Deeper Into the Banker’s Mindset (Part II)

By focusing on the details that matter most—like occupancy rates, net operating income (NOI), and even factors like competition and CapEx—Scott provides a roadmap for presenting your project as a sound, profitable investment.

With a rundown on add-backs, market trends, and the importance of lender-approved due diligence, Scott explains how to secure funding and establish your credibility with potential partners.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
2:24 - Key Elements for Lender Confidence
12:29 - The Power of Schedule E in Negotiations
14:48 - Add-Backs that Boost Value
23:08 - Maximizing Profits for Loan Approval

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Chapters

• 2:24 Key Elements for Lender Confidence
• 12:29 The Power of Schedule E in Negotiations
• 14:48 Add-Backs that Boost Value
• 23:08 Maximizing Profits for Loan Approval

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 am your host, Scott Meyers, and in today's episode, this is episode number two in a two-part series on the things that you need to know when you are submitting your business plan and loan request for your first or perhaps your next self storage facility. And so in the first episode in this series that we talked about all the things that the lender is going to want to see, so the background on yourself, they're testing you as a guarantor, as a borrower to determine whether they want to do business with you. But the good news is, as we mentioned, they're looking more to the strength of the facility rather than you as the strength of a borrower when they are looking to lend on a particular project. So that is good news for many of us, but also as we continue to expand and grow, it is not the limit of our W2, our income and or our balance sheet.

(01:02):

It is really the type of deals that we are bringing to the lender because they are the primary repayment of the loan itself. The lender is going to dig into the facility itself and the particulars, and they're going to begin to ask you some questions because essentially they are your partner in this, right? They've got more to lose and they own more of it. If you're looking at a 70 to 80% LTV loan to value means they're putting the debt on most of us and they're in first position. So yeah, by all rights, you're running it, you're managing it, you're calling the shots, but at the end of the day, they have more rights to this facility than you do, let's just be honest. So in order for them to get comfortable with you and the project, they need to know the project a little more intimately.

(01:43):

So that means that you're going to be sharing your due diligence. And so what I want to do is I just want to spend a few minutes on the types of things that you need to know. You should know anyways when going into your due diligence on a project, but especially for your lender because the last thing that you want is for the lender to begin asking you questions about the particular project. And after them asking you a handful of questions and the answer to the first two or three is, I don't know, lemme get back to you. Well, they're going to wonder how much you really know about either the industry or B, this project before you've asked. And so they're going to begin to lose confidence very quickly in you as the jockey for this project in a partnership in which they own most of the facilities.

(02:24):

So let's touch on those areas. Here's the things, and this is by the way, this is a checklist straight from my lender who is one of the largest lenders in the country. So here's the things that she's going to want to know. What is their occupancy? That's pretty clear. You should have that by way of a property management summary report. And don't forget to share these with your lender because not only your lender, but the underwriters at the bank are going to want to see this as well to see that these are actual and true numbers. When was the last time they raised rates? If you are selling to the lender that, Hey, this is a value add because they haven't raised rates in 10 years, here's where the market is. Well, they want to know when is the last time that they raised rates.

(03:01):

So you need to have all of that data laid out. How many units are delinquent on rent that we will find in, again, the property management summary report. So by the time you're coming to your lender, you should be on, I would hope, on good enough terms and built enough rapport with the broker and or the seller to be able to get a property management summary report that has all this information. If not, then you're going to have to ask them specifically and individually for each one of these areas because they want to know does the money come in? Does enough money come in by the 30th of the month or by the 15th of the month when their loan is due or the eighth in terms of being able to not only pay the bills that need to be paid, which is them first, but utilities, payroll, anything else?

(03:41):

And if the account's receivable, if the lag time is significant, then that may be a problem in them getting paid on a regular basis and on a timely basis month in and month out. What is their marketing approach and how do you plan to improve upon that? Whether there is no marketing, whether it's all online, whether it's a word of mouth, a combination of all three, what are the multiple sources in which this facility, the current owners are marketing the facility in order to gain new clients? How old is the building, the buildings and what maintenance has been performed over the last few years? This is certainly a piece that we always ask in our due diligence because if I can see not only the maintenance, but more specifically what we call the CapEx, if you're not familiar with that term, capital expenditures, what are the major improvements?

(04:29):

What are the major additions that they have made to this facility in the past, say five to seven years? And if they haven't updated or done any improvements with regards to say the parking lot and it's in need of repair roofs, HVAC equipment, the gate and gate software, video cameras, if everything is outdated and everything is in need of repair, well, they may speak to the reasons why they're selling this facility, which is okay, but if you haven't accounted for that upfront in your loan request, well then you're going to have to come out of pocket. And if all of these things begin to fail soon in the first year or first two years, there goes your profit. And if you haven't accounted for this, then it's all going to come out of operating capital and it may not cashflow for a while either for yourself or your equity partners.

(05:13):

And so it's important to have the inspection, a physical inspection by an inspection company to come out and take a look at the property to determine if there's any issues with the facility and if there are things that you can see that are at their useful life that need to be repaired, that need to be replaced, then you need to add that onto your loan request for just the acquisition of the property itself. Lender's going to want to know why does the owner want to sell? Is it just a natural course of the project for them? Have they owned it for 18 years? Have they depreciated it? Are they trading in trading up? Are they retiring somebody sick? Is it going back to the bank? Are they in trouble? What is the reason for them selling? So you should have that answer as well because it obviously helps your negotiation, but they just want to have some insight to why it's a selling because if it's a case where, well, we know that somebody's going to buy it and we just threw it out there and you happen to be the one who's overpaying for this facility, they want to know the reasons why somebody is selling, even if it may not be 100% the truth.

(06:12):

They're going to want to know what assets are being acquired, the buildings. Sometimes we have portable buildings as well, the portable units that fit outside. Is there any equipment that goes along with it? Certainly, I know this is a rare instance, but you want to make sure that you're buying the land and the buildings and the business itself because those all can be separated. Sometimes a sale includes the goodwill, which is the business and the assets, which is the real estate, but what is truly an asset and a fixture to the ground versus some of these portable buildings and any other equipment that goes along with it. They just want to know exactly what's being financed because there may be an instance of which you do have some other items that you're going to have to purchase afterwards that are not going with it. Is there a cell tower on site?

(06:51):

Are you getting income from that or is there an easement for it? They want to know every income source, billboards, other ancillary businesses, the U-Haul Agency, is that going with it? Is it being transferred? All these items that pertain to the repayment of the loan and or a capital expenditure afterwards, they need to know so they get the full picture. Is the property all on one parcel? They want to make sure, and obviously you're going to go through a title company and have an attorney look at these items, but can we assemble those parcels? Are they subject to different taxes? Have we accounted for all the taxes? They're going to underwrite this as well. And so they need to see all of the information that is available on this property just to make sure because as if they were the owners as well, again, just like you would and just like you're doing as you're approaching this facility and doing the due diligence, they're going to take the same amount of scrutiny when looking at this to make sure that they know exactly what they're buying.

(07:42):

Is there any seller financing involved in this project? Is that part of the capital stack? Have you had that discussion with the seller so that they know where the capital is coming from, the balance of the equity? Is it coming from you? Is it coming from the seller? A combination of private equity. They want to know that first of all, you have skin in the game. Second, if there is seller financing, they like that because they know that the seller is going to do everything to help you and to help the project to make sure that they get paid and that it actually sells. And so that actually is a good thing. If there is some seller financing in place, how many employees do they have? What is their average wage? Do those employees want to stay on after the sale goes through? They want to understand just exactly what this looks like.

(08:19):

Is it over payrolled? And yes, your lenders, from an underwriting standpoint, their controllers and their underwriters, they do know what it looks like to be able to operate traditional operating costs for a self storage facility. And so you need to paint the picture as to how you're going to manage it. We've seen in the marketplace, and we subscribe to this for the most part, a philosophy of we see that the challenges typically with a property are from the person that is behind the counter. It may be somebody that has been there for a number of years, they weren't trained very well, the owner didn't really keep up with the laws and the regulations within the industry and the practices, and they don't really even know the best business practices in the industry to then train the manager as to how to make this thing sing.

(09:05):

And so the person behind the counter could be the reason why it's not performing very well. And if you're going to hire that person, the lender may ask why. And I would as well, because the practice that I'm alluding to is that many of the larger players when they're buying a facility, they are going to mandate that the seller terminate that employee because we don't want to take them on and then have to let them go, and then we're faced with the unemployment. And so we're going to let the seller take care of that, and that's part of the closing package, and they have to have that done. It's part of the contingencies, if you will. Now, that's not the case all the time. We may interview these people if they're doing very well, but the brother-in-Law, the sister-in-Law that hasn't been able to find a job in two years that they threw in their facility and then they gave them an $80,000 salary to run a small facility because that's what it would take to support their family.

(09:50):

Well, that's not going to fly with us. And so there's many things that we need to take into consideration as to how to manage it and what is that going to look like. And again, your lender wants to know that you have a plan for that. And of course, who is the primary competition? That includes not only who is out there right now, what are they doing, how do you compete with them, how do you compare and what is the strategy to be able to beat them, compete with them, or maybe even be the market leader with this facility? It just depends obviously on the placement of this facility within the competitive matrix and how you plan to compete well and or beat them. That also means future competition. So have you gone down? You should do this and be prepared to answer the question, have you gone down and had a discussion with the zoning department to find out within five, maybe seven miles, are there any planned new construction of self storage facilities, any other competitors expanding?

(10:39):

Have they applied for building permits for expansion and are they bringing up more units into the marketplace? All these things that we want to know that may change the supply index, which changes the ability for us to be able to lease up at the rate that we expect and at the rates that we expect as well. And then of course, the financials. They want to see a very well detailed and a well thought out net operating income and valuation using a market cap rate. So NOI for those that may be new to this NetApp earning income is simply just your total revenue minus the total expenses, which means that by this point you have received a full set of financials by way of p and ls and Schedule E tax records, schedule E for this facility or facilities if it's within a portfolio that shows just a very detailed profit and loss statement and balance sheet, but the profit and loss statement that shows every single line item for every single expense within the facility or facilities in a portfolio as well as the income streams coming into this facility, and then matching that up with the bank statements and the rent rolls to make sure that we've got a clear picture.

(11:43):

And we do want the Schedule E as a reminder to see just exactly what they're reporting on their taxes. And many times we will, this is what we negotiate based upon, again, we're under due diligence and we can retrade up to the point of closing, but towards the end of the due diligence period, after we've received all of our numbers and look to our NOI that we underwrite it to as to how we're going to operate it, we're going to compare that to the Schedule E because in many instances, not all, and I wouldn't even say most, but in many instances, some of these sellers, well, it is a cash business as they will even tell us, but we'll see that the numbers that were presented to us in an offering memorandum doesn't match their Schedule E, which means that their expenses are higher and their income is lower because they're trying to save on taxes.

(12:29):

Well, if that's the case, we're turning that package into the lender, and so it gives us an opportunity to go back to that seller or the broker and say, Hey, we got two sets of numbers here. We got your numbers or the sellers, and then we got the Schedule E, which is what they're turning into the IRS, what gives here. And of course we know what gives, but the lender is going to underwrite off of that. So it really does give us an opportunity to negotiate and it could work against us of stating that, hey, these are the true numbers. If this is what they're reporting in their Schedule E, there is some negotiation, there's a little bit of gray area there, but just to make sure that we do get that Schedule E, because it does benefit you and many times it's more closer to the truer picture than what you've received in an offering memorandum.

(13:09):

Now, here's a piece that is extremely important to take note of. So if you don't have a pad of paper out right now, then when you get home from the gym, get one out. Or if you are at your desk, grab it because here's some of the items that we call the add backs. Many folks, when they're starting out, we see before they go through any training, even our training from our underwriting classes to our mentoring programs or even our basic academy where we go through and we show you how to over and over again underwrite a facility, many folks will miss these pieces and it's to their detriment and sometimes costs them tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars from the mistakes that they make in underwriting. And one of those places is in add-backs. So this only makes the deal better, but if you miss it on the front end, you're not getting a clear picture of the true value of a facility.

(13:54):

So when we talk about the net operating income of a facility, the way that I approach this and explain it is that the facility itself only knows the amount of expenses that it incurs and the amount of income that it brings in, which means that the facility only knows that it produces this amount of net operating income on the 30th of the month, and it's going to produce that same amount for the new buyer on the first of the month. Regardless of what happens after that, meaning the seller, they compensate themselves. There's an owner compensation piece that shows up on the tax return on either their 1120 tax form for an S corp or on their schedule. And that is not going to hold true for the next buyer. They may not take any compensation out of this, but that could skew the NOI if you are including it in the NOI because it is truly not a function of that facility. The facility doesn't know who the owners are and what they're doing with the facility.

(14:48):

It only knows how much net operating income it produces. I'll let that sink in for a minute, but make sure that you have an understanding of this in your underwriting salaries that won't continue. If you're carrying this forward and you're going to run this facility remotely and you're doing away with the full-time property manager, well then that needs to be removed. That's an add back to the NOI. It's going to be removed. One-time repairs, meaning many folks will categorize incorrectly what we consider a capital expenditure, which is something that is going to be depreciated over many, many years like a new HVAC system, like the new gate and software that we're installing. This isn't an ongoing maintenance issue that we're going to see once a year, once every six months or once every two years even. It's going to be a capital expenditure that has been made that won't be made again for several years and that we will depreciate and capitalize.

(15:37):

So make sure that you're going through those statements and digging down to determine what is the true repair and maintenance charge at this facility versus the CapEx at which may throw it off in the past one, two or three years that you're doing a lookback mortgage interest. That's probably the easiest one, but so many people still miss that. That's not an expense of the property, is it? It is not. That's an expense that goes to the seller because the seller had to borrow money instead of paying cash for the facility. This facility does not know that there is a loan on it, and that is what is producing a return for the buyer, the owner. The investor. Same with depreciation. Depreciation is taken by the owner. That is not a function of the facility itself that it takes to run a facility. It has nothing to do with the income it brings in and it has nothing to do with the expenses.

(16:21):

Depreciation is a benefit to the owner and it has nothing to do. So that amount that shows up on the tax return is not part of the net operating income or a part of the p and l. And that goes for then any other deductions that this owner is going to take for cell phone and mileage. Those are not going to apply with the new owner. You may take some of those and you have the ability to do so, but it has nothing to do with the valuation of the facility. So make sure that as you are underwriting from the Schedule E or from the 1120 for an S corp that you are taking out all of these items that we consider a lookback which pertains to the owner of the facility, not to the facility itself. So lemme tell you a quick story why this is so important.

(17:00):

It has been interesting to see over the years. First of all, certainly not all sellers are created equal, but even brokers aren't all created equal. And again, no discredit to our broker friends. We love them, they're a source of the deal flow. But there are from time to time some brokers that come to the marketplace that haven't been trained, that haven't been trained very well. There's some of these folks that are listing properties, a mom and property for a family member and they're on the residential side and they just don't know all the nuances of the commercial side. And so we'll see these offering memorandums and we'll see the p and l when we ask for the numbers and they'll include all of these add backs in it in their own underwriting. So it's one thing for us to be able to pull it out of the tax returns as we're looking through and we know what to strike and what to take out.

(17:46):

But when a seller and or the broker includes all of these in the facility, well what does that do? It increases the expenses, which lowers the NOI, which lowers the value of the facility. And we'll see time and time again that NOI with that very heavily weighted expense ratio is what they're basing the valuation of their facility on. And so that is nothing but a benefit to us. Now there have been times when we've just stated, well, we're taking this out and we see that you've added some of these in here. And so here's what the true NOI is. I mean we do operate from a place of integrity in the marketplace, but there's also, we've seen a few of these in which they price it too high and they've added some of these things in here. And as we begin to look at the add-backs and the valuation, at the end of the day it comes down to price.

(18:37):

So we look at it, we do our underwriting and how far away off on price if we're not very far off on price, then taking these ADD-backs into consideration gets us to the price that we want to. And when it comes down to what they need, we're asking them, what do you need for this facility? And even if it wouldn't pencil out otherwise, now that we've, it is underwritten with a heavy expense load and the deal may make more sense and we haven't able to get to our strike price because some of these folks just have not done the things that we mentioned and that you now know to do, which is to take out these expenses that aren't truly expenses at the facility. They are the owner's expenses, but they have included them in the valuation because that's the way that they value their business.

(19:19):

And all is fair in doing so because there is a price tag that's put on that because some of those are expenses that we are going to have as well. That is an add back, which is the mortgage interest and we're looking at depreciation. All of that is a wash. It may be look a little bit different for you, but when it's included in the p and l and in the net operating income, that is a benefit to you. And so that is a piece that we've been able to benefit from many, many times and purchase facilities that may have been out of our reach, but because it was underwritten incorrectly and once we put our pencil to it, then we see that hey, this is actually a fantastic deal after all. And another reason why this is so important to this has come up many times in our mentoring calls with our students.

(19:58):

They gloss over it. They may have forgotten they didn't take this into consideration to begin with. And so when they look at a facility that has super high expenses, because all of these we consider add-backs have been added in. A couple of our students have said, well, I would never buy this facility at a four cap or a five cap. And we said, well, let's just see if there's, let's go through the exercise and see what this looks like. And I remember in particular one of our students that watched right before their very eyes, his deal get better and better as we began to strike out all of these expenses and all of a sudden what was a five cap or a four cap became a six cap and then it became a six and a half cap, and then it became a seven and a cap and then it became a nine cap.

(20:40):

And what everybody overlooked when this was listed out there on a listing site as a four cap and they all bypassed, well, until you look under the hood and find out exactly how it was underwritten, we realize that holy cow's, I think it ended up being like a nine and three quarter cap deal, right under everybody's noses. But they wouldn't have found it if we wouldn't. Well, if they wouldn't have been, I dare to say part of our program and taking a look at what truly is an expense and recognize that they got a fantastic deal that many, many people in the marketplace looked at, but they just didn't know what they didn't know. So you do as well now continue to look at those deals in that way because there are many, many deals out there. There are gold in them, there are hills if you know what to look for.

(21:23):

So now that we get to the net operating income and we're going to apply a market cap rate, the holy grail of numbers that is going to determine whether the bank is going to say yes or no is the debt service coverage ratio. Every lender has their threshold. Most of them are in that range of 1.2 to 1.3, meaning we have to have at 1.2 or 1.3 times the amount of a revenue to cover the debt. So if the debt for easy math is a hundred thousand dollars a year, you need to be bringing in $130,000 of income to cover the expenses and everything else. So that means, for example, if a property's annual net operating income is a hundred thousand dollars and it's total annual debt service payments are $80,000, the debt service coverage ratio would be $100,000 divided by $80,000 or 1.25. And in this case, the property generates 1.25 times the income needed to cover its debt payments and that falls within most banks minimum.

(22:15):

It falls within the ratio of acceptable loans. So anywhere from 1.15 to 1.25 is the minimum typically for the bank seller notes, by the way, as an asterisk are included in this calculation. And they can look at, banks will look at projections for this number, but it usually means a trailing 12. So right out of the gate, the day that you close it under your management structure, your fee structure, it should be in that 1.15 to 1.25 range. So next comes the gravy on top of the already baseline for achieving a yes status for the loan, which is the gravy to give them absolutely no reason to say no. And how are you going to improve the profitability? So let's assume that you're applying for a loan on an existing facility. How are you going to increase the net operating income and the net operating margin on this facility?

(23:08):

Well, that comes by way of a number of different domains, increasing rates, showing them once again that not only is there room to do so, but what is your plan and at what timeframe and show the trajectory of the increase in income that is coming into the facility by way of increasing rates. Next is increasing occupancy. And so that is going to encompass not only your marketing plan, but then also a plan and a path and a trajectory as to how soon you think you're going to fill this facility up and then stabilize it. Expansion is also going to be another piece if you're adding parking, if there is a gravel lot in the back that is parking and you're going to add more buildings or if there's an additional acre behind adjacent next to that you can purchase and then it be an annex of this facility, even if it is a quarter mile down the road, how do you plan to expand upon the site and adding more rentable square feet?

(24:00):

Adding technology typically reduces the expenses. And can you add a kiosk? Can you go completely virtual so that you don't have any payroll at this site any longer from where it was or even after you've had somebody in place for six months to a year to lease it up, stabilize it, then pulling back and either removing that person or reducing their hours. So that technology will take the place of just managing the folks that are already in there, moving all customers to autopay. So that reduces your accounts receivable is another way of improving the performance and just shows that the money will be there, the money will be in the bank, whatever bank it is that you choose to be able to pay the bank, your lender. So all of these things are going to be done to improve the net operating margin, which is a simple formula, net operating income divided by revenue.

(24:49):

So in the storage industry, a highly efficient business can maintain a net operating margin of anywhere from 65 to 75%, which again is the reason why we love this asset class because no other asset class that I've invested in, and if you look at the average numbers, comes anywhere close to self-storage. And conversely, if the existing net operating margin is at or below 50%, it would be classified as a turnaround. That's how they would view this and then approach it a little bit differently in terms of keeping an eyeball on it and also perhaps the LTV in which they would approve a loan for you on this particular project. Okay, so what are we seeing in the market right now? What type of a rate structure are we seeing from the banks? Well, typically what we're seeing is a variable rate at prime plus about 0.5%.

(25:34):

And so depending upon where we're at in the market, you do the math and that's a more compelling than a fixed rate with a higher spread. That's traditionally what we're seeing at this point. So we're seeing fixed for three years prime plus a certain percentage about 1.75 or fixed for five years at Prime plus a 2%. And that is at the lending environment for where we're sitting right now as of October of 2024. So how are the banks responding to rate increases? Well, what we're seeing right now at the time of this podcast in November about 2024, we're seeing a variable rate at Prime plus 0.5%, which is right around 9%, which is more compelling than a fixed rate with a higher spread. So we're also seeing fixed for three years Prime plus 1.75 and fixed for five years at Prime plus 2%. So a three-year prepayment penalty is in place in most of these projects, which offers some flexibility and it starts at the time of construction on ground up deals and for turnaround with more of the interest only on these turnaround and these value end up projects.

(26:35):

We're also seeing a lot more projections based on lending, which seems to be the new normal, which means that we are getting to the place where we are seeing more proformas of being acceptable rather than only looking at the trailing 12 numbers in terms of determining the NOI and A cap rate and then setting the loan to values and the rates from there. So I would imagine by now some of you are thinking, boy, this is a lot, this is a little bit heady and there's a lot of variables and there are, but here's the benefits to persevering in a down economy or in the economy that we find ourselves in right now, there are fewer new square feet being added to the market that only benefits all of us if we are looking to acquire existing facilities and acquire and expand, new and existing projects are going to be rewarded because there'll be higher rental rates due to less competition.

(27:21):

So that means we're looking for and finding these facilities that haven't received a rent increase. But we also know if there's a strong occupancy in these markets that we have the ability to continue to push rates and improve upon the property just because there are fewer that are fewer facilities and lesser amount of square feet being added to the market. We're also going to see a relief from the suppressed cap rates, meaning cap rates are going to be coming down as interest rates come down, which only helps values going forward. So truly, again, we talk about now being the best time to invest in self storage. And I've been saying now is the best time to invest in self storage for the past 20 years, but truly in an instance that we find ourselves right now where we just received the first interest rate decreased by a 50 basis points, and as we head into 2025, we'll see that continue to go down.

(28:06):

Cap rates will follow, which means that valuations go up. So now is the time that you want to be acquiring those assets and take advantage of the benefit of having this wind at your back filling your sale of these lowering interest rates and therefore lower cap rates. We're now seeing also an increased availability of distress deals that are coming to the marketplace. We have an awful lot of folks that they purchased a facility three or four years ago, they're being faced with a rate reset now, and they purchased at a 4% interest rate and a 75, 80, even 90% LTV loan to value. And now the lenders, because we're in the environment that we're in, we've got an election coming up, we've got high interest rates, and now they're a little skittish, the lenders are. And so they're only refinancing at 65% LTV and seven to 7.5%.

(28:50):

Well, some of these deals don't pencil out anymore, and these owners are either having to come to the closing table with cash or they're having to come with their keys, as you've heard me say before. And so we are seeing some projects out there that are being sold, some short sales that are being sold off at a discount because these folks, these owners have to get out from under the loans that they are facing and they didn't create enough at value in their facilities. So when I say now is the time to buy, I 100% believe that now is the time to be heading into the marketplace because everything is operating in our favor with the swing of the pendulum with interest rates coming down, cap rates coming down, distress deals coming out, and most importantly, this new knowledge that you have and how to go out and approach the market to create your business plan to win and to put it in front of your lenders with the proper information and with fewer reservations about being told no because now you are prepared.

(29:41):

And so we know a better investor makes it easier for all of us, and that is our goal over here@selfstorageinvesting.com, is to continue to grow at self storage at leaders, because when the leaders win, the industry benefits from that. So Storage Nation, once again, I will just state that if this information has been a little bit new to you, if some of it seems a little bit daunting, then come spend some time with us, come join our mastermind or at least test us out because these are the conversations that we're having all the time, which we're not only passing deals around. It is all about community capital and deal flow, where a community of like-minded individuals operating at a higher level that are growing and scaling their businesses all get together in a room. We share deal flow, we share access to capital and our best business practices and ways to be able to put all this together.

(30:27):

So if that sounds like a room that you want to be in, then all you need to do is go to self-storage investing.com, click on the mastermind link, and then you will see an application page in which you will fill that out. And we would love to interview you to see if you are a fit for the Mastermind and have you come out and be a part of what we feel is absolutely revolutionary in our industry. This is the oldest and the strongest mastermind in the industry, and we would love to have you be a part of it. So with that, this is Scott Meyers signing off. We'll see you in the next one. Take care everyone.

Announcer (30:59):

Hey gang. Wait three things before you leave. First, don't forget to follow the Self-Storage Podcast and turn on your notification so you never miss another episode. And while you're there, please leave us a five star review if you like the show. Second, be sure to share your favorite episodes and more via Instagram, and don't forget to tag us. And lastly, head to the links in the show description and hit follow on Twitter and Facebook to get a front row seat with the original Self storage expert, Scott Meyers.