was on the wall for a couple months. We were the last loan Citigroup did in 2007 and we had to threaten to sue them to do it, because we had, we'd already gotten approval, and they didn't want to close. So we had the commitment, and they didn't want to close, and we just threatened to sue them that, but the writing was on the wall because they didn't want to do that loan.

Craig Evans:

Yeah, yeah.

Joe Downs:

That was October of'07, November, and then '08 was not a fun year. And then I was out by the end of '08.

Craig Evans:

So what got you transferred then from traditional real estate into storage?

Joe Downs:

So my life has been a series of reinventions, and I in 2009 had to reinvent again, because my industry, which was a$4 billion equity exchange industry, went down to two 50 million in like, two years or a year after some so the industry was to put for a while. And so I'd reinvent. So I, you know, I started doing, I got a mortgage. I was, yeah, I got a mortgage license. I started originating residential mortgages. And that's when I met, I was going to, I went to a tax lien seminar in Philadelphia, because I was looking at anything real estate related. I loved real estate. Didn't want to leave real estate, but it's, it's not like real estate was in a good place then either, right? It was in a really bad spot, actually. So wasn't like any people were hiring, you know, a

Craig Evans:

Yep. guy like me. So I knew I was going to have to figure it out for a couple of years. Unfortunately, I'm married. My wife has a good job. So I meet this guy at this pyramid club. We did a mutual friend that invited us to this event, and it was a tax lien seminar, which was interesting, and he lived near me, and we agreed to start meeting up. He was in a different but similar situation. His wife had a job, and he was reinventing, I think it was coming out of a, oh, he had just gotten hurt. He had a, what's the name of those franchises that We Buy Ugly Houses, franchises, whatever it's called, so Homebusters, right? So he had just gotten hurt in that and so we were both looking to reinvent, ended up stumbling into distressed debt, bought, a went to a seminar. I'll never forget the first night of the seminar, because I almost didn't go. In fact, when people ask me, Is there a night, is there a decision you made? Is there a decision you made that changed your life, an important decision? And I said, Yes. And I always talk about that night, I can look up the date. I don't remember, but I know what was significant about that night. It was, I'm sure it was an October night, because it was the game one of the World Series, Phillies, Yankees, Cliff Lee was on the mound. Phillies had just won 102 games, or something like that, so they were the odds on favorite. And they did not win that World Series, by the way. But it was, it was October-ish of 2009 whatever the night. I went to this seminar on distressed debt. It was just specifically buying reperforming residential second mortgages. Think about that. Residential second mortgages, pretty esoteric. Yep.

Joe Downs:

And I was the guy who was the guy who was like, question, question, question, question. And it didn't hurt that I knew some of the guys putting on the event from other just being in local real estate and so ended up buying one in my IRA, and came back and told my then became my partner, and still is my partner in debt, Tom Dunkel. I said, 'Look, these guys are selling 25% yields to us as investors. What do you think their yield is?' They're selling you 25 theirs has to be 50 to 100 right? So I said, if there's that much margin in

Craig Evans:

Now these were first or seconds? here, I just raised $93 million at six and a half percent yield on average. Well, there's something to this. We got to figure this out. So we ended up learning the business and buying we put our $11,000 we scraped together 5500 bucks each, but six non performing mortgages from a company that was selling them. And with that, we got 35 stories we could tell experiences. And I think...

Joe Downs:

Second mortgages, people, when we first started to raise money for this, everybody told us we were nuts, people that should know better.

Craig Evans:

Yep.

Joe Downs:

And the more you tell me something like that, the more I'm like, Well, why? What don't you know, right? So, I'm a be curious, not judgmental person. And you know, I'm not following sheep off of a cliff, but I, I will walk to the edge and is see if it's a cliff or if it's a foot down and there's paradise on the other side, right? So I walked to the edge of the cliff and said, 'Wait, it's not bad at all here? In fact, if you maneuver down this way, it's paradise'. So it just took a little effort and understanding. And so we bought six notes, and we, I think, three or four of them ever amounted to anything, and that's actually pretty high percentage wise for you know, if you buy 10, we'll sell people, but it was incredible in terms of what we learned and what we're able to build on top of that, our first, by the way, I'll never forget, probably still have a copy of it our first mortgage payment, because we, you know, we want to get them re performing, was from, I won't say her full name, out of respect, I guess I don't know. Her first name was Dan Mara and it was a $50 check. 50 bucks. Got it, got it all started. Today, we've been in business 15 years. We're probably the largest buyer of distressed second mortgages in the country from banks. If we're not The, we're one of them. But that's also is another way of saying we're a big fish in the world's smallest pond. As far as niches go. It's the niche of the niche, but it was an incredible hobby. And you're probably gonna ask me, then, well, why aren't you?

Craig Evans:

Yeah, that's, I mean, just because now I will, you know, we've talked about you, and it's all gonna get our investors in, like, I say the storage side, is what I want people to start hearing some stuff about. I just again, I know we've got a few that deal in storage and stuff like that, but I'm anxious for our audience to start hearing about this asset class. So cool. So what took you out of that? Let's call it traditional world, even though second notes is kind of a different aspect of that, I mean, but here's the thing I want our audience to see, even in that process, Joe, I mean, you were, whether it was by design or whether it was by force, you didn't lay down and take it. You figured, okay, I've got to pivot. And it may be because I have to eat this week, so I have to pivot, right? But you figured a way out to pivot, to work through what the markets were throwing at you, and that's part of what I want. I mean that I'm taking as I'm listening to you tell your story. You're proving out. What we teach day in and day out is, if you go into deals and don't have ways to pivot built in, you're short sighting yourself before you even start, right? So I love the fact that maybe you didn't have them built in, and you had to learn like, Hey, I've got to figure this out. But you pivoted, but, yeah, let's show What? How did you get into storage? all, right. So how did you move from traditional, you know, real estate, into the sector and the section of storage?

Joe Downs:

Yeah, real quick on what you said there. I because I agree with what you said. We also look at, and this is what we always look at with notes, is there's always multiple outs. So to your point, when you go into a real estate deal, what are your outs? What are your exits? We're always wondering, looking, we're always analyzing the exits. And there's only one better be pretty sure.

Craig Evans:

That's right.

Joe Downs:

They're always looking at multiple exits. And we got that actually from our notes world, because, you know, you can exit through the borrower, which is payments, or you can exit through the property that was always out there. So when the CFPB was created. So now we're circa 15, 16, 2015, '16. Well, because we had been running our business for a while, things were going great. We're we're we're on the climb. We went from buying the notes from intermediaries to buying directly from the x. We cut out the middleman, and things were on the up and up. Things were good until the CFPB was created. Which the point, well, I don't know what the point is. Point of it was the effect of it was, was it put onerous regulations on the banks to the point where, in particular, with their distressed debt sales, both first and seconds, to the point where they basically said, it's not worth it to sell these things to you guys. So we were looking at being out of business for a while. Now it was, it wasn't forever. It was an indeterminate amount of time, but it started to feel like forever. So we had to reinvent again. So Tom actually started going in the multifamily direction, with another, with his family, with another friend, and I actually advised them that I didn't think it was a good idea, based on my experience in it. But you know, up to you. And I was started to do hard money lending on my own. And, you know, started from scratch, and I built it up to look in a year, in about a year I was, I built it up to making like, you know, from zero to 125 grand a year. I mean, wasn't nothing, but.

Craig Evans:

Yeah.

Joe Downs:

And I was looking at our is this going to be what I

Craig Evans:

Yeah, institutional buyers, right? do now, or is this, again, just a measure to to feel worthwhile and bring them some money and, you know, whatever, and that market, and it was growing, and then one day, I got an email about self storage from this guy, Scott Myers, and I don't know the, so this is probably 2016 let's just say somewhere in 2016 I don't know the first thing about self storage in all the commercial real estate and all the alternative investment

Joe Downs:

Yeah. That just kind of rocked me. And the reason it conferences I went to, from 2004 call it to 2014 so 10 years of conferences, I mean, I'm in Vegas, 30 times. I could never need to go back. I never once saw a self storage operator. I didn't know the first thing about self storage. Never rented a self storage unit. If you had asked me, what was self storage back then, I probably would have said, I don't know. Those buildings with the orange garage looking things have been my answer. That's how much I knew about self storage. This email comes in and it says, real estate without all the without toilets, tenants and trash, is the subject line like, 'what's this? Sounds like another BS thing.' Opened it up. And that wasn't what hooked me. It got me to open the email. But what rocked me was because of my experience in distress debt, and hooked me was this stat, which is different today, and I'll in particular, my experience in second mortgages, because second update it for you. But in 2016 the stat was 80% of all self storage facilities are owned by Mom and Pop owners. And I went, what? Because at this point, I've read, you know, a little bit about self storage. Once I got the email, and I started thinking about it, and I was like, wow, I would have thought it's more like 80% owned by public and extra space and cube smart and... mortgages are so esoteric, we real quick window into that world. We buy from the bank in a large pool, maybe, in fact, we just closed on one a couple months ago, about 115 million of debt. That's 2500 loans, Call it. We buy, what other smaller buyers can't buy, and then they'll buy from us. So there's a markup there, right? We'll try to work them out. We actually, our goal is to get them modified. But if we can't, or we can't get in touch, whatever, we'll sell them. So I know what that world's like, because it's we created, in a lot of ways, the rules and the for the downline. This is how the transactions happen, right? It's just and what's something worth it? Well, there's no Zillow for it. It's Simone is worth this. So to me, I didn't know anything about self storage. But I just knew that 80% being owned by Mom and Pop means it's not an efficient market. There's inefficiencies out there somewhere have to be this is what I want to investigate to see if it's worth so I bought the at home course I I read the whole thing, the binder. Or they came with, like, the DVDs for your laptop, which didn't my laptop didn't even have a DVD player anymore. It was still and I was like, All right, well, it's one of the, you know, most of those education programs are a little older in terms of the form that they are delivered in, and so I wouldn't think too much about it. And then there was an offer to go to their academy and wherever it was, Indianapolis, and I politely declined, because I was not broke, but I was back to being, you know, not flush with cash in my, you know, reinventing again. So I was like, I'm not traveling to this. It's interesting. I don't know how to work, we'll see and then about a year goes by and I get a call from that company, the education company, Scott Myers Self Storage Investing, that said, Hey, we're gonna be in Philadelphia for an academy, and you've already paid to be there as part of your education, your at home education course. So I said, 'Well, all right, it's free. It's all I have to do, driving downtown to the airport hotels for, you know, a couple days. I'll just do that.' So I went to that Academy, and that's where I learned about the business and my suspicions that I had when I first got that email about it being very fragmented, dislocated market we're, I think, pretty on point. Not so much today, but there's still, it's a tremendous amount of opportunity in self storage because it's still so dominated by mom and pops. In fact, it's different sources, say, different numbers. Some states still 70% I'd say it's safe to say still, at least 60, 65% of facilities are owned by mom and pops, and that number is not likely to drastically change, because you'd say, wow, it sure did in, you know, six or seven years. But there's a size matters in self storage. So there's a kind of a demarcation line as to where the big boys will go down to in terms of how many square feet the facility is. So most facilities are actually that are owned or most of the smaller facilities are the ones that are owned by the mom and pop as well. So we look, we put a number at it comfortably, there's 20,000 self storage facilities comfortably. There's probably 30, but at least 20 that will change hands in the next 10 years, because they're all owned by mom and pops, who are 65 plus.

Craig Evans:

Now, when you say small size, you know what's small size for you in storage?

Joe Downs:

Well, I'll give you small size for a REIT. So for public they don't, the REITs don't generally want to go below 50,000 square feet.

Craig Evans:

Okay.

Joe Downs:

That's on the small side for them, will they? If it's a 40,000 square foot facility a mile away from one they already own and operate that's 100,000 or 75, yeah, sure. So there's, there's exceptions, but in general, they're not going below 50. So, there's a subset of institutional buyers that sit below the REIT and their bandwidth. You know, everyone will always buy as big as possible, as long as you're getting, you know, you can the deal works, that you negotiate, but they'll go lower than the rates. They'll go down to 30. But that 30 has got to be, you know, the they're really more of a 40 and up.

Craig Evans:

Sure.

Joe Downs:

Maybe 30, if it's an appendage to if it's a hub and spoke scenario. So, in, where do, where do these 20,000 fall in size? I'm talking about 30 and below.

Craig Evans:

Okay.

Joe Downs:

Down to 5000.

Craig Evans:

So, you know, for a lot of our investors, we got a lot of seasoned investors. I mean, some of these guys have 1000s of doors that follow what we do and and we got a lot of new guys and ladies that are just coming into this industry, right? So, you know, obviously, on a cash flow setting, you know, because storage is not going to be that. Hey, we're going to go in and paint this and now flip it tomorrow. I would imagine that's not a strong business model in storage. Whether you're you're buying an old, whether you're putting a new one in things like that. So, from a cash flow perspective, right? And longevity of the hold on the asset, what do you see as the biggest way that you can explode value within storage units? Is it in operations or, surely, I'm saying this tongue in cheek, but painting the eaves and painting the doors a brighter orange is not going to increase the value or the value of that. So where do you guys get that in storage.

Joe Downs:

You nailed it. So for your listeners are mostly multifamily residential, right?

Craig Evans:

We've got SFR. We got multifamily. The fix and flip.

Joe Downs:

Residential. So in residential, we all know it. There's nothing more clear than a before and after picture,

Joey Romero:

Well, that's going to do it for part two of our right? So we know we can, whether it's a single family or a multi family. We can go in and we can change out the countertops and make them granted, or, you know, whatever, carpet paint or not carpet paint, whatever we know, we can go in and make something stand out, and as long as the location is suitable enough, right, we can get more in rent for that location because of the physical improvements we made. Storage, do we make physical improvements? Sometimes they're invisible, though, for the most part, they're invisible to you, the average storage will call you the storage customer right there. To me, I know what they are. They're putting bollards on corners. They're putting lights in worse places, putting security cameras. They're making sure it's fenced, making sure it's operationally working from a physical standpoint better. This is all the physical stuff we do, but it's all the only thing a customer would see, physical obviously, if we painted it, and there are occasions where you would paint it, maybe that makes the slightest bit of difference. But from an operational standpoint, if we re gravel it, or if we're putting gravel where the gravels dried up or gone away, or, you know, there used to be puddles or something, that's the only visible difference that most customers will know. And even those capex projects are further and fewer between than you think. I mean, there's always something, little something we're doing and everywhere, at every facility, but at acquisition. But they're not major products. They're not they're projects. I'm sorry. They're not major like, you know, move that bus and here, oh my god, it's a new storage it's not that. That doesn't happen. So where we add value is you nailed it in operations. It's in marketing. It's in operations. It's taking, a traditional facility that we take over from a classic Mom and Pop classic story, looks like this, if they have, if they have a website, it's from the MySpace era, right? And their rates are moving, meaning they don't change. It's like or they have a sign on the building, physical sign with their rates on it, painted on, right? Painted on rates don't change that often, right? So it's from a management standpoint. It's little stuff like that. When we take over a facility, you can find it on your cell phone. You can rent a unit on your cell phone. We're going to require you to put tenant insurance or protection in place, just to rent the unit, and you can pay for it. In fact, we're going to require you're going to put a credit card or a debit card, right? None of usually don't find any of those features in a mom and pop, classic Mom and Pop run facility. Sometimes you find one of them, maybe their website is great, but they don't have the rest of the components work right? And that's the storage customer today. A is, if they weren't, has been trained through COVID to that's how they want. They don't really want to interact with you, with a person, an employee anymore. Worst case, they'll deal with a call center. But they don't really want to deal with you, or having to wait to talk to you, all right? And a lot of our customers today, not most, but a lot. And it's the growing number, are the millennials. So they definitely don't want to talk to you, and they only want to do things digitally, right? So you have to have that in interview with Joe Downs, we had so much good material that we're place. And if you don't, you're losing and that's just from a customer service standpoint. Then there's the customer acquisition, right? So you have to have, you have to be marketing. You have to have your SEO up. You have to be doing going to have to bring back a Bonus Session. So hopefully things that are that are making you rise to the top of the storage near me search, because that's all they're doing, right where you were used to matter. It still matters. Your location matters, but not as much, because all I'm doing is storage near me on my phone, and if I'm new to an area, I definitely don't know where you are, right? So, and a lot of storage is transient, so what matters is storage near me, and if your ranking is high enough, you could get that customer to come to you, and you weren't even the closest facility. And if had they known the area, they might have gone there. Now that's just the storage near me. If they could, they could obviously always use the map function and find it that way. I'm just you'll tune in next week and catch part three, which is going giving an example of why storage near me and SEO matters, because to be the bonus. And don't miss our huge announcement about I your ranking does matter in terms of it has a direct impact Survived Real Estate this year. It's happening September 12, on your occupancy and your revenue. 2025. hope to see you all there.

Narrator:

For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.

Joey Romero:

The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.