125: Real Estate Update and Trends: TI, Rent, Acquisitions, Facility Costs & More with Austin Hair

Welcome to DSO Secrets. I know what it's like to be an entrepreneur in the dental industry. I've had my ups and downs, just like you. There's so much opportunity to be excited about, but so few resources to get answers. From here on DSO Secrets, we get you those answers so you can change the lives you're meant to bless and achieve your personal success.

When I was working as an associate right out of school, I never imagined I could own these many practices with this amount of support. So thank you.

You have helped build my marketing mind

to a whole new level.

You have this natural talent, this unique ability. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and today I'm with Austin Hare, managing partner at Leaders Real Estate. And, Austin, I appreciate you being on, because let me tell you, I was talking to a group today with DEO and our mastermind, and I said, is this harder than Covid last year to manage through all of the chaos that's happening? It feels so unpredictable. And though you're not going to solve all our problems today, there is one set, though, if you could do that, that would be awesome, too. With things that are happening with inflation, commercial real estate, like, we just kind of, like, need an inside look at what's going on, because I know many of our listeners are either thinking about de novos, they're thinking about acquisitions, and this real estate cost is all over the place. I mean, lumber price, et cetera. Like, we all went and bought toilet paper, but we didn't think about, we should have bought a bunch of lumber, you know, I mean, I know, right? Much better.

So it would have been like gold in 2020.

Yeah, exactly. So thrilled to have you on. You have your own podcast. Why don't you just talk about that now, case people? Because there are some of our listeners who, like, really want to get into real estate stuff, too. So what's that podcast?

Yeah, definitely. It's called Commercial Real Estate Secrets, and it really focuses on health care practices. So, you know, there's a. There's a niche known as medtail, which just means medical retail, and that's our wheelhouse. So we. We really have to do a lot in dental. I would say dental is probably, like, the biggest space that we work with. And so essentially, you know, it's anything. We talk about site selection, we talk about lease negotiation. We interview a lot of influencers from the DSO space and just talk about their success stories. I honestly, like, I just do what I enjoy. Right. And I hope other People like it and I just like bringing people on. And you were, you were a guest earlier this month. That'll air soon. And so I just like bringing people on and learning about their story and then whatever lessons we can pull about business strategies and commercial real estate along the way, that's kind of the thing.

We're kind of all entrepreneurs first, right? So yeah, I'd love it. Okay, well, let's like go right in. So if somebody's just going to listen to the first few minutes here, let's give them some value right out of the gate. I mean, when I'm thinking about real estate, what is it that dentists owners are trying to solve for? I mean, site selection, for example. Are you helping with site selection because.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So. So, you know, there's this whole. Pretty much it goes. It actually can trace back all the way to the 50s and 60s, right, where you have like these mom and pop fast food places where what was happening is they're popping up all over the place. And the people who really focused on site selection started doing really, really well. And so then those guys started getting conglomerated and then they started becoming massive players, right? And then later in the 70s and 80s, you kind of saw that with, you know, pharmaceuticals and like drug shops and stuff like that. In the early 2000s, you know, you saw the banks, urgent care is really start to get a hold of it. And then it was like later 2000s where the dentist started to take that concept and run with it as well. And so what you realize we call it second to deck in your favor, right? Like if you can get a location that is just super convenient for your patients where they, it's. We call it a drive to, not a drive through. So they're going there like anchor grocery stores are perfect. Then you're really going to, you know, like I said, stack the deck in your favor, create a more positive future for yourself. Because you know, when you look at rent as a factor of marketing, which is a quote that you've said actually, then it starts to give you a different lens in which to do things. Because it's so easy to see an office space and see how, you know, you're saving $10 a square foot, right? And that equates to thousands of dollars a month. And that can seem like pretty expensive when you look at that in a box. But from a line item perspective, you know, going from 3,000 to 7,000 or 10,000, that's only what, 5 to 10% of your total budget, right? Even though you're tripling that line item expense as a percentage is so really small. So we just try and coach people into thinking about it from that perspective. Like, hey, paying a couple extra grand a month, what are the odds that I'm going to be able to get this many more new patients or this many reoccurring patients? I mean the odds are pretty high. So yeah, we like to just leverage, you know, technology analytics to help find out. Okay, where is there the least competition and where is the most of your target demographic going to?

Yeah, it's fascinating how much, when you really get into business, some of these other industries have really got the science down and we got to steal from them, right? I mean, research and borrow from them. I remember there was a Taco Bell that was going to go in on a certain street and it ended up not going and it went somewhere else. And I actually asked the franchise owner like, hey, why did you move? And says Taco Bell does not allow you to be anywhere. Like on a left hand turn, it has to be a right hand turn entry. They know enough about what that'll do to volume to say, hey, you know, again, marketing, patient flow, customer flow, that they know a right hand turn, you know, is more valuable. And I thought, man, we're just so far behind on like consumer psychology when it comes to real estate. The more we can, if we think of dental as a level of retail health care, we need to be thinking about the consumer on these retail locations to the next level, right?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And yet the most ideal anchors are the grocery stores right now. Unfortunately, that's not a secret anymore. Everybody knows that. And so a lot of these really big DSOs, their relationships with these REITs, whenever a new like Publix or Kroger or AGB pops up, you know, they're already reaching out to these DSOs and they're getting kind of the first round of refusal. So you got to be a little bit more creative, right? The question is really, really, if it's nothing's available, like how close can I get to this large retail center? Because they've done all of the demographic research, you know what I mean? Like, they're finding, they're finding the best spots and it's just a question of like, how close can I get and how much competition is there?

A lot of times, you know, I remember in marketing class there was this really cool case study and for some reason it stayed with me, but they did it on campus and they were, they wanted students to go give blood and so they started off with their first marketing piece, just like, explain the importance of it, et cetera, and told where it was at and so forth. The second marketing material had a map and it showed which building it was. The building was on there, but it had a visual of the map. They had a 70% increase in those who came by to give blood. And I think for me, the way I translate that is being in a visual place where someone can say, oh yeah, have you been to that dental practice? It's right next to. Right, because as much as we'd like to say that dental practices are the center of a community, no one's saying, you know, that H E B right next to Emmett's smile. Magic location, right? It's just not going to happen. So I think the more we can think strategically, the more we can ensure the success of the dental market, which is what we're trying to do here. So site, location, so much there for us to be smarter about, right? Psychographic data. Is it the same type of people that are driving down that street that come into your office? There's a lot of information you can dig into here to.

One thing that I want to harp in on too is like, sometimes we hear about people waiting on the sidelines, you know, trying to wait for costs to go down or trying to time the market. Another thing is they're worried about the virtual community and the technology. And like, the question is, are retail centers going to be around? And so, like, I understand that sentiment, but I disagree with it for a couple of reasons. Number one, we're social creatures, right? We're social beings. Like, we're designed to be in relationship with, with each other. And, and so you're always going to have people that want to go to physics, no matter how good technology gets. I mean, it might offset that a little bit, but you're always going to want to go to restaurants, you're always going to want to go to the bar to see your. Your friends and meet up with people, you know, at your church or wherever it is that you want to go. And so from that standpoint, there's always going to be a need, a reason to put a location by a retail center, you know, because a lot of people are thinking, oh, well, what about E commerce? Isn't that taking that away? It's like, it takes away some things, but, you know, there's good real estate is just always going to be good real estate. There's always going to be a market for the best. And the second thing, you know, in Relationship to timing the market is, you know, when you think about the opportunity cost, it's not opening your store. Is it really worth it? Right. Like if you were going to wait six months, seven months or whatever, you know, we're obviously in an inflationary environment. So is the cost of lumber going to go down? Probably it already has gone down a lot, but it's also compacting with the fact that labor is going up. Other things, all the other prices are going up. And so the odds of it ever getting cheaper is right now. I mean, it's possible but not probable. You know what I mean?

Well, you really have to go five to 10 years out and you're trying to time a stock here, basically. And the reality is you kind of got to get into the Marketplace and then 10 years from now, it's highly unlikely that it's going to be less. I know for Texas, they now say in the next five years will be at California prices. Thank you, California. So, I mean, just continuing to grow, right? So when we think about dental offices, site selections, one thing, what else? Like when people go out to do acquisitions, right? Sometimes there's real estate involved with that, they may want to buy it. Can they also use your firm to buy it as well? Or how does that work?

Yeah, yeah. So as you know, when you have dso, if you get. It's one of. There's a couple of different things, right? Number one, if you're growing by yourself, by your own bootstraps, then you're going to be constrained by the amount of capital that you have, right? And when you go to acquire an existing practice and they want to sell you the real estate, you got to decide, well, am I going to put 30% down on a million dollar building? Right. How many times can you do that before we run out of capital? And then the other thing is the that. So when. That's when doing acquisitions, the other thing is that if you're taking private equity, then they give you a directive like, hey, you are not allowed to take this money and use it for real estate. If you have to buy general practices with this money. And so sometimes that can leave you in a little bit of a pickle. And in those situations, like, yeah, our firm will come in and we'll buy the real estate and do what's called a leaseback. And that can help you increase the speed of your transactions or your acquisitions, right? And it's cool because when you, you can start to play with the numbers too. And I don't know if you want to get into this now or later. But now you can, you can start to look at the ti, right? You can play with the rent and you can do like what's more important to you, cash now to do your build out or lower rent to increase your ebitda, Right?

And so let's say, yeah, let's say we're not buying the building in that situation, we're going into a retail space. You know, Walmart's not going to let me buy their retail center. So what? Yeah. And I'm trying to decide do I take the TI with a little bit higher rent, do I not? Right. Is that something that you guys help us on the math?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if, you know, let's say we're helping you guys do site selection. And by the way, we don't say you, you have to use us, right? We just think that you should take your time finding somebody who's very experienced, right? Like you should definitely use a broker who has, is an expert in your field. And by expert I would just mean, you know, at least 10 deals in your specific industry. Because even though you might be local and you might know the area, if you haven't done specifically dental, then there's a huge learning curve there and you just don't want to be that getting paid because that can be very, very expensive, right? So whether it's us or whether it's an expert broker in the dental field, you're going to have to start negotiating. And then you look at that question of like, okay, am I going to get higher TI or do I want lower rent? Because ti, as you know will, as you increase the ti, it increases the rent. And you got to think a lot of times the landlords are kind of taking on debt in order to fund that ti and so they're going to make a little bit of a spread on that debt, right? And so you could think of it as a loan like around maybe up to 9%. And it sounds like a lot, but if that's going to allow you to get in and grow your practice at a rate much higher than 9%, then that's still a trade that's worth it right? Now of course, talking about ebitda, that's going to have a negative effect on your ebitda. So if you can stomach, or if you can afford to take less TI and come up with other methods of funding in order to lower that rent, now you're looking at a higher valuation for your practice. And so I really think what it comes down to is what's your timeline. If you are looking to sell within the next one to three years or even five years, you might want to think about doing less ti lower rent. But if you're 10 years off and you're trying to grow or even anything more than five years and you really want to do a lot of acquisitions and you can really use the capital, that's where I kind of think. And there's no exact science to it. There's no over under. It's always a personal preference. But in general, the further off your timeline for selling, the more you can kind of afford. Take on higher ti, take on higher rent and grow your business.

Yeah. Cause you're leveraging for the scale and growth and you don't want to be slowed down by those capital dollars going out.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Okay, that makes sense. And then what about those who are de novoing and like there's not real estate? You know, I've heard this concept of build to suit. Right. So you can have a developer actually build the location for you and then lease it to you. Is that something that you all do?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we love doing development. Right. And I haven't, we haven't met a whole lot of people who will develop nationally in the dental space, but you know, essentially all. Yeah. What that means exactly, like you said, if you want to go and put a location in a place that where nothing exists, that's where you would need to. Or the only thing that exists is for sale. Right. So we kind of coach it from the level of like, find a location that's going to stack the deck the best in your favor. That's going to give you the highest probability of success. Right. So we don't necessarily push people into either buying or partnering with the developer or leasing. It's not either one. It's like, okay, where's the best location? So if you're, if you find this.

And I think that's the critical part is the location is what you really want to focus on first. Right. So part of the way you might get into this is, man, I found this great location. You know, lots of traffic going by, but all they have is a piece of land there. Can you guys help me out to get a dental plant?

Exactly. Yeah. So in that case, yeah, we come in and we buy the land, we build up the building, we do build a suit, which just means we get it ready to go for you guys to come in. And so it's like, you know, build to suit doesn't necessarily mean it's like plug and play. Because dental is like very specific. And so a lot of times you just kind of get it like we can get it like gray box or vanilla box ready. So just like the extent to which you prepare that building and then you come in and put like kind of finishing touches and all that kind of thing on the building. And so yeah, we just always, we coach it from like, hey, what's, what's going to give you the best odds for success? Okay, it's this location right here. Oh, there's nothing in this area. Like we cannot lease anything. Okay, in that case, yeah, we'll buy, we'll develop, we'll do what's called a lease back to them and we, we partner with that too. So like there's so many different ways you can, you can partner with that. But you know, just in terms of, of like if they want to, if people would like to invest capital or

something, like if the dentist wanted to co invest on the property with you, could they do that?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a great way. Like if you're going to be doing a lot of de novo, you can put a fund together and it's a great way to create stickiness because now you're giving them something to invest in that will have some long term rewards as well. And also with just the cost of acquisitions going up and up and up, like at some point crosses over the threshold of becoming more economic to do a de novo. I know, you know, there's obviously value adds that you can do. You have economics at scale. You can afford to pay, you know, these high multiples for these locations. But it seems like, you know, at some point you're have to really ask yourself the question, like, okay, this, I'm paying 12x for this location versus like all right, I can just do a de novo. And yeah, I start with zero revenue, zero patience, but it's going to be much less.

Yeah. If I can build it to this, Maybe I paid 2x for the whole thing. Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's go back to something. Where's inflation going? What the heck's going on? Is commercial real estate going to go the moon? Is it going to drop to the dirt? Here's what I thought was going to happen. I thought everyone was going to get on Zoom and then retail would just be super cheap for me. And that has not happened at all. And you know, yes, the ability, building prices has gone up, but just generally cost has gone up. Like what's going on? I mean, rents in these states continue to move up, not down.

Yeah. And honestly I thought the same thing as you. You know, initially during COVID I was proved wrong as well because I thought, okay, we're going to see massive discounts. And I think, you know, part of what's happening is we're, we think back on 2008 and we're conditioned to think that, you know, every 10 to 12 years there has to be a massive reset. And I think we kind of proved that wrong. Like the timing isn't what determines whether there's a reset, it's the underlying fundamentals. And so in this case, it was a health based pandemic. It wasn't because of bad fundamentals necessarily. So that's why we recovered and we're still growing strong. And so, you know, when you think about what's going to happen in the future, well, really take a macro perspective. Residential is affecting that because people are wanting more space, right. And so in the big cities, popular cities around the place, they're moving outside and they're taking up more land as they get more space. So that cuts into the amount of space that you can have for commercial real estate. Right. A lot of people aren't necessarily thinking through that. The other thing is the fact that we talked about retail and people going to E commerce and people meeting virtually. So what's surprising about the retail space or like shopping and stuff like that is when you switch to E commerce, you're actually increasing the demand for your commercial real estate because the number of supply chains is going up. Right. And so what to get for in order to ship a product from China all the way to your doorstep or wherever it's coming from, you're actually increasing that demand for commercial real estate because it's got to go through five or six different processes where before you could show up, you could go to that place, you know, you buy and you take it home. Right. And so it's not commonsensical. I didn't, I didn't think through that at first. I didn't realize that at first. That's something that I've learned along the way. But as a result, the, it's driving the prices up. And so I think what's really happening is you have kind of like C and D grade retail. Like you've got D, C, B, A and there's always a market for the best, like we mentioned earlier. So A and B grade retail are always going to be good. You have seen like the C and D grade retail kind of take a hit and you've seen Malls, entire malls go out of business, but they're losing value at the same rate or even slower than warehousing. And industrial is increasing value. So we've seen like Amazon come in and buy like these malls that went out of date, that were once in good retail, that are now kind of like CRD retail because it's more economic for them then buying a new warehouse center or an existing warehouse center. And so that all is like going into this pie of creating more demand for space. And then to add icing to the cake, a lot of companies, like Lululemon is an example, they want to do their own kind of E commerce fulfillment centers at their retail centers. So what that means is they're going to be moving out of malls, they're going to be taking up their own individual lots, they're going to have their own drive up, their own parking, their own everything. And that increases the demand, the size of the commercial real estate.

Yep. I think that's, that's really interesting as the distribution centers, because I'll tell you what else these dang distribution centers are doing is they're increasing labor costs too. Right. Because a lot of it is automated. But those who are working there, they're able to pay at the next level. So yeah, the distribution center effect, that's an interesting one I hadn't fully thought through is what's that impact on both real estate and labor costs as this? You know, and let's be honest, I go into Walmart, I buy a certain amount of things I get on Amazon. It's a whole other level of things that I'm buying there. Right.

Well, it's just so convenient, you know what I mean? And truthfully, even if you have to pay a little bit more on Amazon, you're saving money because you're not putting any expenses on your car and you're not spending any time and you're not driving somewhere. So I think it actually really helps people in the lower class. As much as we'd like to hate on Jeff Bezos, he's really increased the quality of life for a lot of people in the lower class who their car expenses are a significant portion of their income. And so, yeah, and like you said, you know, we talked about inflation. It's like, well, labor is just going to go up over time. I mean, it always does. Honestly, you can really attribute it to the Fed, like their public mandate is to increase inflation at 2% a year. Right. And I'm like, you know, whether or not you agree with that doesn't really Matter, because the saying is don't fight the Fed, you know what I mean? And if they're going to be increasing inflation, then we just have to counteract for that. So that's, I mean, that's one of the reasons why, you know, I like real estate. But like, honestly, even like a five or ten year lease is not a bad investment because you're locking in the price of your payment every single month. Right. If you buy real estate, you're locking in the price of your mortgage every month. And so, you know, like you said a second ago, Texas is going to go up to California prices in the next five years. Well, do you want to buy, you want to sign a lease now or five years from now? Right. Like you want to, you want to do it now. And at the, you know, lumber was a big driving factor. So like, I mean it's very, if you think about it from a high level, like higher cost of lumber and higher, it means higher cost to build, which means more expensive mortgages, which means more expensive lease rates. Right. Like it all just makes sense. So yes, we have seen lumber come down, but at the same time wages have gone up and we've also printed a ton of money. Right. Like that, just $7 trillion. Yeah, yeah. Again, whether or not you agree with it, that's happened and they want to continue to do that. And so the, you've got the wages that are, that are going to go up and then the other cost of materials is going up too. So even though lumber is going down, other things are coming up at the same rate or sometimes even even greater rate. And so you just, you really have to just account. You got to start looking at it moving, not in hindsight what it used to be, but what is it going to look like moving forward.

Yeah, one thing that's interesting about real estate, it's a fascinating asset because you can't produce more of it. I mean, it's got kind of what gold and Bitcoin and other things have, but it's very tangible in that once it's taken, it's taken. And yet through population and growth, we need it. So yeah, it's a very stable asset. Yeah.

And when you lock in debt too, like the value of the dollar is decreasing, you know what I mean? Because as you print more, you have deflation of the dollar. And so when you lock in that payment, that mortgage payment for 10, 20, 30 years and you are on an appreciating asset, so the assets going like this, your debt is staying the exact same, like eventually, in 30 years from now, that debt, the amount that you owe, is going to feel like nothing. Right. So the longer you can push that debt off, the less you're going to feel that effect. And I know a lot of people think debt is bad or get out of bed or whatever. I mean, it is bad if you're using it to go on vacation, go out to eat, and buy a fancy force car. But if you're leveraging it for an appreciating asset, it's actually a really useful tool.

Yeah, it's powerful. Okay. I know some interesting stuff about you. I just want to ask questions around, number one, professional wakeboarder. True or false?

True. True. Yeah. I actually. I call it Austin 1.0. So I've had a couple different versions of my life, but, yeah, I did that. I retired in 2017, so I did for about 12 years. And I mean, there's a lot of fun, you know, it's a lot of work. I think my body paid the price. I realized when I was 29, and there's guys who are 19 that were beating me in the competitions. I was like, okay, you know, this served this course, but, I mean, I wouldn't take it back for the world. The experiences that I got to have and the people that I got to meet, I mean, it was. It was a lot of fun.

Are you doing wake surfing now at all or any of that?

Yeah, kind of.

11 miles an hour is a lot easier on the body than. Than 20, right?

Yeah. And 2.2ft of air is a lot easier than 12, so, yeah, it's definitely a lot easier to do that. And I see, you know, I. We honestly, we used to make fun of people for wakes up, and now I'm. I'm one of those people that I would make fun of.

So is that what, like, old people do now? Is. That was what it is. It's wakes up.

Yeah. We had to joke. What's the difference between a professional wake surfer and an amateur wake surfer?

What's the. What's the difference?

About three weeks, actually. Nowadays the guys are real. This was about four years ago. Nowadays the guys are actually really good and they're. They're doing some really impressive stuff.

And yeah, wakeboarding is painful. I just avoid it because, man, you. You catch the front of that and.

Oh, yeah.

Have you ever seen anybody, like, get a concussion, go unconscious, anything like that?

Oh, I mean, unfortunately, an old roommate of mine was doing a ramp to ramp, like, so we go up and go down and he. He broke his neck on that.

And so, yeah, it's intense. I'm going to be the old guy then that does wake surfing.

I'm right there with you.

You're on American Ninja.

Yeah.

This year or. Or previously.

I. So at the beginning of 2020, my wife wanted to do. Do American Ninja Warrior. And I was really reluctant. I'm like, I just retired from wakeboarding. The last thing that I want to do is go do something that's competitive. So she dragged me into the gym. We were doing it for a couple of weeks and then I was like, wow, this is actually really fun. So ended up being like she had to drag me out of the gym. I was fortunate enough to get the call last year or sorry, I guess this year, 2021. And it went really well. I hit a buzzer, finished one of the courses, made it to the city finals. And Lisa would have been there as well, but she was pregnant. So we had our. We had just had our first born child.

Whose fault is that?

Yeah, I don't know. I'm still looking for corporate.

Well, congratulations. So, like, can we watch that on TV soon?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it already aired, so we filmed it in March, aired actually in August. So just like a month, month and a half ago. And. And they did the second one. The first one aired in June, end of June. The second one aired in August. And then. And they're all. It's. You can just go to Peacock TV or NBC or whatever if you are feeling bored one day.

Was it. Was it like way harder than it looks on tv?

Um, well, actually our. We have a gym here in Orlando that we train out with. One of the guys named RJ Roman is really good and so he builds these crazy hard courses and he did a great job of preparing us because the first course that I went to, I was like, oh, we've, we've done. I mean, you never get to practice the actual obstacles, but it's like the stuff we do is actually a little bit harder. So it made it. Made it a little bit easier to go through it.

That's awesome. That's so awesome. All right, what else do we. Anything else we need to know about real estate? Like, this has been super helpful and I think, you know, if you guys have seen, Austin's very involved on our Facebook site at DSO Secrets, so feel free to ask him more questions there. Are you cool with that? People want to ask.

Yeah, it's a relationship business. You know what I mean? Like every. Every relationship. I mean, every business really is a relationship building business. So, yeah, don't ever feel like you're wasting our time. We love talking about commercial real estate and we're happy to answer any questions, like, you know, about site selection, about leases, about relocations, like all that kind of stuff.

What's the biggest thing we should look for in a lease that, like, people don't think about?

Well, so, you know, it's easy. Obviously the big things would be the rent and the ti. But age of the H Vac is a big one. And what's your responsibility? Making sure the roof is covered by the landlord. And really, I would say having a good transfer clause or like, if you're, if you're planning on selling the business, you know, or even if you're going

to transfer it up to the DSO entity. Right. If you're going to want to have that, you got to have that in place.

Correct? Yeah. Thinking through that because, like, you know, when you sign at least, especially if you're just getting started, it's like you're kind of scrambling. Right. Like, I had some gyms and I remember I was doing everything I could to get them to approve me to sign a lease. Like a gross home, guaranteed everything. And so you don't think through, like, oh, crap, like, I'm going to be growing for the next five, six, seven years, my financials will probably be a little bit stronger and they might not want to take me off the lease if I'm personally guaranteed it. Like, if I personally guaranteed this at that stage. Right. So you got to think through, like, the landlords are trying to get the safest tenant that they possibly can so that they can get the entire value of the lease. So, yeah, making sure that you have a lawyer go through it and have that transferability in there to protect you with whatever your plans are.

I'll tell you one I get intense on is signage. If it's my marketing place, like, I've gotten in that, that thing where it's like, by the way, the signage here can only be this big. And look, you know, you're like, no, no, I need something. Right. That's going to draw in. So, yeah, no, that's a. Flexibility on signage, right?

Yeah, Just. Yeah. Putting a clause in there. Like, at least you're maximizing what the city allows because sometimes the city, like, you'll look and all the neighbors have really tiny signs and you're like thinking, oh, that's stupid. But you realize, well, that's the city clause, city ordinance. Right. You can't do it. So just. Yeah. Making sure you got a clause in there. Get the maximum. Like signage that is allowed by the city is super important.

Austin, thank you so much. I appreciate you being on. If you want to chat with him more, come over to our Facebook site. And until next time, keep smiling.

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