Relief Rally Ahead and What It Means for YOU

Is the economy heading for a soft landing… or a “touch-and-go”? 

Scott Meyers is joined with economist Mark Vitner, to unpack why commercial real estate got overpriced during the low-rate era, how self-storage cap rates often move differently from other asset classes, and what falling market rates plus clearer tariff policy could mean for deals ahead.

Vitner flags a likely 75 bps easing path and a housing cool-stress-relief scenario (mortgages in the 6–6.5% band), with meaningful improvement showing up around April next year.  

He also maps migration winners (Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia; continued heat in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Charlotte, Raleigh) and why that churn is good for storage—plus practical advice for operators and new investors alike.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

7:01 How ultra-low rates inflated CRE values

8:40 Why self-storage cap rates can buck the trend

13:55 Vitner’s “touch-and-go” landing and 75 bps roadmap

27:51 Florida’s out-migration—and the Carolinas surge

29:28 Today’s hottest metros for storage demand

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Chapters

• 7:01 How ultra-low rates inflated CRE values
• 9:50 Why self-storage cap rates can buck the trend
• 15:05 Vitner’s “touch-and-go” landing and 75 bps roadmap
• 29:01 Florida’s out-migration—and the Carolinas surge
• 30:38 Today’s hottest metros for storage demand

Transcript

Announcer (00:03):

This is the Self Storage Podcast with the original Self storage expert, Scott Meyers.

Scott Meyers (00:11):

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Self Storage Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Meyers, and on today's episode we have at Mark Vitner, the Chief economist at Piedmont Crescent Capital here to talk about all things that are happening in the economy, but more importantly how it affects commercial real estate, but most importantly, how it affects self storage. With that, mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Vitner (00:31):

Great to be with you.

Scott Meyers (00:33):

Well, mark, we always want to start by finding out a little bit more about your background and how you chose this path, and then ultimately how you ended up at Piedmont. So take it away, the floor is yours.

Mark Vitner (00:43):

Sure. Well, I started in business in the early eighties. Right out of school I landed a job as an economist at Barnett Banks down in Florida, which was the largest bank in Florida and was there for about 10 years and then moved to First Union, which it was starting an investment bank, and that's kind of rare. No bank has ever started. They're the only bank I know of that ever started the De Novo Investment Bank. And at Barnett, I did a lot of work in real estate, did a lot more when I got to first union, the investment bank in that we had all of the infrastructure to lend to real estate in all aspects of the business. And I worked as economist and focused a lot on the financial markets, but also on regional markets, being that that first union was a large regional bank.

(01:43):

About half of all the houses that are built now, it's about 70% are built in the southern United States. They were largely a southern bank. First Union became Wacovia, acquired Wacovia and took the Wacovia name and then stumbled the financial crisis, was acquired by Wells Fargo, worked there all in put about 30 years in at the first union, Wacovia Wells Fargo, and then retired to start my own business, something that I've always wanted to do, which is called Piedmont Crescent Capital. At Piedmont, what we do is we have a fractional economist practice where we work with a relatively small group of companies, about seven different companies as a fractional economist, also do public speaking and work with a lot of people on one-off projects. There's a big focus on real estate and the mix there has always been that the demand for real estate is derived from the underlying growth in the economy. So understanding the local economy, understanding the marketplace, that's why real estate's always local, is the center of what we do. So that's how I got to where I am right now. I'm still very, while I say I retired, I did not retire, retire retired

(03:06):

For the banking business, and I'm still putting in a full day every day.

Scott Meyers (03:10):

Yeah, yeah. Good. Good for you. Well, it's never too late to start your own gig, is it?

Mark Vitner (03:15):

No. And it's one of those things that if I didn't do it, I think I would've regretted it. So it's just one of those things and I'm just so happy I did. It is a lot of fun and I've got a really good boss.

Scott Meyers (03:32):

Yeah, good. That's always good to know. Well, so before we dive into where we find ourselves in this markets like right now and really discuss the economy, how would people reach out to you and what would be the reasons? I think most people here on the podcast in Storage Nation here understand why we hire a fractional CFOs because we can't afford to bring one or a fractional CPA or some of these other areas in the C-suite. But tell me why somebody would reach out to you as an economist and then hire you as a fractional or for part-time. What are the services that they would receive in exchange for you working with their company?

Mark Vitner (04:12):

Well, that varies, but I mean the easiest way to reach out and get a feel for it is just to go to Piedmont Crescent Capital.com and you can go to the website and there's

Scott Meyers (04:22):

Of course

Mark Vitner (04:22):

They write a lot of publications that are out there that are there. And I would say that the target audience has always been the C FFO or corporate treasure. It's been kind of that mindset. But in terms of a fractional economist, a lot of companies don't have an economist. Economist used to be, it was a function of the industrial age and a lot of businesses had economists because they used them to help forecast the cost of their inputs and what the market would do when they were selling their products. As we moved more to a service economy, economists really were relegated more to the financial sector and used a lot in the our sales support, which is primarily where we were on the investment banking side. What I'm doing now is a little bit of both. I mean, I work with a number of building products companies where their business is tied to residential construction and commercial construction and some infrastructure build.

(05:25):

And so there it is sort of a throwback in everything from getting some insight into cost and also in cost and demand. And then I've also worked in litigation support too, where people are concerned that and publicly traded companies that companies should have known something about the economy that should have known more about the economy when things took a turn and their business plan didn't anticipate it. So there's that element too. There's a whole host of regulatory issues that some folks want. And then there's also the aspect of simply sales support where I am working with a number of financial institutions. I've been meeting with real estate, with their real estate clients to talk about what's happening in their specific markets.

Scott Meyers (06:24):

So as it pertains to the market and where we are right now, let's dive in and talk about commercial real estate in general before we dig into self storage. And I've read a little bit about what you've put out recently and you still feel that things are real estate is overpriced, that the values are a little bit too high. And so let's talk a little bit about why you think that is, and I think I know that before we get on here, we were still talking about the confusing relationship of cap rate versus interest rates, but let's get your take on where and why you feel that commercial values are a little bit high in this market.

Mark Vitner (07:01):

Well, I think the biggest problem or the way that we got into the problem with prices being overvalued, properties being overvalued is that we had this low interest rate period for a long time and it enabled people to really look at properties as a lottery ticket. Imagine they could just imagine how valuable things were going to be. And I saw in a lot of different markets, I remember speaking at an industrial conference and a guy came up to me and said, mark, he said, I've been in this business for over 25 years that I've never seen where people are paying more for a building that doesn't, where we don't have leases than one that does have leases because they can imagine whatever they want if it's not leased, but it doesn't make sense because all our clients have always been AAA clients. And wouldn't you rather have AAA leases in there so that if things did take a turn, you knew your income stream was there and so we could see where we were getting it.

(07:53):

And it's just the Fed kept rates too low for too long and we had a general inflation, but we really saw it in property values. And then on the residential side, it's created a lot of issues because we have this lock in effect where we just don't have as much mobility in the housing market. And it's really created some problems for not just entry-level buyers, but for trade up buyers that have young children who would like to move into a school district and there's a family of empty nesters there that's sitting there, the 3% mortgage that's just not going to move. And so there's a real shortage for desirable homes and that's cutting into mobility. So I don't have a quick answer as to how that's going to solve. I think it's something that we're gradually going to work our way out of

Scott Meyers (08:40):

In storage. We've seen, I've been involved in office buildings, I've been involved in a multifamily parking lots, industrial as well as self-storage. And what I've seen over the years is that it seems like self-storage is usually lagging when cap rates are moving in one direction or another, say a little more rapidly than in a stable economy or stable environment. And typically when cap rates are going up, self-storage cap rates in general in commercial real estate, self-storage cap rates have remained a little bit lower. And I think it's the inverse to what you had just mentioned, which is not in a good economy where interest rates are going down and therefore the cap rates are as well and values are going up even if it is empty. But with self storage, even though the leases are short term, they're month to month, we know the average tenancy, but we know that they're going to backfill because it is more of a recession resistant industry.

(09:33):

And so it seems that the knowledge of typical investors out there, and I would dare to say perhaps even brokers, they know that they could still price self storage facilities in terms of from a cap rate standpoint of putting it out there to market at a lower cap rate even when cap rates are creeping up because interest rates are creeping up. Is this something that you've noticed? Is this an anomaly? Is this something that those of us that are paying attention to self-storage have seen? And how would you describe why self-storage acts a little bit differently than other asset classes?

Mark Vitner (10:03):

Well, I think that it reacts differently because there is a little bit more of a countercyclical element to it. And also that the shorter leases, I'd say that in there it's a little bit like the hotel market which tends to turn up, not that they're exactly alike, but the hotel market is also one that behaves very differently. It tends to turn up and the apartment market has just turn up sooner because it really comes to the lease turnover. So I guess everything in life comes down to the risk adjusted expected rate of return. And so I do think that the timing of that income stream is probably what's driving the cap rate, the timing of the cap rate turn.

Scott Meyers (10:58):

So what are you seeing right now in terms of where we're headed, say for the balance of the year looking at to where you think interest rates are going and what does that mean specifically for the self-storage sector? We have storage Nation here. We're always looking to get a leg up. Everybody's wondering when to move. For those of us that aren't moving, and we are right now, we're building that in knowing that interest rates are going to go down a little bit and we'll get some upside and some value push from that. However, there's an awful lot of folks who are sitting on the sideline, whether it be passive or active investors. What are you seeing specifically in the market with regards to interest rates, valuations and the timing of jumping back into the market? Again,

Mark Vitner (11:37):

Now we are seeing that interest rates are coming down, market rates are coming down, and really a successful turn for the Fed in terms of beginning. Another interest rate cycle would be for them to follow the market down because they're in a tricky spot right now. They don't want to cut rates. It look like they're capitulated into Trump. If they do that, the dollar's going to get hammered and then long rates will go back up. So that would be self-defeating. So they need to make it clear that they're cutting interest rates for the right reason. The job is report just looked horrible, the numbers that we got for July, and they've been looking weaker all year and we've been writing about that consistently. And one of the things that's concerned me for a long time has been that all of the job growth has coming from a narrow subset of industries, mainly the healthcare sector a little bit, social services, healthcare, social services are lumped together. That's childcare, which is largely is counted in social

Announcer (12:41):

Services,

Mark Vitner (12:42):

But whatever it's there are alternative sources of employment data, A DP for example, which is a large payroll processor. And when you look at their industry data, which comes from a larger survey than the BLS actually does, they don't show that ground growth in healthcare. It may be a mirage. And that's one of the reasons why when job gains are narrower, we get a little nervous. And I suspect that the employment numbers for the last couple months may actually have been negative. And typically if you have two months of declining non-pharma employment and you're in recession, so the fed's probably a little bit behind the curve, certainly the tariff turmoil, all that uncertainty that we've seen is a bit of a unique situation. There doesn't seem to be anything structurally broken in the economy. So a lot of people come up with analogies involving an airplane. Is it going to be a soft landing, a hard landing, which is not necessarily a crash, it's just a hard landing I guess. And I kind of feel like we might be set up for a touch and go where

Announcer (13:55):

We

Mark Vitner (13:55):

Have this period of slow growth that we are in the middle of right now, but just a little bit of a relief in interest rates, just 75 basis points from the Fed by the end of the year, you bring mortgage rates down to between six and six and a half percent. I think. It doesn't light a fire into the housing market, but it takes a lot of stress off of it and we get a little bit more activity and that drives a whole lot of activity. Then

Announcer (14:26):

We

Mark Vitner (14:27):

Get the tariff. This is what has to happen. There's still a lot of things that have to happen for things that go right. We get the tariff uncertainty behind us, which I think we're a lot closer to that.

Scott Meyers (14:37):

Yeah, we're getting there

Mark Vitner (14:38):

And we get that behind us. I think that we see an uptick in business investment. We have a decent year next year, so our forecast has been a little bit more pessimistic about 2025 and a little more optimistic about 2026. I'm not looking for the economy to rock it back, but we have growth closer to 2% next year growth closer to 1% this year. And I may be charitable with that 1%.

Scott Meyers (15:07):

So this is more along the lines of a chicken and egg question, but storage is affected by the residential market. When people begin to buy houses again, well first they start to stage the current home that they're in, if they're getting ready to sell, which means they get other kids stuff out and they put it in storage to make the house look like it has more room. And so we get an uptick from that standpoint. And then when people are moving, it necessitates a need for self-storage and that depending upon what market you're in and how your facility is positioned, it could be 10, 15, 20% of your occupancy is tied just to residential movement in the economy. So what precipitates that in your eyes, mark? Is it interest rates come down and therefore people are ready, now is the time or is it the consumer confidence rises from other factors in the economy unrelated to interest rates where they see the jobless jobless rate is stabilized and or the tariff situation is stabilized over done? Is it just lack of volatility and them folks that are watching the news that they feel like, well, everything seems to be status quo and I don't see any surprises coming out of left field, so now maybe the time to move it doesn't look like we're going to get in trouble by being too bullish right now. Does that question make sense?

Mark Vitner (16:26):

It makes sense. It's a little bit of both, and I wouldn't say a little bit of both. It's a lot of both, but you have to have the right mix. I mean, lower interest rates by themselves wouldn't cause the economy to turn around. I mean, we saw that in the middle of the pandemic. I mean if everything is higher in the world, you get very low interest rates. Folks are concerned about their jobs, and it's not so much that we're seeing a lot of layoffs. We're just seeing that hiring is throttled back. And so companies are holding onto workers. They don't want to let people go because it's been hard. They've gone through a long period where it's been hard to replace them. But that slowdown in turnover, first time claims for unemployment insurance for example, around 200,000, normally they're closer to somewhere two 50 to 300. And so

Scott Meyers (17:18):

We're

Mark Vitner (17:18):

Not seeing as much churn in the labor market. It means people are staying in place, so they're not moving. We don't see

(17:24):

As many relocations. So it's going to take a combination of lower interest rates and a little bit of strengthening of the job market. The consumer confidence numbers are low. And when you look at consumer confidence, there's a University of Michigan that is a conference board survey. They both have a measure of present conditions and future expectations, and that future expectations is the one that's most important. That's the one that tends to influence purchase decisions. People have to feel confident in the economy if they're going to move their family or move their family and purchase a purchase a new home if they're moving their family to move back in with mom and dad. That's a whole other story. And that doesn't have the same implications for the economy, but I don't think that's something that's going to turn around the minute the Fed cuts rates, so they cut rates in September, they followed up with another cut in October, and then another one in December.

(18:30):

That's what we've got. We're probably talking about a meaningful improvement the economy sometime around April of next year, that's when things should start looking a little bit better. And it may show up a little bit sooner in the data, but I don't think it's going to show up. I don't think people are going to feel it in their day-to-day lives until right around then. So maybe we get a decent spring selling season next year in the housing industry. In the meantime, I think things may look a little bit worse because one of the things that's been holding up the construction, the employment numbers has been that there's been such a backlog of single family homes and apartments under construction that there's still a lot of people working on 'em, but there's a lot of supply of vacant apartments and vacant homes on the market right now. So that needs to be filled up before we get some growth there. It's likely to be a fairly slow term before things turn back out.

Scott Meyers (19:33):

Okay. So aside from anything that's cataclysmic or anything that's out of the ordinary or just unexpected that we didn't see coming, what like wars for instance. I mean we've still got one raging, we've got unrested in the Middle East. Are there any other threats that you foresee coming right now that could be predicted that may happen as a natural occurrence of what you're seeing right now? Any trends? Again, outside of the one-offs when we don't know if a war is going to start or something else kind of close me, what should investors actively or passively, is there anything that they should have their eyes open to and keep an eye on that may potentially thwart their efforts in terms of getting the returns that they want to or a positive trajectory of the economy in general?

Mark Vitner (20:17):

Well, I always try to keep an eye on geopolitical events, and it is, but it's hard to make plans in anticipation of them. It's more important, I think, to react once you've seen that changes take place now. Now where I think that the biggest key there has been the tariffs and essentially this entire tariff conflict that we're going through is an effort by the president to better position the US to compete against the rise of China because China, it's not as if China is like the new Japan. And when Japan was rising, we didn't have to fear them because they weren't going to try to corner the market on key materials. They weren't going to meddle and try to disrupt capitalism throughout the world. And that's what's going on there. And so when people see these incredible trade deals that are done with the EU and the pressure that's being put on Canada and Mexico, I would just take into account say, okay, what's the end game here? The end game here is to set the table for a better negotiation with China. That's what the end game is there. And so it's not as if these things are endless or pointless. There is a bit of a plan that's in place here.

(21:40):

And I'd have to say it's necessary regardless. People have their opinions one way or the other as Ali feel about the president, but he's the one we've got. And it's an issue that whoever the president was going to be at this time is going to have to deal with. So when it comes to the tariffs, this is what I tell people in order to plan for their businesses, odds are that we're going to have a base universal tariff. About 15%. I had thought it was going to be about 10%. The reason why that base universal tariff is in place is the United States is going to have to increase defense spending by a significant amount.

Scott Meyers (22:13):

And

Mark Vitner (22:14):

Without the United States, there is no free trade in the world. It will not be able to get insurance to put your goods on a boat,

Scott Meyers (22:23):

Ship

Mark Vitner (22:23):

'em from Europe or from Japan to the United States. United States provides the freedom of navigation. That's why the US took out the Houthis so that European trach come back around through the Sue Canal, although it really hasn't yet.

Scott Meyers (22:37):

But

Mark Vitner (22:39):

That universal tariff is going to remain in place. And then

(22:43):

You will have higher tariffs on countries that are in some way are giving more advantageous terms to China. And so that's essentially how it's going play out. And so if China is simply moving production to Vietnam and then finishing or packaging up products and shipping it to America, well, they'll have a 15% base tariff on everything they make there. That'll be closer to 40% all those goods that are trans up. And that'll be true of Canada and Mexico too. That's where tariffs are headed. It's not that hard for me. It seems pretty clear. I think we can survive that. I don't think that's going. I think we can accommodate that. I think personally every country in the world will, it will shape the way that they do business. It'll tilt them more toward the us. It'll probably be better for us in the long run. And I think those tariff rates, those base tariff rates will come down

Scott Meyers (23:43):

In

Mark Vitner (23:43):

Successive presidencies. That's in terms of the geopolitical issues, that's the biggest thing. The war in Israel, the war in Ukraine, I mean the stakes there are pretty high. But on the Middle East, I think that's going to end fairly favor with the broadening of the Abraham Accords in Ukraine. If Russia were to take Ukraine, they would push further into Europe. I mean, it seems pretty clear. So how that's resolved is pretty key. But in terms of the near term economy and the financial markets, I think much of that has already played out

Scott Meyers (24:32):

Well, I think regardless of whether your thoughts, your opinions, or which side of the aisle you tend to lean towards thankful that this administration is finally addressing that imbalance with China and as well as other countries. But to your point, the funding of our military is important for many reasons, as you just mentioned, in addition to just trade. But don't think that now that we're finally reacting, don't think that China hasn't had a plan for many, many decades to get to the place where they were right now. And this administration is finally addressing that by way of shoring up the imbalance to make sure that money is a power, and that is something that's long overdue in addressing. So Mark, we've seen a big change since COVID. When folks were sent home, they were then free to work from home, which meant that they could move wherever they wanted.

(25:30):

And so folks moved to the smile states and for a warmer climate, and if they were displaced, and many times they would just go back home, wherever that was their hometown, to be near family if they didn't have to be anywhere near the corporate headquarters. And so huge shift throughout 20 to 22. But now we're seeing many shifts and changes in the political environment and economic environments of different states, I'd say more dramatically than we've seen in the past that are more favorable for businesses and cities that have been stagnant for years are now have some growth initiatives. And we're just seeing a real change, I would say, in terms of a migration of folks from one part of the country to the next, let alone city to city. Are you seeing the same thing and are those trends that we should be paying attention to that are maybe even more dramatic than I just spelled out?

Mark Vitner (26:21):

Well, we are seeing that play out, and one of the ways that we're seeing that out is most companies are now going to a hundred percent back return to the office where, and if they're not there now, they're going to do it at the start of the new year. And so the large cities are seeing a return to the city. So New York City leads the country in job growth right now. So a good sign, it's more of it on the East coast than it is on the west coast. The West Coast is struggling a little bit. Los Angeles, San Francisco, both struggling a little bit San Francisco more, but the large cities are seeing a bit of a pickup. That's one of the things that's been driving retailing it restaurants. So their business has been soft overall, but there've been a lot of underperforming stores that have been in the city. They're seeing that their businesses are coming back. But in terms of the movement to the Sunbelt, that's still going strong. There are some notable changes. Every time that Florida has boomed, things get a little too hot, and the hurricanes have probably made that a little bit worse. I mean, what happens is you have so many people that move down to Florida, they're attracted because of the lifestyle, lower cost of living, lower regulatory state, and they get down there and say, wow, I'm not the only one that had this idea. It's crowded down here. It gets really hot and humid during the winter and during the summer. And by golly, these hurricanes are nothing to mess with.

(27:51):

And so we see a big out migration, and Florida still has more people moving to it than moving away,

Scott Meyers (27:57):

But

Mark Vitner (27:57):

The number, but they saw the largest increase in out migration of any state. And where they've mostly moved is to the Carolinas, Tennessee and to Georgia. So they haven't left the Sunbelt, they've just gone to different parts. The biggest winner by far has been South Carolina. South Carolina's been the biggest one. The other thing that we've seen is that a couple of the hotspots, Austin in particular, have really seen grow slow because they're suffering from some of the same things, the issues that Florida did where the things just got too good, too fast and too expensive. And so suddenly folks began to look at other alternatives. The other thing that's happened is that Austin has grown almost all the way down to San Antonio. And so some of the areas that are now growing very rapidly are actually in the San Antonio metropolitan area. So San Antonio's growth has actually picked up, but neither place, neither Austin or Florida has lost their hedge. They're still incredibly attractive. We see the same thing. And also, they're not the only ones. That's not just in the South. Denver very much sold the same thing where they boomed. They were one of the first to boom when everything got too expensive in San Francisco and Seattle, everybody plowed into Denver, and then it made it so expensive that afford live, nobody from Denver could afford to live there anymore. So

(29:19):

They wound up moving to Salt Lake City. So said, salt Lake, really Salt Lake. Salt Lake is still one of the hotspots,

Scott Meyers (29:27):

But

Mark Vitner (29:28):

By and large people do want to be, I would say, in one of the frontier cities, that's where the population is growing and they're looking to, among the cities in the south, it's still Dallas, Houston, Miami to be our South Florida still seem to be doing incredibly well. The newer towns, Charlotte and Raleigh, both were the top in the June jobs numbers, the latest that you have for metro areas have the strongest percentage increase of any cities with a million or more people in them. So that two and a half percent plus job growth, whereas the nations up 1%. So those seem to be the hotspots. All of those growing markets are great markets for self storage because you have more churn in those housing markets and more churn in those commercial markets than you do in the nation as

Scott Meyers (30:33):

Whole. Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't think there's any follow-up that needs to be said to that. We know what to do with that type of data, and that's what everybody's looking for. So in terms of gotchas and opportunities, yeah, we've covered 'em. Mark, before I ask my last question, if people want to reach out to you, find a little bit more about what you do and what you do over at Piedmont Crescent Capital, how would they reach out and find you?

Mark Vitner (30:59):

Well, the website is piedmont crescent capital.com. You can also reach out to me just at Mark.vitner@piedmontcrescentcapital.com. We keep things very straightforward and I try to be pretty accessible. And I think that the reports that we put out there, they don't tend to be very long. I mean, brevity is something that we strive, but there's a lot information in them. And I have a fairly unique perspective. One of the things I want, reasons I wanted to go out on my own is I didn't want to be held back by anybody. I mean, I didn't want to be restrained in terms of what my views are. And so I've always been, when people have asked me to come and speak, they say, well, we always like Mark as he tells us exactly what he thinks is going to happen. I mean, I can't guarantee it'll be right, but I will tell you exactly what I think is going to happen.

Scott Meyers (31:57):

Well, we certainly appreciate from an economist, the last thing we want is a fluff or anybody that paints a rosy picture because that doesn't help anyone, especially on the investment side. So Mark, I appreciate so much your time today and being able to enlighten Storage Nation a little more on what's happening in the economy right now, the geopolitical tensions that we need to keep aware of, and then also the markets that we need to be looking into. And the last question that I have for you is when we have an awful lot of folks, our demographic, the folks that follow us, there's a whole lot of folks that are getting into real estate. That's a large portion of the folks that listen to this podcast and that are part of our community and our mastermind. This is the second of the Apple. So they're looking to go out, start another career, get involved in something else, whether it be part-time or full-time, much like yourself. What is some of the best advice that you were given once you exited from the banking world and then into this world of being a fractional economist?

Mark Vitner (32:56):

Well, I think there are two bits of advice. One was to listen to your clients, listen to what the people, which I said, well, I'll have a client. I said, well, listen to the people that you want to meet your clients so that you can anticipate their needs. And then don't over commit. He said, because, because you said when you get out and you start out, you're so willing to get started that you take on work, feel like you need to take on work, and you don't want to overdo it because you don't want to lose the creativity and the unique perspective that you bring by getting saddled down with too many projects at the same time.

Scott Meyers (33:38):

Yeah, fantastic. Very, very, very sound advice Mark. So Storage Nation, you have been hanging out with one of the best and most well-respected economists in the country with regards to commercial real estate and how we can apply the things that an economist like Mark can give to us, the information they can give to us to apply it to our investment portfolio. So with that, mark, thanks so much for your time. Looking forward to seeing you again on a follow-up episode very soon. Great. It's

Mark Vitner (34:07):

Great to be with you.

Scott Meyers (34:08):

Alright, thanks Mark. Take care.

Announcer (34:12):

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