The Real Cost of Self-Storage Management

What's the one cost that quietly kills first-time self-storage deals... before the new owner ever collects a dollar? 

This episode pulls back the curtain on the management question that's holding too many qualified investors back from their first acquisition. 

Host Joe Downs sits down with Alex Erbs, Director at EquiCap Commercial and co-founder of Gateway Storage, who built a full internal KPI and operations system through Erbs Management Group before watching it merge with The Storage Mall, now one of the country's leading third-party management platforms. 

Alex has been a buyer, operator, management company founder, and broker. He's lived every stage of the storage investing lifecycle. 

In this episode, he breaks down what first-time self-storage investors get catastrophically wrong about NOI, occupancy, and management...and why the investors still waiting for a perfect deal are the ones losing the most ground right now.

Listen For:

3:28 Do most first-time self-storage investors fail to model third-party management costs before making an offer?

7:49 What does the management fear actually look like in year one and what does it look like after?

17:19 What are the three most critical KPIs every new self-storage owner must track from day one?

24:21 How does a seller's reported NOI differ from what a new self-storage owner will actually collect?

25:05 What separates the self-storage investors who close from the ones still looking 18 months later?

CONNECT WITH GUEST: ALEX ERBS, DIRECTOR | EQUICAP COMMERCIAL

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Transcript

Joe Downs (00:00):

Most people who buy their first storage facility spend months worrying about the wrong things. They obsess over the cap rate, the financing, the offer price, and then they close and they find out the thing that actually determines whether this deal works is the thing they barely thought about, how they're going to run it. My guest today has been on every side of that problem. He's bought facilities with Family Capital. He's built a management company from scratch, internal systems, KPIs, a full operational playbook, and then he watched it get acquired. Now he sits on the brokerage side and watches first time buyers walk into the same traps he spent years building his way out of. He knows what breaks in year one because he broke it. That's where we're starting today.

(00:56):

I'm Joe Downs. Welcome to Storage Mobile's podcast. After acquiring and building over 20 storage facilities across multiple storage verticals worth over 75 million in assets, I've seen this business from just about every angle as well. And the one thing I know for sure is the people who succeed learn it from people who've already been through it. And that's why this podcast exists every week. I'm going to try to bring you the operators, the lenders, the buyers, and the industry pros who've done real deals so you can hear exactly what it looks like, what went wrong, and how they made it to the closing table anyway. Because at Storage Moguls, we do one thing better than anyone. We take people from curious to owning their first self-storage facility. That first deal is the hardest one you'll ever do and it's the only one that changes everything.

(01:45):

If you two are curious and want to get in the game, go to storagemoguls.ai and start your journey. All right, I'm fired up about today's conversation because of, so let me introduce my guest, Alex Erbs, who's a director at EquiCap Commercial, which is a brokerage specializing in self-storage acquisitions and dispositions. And before Alex joined EquiCap, he co-founded Gateway Storage, which was a family-led acquisitions arm that bought and operated multiple self-storage facilities. Then he founded Urbus Management Group in 2022, built out a full internal KPI system across the portfolio and watched that company merge with the Storage Mall, which is a third party management platform. Alex has been a buyer, operator, owned a management company, and now he's a broker. Alex, welcome to the Storage Mobiles podcast.

Alex Erbs (02:40):

I'm happy to be here. This intro is just ... Yeah, I've done a lot of things and when you say it like that, I kind of forget about some of this stuff.

Joe Downs (02:47):

I'm like, oh. As my kids would say, Alex, I am glazing you, but I'm glazing you for a reason because you've got vantage points that most people don't have. And I love that they're all wrapped up into one big ball of fun named Alex Herbs. And I say that because I know Alex folks and he's a lot of fun. All right Alex, speaking of fun, true or false, third party management companies typically charge between six and 10% of gross revenue and most first time buyers don't model that cost before they make their offer.

Alex Erbs (03:28):

I'll say true. I mean, I could go and do a few deviations of that, but overall historically true. How about that?

Joe Downs (03:36):

You are correct, sir. On both counts.

Alex Erbs (03:39):

Yes.

Joe Downs (03:39):

These standard third party management fees, self-storage runs six to 10% of gross revenue depending on facility size, market and platform, which is maybe where you wanted to deviate a little. So in a facility doing 250,000 annual revenue folks, that's 15 to $25,000 a year and that number can be a meaningful change as to whether deal pencils or not. And most first time buyers underwrite, assuming they'll self-manage and we're going to get into that. Then discover post-close that for various reasons they can't or won't and the economic shift and the buyer gets this right, builds both scenarios into their underwriting before they make the offer. So you are correct, sir, and that is the cost that blindsides a lot of people. And we're going to get into that, like I said. Listen, folks, every person who ends up in this business got here some way and the path always tells you something about how they see the business.

(04:31):

And Alex has one of the more complete paths I've ever seen, as I alluded to in the opener. A buyer, an operator, a management company, founder, broker, and it's the full arc of the industry in on career. So Alex, take us back to the beginning. Gateway storage, I think family capital, right? No institutional backing. Whose idea was this? Why storage specifically and what did that first acquisition actually look like?

Alex Erbs (05:00):

Yeah, so there's a lot to unpack there. So I'm going to go first into why storage specifically. I don't think it was even so much like, oh, real estate storage or anything like that. It was truly actually my uncle has been in this industry since about 1999. He's been doing storage before anybody even knew what a storage unit was back then is buying facilities up in the upstate New York region, et cetera. So when I was late in high school, I kind of took an interest on it.

Joe Downs (05:35):

Alex, true or false? Self-storage facilities under 200 units are almost never professionally managed.

Alex Erbs (05:48):

I'm going to say true on that. Yes.

Joe Downs (05:52):

I saw your hesitation. I know why, but yeah, I think we're looking for a true answer here and it's because most first time ... And the reason is, and the reason I highlight under 200, because that's what we're actually trying to show first time buyers, there's an amazing market of under 20 unit facilities out there and that market, most common entry point under 200, that size, there's not a lot of third party management companies A, that will manage there. I know there's more today and certainly better ones than we can even manage ourselves, but a lot of times it doesn't even pencil to have a third party almost are forced to, especially the smaller you get. And this is exactly why the self-management question is so critical at the acquisition stage that we alluded to earlier. So folks, if you're buying in that size range, the assumption that you should be that you potentially are running it, at least you need to underwrite that scenario as well as a third party management scenario and even a hybrid scenario in between and your underwriting needs to reflect that.

(06:52):

And Alex, there's one fear I hear more than almost any other one from first time buyers and the fear that keeps otherwise qualified people, I should say, for making offers on deals that would absolutely work. And I want to name it out loud and deal with it directly. And the fear sounds like this. I don't know how to manage a storage facility. I've never done it. I don't know what I don't know. And if I mess up, I'll lose the deal, lose my investment. I'll have nothing to show for it. Alex, you might know a thing or two about this having done it without ever knowing how to manage a storage facility. Then you build a management company from scratch. You know what that fear looks like because you lived it, that year one fear in particular, probably day one, week one, month one, quarter one, year one, right?

(07:49):

What was the scary version of management in your head before you actually did it and then what did it actually look like after?

Alex Erbs (07:57):

There are so many tidbits to unpack there, but number one, there's always going to be some sort of fear towards something here. And I mean, there is going to be this thing, I'm going to say, I tell this Steven when we were in management and managing for others, you're always going to learn something new in a facility and you're not going to know everything that's going to happen there. Something's always going to change there. So number one, it was always, I think surrounding yourself with supportive people is very key whether it's your community, Joe, or if it can be self storage associations are great. State associations are great around there. I really got involved in those and learning some of those different, just meeting different members and other local resources. But I think the biggest fear is a lot of people are doing this because they want financial freedom generally.

(08:50):

I mean, I've rarely had somebody that's like, "I just don't want to make money. I don't think that's the case." And so when it's the fear of, "Hey, when we first did it, I mean, we literally had a home equity line of credit against my parents' house on that. Oh, this screws up. We're not paying our bills. This could be weird." Or like, "Hey, our name is signed on the dotted line. If this goes really bad," I mean, there's a lot of the fear of what could happen there. I mean, when I started the management group, that was the other one. I was, "Hey, I had a pretty cushy entry level job. It wasn't too bad, whatever. I'm going to go quit to go run somebody's tiny facility in central Missouri and at the time make only probably a few hundred bucks a month on this.

(09:36):

What am I doing?" There's always going to be a what am I doing here? And so I think it's obviously basing your decisions on what are you trying to accomplish down the line. I think that's also the key here too, because I've joked for years with different owners is, "Hey, the best market you can go into is a market that's turned over a bunch of facilities have turned over in the last few years in a secondary or small market. What do I mean by that? " Well, I mean by that is a lot of those facilities then most likely have loans and because they have loans, most of those owners are probably going to work their ass off also to try and do really well there. So that means they're going to continue pushing rates, they're going to continue increasing rates, they're going to continue to work hard.

(10:23):

Now you just have to work just that much slightly harder than them. My dad joked for years, you can do well in storage in spite of yourself. So even if you're terrible at this-

Joe Downs (10:36):

In the right market you can. Yeah.

Alex Erbs (10:38):

In the right market, you can, yes. Now that

Joe Downs (10:39):

Doesn't

Alex Erbs (10:41):

Always exactly it. It doesn't hold

Joe Downs (10:42):

Always-You said something really interesting. I want to unpack a little bit because it made me think of something I never hear anybody talk about. We talk about the fears of management. I don't know how to run, I don't manage it like I just set up for you, but you said we had a home equity line out at our house, really your dad did on his house. And that made me think, wow, when you have that much leverage on the line, you know what one of the benefits of managing yourself is? Control. When you hire a third party, in a lot of ways, even if you're not giving up total control, you're giving up optical control. You don't know what's happening on the day to day. That's why you hired the third party management. In a lot of cases, we don't want to know what's happening, right?

(11:31):

That's why you put them in place.You want to hire somebody you know is doing a great job and going to do a great job and then execute and then the numbers tell you whether they're executing and doing a great job. But the gap between that day one and that first quarter report or whatever, when a loan on your house and a home equity loan is online, that could probably be unnerving for people. There's a lot of trust there.

(12:00):

I hear people talk about the fear. I don't hear them talk about the benefit. I mean, there's many other benefits, you alluded to some, one of which is you get to learn the industry from the inside out and how this thing actually really operates. There's a danger with that, of course, is you don't want to be a control freak and micromanage and all that stuff. However, we shouldn't discount the level of control that you gain when you manage yourself. Did you feel that when you and your dad were learning the business and operating facility one, two and three even?

Alex Erbs (12:34):

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It's one of those I will say, before even I answer specifically that question, I tell most owners, even when I was in management, brokerage, et cetera, and again, it depends on the deal size and some other stuff, depends where you're starting. If you're starting with a small to mid-size facility like you've alluded to, Joe, and then maybe 50 to let's just say sub 300, 200, 300 units, I think you should self-manage for a while. You need to be able to see what's going on in this industry. And you see it firsthand, you see all walks of life, you see all different things, you learn all the different details. You learn how the operating system works. You learn how I got to go set up a marketing platform of Facebook ads and Google my business when it was still going. You learn a lot of almost, I'm going to say this, kind of stupid stuff that you probably wouldn't even think about until you're there.

(13:29):

And so I always tell a lot of owners, jokingly, you probably should start self-managing. And then guess what? If you get tired of it and you're like, "Hey, I did this. I don't like it. " You're now going to have that much more of a respect level when you do hand it off to a management group because now you know the bar that they're supposed to hit. It's not just going to be, okay, I leveraged my house. Let's just give that example and I'm going to give it to a management group and I hope they do really well like this. And basically, and if it doesn't go well, guess who they're going to blame the management group. They're going to say, "Oh, it's all their faults, et cetera." Versus when it's you on the line, guess what? You're going to learn a lot of stuff, for lack of better word, on the fly.

(14:10):

It doesn't matter how many, no offense show, it doesn't matter how many courses you go to of yours before you buy a facility, you're not going to learn some stuff until you're hands on with that and you have a customer, how do you deal with the break-in? It's funny, no one ever talks about- It's not a fun conversation. I could tell you all this stuff is it's not fun when the day after you closed, by the way, they got broken into, what do you do?

(14:36):

The third day after we closed, Joe, there was a raccoon in the unit. What do you do with that? You just can't even make it up. You're like, "Are you serious? Where is that at any of the school, the rule books here? You don't know. What do you do with that? You call an exterminator." But

(14:51):

At the time it was kind of a joke is, Joe, we didn't have money to go hire an exterminator. We just did a giant down payment and other stuff. So my dad took Rocky the raccoon across the river and put them out in the woods and there you go. You're never going to know what you don't know until you try it there. And again, it's very lucky that storage is historically a pretty simple industry compared to most other businesses that you can usually do pretty well with giving just, again, obviously some effort and putting some time into learning this and getting yourself educated on the systems there.

Joe Downs (15:27):

Totally agree with everything you said, including it gives you the experience, the optics, the wherewithal to even then eventually manage a manager.You'll know what the BS factor is. You'll know where they're trying to bury the bodies and they're not going to get it by you if you've managed that facility. You know what economic occupancy is, you know they're hiding delinquencies and occupancies, et cetera. And on top of that, it helps you with your next acquisition. You see facilities through a completely different lens the next time you walk one when you're an owner who manages one and has been there day to day in the grind, you see what's not going to work, you see the holes, you see why a facility might be underperforming. And it's almost like it gives you a third power, a superpower. And obviously you've definitely taken that and run with it and look what you've been able to do with it, which is awesome.

(16:32):

You stoper and flag.

Alex Erbs (16:34):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (16:34):

Exactly. Both

Alex Erbs (16:35):

Of them flies quickly on what's going on.

Joe Downs (16:40):

I almost don't want to ask you this question, but maybe you have an answer. I'm not going to hold your feet to the fire to ... What would be the three, I'll give you a range, three to five KPIs you or if you were extolling advice to somebody that a new buyer that you would track on your first facility from day one, what breaks first when the owners skipped them? What are the most important things from kind of you transitioned it, you're running, where's your eye have to be? What balls are they on?

Alex Erbs (17:19):

Okay, a few of the things that I like, I like to tell people, take a look at here. And one of the big ones before, I'm not even saying the same before you transition here. I've become really big on, I'm going to call it historical performance, whether it's you operating it or somebody else. And okay, so what do we mean by that? This is number one. Making sure you get year over year data of what happened at that facility, even if you or somebody else owned it. And I'm going to say the example of you don't know what you don't know at certain sites until maybe you look at some of the historical numbers and when we see it say historical like, "Hey, every year in spring, this place gets above every year because of it's college season, it's moving season, whatever it is. I've seen in the fall they get a bump because they're putting their boats away, whatever it is.

(18:07):

I like looking at historical data because that's always a great level set of when you go, oh crap, we had a bad month here." Okay, what does a bad month really mean? Okay, yes, the revenue's down, but if you look year over year, actually last August, you also had a terrible month. So obviously August is always going to be bad for you or whatever it is. Maybe there's a reason. I always joke it's we have a facility that we personally own in a college town. So guess what? Spring is amazing and then the off season is, I'm not going to say it's bad, it's just this low. So if you tried to compare those, it makes no sense. It doesn't do that. So year over year historicals I'm big on is comparing what it was before. Number two is really taking a look at your, yes, physical occupancy does not equal revenue.

(18:57):

I think probably that seems to be preached a lot and especially people coming from another asset class like you mentioned, multifamily, something else, we want to be 100% full. Yeah, I think we all know that's not really the case here because we actually want to say, "What is that economic occupancy?" I really want to look at it and not so much what is that economic occupancy and what is the revenue amount with that? Because I can be 100% full with a hundred people in the units. Let's just say it's a hundred unit facility and there's a hundred percent full and they're all rented at $10 a month, that doesn't do anything for you because guess what? You're only making $1,000 a month versus I could be 90 units full at 90% there and charging $50 a month. Guess what? You're going to be making more money doing that than you are the other way.

(19:44):

So I think some owners get really hooked on that. We need to be full, we need to be full, we need to be full versus I'm going to say, like you said, two or three, number two would be the actual economic occupancy of what the revenue is and then also truly looking at your variances. So I'm going to say number three is your variances of what your gaps are between obviously what current customer's paying and what street rates are paying and vice versa there. But I'm going to take it even one more step further on that. My favorite report at any facility as a broker as somebody else is the occupancy statistics report. Most softwares have it, most can do it. It's going to give you the biggest picture because I think when people look at occupancy, they think, "Oh, this facility's failing. It's 70% full or whatever it is.

(20:37):

It's at 75% full. We just can't get past it. " And the first thing I look at is I go, I look at every individual unit size to see what's going on. And I say, "Well, actually your 10 by 10s, 10 by 15s, 10 by 20s, and 10 by 30s are all full. You just have a crap ton of five by 10s that nobody's renting." So your physical occupancy of 70% tells me nothing at this point versus actually you need to be raising your rents pretty aggressively on your larger sizes. So

(21:07):

I think that occupancy statistics report, really looking at those different categories and per category on that of what those rates are is huge. And a lot of first time owners miss that because they're just so focused on, I need to rent units, I need to rent units versus, hey, you need to rent five by 10s, but you need to raise the rents on 10 by 30s and find that balance in between there.

Joe Downs (21:28):

And maybe combine five by 10s to create 10 by 10s if you have a supply demand shortage there or excess supply in the five by 10 in that case. And that 100%. And that's actually funny, that's what we teach students is you've got your market and then every unit size has a market and you need to understand the unit size market within the collective market. And I love what you said earlier about occupancy and rate, the relationship there. One of the things that attracted me to self-storage was, look, I spent some time in my history raising a lot of 1031 exchange money for multifamily office and some hotel deals. And what I learned about hotels was really interesting. In a hotel, you're managing rates by the night. A hotel never wants to be 100% full. The reason is they have something we don't have, which is an expense layer, a cleaning expense layer and maybe some other staffing expense layers to every bandwidth of the occupancy that they deal with.

(22:38):

But most importantly for a hotel, it just means they're not charging enough. Now they manage their rates by the night. Multifamily manage their rates annually. And one of the things I loved about storage was we manage our rates monthly. Well, really, we can manage them daily, but it's really a monthly rate. So we kind of sit in between the two but closer to hotel without what I would call the operational intensity of a hotel. And that's actually one of the things I love about source. Not to mention we're dealing less with people, certainly in multifamily, you're dealing with people living there and habitating and you are in a hotel, although they're transient, you're dealing with them less. And there's just so many, obviously we don't need to glaze each other over storage.That's why we're here talking to each other about it. But too funny is one of the things I love about that.

(23:29):

Yeah. I'm

Alex Erbs (23:30):

Going to add two funny things to that. You're completely right. The reason I like storage, I've always joked with people is you're not dealing with anybody's livelihood, period. At the end of the day, it's their stuff there. You're not dealing with it. The toilet breaks at two o'clock in the morning, they want to get their toilet fixed. You're not dealing with somebody living there and the issues involved.

Joe Downs (23:50):

Alex, true or false. A storage facility's net operating income as reported by the seller is almost never the same as what a new owner will actually collect in year one. That's going to be a tough one for you because you represent a lot of sellers now. Yes.

Alex Erbs (24:06):

Well, hold on. I'm like, was there a negative in there? It's not what it is. True. Yes. A lot of times that their P&L is not going to be the same P&L you have. Yes. I had to follow that. Wait, I think I missed a knot in there or something. Hold on. There you go. Yeah.

Joe Downs (24:21):

True. The gap is usually wider than the buyers expect. Sellers report NOI based on how they ran the facilities. This is kind of the angle of the question. Below market rates, unaddressed delinquency, owner managed labor, not priced at market sometimes, right? The process of adjusting that number to reflect how you would run the facility is called NOI normalization. In plain English, you're not buying the seller's income, you're buying what the property can actually produce under your management structure. So that's important to keep that in mind. Alex, you've watched a lot of first-time buyers. You know the ones who close and the ones who are still looking 18 months later, what separates them?

Alex Erbs (25:05):

The very quick answer is I guess I kind of hate it. It's like ambition basically. How badly do you want to really hop into this here? Because there is always going to be a reason not to buy a facility, period. It doesn't matter what facility you look at. You can always find a reason not to. Can you find a reason to want to? There's a lot to like about ... I mean, it's funny, I feel this way today about the listings I bring out. I don't want to just bring anything out to the market. I want to be excited about saying, "Hey, there's a lot of pros to this site here." I can find negatives. I can even tell you the negatives. Maybe a lot of brokers will try and walk around them. We can talk about some of the negatives and talk about what's going on.

(25:48):

But I see so many people that ... I mean, there's already some that I've talked to from when they just wanted us to manage for them. They never even bought a facility. They've been looking for five years. They've been looking for six years. They can't find a reason. They're looking for reasons almost not to buy it. And there's an analysis paralysis for lack of better word here that I think people get into sometimes because I looked at it and, "Well, this could happen," or, "Oh, this rate looks a little bit different." And sometimes I think where I started with is, and this is hard, it's hard to do it and it's a little different because I always step back and look at it. I am a little different. I was still in college. It wasn't all my money. It was some of my dad's and family money.

(26:33):

So I mean, I was kind of almost for jokingly the third party to my father, "I'm going to push you to do this. We're going to do this. " Because I didn't have as much on the line as I'm younger, there wasn't a ton to lose at that point. I get there's always something to lose there, but the financial freedom that can come from storage is going to be great. And the amount you're going to learn, getting that first deal done, getting in there and just making it happen will teach you more than you can do and will get you the success to be ready to talk about the next one here because it's very obvious to your question, Joe. It's very obvious when it's a first time buyer. And it's kind of funny when I like when people actually just tell me, "Hey, I haven't bought a facility yet.

(27:14):

I really want to learn, et cetera, versus it's almost some people that try and act like they know everything about storage, which I'd rather just ... Why not tell me you're a first time buyer? Let's talk about it. Let's see how much you know. Let's go from there."

Joe Downs (27:25):

So let me cut you off because I don't want you to be giving away an answer to what I'm about to ask because this could be part of it. Oh, perfect. There you go. Let me ask this this way. For the listener who is the person you just described, who's been thinking about it and I want to skip everybody to the same place. We all have different entry points into this business. Like you said, you were in college, but your dad and I'm assuming you personally didn't have a ton of money, but you had the wherewithal however it came about. Let's fast forward everybody, no matter what their entry point to the front of the line, meaning they're financially ready. So that's behind us, that question's behind us. Financially ready for what? For whatever facility they're financially ready for, whatever size they're financially ready for, right?

(28:15):

So I don't want that to be part of the question here, part of the answer. I want you to answer this more to the person who's financially ready for something but can't pull the trigger for whatever fear it is that's holding them back. What say you to them?

Alex Erbs (28:35):

Well, you have to start somewhere. I'm going to jokingly say it that. I mean, it's kind of almost the simplest. You got to start somewhere. You will again, go also with, this is going to sound so funny and it's hard. It's just funny because I get it. I'm in the brokerage world. I want to go off data. Sometimes just go off your gut. It's funny because I get this a lot with some of these first time owners and like we have a listing right now and all I keep hearing, "I like this facility. I like it. I know there's a lot that can happen." I mean, I keep hearing this from person to person, but the numbers just aren't where I like them to be. I say, "Well, why don't you like that? " Their rates seem a little higher than the market. I'm like, "Yeah, but it has everything that ... That's why you like it because it's a nice facility.

(29:16):

It does what it's supposed to. It does what it's going to. " So sometimes you have to go off your gut. I mean, at a period end of discussion there. I mean, if the numbers are pretty much everything lines up the way you want, sometimes you just have to jump in because then once you get in there and you know and go from there and say, "Hey, this is lining up and this is exactly what I want here or not even exactly. It's close to what I want here. It prety much checks every box, you got to jump in and you're going to learn 10 times more and be way more experienced to go from there because that's what we did on our first deal. We didn't really love the location. It wasn't the best area. We didn't love all this stuff, but it was like, we got to learn so Somehow, and we're going to learn feet to the fire here with that and we just got to jump in and do it.

(30:04):

And that's why we got very successful with that. And don't be afraid to jump in and just again, it's never going to check 32 boxes perfectly, period. And if it does,

(30:17):

There's probably another 50 people looking at it too with that

Joe Downs (30:20):

Generally. Love it. And that's great advice. Listen, it's great advice. How does our listener reach you, Ax?

Alex Erbs (30:26):

Yeah. Again, there's not even one specific way. I maybe should be better at social media. I do a lot on LinkedIn though. I am on LinkedIn, so that's usually an easy spot message on that. Email me alex@equicapcommercial.com. Very easy with that.

Joe Downs (30:45):

So Alex, A- L-E-X at EquiCap, E-Q-U-I-C-A-P commercial.

Alex Erbs (30:52):

Equcapcommercial.com. Yes,

Joe Downs (30:53):

Sir. We'll put it in the show notes as well.

Alex Erbs (30:55):

Perfect.

Joe Downs (30:56):

Yep. Alex, I love that answer. And here's what I keep coming back to. You're the rare person who's actually done all of it. You weren't just a buyer, advising buyers or a management company, advising operators. You actually built each piece, lived each piece. Now you're on the side of the business where you watch other people navigate the same decisions you made 10 years ago and that perspective is actually, it's irreplaceable. I mean, you've earned that. So if you're listening to this and the management question has been the thing keeping you from sending your first LOI, I hope this episode answered it for you. Folks, the management problem is solvable. Alex solved it. Storagemoguls.ai is where you can learn how to solve it for your first deal as well. Every week on Storage Moguls, podcasts we're covering the full storage verticals, self-storage. We're going to introduce later BotanRV storage, pro storage, industrial outdoor storage, truck parking, small bay flags, all of it.

(31:51):

So please like, subscribe and share based on something specific that hit you today. Folks, there is a seller out there right now who's ready. So stop watching, start moving, drive for dollars, send the LOI. We'll see you next week.