Joining us today to discuss the opportunities in self-storage during the current market conditions is Kris Benson. He is the Chief Investment Officer of Reliant Real Estate Management, a company that offers institutional quality self-storage investments to accredited investors. He digs deep into why self-storage is still an incredible asset to invest in and offers strategies on how to squeeze NOI out of properties. He also touches on what it takes to be a sophisticated operator in the space, the work they are doing in boat and RV storage, and the importance of return on equity.
[00:01 - 12:35] Self Storage Investing Insights
- Kris talks about his background as an investor
- To make money in real estate, do it at a scale
- He introduces Reliant Real Estate Management and the work they do
- They are seeing significant compression in cap rates in the market
- There is still a lot of capital chasing deals in the self-storage space, with institutional investors looking for a safe and profitable investment
- Investors who are not well capitalized and not-so sophisticated operators may be potentially setting themselves up for failure
- What makes a sophisticated operator
- Leveraging different technologies such as touchless leasing
- One of the most important things moving forward for increasing NOI: dynamic pricing algorithm
- Comparing the data and software advancements for multifamily and self-storage
[12:36 - 19:12] Business Growth and Return on Equity
- Kris breaks down the boat and RV storage facilities they own and what they’re doing in development
- When there's equity in the deals, is it time to liquidate or refinance?
[19:13 - 20:28] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Kris!
- Links Below
- Final Words
Tweetable Quotes
“There's a lot of people in the space who are not sophisticated operators and when things get tight, again, it probably comes down to bad debt or too aggressive on the debt side.” - Kris Benson
“This one is probably going to be most important moving forward is dynamic pricing algorithm where you're matching prices day to day based on occupancy.” - Kris Benson
“I'm a huge believer that in real estate, anything you buy today, in 20 years is going to be a good deal.” - Kris Benson
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Connect with Kris through the Reliant Real Estate Management website and KrisBenson.com.
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
[00:00:00] Kris Benson: What I would say you should measure us on is, well, what happened to NOI during that period? Did we grow that? And that's what you can hold us accountable to, but cap rates and valuations, who knows, that's all made up, right? So we can't control that. But what we can control is if we can squeeze NOI out of something, we're doing our job and then the market's going to do what it's going to do.
[00:00:32] Sam Wilson: Kris Benson is the CIO at Reliant Real Estate Management. They are a top 30 vertically integrated self-storage operator. Kris and his Reliant team have transacted on over $1 billion in self-storage in the past five years, Kris, welcome to the show.
[00:00:47] Kris Benson: Hey, Sam. Pleasure. Appreciate you taking the time.
[00:00:49] Sam Wilson: Hey man. Thank you for coming on. Certainly appreciate it. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show" in 90 seconds or less can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?
[00:00:59] Kris Benson: Those three questions take longer than 90 seconds to answer. Is that okay?
[00:01:03] Sam Wilson: Do your best.
[00:01:05] Kris Benson: Where I started, probably very similarly to a lot of people who get involved in real estate. I owned some duplexes in the town that I lived in and very quickly realized that that was going to be very challenging to scale. And essentially I hated everything about it. It was not really the work, it was more, the people like it was just soul-sucking. It, it always, there was always problems. No one was ever happy. So ultimately I heard in a podcast or read, I wish I could credit who said it to me, but basically it was big deals and small deals are the same amount of work. You just make less money and small deals. And so we started to scale into some larger multifamily we've ended up building a 64 unit apartment complex. And for me, Sam, that's where kind of the light bulbs went off where I was like, ah, this is how you make money in real estate. And, and it was figuring out how to do it at scale.
[00:01:54] Kris Benson: And I'm going to fast forward a lot of the story, but how we got to where we are now is about six years ago, I was convinced cap rates and multifamily couldn't possibly get any more compressed than where they were at that moment. Whoops. I was off by quite a few years, so I started looking for other asset classes to invest in. And that brought me to two really interesting niche classes, mobile home parks and storage, and kind of fell in love with the metrics behind storage. So was an investor of Reliant, which is where I am now first. And then the founder of Reliant, Todd Allen, and I kind of formed a partnership and we've been scaling ever since. So it's, it's been a fun ride.
[00:02:33] Sam Wilson: Yeah, that's interesting. Your crystal ball was definitely broken when it comes to where multifamily has gone. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. They said in 2016, they were underwriting a deal and they couldn't bring themselves to pay 14 million for it. And then, just traded hands, what did he say, 45 million here just a couple of months ago. And he's just like, I don't even understand this. This is crazy. So, but you know, aside from that, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole necessarily and talk about why it's where it is, but you found a niche in self-storage. Tell me a little bit about what you guys are seeing as far as opportunity goes right now in the self-storage space.
[00:03:08] Kris Benson: Yeah, for sure. I mean, what I would say, Sam, is Reliant is a value add shop. So generally we're buying existing assets and adding something to them to force appreciation. So we're just, our goal is always to grow NOI and usually, our plan is expansion. So we're adding square footage and then getting those units leased up. And generally, that's where we're getting our NOI growth. We do some other things, you know, especially if we're taking over kind of a mom and pop owned facility, there's usually some low hanging fruit there as far as, you know, rental rate increases and having things like U-Haul truck rental and tenant insurance and those kinds of things as well, where we can add some ancillary income. But I would say, look, the market in self-storage in the last three years has been pretty incredible. We've seen a significant compression in cap rates. So values have gone through the roof. And what's interesting, Sam, is we stand here today, it's the middle of June, interest rates are rising, but we haven't seen cap rates come up. Values are not changing yet.
[00:04:06] Kris Benson: And I think, you know, a motivator behind that is there's still a lot of capital chasing deals from an institutional level. There's a lot of money still trying to get into the asset class. I had to call this morning with a group. They just funded a group that is starting up and looking for some expansion capital, and they had 13 term sheets. And this group is coming to us saying, Hey, these guys are still looking for a place to place money, do you want to talk about it? So there's still a lot of capital chasing this asset class for the reasons that, you know, we fell in love with it. There's, there's a lot of recession resiliency there, at least in the last two economic cycles. And I think, you know, institutional capital is trying to find deployment in that space.
[00:04:46] Sam Wilson: Yeah. I mean, certainly, I don't know any asset class where capital just isn't chasing yield. I mean, it's looking for it wherever it can find it. So, you know, it's no, obviously no surprise that it's gone into self-storage, but let me ask you this. I understand the, and we think we well covered it on this show, the recession benefits of self-storage, but yet I think in every, every crisis, it brings out unique opportunities to acquire. Are there people who are misaligning their portfolios or taking on debt in the wrong way, or just setting themselves up for failure in the self-storage asset class in particular if we go into a recession?
[00:05:25] Kris Benson: We hope so. Time will tell, Sam, right? I, I agree. Usually, the best buying opportunities are, are going to be in when there's blood in the streets, right? We'll find out is there's been a huge glut of self-storage development in the last five years, right, so a lot of people, when you make money in an asset class, People are going to show up and say, oh, I can do that, right? So there's been a lot of merchant builders who are not self-storage operators, they just are developers. They can develop a storage facility and they hope, Hey, I'm the backend. I'm going to sell this to one of the REITs or a publicly traded company. It's going to turn out just fine. And, and they've been right for a long time. The interesting part's going to be, look, if I did a ground-up development three years ago, I was probably underrating sub 4% debt on my construction loans, right? In my model, I was saying, all right, it's going to build be a year plus to build, it's going to take me a year or two to lease this thing up. And then I got to go get perm financing. The question's going to be, what did they underwrite that permanent financing at interest rate wise, right? And if they needed it to be a four and a half to make their project work, Well, they're going to come into a market where it's five plus, right? And that's where we could see some pain, right? Is the sea of old deals where they're coming to market and saying, all right, I got to go get perm financing. And the lender's looking at them saying, yeah. At five and a half, or you can buy down your note, you got to come up and, you know, come up with a big chunk of cash to buy down the proceeds. So, Sam, I think, you know, for those operators that may not be well capitalized, there may be some opportunities there where deals that either banks are taking or banks are starting shop 'cause they know, Hey, we're going to get this thing back. So, you know, I think time will tell. The other part of this is there's a lot of people in the space who, you know, are not sophisticated operators and when things get tight, you know, again, it probably comes down to bad debt or too aggressive on the debt side. But when you're not a sophisticated operator, it's harder to make things work when, you know, the revenue side gets a little bit tighter.
[00:07:24] Sam Wilson: What are some things, when you say that word sophisticated, what are some things that come to mind that you would say would make someone a sophisticated operator?
[00:07:31] Kris Benson: Yeah, that's a fair question.
[00:07:32] Kris Benson: I mean, there's a lot to that, right? And I think it depends on what you're thinking about, but, well, let's start with just kind of the digital marketing side, right? And, and how you're attracting customers. I think in the world, we live in, Sam, today, even in the smaller markets, the secondary and tertiary markets. We generally like to operate in the smaller markets 'cause we have a competitive advantage there, right? Our digital ads, Google AdWords, SEO, those types of things. Generally, mom and pop operators have a website, but they're not really doing anything else, right? And when I say mom and pop, it's not derogatory. You know, people who own less than five facilities kind of fall in that category, right? And it's, it's not good or bad. It just is the, how they attract customers. Do they have, I'd say a big thing in the last 24 months has been touchless leasing, right? So the ability for a customer to rent online, get access to their unit, get their lock and never go in the office, sign their lease. Everything is done online that's since COVID has been a huge push, I would say probably 30 to 40% of our leases. They never walk into our facilities. That's another one.
[00:08:39] Kris Benson: And then I, I would say this one is probably going to be most important moving forward is kind of a dynamic pricing algorithm where you're matching prices day to day, based on occupancy and trying to squeeze out revenue based on, you know, Hey, we, we may have five to seven types of units in a particular facility and each one is being priced based on that type of units occupancy, right? So if 10 by tens are full, that price is going to go up. If five by tens are, you know, empty, that price is going to go down and that's shifting every day comparatively to what's happening in the rest of the market. So just kind of a snapshot.
[00:09:17] Sam Wilson: No, I love that. And that, that brings, you know, a few things out that maybe I hadn't thought about. And we're certainly seeing that on the dynamic pricing side, on the RV resorts. You know, it's something where again, you know, mostly mom and pop owned and it's like, well, we know that you know, it's, you know, $69 a night, $79 a night, whatever it is. And that's been what they've been saying for a decade 'cause it's easy to remember. But it's also parable for business. Like, wait, no, I mean, it's July 4th. You should not be 79. You should be $179 a night. Like, whatever it is, again, I'm making up numbers here, but that, that whole dynamic pricing capacity is something that, you know, it's overlooked, I think in a lot of industries and we've seen that of course come around in Airbnb. We've seen that the airlines, the hotels have had it forever and it's like, why don't we have this applied across, you know, all of our real estate asset classes? So do you think that will take off? You know, and there's just a, there's a random stray thought here so forgive me. I mean, we don't, we haven't seen that in the multifamily space yet.
[00:10:12] Kris Benson: The dynamic pricing.?
[00:10:13] Sam Wilson: Yeah. Have you seen that anywhere?
[00:10:15] Kris Benson: Yeah, it exists for sure, especially some of the larger operating platforms. That's where I first got introduced to it is that pricing is changing in the market almost daily, based on unit type. The difference is, Sam, with, with multifamily specifically, right? The big boys report. So there's, you know, like the Yardi and the CoStar are getting that data, so that everybody can have the benefit of having that data, right? And in storage, there's a couple of groups trying, Radius+ is one, where they're trying to create this momentum where operators are reporting this information in so we can all benefit from. But it's definitely not to the level of like a multifamily and, and part of it's just because the market is much smaller than multifamily. So software companies are looking, Hey, where do we invest dollars to build a platform? Storage is a smaller addressable market than multifamily, right? So, you know, I think part of it is who's making investments into the space and storage has come a long way from where it was 10 years ago, for sure in the sophistication and, you know, the technology that's supporting it, but it's still not kind of the maturity level, I would say, of like a multifamily or an office, right? You know, some of the core four, when you think about the major real estate asset classes, but, yeah, I would say that that pricing algorithm tool is, is super helpful when you think about how to squeeze NOI, right?
[00:11:39] Kris Benson: And Sam, in the world, you and I live in, that's how we should be judged by investors, right? You know, I mean, so if you have been a, an operator of almost any asset class for the last five years, You should have made money unless you're really, you know, really screwed it up, you should have made money. And that could have been just cap rate compression. You could have done nothing. And you still should have made money. What I would say you should measure us on is, well, what happened to NOI during that period? Did we grow that? That's what you can hold us accountable to, but cap rates and valuations, who knows, that's all made up, right? So we can't control that, but what we can control is. If we can squeeze NOI out of something, we're doing our job and then the market's going to do what it's going to do.
[00:12:24] Sam Wilson: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell me about this. You guys, I mean, you, you own some regular, just standard self-storage. When I say that, I'm thinking like you said, 5 by 10, 10 by 10, whatever, 10 by 20 units. Do you guys have your hands in any other type of storage?
[00:12:39] Kris Benson: Like wine storage or like that type of stuff? Or boat and RV?
[00:12:43] Sam Wilson: Yeah. Any of those. I hadn't thought about wine storage, but yeah. I mean, I guess obviously you own boat and RV storage as well, is that right?
[00:12:49] Kris Benson: Yep. We do. We have some boat and RV-specific facilities where that's, you know, that's all they do. And then, we also have some storage facilities with traditional climate, you know, non climate controlled units, like the garages that we have parking on. Sometimes it's, you know, covered parking where you got the steel beams, corrugated metal roofs, and trickle chargers, and you can park in there. We kind of have a mix of both. It really depends on the market that we're in. You know, where we found the most success, obviously in the boat and RV parking is somewhere around a lake or recreational area. Generally, people want to park the boats and RVs there. So, yeah. You know, it, it's very market specific if we're, you know, in downtown Atlanta and does a boat and RV parking place do well? Probably not.
[00:13:32] Sam Wilson: Probably not. Or conversely, an RV parking place in downtown Atlanta might do great just in the sense that where else are they going to park it? Like you can't park it in your street, you know, in the, in the neighborhood, your HOAs forbid it. So it's going to be where, where else you going to put an RV if you own one? Yeah, that's interesting. I know we talked about that a little bit off air as to like, what happens to all of these assets, you know, if we have a recession in the gas prices? You know, gas prices keep going up, we go into a recession. What happens to boat and RV storage? Where does that go? I don't know.
[00:14:02] Kris Benson: Yeah, it's going to be interesting. Last night I was cooking dinner actually, and I had the David Muir, Nightly News, ABC or CBS. I don't know what, what channel it is, but he was talking about Biden, you know, potentially proposing the idea of a gas tax holiday. And I was like, oh, that's probably a good idea right now. And then they're like, that will save on average 18 cents a gallon. I was like, perfect. That should make a huge impact in most people's lives. They fill up 10 gallons. I get a dollar 80 back. Thanks, federal government. I guess I don't know how you kind of think about that and be like, that's how we're going to fix this.
[00:14:34] Sam Wilson: Right, right. Let's not think about the fact that three times more expensive to fill up this year than it was last year. Let's think about saving 18 cents a gallon. Yeah, absolutely. Man, it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. It was a conversation we talked about again before we hit record on this, where you were talking about return on equity. I thought that was an interesting point where you were talking to a seller and the sellers, you know, you basically were able to present to them this idea that, Hey, you can hold this asset for a decade. But what's your equity doing for you? Can you break that down for us? 'Cause I really like that thought process.
[00:15:05] Kris Benson: Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, I'm a huge believer, Sam, that real estate, anything you buy today, in 20 years is going to be a good deal, right? So I'm 42. Anything, anything that I had purchased when I was 22 today, it's worth more money.
[00:15:19] Sam Wilson: Sure.
[00:15:19] Kris Benson: Unquestionably, right? So you know, when I think about with, that's kind of on my original invested equity, I may have an incredible return on that when and if I have a liquidation event, right? So let's say I hold it for 20 years, but if three years in, the equity in the deal has doubled or tripled or quadrupled or whatever the specific situation you and I were talking about is a gentleman who built a boat and RV parking facility. And he had 10xed, essentially his equity by building the facility and filling it up in two years. And so what I think about from the investing side in that is, okay, so you have X amount of equity. What's your return on the equity that you currently have? Not what he wrote the check for, right, he wrote the check for 250 grand when he built it. Now he's got 2.5 million in it, and when you look at your cash flows, not on 250 grand, it's your cash flows divided by 2.5 million. His return on equity is terrible and not terrible, but there are other opportunities for you out there. And so I think that's how we look at a lot of our deals with our investors is when we get to that point where there's equity in the deals, is it time to liquidate or refinance and pull that equity out because our investor's money has built that equity too. We, Reliant, with our equity in the don't want it sitting there not earning. And you as an investor with Reliant, if you've doubled your equity, you don't want that sitting in there getting a 2%, 3%, especially in this inflationary environment, right? So I think it's always just a balance of you got to look at, all right, what can I do with this money if I pull it out, and if I'm going and buying boats and RVs? Probably not a great investment, but if I could pull that money out and go reinvest and churn it again, you know, that's where we start to get that compounding effect on the investment side of things.
[00:17:11] Sam Wilson: Yeah. And I think that's, that doesn't bode well with the Dave Ramsey school of thought, but I think there are differences there, obviously between what he talks. Like you said, you know, Hey, if you're going to pull out this equity and go buy a boat just for kicks and giggles, then you're just buying another highly depreciating asset and paying probably too much for it. And that's a bad move. And, and I think that's always a personal decision too. Like, you know, sometimes there's a return on equity and then there's a return on peace of mind. That's like, okay, well, which one, which one is it? Maybe this guy's super happy. He's like, I don't care, man. I own a facility free and clear and I get paid for it every year and I don't have to think about it. So ROPM, return on peace of mind. You don't know, but I do like that idea.
[00:17:48] Kris Benson: You trademark that, Sam. RO...
[00:17:50] Sam Wilson: PM, return on peace of mind. And so I think that's always interesting is we survey our own portfolios and go, okay, what's it look like to extract maximum value and maximum return out of this, and do it in a way that is meaningful and also, you know, protects us from downside risk. Are you guys doing any development right now?
[00:18:07] Kris Benson: Yeah. You're saying from a ground-up standpoint.?
[00:18:09] Sam Wilson: Yep.
[00:18:10] Kris Benson: Yeah, we're not what I would consider a developer, meaning, Hey, we can do 10 projects a year. We just don't have the team to support it. We are in the midst of, well, two active developments. Third, that's kind of going through an approval process right now, and hopefully, we'll have shovels in the ground before the end of the summer. So a little bit. Generally, we're usually about one a year, but what I would say is there's going to be value in development right now. And there has been, but we feel like there's kind of an interesting space right now, just from a return on stabilized yield. Like, what you're going to get once this thing is built and the prices per square foot that are being paid for basically empty buildings and the replacement cost against it, you know, there's a Delta there and an opportunity for sure.
[00:18:53] Sam Wilson: Right, right. Yeah. It's really interesting. And that's what we're seeing a lot, even, especially in the multifamily space. I hear a lot, have a lot of people come on the show and say, they'll say, Hey, you know, it's cheaper for us to build than it is to buy existing and then, and then do a value add, like we can just turn around and just push shovel on the ground and start ground up and have a better product for less money. Like, well, that's really interesting.
[00:19:11] Kris Benson: For sure.
[00:19:12] Sam Wilson: Fantastic. Kris, I've really enjoyed this. Thanks for taking the time today to break down the self-storage market for us, what you guys are buying, how you've bought it. I love the clarification there around what a sophisticated operation or operator could look like, you know, and, and kind of giving some quick ideas on, you know, when you see a mom and pop operator, the things that it could be very, very easily improved. Yeah. Certainly appreciate that. Thanks for taking the time to share your story and just give us insight on what opportunities you see out there in the market. If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
[00:19:42] Kris Benson: Yeah, I think probably our website's best, reliant-mgmt.com, which is the abbreviation of management, or if you just Google Reliant Real Estate Management, you're going to find us, you can find our current investment opportunities, contact us, get in touch with our team, and learn a little bit more about the team and track record here.
[00:19:59] Sam Wilson: Awesome, Kris, thank you again, certainly appreciate your time.
[00:20:02] Kris Benson: My pleasure. Thanks, Sam.
