Tom Dunkel - Mastering the Art of Self Storage Investing

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Welcome back to the Untold Stories of Real Estate Investing. I'm your host, Wayne Courageous. Today we're going to be talking with Tom Dunle, Chief Investment officer of Bell Bell Rose Storage Group. With a background in corporate finance and nearly 30 years of real estate investment experience, Tom brings extensive knowledge and expertise to Belrose Storage Group, growing the company from startup to world class organization. Tom has specialized in discounted asset opportunities nationwide since 2006. His financial savvy, open communicative manner and integrity have helped alternative investors achieve their wealth building goals. Tom is the Chief Investment Officer a seasoned team of real estate investment professionals that specialize in acquiring underperforming self storage facilities in the northeast south and Midwest US in turning them their performance to achieve high teens tax advantage returns to its high net worth investor partners in a condensed time frame of two to three years. Welcome to our show Tom.

Hey Wayne, thank you so much. It's great to be with you and listeners today.

So tell us how did you get into the space and your real estate journey up to this point?

Yeah, well appreciate the nice intro. I know it's a bit of a, bit of a mouthful my, my background but you know I'm solidly in my middle 50s now so I guess I have been around the block a time or two. But yeah, actually started career after business school. I was in corporate America for about 1112 years and had a great training ground there where I learned the mergers and acquisitions and the corporate finance world. When I was working with an aerospace company that was, that was growing by acquiring other companies. So very early on in my career I kind of got the deal bug. I really liked doing the transactions. I really liked kind of working with that kind of high caliber team. I was working with Harvard MBAs and Wharton MBAs and Chicago MBA and private equity people and you know, so it was, and high level bankers and stuff. So it was, it was a really great environment. But you know, fast forward several years. I always wanted to do something on my own and then in 2006 I was with A company that ended up giving me the boot. So I got fired from that company. But it was, you know, the kick in the pants that I needed Wayne to finally go out and start my own thing. And so that was, you know, 17, you know, going on 18 years ago. And you know, I'm still out here, you know, kind of duking it out, doing transactions and you know, built a great team here at Bellrose Storage Group. You know, we've now found our way to storage, which I'm happy to get more into that later. But you know, so over the years we've, you know, we've done a bunch of transactions and a number of different asset classes and so we're really happy to be in storage right now, but I got a great team behind me and uh, we're excited for the future.

Yeah. So you said storage right now and it sounds like you had other asset classes. So walk us through your journey of choosing the asset class that you're in today.

Sure, yeah. So, so when I got booted from corporate America, I did what a lot of, you know, entrepreneurs do that are wanting to get into real estate. I started in residential, so I, I started doing fix and flips, picked up some single family and, and like duplex and triplex type rental properties. And then of course, as I mentioned earlier, that was 2006. So those next few years were very, very challenging for a new entrepreneur. I don't care how much money I had or how much education I had, you know, it just didn't prepare me quite for that big downturn. So learned some hard lessons there, but was determined to kind of stick it out. So you know, as I was kind of looking to reinvent after getting creamed in the residential space, I discovered what are known as discounted mortgage notes or defaulted mortgages. So these are mortgages that went into default. They were, they were sold off into the world as a non performing asset. And then there are companies out there that'll buy that loan, they'll get it reperforming and then they'll sell it as an investment to someone. So I, so with my last few dollars I had left over, I, I bought a couple of those and it just sort of meshed really well, Wayne, with my, my financial background but then my also my desire to be in real estate. So it just kind of clicked with me and I was like, hey, you know, there might be a business here. And around that time, this was 22,009, I met my now business partner, Joe Downs. We've been business partners over 13 years now. And he's. He came out of the commercial real estate crash, and I came out of the residential real estate crash. Turned out we lived around the corner from each other. And so we meet up at the bar on the corner and talk about, hey, what are you thinking about doing next? And I, When I started telling him about these discounted mortgage notes, you know, he was like, you know, you're effing crazy and what are you doing? And blah, blah, blah. Like, hey, you know, you're a smart guy. Why don't you go do some due diligence and we'll meet back here at the bar in a couple of weeks and tell me what you found out. So he comes back a couple of weeks later and he's like, you know, I think you might be onto something here. So we then started a company in 2010. It's now known as US Mortgage Resolution. And that business has generated over $53 million of revenue over that time period. And we've Transacted on over 10,000, probably 11,000 at this point, discounted or defaulted mortgage notes. And so we built a nice little business there, which is great. But the thing with the mortgage note business is it's super volatile. So when it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, like, we could go a year or two without having any notes to buy because we're kind of at the whim of the loan sellers out there, mostly the. The big banks, right? So we were like, hey, you know, we gotta find a business that's gonna be a lot more steady, where we can actually build a team, put a business plan together, you know, all that business school stuff that I learned, you know, we weren't really able to apply in the distressed mortgage business because it was just, you know, we had no control over our pipeline. So, you know, we had looked at hard money lending. We got involved with a title company for a little bit. We actually went back and fixed and flipped some other residential houses. And then finally we started hearing about self storage. In about the 2017, 2018 time frame. We started going to the conferences, started getting educated. We were like, hey, this business looks really interesting. 2019, we joined a mastermind group. And that's where my partner Joe and I realized, like, hey, we have some great skills between the two of us with, you know, I can do the nerdy spreadsheet stuff. And Joe's really good with people and creating those relationships and raising the money, and he's kind of the visionary of the two of us. And, but we, we weren't really good at generating leads to find self storage deals. And of course once you find them and you do your due diligence and you buy them, now you got to run the thing. So through our self storage mastermind group, we were able to fill in those holes and put a great team together and then we were able to confidently go to market at that point in 2020 and start buying facilities. So now we've acquired 14 facilities, about to close on our 15th and we've built a great team. We're in seven states, soon to be eight states, mostly in the eastern U.S. and like I said, we're just super excited about our team and the self storage business in general.

Yeah. And then from an operations standpoint, are you all managing all the properties in house or do you all work with local storage management companies?

Yep. Yeah, good question. So we use what we call kind of a hybrid management structure. So we have, we have an outsourced consultant that helps us identify managers to manage each facility. So we do have a human that's assigned to each facility, but they work remotely and they're especially with technology these days, Wayne. Right. I mean most people can, are now using their smartphone to, you know, they ask Google like storage near me. And then if they find a facility that's close and it has the unit that they're looking for, they'll just go ahead and they'll rent it. They can rent it right there from their smartphone. So we're implementing those kinds of technologies so that that one person, we can leverage that one person into managing like 3, 4, 5 facilities at a time. So we're able to skinny down our expenses there for personnel, which of course everyone knows is probably one of your big expense line items.

What technology have you found? So in the storage space where you could have that remote person and everything, you know, through the website, you know, automated, where they can find a unit, lease the unit, but when they're actually having a physical issue with their unit or getting access to that unit, that's always where I'm a little like, you can outsource this from a separate location, but sometimes you still need boots on the ground to help with those one offs.

100. Yeah, 100. I mean you can't, you know, you can't fix a gate over the Internet. So. Yeah, that's right. That's why we call it a hybrid structure because we do have boots on the ground about three, four days out of the month is what, is what our managers are required to be on. Site. And so it's during that time that they can fix the gate or check on the fence or clear out the trash, adjust the cameras or the lighting, whatever needs to be done physically. And then of course, if there's an emergency, they can drop everything and head over there. So, you know, we've had storms and you know, trees have fallen and taken out part of a fence or part of some units. And so of course they, they can direct their schedule to get over there right away. But it's been working. It's been working real well. And because of course, you know, the manager might be at our facility in Kentucky, but they could feel a call for the facility in Virginia. So it's. And the caller doesn't know, you know, that they're in Kentucky, you know.

So well, what are your thoughts on, you know, we've got this, we were talking about before the show. So I've got a storage facility in Huntsville, Alabama. And all the calls there go to our Boots on the Ground partner there. And as we build our Bryant College Station storage facility, I was thinking about doing like a, a after or like a one of those call centers. Have you looked at those where like they would, you know, filled the, the calls 247 and then have sort of like the main. And then if they can't, you know, do what they what the customer at that point, then it gets escalated to the next person. Have you found that to be something viable versus having even that remote manager?

Yeah, I'll get back to you on that, Wayne, because as we speak we're, we're implementing a call center strategy because as our portfolio has grown, right. We're trying to find different areas where we can be more efficient and that's definitely one of them. So we're just now in the process of implementing a call center technology. So we should reconnect in about six months and I'll be able to answer.

I mean, you know, you need that person who'd be in that area still have that boots on the ground or, you know, to assist. But even when that person is boots on the ground helping, assisting on something, they may not able to answer the phone. So that's why, you know, go back and forth a little bit. I'm going to be calling some call centers myself and seeing, you know, how do we get somebody that, yeah, it's.

You know, well, it's, you know, it becomes a marketing game. Right. So when that call comes in, I mean, that's a hot lead. So you want that phone call answered and you want the opportunity to be able to convert that customer. So, you know, if it ends up going to the manager's cell phone voicemail because they're fixing a fence or they're tied up with another customer, you know, that's potentially some lost revenue there. So 100%. We're starting to look more and more at those kinds of KPIs, if you will, as key performance indicators, you know, conversions and that sort of thing. As our, as our company is growing and we're getting more robust around our. Our tracking and our management.

Yeah. So how, when you're looking for properties, what are certain key metrics? Whether it's location, demographic.

Yeah.

Location near other sites. I mean, what are you. Just for the show, I ask things personally. Like, I'm very selfish on the skull because I'm like, I'm happy for myself. And then, you know, listeners listen in and they benefit from it too. But, like, you know, I just, you know, what is your, you know, y' all been so successful. What is your road map to finding great opportunities? Sure.

Yeah, it's, it's. It's been a grind, to be honest, Wayne. I mean, we. The market's been really tough this year. Last year we acquired seven facilities. This year we're only going to acquire four. So, you know, it's definitely slowed down. But to answer your question, so obviously location. Right. Is a huge. Is a huge factor. The Self Storage Almanac. For anyone who's interested, you can go out there and buy the 2023 Self Storage Almanac and you can find out all these stats that the inside self storage people, or is that it puts it together any. There's a group that puts together this almanac and they're out there collecting all this data. And the data tells us that the number one reason someone rents from a storage facility is because they've driven by it. And then number two reason is because they found it online and they are. And that just seemed to be in a good location and they had the unit that they were looking for at a price that they thought was reasonable. And then I'm sure might be mixing up the order here. But it's not until you get to like, number three or number four, where price is really the driver. So people, they want that convenience. You know, they want, they want to be able. They want the, the store to be in their, you know, their circle of errands. You know, if they're going to the grocery store or this store, that school or that church, you know, whatever. They want that storage facility to be kind of in that path. And so, so location, just like, you know, virtually every other kind of real estate is, is super important. Look at that. You know, we look at traffic counts, but even, even before we do a deep dive on the facility itself, you know, we are looking at the market, so we're looking at, we want to see the population is steady or, or growing. But we're also, we, we're looking for kind of that Goldilocks scenario. Right. Because if, if the market is growing too fast, that's likely going to attract like a bigger, like real estate investment trust or, or some huge operator that's going to come in and 100 or 150,000 or 200,000 square foot facility and suck up all the demand out of that market. So we don't want to see that. We don't want to see it too fast, but we also, of course, don't want to see it too slow or declining because ultimately that's going to hurt demand in that market for, for storage. But we're looking for solid household income, you know, minimal poverty. We're looking for, we are looking for renters, decent amount of renters in that market because renters tend to rent apartments, but they still have their stuff. So they tend to be good customers for self storage. So there's just a couple of the highlight things that we look for in a, in a market.

Yeah. So like on the multifamily side, we typically want to see like 2 1/2 x 3x of their salary for their rent. Do y' all have, when you're looking for like salary or, you know, household income, is there an example that you're looking for?

That's probably one of the differences, Wayne, between multifamily and self storage is we're not looking at it in that kind of fashion because let's face it, you know, their rent might be two grand for an apartment unit, but their rent for a storage unit is only going to be a couple hundred bucks. So we have that difference. So we're not really dialing it in that, that closely, but we are looking for, you know, kind of that above average, you know, household median income because we want people to of course, have the money available to rent a storage unit. And that's another area where we're looking for kind of that, that Goldilocks scenario. Because if the median household income is too high, you know, those people are likely going to be buying houses that have storage and they don't need a storage unit. But we don't want it too Low either because then when you run into delinquency and other, you know, kind of move out issues kind of thing. So it's another one of those, you know, not too hot, not too cold scenarios.

Yeah. It makes sense that you're not looking.

You know, from a rain, it would.

Be a lot more. But on the flip side, it does make sense that, you know, if they have more discretionary income, they're likely to buy more toys or buy more stuff.

Oh, for sure.

Needs to be in areas and then, you know, just being near HOA neighborhoods where there's likely going to be, you know, divorces.

Right.

Or moves, etc, where you're, you know, need that extra space.

That's right, yeah. And you know, storage is, as you may be aware, is becoming more and more adopted. Right. By households across the country. You know, whereas a few years back it might have been only 8% of households were using storage. You know, now it's like 11 going on 12%. And that might not sound like a lot like a 2, 3, 4% increase, but when you consider there's 120 million households across the U.S. you know, every 1% move is 1.2 million new self storage customers. And so, and they're just not just like housing, you know, they're not building enough self storage facilities fast enough to, to absorb that demand. So that's another reason why we really, we really like the storage space.

Well, and we were talking about before the show and why, you know, we're buying storage or developing storage that are larger for us, like 20 by 50. But you have a lot of the businesses that also needs storage as well. I remember before the show you were talking about how that's going to be also marketing towards that. But if you want to, you know, share why, you know, what you're seeing on the business side needing storage and how that obviously your portfolio.

Yeah, yeah, we're super excited about the business storage niche within the greater self storage niche. And we kind of stumbled into it because we bought a facility this past summer down in Wilmington, North Carolina and it was a different kind of facility than we had seen before. Where it was, you know, the unit sizes are more like 15 by 30 or 25 by 38 and it's a 14 foot door and with a high ceiling inside. And, and, and what it was is that 80% of the customers at this facility were contractors. You know, they're plumbers, they're landscape guys, they're electricians. You know, they need a place to store their, you know, park their truck park their van, store their equipment, their materials. And so what we found was that those customers are gold because they are running their business, it's their livelihood out of this unit. So you know, they're going to pay you on time. And because it is part of their business and whatnot, you know, we're likely able to get a higher rent for that kind of unit and they're going to stick around for a while. So they're going to be at this facility for a long time. And the data is showing us there that I think 60 or more percent of the customers there have been, have been there longer than four years. So that's like, that's the kind of customer you have because, right, you acquire them one time and you have them for all that time. And meanwhile along the way, you know, you're able to increase their rate. We do it twice a year. And so it's just, it's just a great niche within the storage niche. So we as a company are strategically now shifting and looking at that market. So we'd like to buy more facilities that are like this or build them. But even if we can't buy them or build them at what I'll call our retail storage facilities, which are your typical drive up kind of thing, our vacant units that we have there, we're doing Facebook geo ads targeting contractors in those markets so we can say, hey, Lynchburg, Virginia contractors, we have these storage units available for your materials and whatnot, come on over and check us out type thing. So we're looking strategically and intentionally of kind of shifting our revenue mix from, you know, purely residential to, to having a nice mix of, of commercial in there as well.

Yeah, I love that you're using the social media, using Facebook and technology. What are your thoughts on like flyers, like going out, I mean mailers that are going out or the door to door, I mean, has that been successful? And marketing.

So our managers are trained to go and make friends with the, with the neighbors. Right. And so they're not necessarily doing flyers, but they are just going out and saying, you know, hey, you know, we're the new owners of this facility over here, you know, love to refer you some business, you know, can you refer us some business or just those kinds of things? Because you know, at the end of the day these are all communities. Right. And so we've made the mistake before of going into and acquiring a facility and not understanding the community and like, you know, pushing rates or doing, you know, getting a little aggressive in that regard. And it's like well, you know, we probably should have taken the first, you know, two, three months and to get to know the neighbors, get to know the market at a deeper level before we kind of go and start pushing, pushing numbers like that. So because it is a community and you do want to get to know, get to know them. So, you know, whether it's flyers or just stopping by and dropping off a business card or whatever, you know, it does seem to, to help on kind of the goodwill building side of things.

Hey listeners, it's Wayne Courageous. I just want to pause real quick to say thank you for listening to our show. I hope that you're getting a lot of value out of it. If I could ask you to go ahead and like subscribe and share this podcast, that would mean a lot. It will get a lot of other investors like yourself learning about the process and the steps to successfully invest in real estate, either as a passive or an active investor. I also want to do a quick introduction of CRI partners. I'm the managing principal for CRI partners and we started it back in 2019 with one goal, to grow your wealth passively in real estate. We do so by buying assets in multifamily, build to rent communities and RV boat storage facilities. And we do so in areas that have strong market fundamentals and also have strong partnerships with, with other real estate investors such as ourselves. We personally discovered that passively investing in real estate was a really great blend for people that are busy like yourself, and that you can invest passively in real estate and still reap the rewards of the returns, the tax benefits, etc. If you're interested in learning more about passively investing, check out our website. We do a lot of content through our passive investor coaching program, through our podcast, our blogs, and just other information that we do on a daily basis. Check out cri partners.com again reipartners.com if you're interested in building the relationship and joining our investor club, there's a link there to to join. We'll set up a call and continue building the relationship with you. We're super excited to have that opportunity and I want us to get back to the show and hopefully again you're enjoying the conversation and look forward to connecting soon. Thank you. Yeah, shifting gears for investors that are going into self storage, what are some risks that you know that you're seeing that may be different than other class, other asset classes that you, you share with your investors before they invest with you? Yeah, sure.

Well, I mean we kind of just talked about one so the, the what was interesting in this market for self storage was after, after Covid and then as inflation and interest rates really started kicking up and it, which really cooled off the residential home market, that really had a negative impact across our facilities because if people aren't moving, I mean that's a big driver for self storage demand. Right? So if the transactions have now fallen off a cliff, if there were not many people moving around and so that meant not too many people were needing storage. So that, that was a negative impact. And so that's why, that was another reason why strategically we're starting to look more at commercial customers because of course they weren't subject to that same kind of drop off. In fact, I don't know if you've tried to get a contractor over to, you know, over to your house to fix anything recently, but it's, you know, it's pretty tough. So they're super busy and they're, you know, they just keep kind of plowing forward. So that's definitely a risk that you know, frankly we didn't really foresee. But that was our, how we are now shifting to mitigate that risk in the future. But you know, we've had such a weird last few years, Wayne, with you know, you know, Covid was kind of this, you know, black swan event and then now, you know, then that run up in inflation. I mean those are kind of some interesting things. But I guess the, the beautiful thing about storage and another one of the things that attracted us to it is that for 40 plus years the occupancy rate at self storage facilities has meandered between like 8, 80 and 90% over that entire time period. So whether it was like a boom time or a bus time or anywhere in between, you know, in good times people use storage because you know, they're buying stuff and whatnot and need a place to store it. And if bad times, you know, they're, they're being downsized, they're divorced, there's, you know, they're being displaced, etc, then they need storage. So those are the reasons why we, we see self storage as being a pretty, pretty buoyant kind of asset class. Even though it does have of course risks associated with it. Just like any other asset class.

Yeah, and the stuff that they store, typically they'll have, you know, they've, they've worked hard to acquire that stuff or they have emotional attachment because their heirlooms or something, you know, from previous generations. So you know, after they're paying their rent, they're paying their Storage. And usually, at least on our deals, like, I'm sure it's for you, it's automatic payment. You know, there's a credit card on file or that's right, file. So it pays. And what I love about storage, too, Thomas, like, I don't have the emotional roller coaster of going through the eviction process with the courts. So 100. Talk to us about that. Of, like, what y', all's, you know, process for people that don't pay their rent time and sort of how you all work through that.

Yeah, I mean, that was one of the reasons, Wayne, I was a horrible landlord back in the day when I had my own rental properties, because, you know, I was such a softie. You know, I just listen to any old story as to why the rent was late or not paid. And so, you know, in the storage world, we're not in landlord tenant world, which is great because most areas that court tilts heavily in the favor of tenants. But we're in lean law world, which is very clean and very straightforward. Basically, if you don't. It varies a little bit from location to location, but generally speaking, if you don't pay your bill for 60 days, then your stuff can go up for auction. And then the beautiful thing, too, back to technology, is we do all virtual auctions now. So the manager will go in, take a few pictures of the stuff that's in the. In the delinquent locker. It'll get. Those pictures will get posted up on the auction site. And then there are people out there who. Who go and they try to buy these things. And you're hoping to find, you know, golden nugget in there somewhere. And so they'll come and they'll bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, and they'll win the bid for the unit. And this is the beautiful thing is they then have 72 hours to come and clean out that unit, because that's a big expense for us otherwise, is, you know, when we're cleaning out units, that's. That's an expense for us. We got to get our manager in there. And if it's like a really big job, we might have to bring in some outside help, and we might need to bring in a dumpster and just all that kind of stuff. So just having somebody being responsible for cleaning out that unit is huge. And then now we've got an empty unit. Basically, we just have to sweep it out, make sure the door's working, you know, oil the springs and the. And the rails and stuff. Now we've got a unit that's ready. Ready to rent. So we, it can be cleaned out in the morning and rented later that afternoon. Which is a big difference for multi family.

Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, I love it. You know it's concrete and steel, you know, and.

Right.

Maybe some lights depending on the size of the unit. So shifting gears, we've just got a few minutes left. I wanted to talk about like investor projections, returns and obviously every deal is going to be different but one thing I noticed in your, your podcast one sheeter thing is that you know it, two to three years is a very quick time from an investment horizon. So if y' all hold your assets two to three years, talk to me to that because I mean that's pretty, pretty amazing to hit return. It's just a short amount of time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we are what we want to call a value add shop. Right. So we're looking for facilities that are underperforming. Right. So they're mom and pop owned. They're not using the latest technologies. They might not have a website. You know, their major KPI key performance indicator is occupancy. They just want all the units full. So they're not really looking to maximize revenue. And so what ends up happening, especially after the last few years when we've had a big run up in the rental rates for self storage units is if they're asleep at the wheel for a couple years, next thing you know their rates that they're charging are like 30% plus below market. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to come in and bring our, our, our professional management team, our, our technology platform and just, you know, be able to push those rates up to market over a couple of years. And that just creates a huge amount of value because it costs the same amount to run the facility. You know, whether you're charging 100 bucks for a 10 by 10 or whether you're charging 140 bucks for a 10 by 10 so that all of that extra revenue drops to the bottom line. And so that's why it doesn't take us on what we call our plain vanilla value add opportunity. It doesn't take us a lot of time to go in there and implement those strategies, season the property for a little bit and then, and then exit at a, at a nice high value. So we generate great returns for our investors.

Yeah, it's like a rinse and repeat type. Especially when you have a team that's done it. You know, it's.

That's right.

Hey, stick the team on it. And they, you know, turn it around. Hey, question. I have like, cap rates. How are you seeing cap rates in this environment? So the last couple of years and do obviously you have no, maybe you do, but you may not know what the cap rates are for 20, 24, but where do you sort of see them aligning out? You know, because that obviously plays a big role in, you know, it definitely does.

And it's, it's a timely question, Wayne, because I just earlier today I was on the phone with one of our commercial mortgage loan brokers and yeah, we just sort of catch up from time to time. How, you know, how. What are you seeing out there? How's the market? You know, that kind of conversation. And we both agreed on, you know, unfortunately or fortunately, I guess it's, it just kind of is what it is. It's not fortunate or unfortunate, but we feel like where we're at right now is like historically where interest rates have been. I mean, we might be a little bit on the high side, but, you know, in commercial real estate, you know, wasn't unusual back before the, you know, artificially low interest rate environment. We came out of to have interest rates at, you know, 7, 8, 9% for, for a deal. So, so now, you know, we're looking at our. As an irr shop. You know, one of the. We're trying to generate quick returns is what I mean by that. You know, we are looking at estimating our exit cap rates. And so if our borrowing costs, you know, are like these days are 7, 8%, our. Our end buyer is going to be valuing our facility at like a, you know, 8, 9, 10 cap rate. And, you know, even, even though that drives my acquisitions team crazy to say that it's like, it's just how it works, right? You don't want to buy a negative leveraged facility. And what I mean by that is you don't want to pay an 8 cap for a facility where you're, where your cost of money is 9% because then you're, you're upside down, like right out of the gates and you're, it's not a good position to be in. So, so I do hopefully, I think for the health of the overall market, I think cap rates do need to go up and that's just going to be a kind of a reality that we need to, we need to wait for. And unfortunately, there's going to be facilities and multifamily properties and other things that are going to be coming online here not because the property itself is distressed. It's because the capital stack in that property is distressed and they're not going to be able to refinance. So you know, it'll be an interesting, you know, kind of next couple, two, three years. Our motto here and what we've heard from our other self storage colleagues is, you know, survive till 25. So you know, we're thinking to every.

Asset class and yeah, it depends on like, you know, if you're a buyer in this time frame, you know, this is all good news because you're, you're finding opportunities to buy assets that you know a much better basis than you were a year or two ago if you're selling.

That's right.

It is providing a lot of stress on, on everybody, including myself. Like it's, you know, we're real estate investors in all different types of markets but you know, it just the reality of, you know, investing in and going back to the risk and things that, you know, there's things out of your control, taxes, insurance, interest rates, etc.

So.

But I did have a podcast with a guy a couple weeks ago and it just like, you know, at the end of day you're working hard every single day to control what you can and take care of your investors. So regardless of the asset class.

Right.

It's funny that you say this, survive till 25. So it really just spans all real estate right now, so.

Right, yeah. And you hit on a good point there, which is like, you know, Joe and I, you know, we've been through a lot of ups and downs. You know, we survived through the Great Recession, you know, we battled through ever since then. So I, I don't know necessarily where it comes from. I don't think you can read a book a book and get it. But you know, our team here and one of our core values is actually grit. And so when things are not pretty and you know, you still gotta just grind it out, you know, and you know, stay TR your mission and get stuff done. And so that's, that's what we do here at Belarus Storage Group, you know, when we're looking out for our investors because by the way, you know, we invest in our own deals and we have, you know, close friends and family member that invest in our deal. So we have a very vested interest to make sure we, you know, get things, get things done and grind through. So that's kind of where we're at this year and probably next year and then, you know, hopefully can start popping the corks on some champagne after, you know, some successes that we'll start realizing in 25.

Well, is there anything you want to share before we close up? One of the last questions I always ask is what is your proudest moment in real estate? And we're happy to go to that question right now. Or if there's other things you want to share before we get to that question.

Sure. Well, I guess I'll get to the answer that in a minute. But yeah, I appreciate the time today, Wayne, and I'm just once again, I'm Tom Dunkle. I'm the chief investment officer here at Bellrose Storage Group and I invite folks out there to head to our website, bellrose storagegroup.com you can find our free ebook there, which is a super useful due diligence checklist to help people make sure they're asking the right questions when looking at an alternative asset opportunity, whether it's storage or multifamily or whatever else. So that free resource is there. Come and get that. And you can find us on Facebook and LinkedIn. We post a lot of value add content, you know, what we're seeing in the marketplace, you know, things that we thought were interesting, insightful and valuable information. And then my podcast interviews. And then of course, you know, we have, when we have opportunities to invest, you know, those get posted out there as well. But I would say, Wayne, you know, my, probably my proudest moment in real estate, I have to say it's kind of a, it's kind of a continuing thing because, you know, kind of where I'm at in my career now, you've been able to build a great team underneath me. So now like there are conference calls going on that I'm not on there are, you know, stuff is happening without me having to like prod it along. And I think, you know, and probably next year and if not next year, definitely there after that. I'm pretty sure, in fact, I'm certain that we are going to close a deal here at Delaware Storage Group without me being involved in it at all. And that's just a testament to our team and our training and our just the culture here where we really push people to be self reliant and take personal accountability for what they're supposed to be doing. And so it's super proud moment for me to just see our team develop and grow into those roles. And so frankly, I can spend a little more time on the golf course.

Problem moments and you know, you're building up future investors and entrepreneurs, you know, they're getting that ground framework from you.

That's right. Yeah.

And you know, they'll have, they'll, they'll have the itch one day to maybe do their own thing, which is cool because you can look back and you know, sure, like, hey, I, I helped you start the, the fire to get you to where you.

Yeah, that's right. No 100. You know, who knows that one of these guys could go and build some huge, amazing real estate business, you know, kind of with the foundation. They've learned here. So that would be amazing.

Well, I appreciate your time, Tom. I really enjoyed it. Got a lot out of it personally and hopefully the listeners did it as I listen in. But you have a great rest of the day and look forward to staying in touch.

Thanks, Wayne. Yep. Appreciate it.

That's all for this episode. We hope you subscribe, share and leave a review of the show. For more information about passively investing in multi family apartments, check out Wayne's free ebook by going to creipartners.com ebook Also, follow us on Facebook by searching CREI partners. This was the untold stories of real estate investing.