BIGGEST Self-Storage Sale in WA History

THE SELF STORAGE REPORT — FULL TRANSCRIPT Guest: Mikey Taylor (President, Commune Capital; Thousand Oaks City Councilman) Host: Chris Berg (Abernathey Development) Topic: The record $50M+ Bellevue, WA self-storage sale; the $350M Thousand Oaks public-private project; the California contrarian thesis Recorded: July 2026 (Mikey Taylor appearance #2) Source: original recording transcript (speaker-labeled) ======================================================== Chris Berg (00:00): Well, back in May, our guest today — why I'm already rhyming, Mikey, this is gonna be a good show — made history by having the single biggest self-storage sale in the history of the state of Washington. We're gonna get into that today. And then about a month later, he was part of a 5-0 vote in the city of Thousand Oaks for this $350 million project. So he's had a busy couple of months. And by the way, he's also the president of Commune Capital, Mikey Taylor. Mikey, welcome back to the Self Storage Report. It's great to have you. Mikey Taylor (00:30): Hey, thanks for having me. Chris Berg (00:31): I definitely want to get into the project you're doing. It was really great timing to have you on this week. We planned this a while ago, but just last week at the CSSA, Rick Caruso was there as one of the speakers. And it was really interesting because he ran for mayor of LA, was thinking about running for governor. He said, look, if we're gonna get California back on track for everyone, we've got to do a much better job of these public-private partnerships. So I definitely want to dive into some of that conversation with you later. But let's start with this historical sale. Walk us through the asset — what you saw, what you bought, and then what your buyer sees coming in at over fifty million dollars. Mikey Taylor (01:07): Yeah. So the first thing I'm gonna say is, sometimes you see an opportunity and timing is on your side. And I think we had a combination of that happening. We saw an asset where, number one, there wasn't a lot of storage going up. Number two, it was a very difficult market to build in. And that philosophy right there has kind of been the driving force of our firm. Don't build where it's easy — build where people get frustrated. Because if you do, you tend to get a higher valuation. And so this was one of those projects. We built it. We saw a lot of value creation through a combination of the right time, the market being undersupplied, and us holding it for a decent amount of years. And so about two years ago, we started looking at our portfolio, and we were starting to see some recessionary alerts happening. We started seeing our occupancy drop. We started having to have conversations about concessions. And we were kind of bracing for that. And then the beginning of this year, that's the reality we're in. We saw soft cap rates. And on that asset specifically, we had a broker come up to us and mention that he thought we could get a premium on it. And so we told them we are willing to put it up for sale, but we don't have to sell this thing. We had a ton of equity in it. The debt-to-equity ratio was very low. It was a cash machine for us. And so we're in the prime position to sell. Whenever you don't have to sell something and you have multiple options of buyers, it's a good day. And so we ended up in a good position. Chris Berg (02:57): So if you don't mind, because this is the Self Storage Report, let's dive into some of the details before we move on to the mayoral and developer hats. The research I did — correct me if I'm wrong — you got the asset in 2014, got the dirt for like 2.2 million, construction costs roughly nine and a half. So if that's accurate, speak to that. And then, what do you think these people saw to come in at 50 million and go, yeah, we still can make money on this asset? Mikey Taylor (03:26): Yes. So here what I can say is the information that has been reported publicly is the only information I can speak about on this asset. But that is correct what we bought it for. The equity that we were able to capture was quite large, as you saw in that statement. Now, why would a buyer purchase a storage unit at this cost? What I think we're seeing right now is, number one, any type of development or deep value-add is really hard in a lot of markets right now. The yield on cost on a lot of this is just not high enough to match the interest that we're dealing with. And so that has taken a lot of people off the board. Even where cap rates aren't stabilized product, cap rates are too low in a lot of markets to support your debt service. And so what that's left is a lot of institutional buyers looking for core-plus assets that are stabilized, that are doing your bond-alternative type of return. And so for the big players, a 5% yield is enough for them. And maybe they capture some appreciation through natural market growth. But if they're comparing it to the bond yield, that's an okay position for them. Maybe they're looking at putting debt on the back end, but I would tell you most of these buyers are all-cash buyers right now. Chris Berg (04:59): I think that's part of it too — you see they've got so much capital to deploy, and either they deploy it or they gotta give it back, right? Mikey Taylor (05:03): Yeah, a hundred percent. And then you're starting to see alts tap into some of the decision-making on these pension funds. And you have these large funds that have to hit a certain return to stay solvent, and that's a little bit difficult to get right now. And so I think they're looking at creative ways. Right now, I think the only players are buying in cash and potentially looking at putting some debt on it in maybe a couple of years as the market starts normalizing. Chris Berg (05:37): Honestly, man, were you kind of like Sam Zell when they came around with a five-handle and you're like, yeah, we'll do the deal? Mikey Taylor (05:45): Listen, we had a number internally that we were a seller at. And — Chris Berg (05:57): Five in front of it initially? I didn't think so. Mikey Taylor (05:58): Honestly, no. We would have been a seller a little bit below that. And we were just in a position where we had multiple people that were interested, and it created competition. Chris Berg (06:13): You're doing a very politically good job of dancing around this conversation, my friend. Mikey Taylor (06:16): You know what's funny, I'll tell you a good story. The last time I was in this position is when we sold our craft brewery to MillerCoors, and it was all over Forbes. What we sold for was a very similar situation, and everybody wanted to know what was going on, and we legally could not say. So I've had a decade-plus of learning how to dance in this environment. Chris Berg (06:42): And just so people know, the asset was in Bellevue, Washington, correct? So, great market. Again, I don't want to press too many buttons, but I think — to speak to your thesis, and I really want to dive into this some more — Rick Caruso said the same thing. He goes, look, I only want to find places like — he's got that beautiful hotel up there in Montecito. And he's like, who else is ever gonna build a premier hotel in that area? Nobody. That's why I wanted to buy it. Or he bought Lake Sherwood recently, and his thesis is very similar to yours. Mikey Taylor (06:45): Yeah. It was. Chris Berg (07:12): So just walk us through that a little bit. Tell us why you think that's the way to go and why you can create so much value by utilizing your thesis versus maybe going to a Texas — like, we haven't gotten into Texas either because it scares us, because anybody can sort of grab a shovel and just build. Mikey Taylor (07:23): Yeah. So this one, I learned a long time ago, and I've tried to hold this viewpoint through any business I've ever done, which is: where is everybody headed, and how do I go in the opposite direction? And I have just learned that when people call me crazy, that's my indicator that I'm actually on the right path, not headed in the wrong direction. And what I started seeing in, let's call it 2017, 2018, is the opinion of California started changing. Growing up here in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, the majority of the nation looked at California as the greatest state in the country. This was the Golden State for a reason. And when I would be out at conferences speaking, I started seeing a trend where people were starting to look at our state as crazy. "You live in California? I would never go to California. I would never invest in California." And that really started gaining traction, and it was magnified through 2020. And so when everybody started peeling out of California and placing dollars in your Midwest markets — Texas was a big one — I started looking at our state going, okay, if we are so heavily regulated here that nobody builds, and now because of our political environment investors think this state is too risky to invest, what's the long-term effect of that? And my opinion was, if no one will invest here and it's impossible to build housing here, the price of housing only goes up. It's just basic econ. And so that opinion drove us to find the hardest markets to build in that also are the most undersupplied. And we felt like that was a good bet to own assets long-term. Now, the challenge to that is it's not always easy to get investors on board a vision where it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable and contrarian. For us, we bring in retail investors. We don't deal with institutional investors. And so that can actually be even harder for what we're trying to accomplish. Chris Berg (09:42): Quick anecdote for you, my friend. A few years ago when I got into the storage business, I was in Las Vegas, just starting. I mean, literally just starting. I'm at the ISS in Vegas and I say, yeah, I'm going to California. Literally had people laughing in my face. "What? Are you crazy?" So just know, you're on the right thesis. I love what you said about California. And I wanna go through this project that was a 5-0 vote in Thousand Oaks — I think roughly between public and private, 350 million, 17 acres. My question, and the big picture of this conversation we're about to have, is: how do we make California golden again? And what I'd love to do is have you speak through a developer lens at times and through a mayoral lens, because when I saw you at the Lido event, one of the best things you said is — and Rick Caruso said the same thing last week — if we're gonna make California golden again, we're gonna have to get much better at these public-private partnerships. And that's part of the project in TO, correct? Mikey Taylor (10:41): Yeah, correct. Yep. Chris Berg (10:43): Just to get this off the table, because you are a developer, I know there's been some consternation in the city. Are you gonna be developing any part of this 17 acres as a developer, or have you recused yourself from that? Mikey Taylor (10:53): No. So for myself personally, my business, and any of my partners, we don't own any assets in Thousand Oaks — zero. And we won't do business in Thousand Oaks as well. I think it's too much of a conflict of interest. And secondly, Thousand Oaks is not the market that aligns with what we do as a company. So no, we're not doing any of that. There are some morality issues for me personally around that as well. But yes, that project was built out as a public-private partnership. And the idea — and I think this is probably what Caruso shared — is the private and public side of the government and the market, they tend to be at odds with one another too frequently. And whenever you're at odds with anyone, you're not really gonna get anything done. You ultimately have to find alignment and get whoever you're working with — whether it's the government, a business partner, a relationship — you gotta start rowing in the same direction if you're ever trying to achieve anything. And in our state, I think there's a lot that we feel like we are missing out on. When you look at the natural competitive side of what we're doing in other states, we're losing the competitive fight. There's people that are heading to other states because they are doing it better than us right now. And so what does that mean? We're gonna see this play out, and I think cities are gonna go in one of two directions. You're either gonna see cities take a heavier approach toward them running the show, or you're gonna see cities start inviting the free market in and actually joining together to create a desired outcome. We'll see what happens in LA. I think this mayoral race is gonna decide the direction we head. But for our city, we are trying to find a way to bring the private market in, because at the end of the day, the private market does things better than the government. They're more efficient and they do it at a cheaper price. Chris Berg (13:07): So let's talk about that. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what we do to make California golden again. Although, in the context — you look at San Francisco right now, San Francisco's got the buzz back thanks to AI, right? The office is up, multifamily's up. And then you look around El Segundo due to space and defense tech. I think there's some really positive things that are gonna happen in the El Segundo market, parts of Orange County. So maybe let's go to Thousand Oaks and talk about how you put this deal together specifically, and then how do you take that out across California? And as we said offline, maybe this gubernatorial conversation. Mikey Taylor (13:50): Okay, so there's a lot there. San Francisco is heading on the right track. In my perspective, they're heading on the right track because they were so off track that the community forced them to change. At the end of the day, the elected officials are supposed to be a representation of the community. And I don't think their elected officials were driving their city in the direction that anybody wanted. And so they switched it up. And I think there was a rebalance of political ideas, which is healthy for us. On El Segundo defense — yeah. Chris Berg (14:29): Can I interrupt you on San Francisco real quick? Because I'd literally get your take as a mayor. You said they've changed directions. Based on what I'm hearing, I think the new mayor in San Francisco is doing an incredible job. Do you think he's having this much of an impact, or is it just the community as a whole? What's your take? Mikey Taylor (14:45): You know, that's a really good question. I think he's doing a much better job than the last one. But here's something that's really important for people to know. If you're the mayor of a city, yes, you can make decisions and potentially start to steer the city in a different direction, but perception is very important as well. This is why, when people are looking at your city to potentially move in — when businesses are looking at your city to create companies or increase their footprint — they're looking at the mayor. They're looking at the city council, and they're trying to gauge if this person is normal or crazy. And if they're crazy, people aren't coming in. If they're normal and pragmatic, you will drive more people in. And I think that's what we're seeing in San Francisco. It's almost like the business community is looking and going, they're back to just doing normal business as opposed to playing theater and scaring everybody out. So I do think the perception side is important as well. Chris Berg (15:54): Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember he's from the Levi family, right? So he's got some capital and some connections. And one of the things — to speak to what you're suggesting and what Rick Caruso said — I think he's doing really well: he's bringing in a lot of money with nonprofits. So again, he's combining the public and private, correct? Mikey Taylor (16:11): Yeah, that's correct. And this one, for me — I think the opinions are all over the place on where you land on this. But for me personally, when I'm looking at elected officials, I want them to have experience in the thing that they're voting on. Business experience, I think, is very good. And so — how that looks for me — there's some people in my area that don't like that I'm in the real estate world. They're uncomfortable with that. For me personally, knowing how much the city council votes on real estate, I think it's a value to have the knowledge I have. I understand real estate inside and out. And so when somebody brings a project to us, I know the questions to ask, and I'm able to tell when they're actually being honest or when their numbers are just wildly off. I think that's a value-add not only for me — I think that's a value-add in other positions as well. So I think, on that one in Thousand Oaks, you're seeing somebody who, one, has relationships, and two, knows how to either create incentive or create the partnership to bring both parties to the table. That's important. And I don't think — if you've never had experience trying to bring people to a table and actually get a deal done, you're not even thinking creatively like that. Chris Berg (17:30): So let's dive into some of the creativity with this deal you're putting together now in Thousand Oaks. I haven't seen a lot of the private stuff, but I know there's gonna be a nice hotel. What's been your pitch? It sounds like you've got forty-five million dollars in reserves right now. It sounds like you need another hundred million. Where are you gonna get that from? Kind of walk us through what you're piecing together here. Mikey Taylor (17:49): Okay, so on the public side, we still have a ways to go to figure out how the funding's gonna line up. We have a pretty good reserve that we could potentially put toward it, but we still have a ways to go to solve all of that. On the private side, here's the one — and this is where the partnership needs to come together, but it's important to understand both sides. So typically a city will look at a developer and go, "You just want to get rich, and you're telling me how challenged your deal is, and that's just so that you can get a higher yield." And it feels like the city's job is to peel back the project and peel back the return for the developer. And then at the same point, the developer looks at the city and goes, "You're just being ridiculous. You won't let me get a deal through. You're asking for so much. You're wasting time. Why can't we just work together? You seem like you're a roadblock as opposed to helping solve problems." So that's typically the dynamic. The important thing to note is, if you're a developer, you have to understand that the city and even the policymakers have residents and constituents to be responsible for. So if they're getting pushback from residents, they have to do this correctly so that everybody's not pissed at how they're structuring a deal. Simultaneously, the city and policymakers need to understand that if a project doesn't make a return, no investment is coming in. So when you're looking at certain things — let's just say affordable housing, this is the big one — if the policymaker wants to do a lot of affordable housing, you have to know that the more affordable housing you're doing, the smaller the return is gonna be, because you're forcing rents to be reduced. And so you come to a point at which a deal won't pencil. So I think it's about understanding the driving forces to making an investment and wanting the return to match the risk. And then simultaneously the developer knowing that they're not gonna be able to get a 30% IRR on a public-private partnership. It's gonna have to come into alignment so that you can make a healthy return and still get community support out of it. Chris Berg (20:20): And so what is TO doing? Are you doing extra TIFs, extended tax breaks? Walk me through — let's say I brought a project to you and I'm asking for the city to be a quote-unquote partner in it. What is that gonna look like for me? Mikey Taylor (20:32): Yeah. So on the private partnership side — the side of the project where we're looking at the private market — there are still votes that we're gonna have to make to figure out what path we're going down. Right now, the two options are either doing a land lease — a long-term lease, and we'll own the land and they will build the project — or the other option is us actually selling them the land. And so we would sell them the land. There'd potentially be a fully entitled package coming with it. And then they would go through the working drawings, pull the permits, and then it would be their project to build. So we'll see what path we go down. We are looking at a potential TIF bond with this. We have to have a TIF district before we potentially get a TIF bond, but we are looking at that. We are looking at things like becoming an OZ zone for potential opportunity-zone funds with capital gain deferral. So we're looking at multiple options right now. Chris Berg (21:38): If you had to vote on it today, what direction would you go? Mikey Taylor (21:43): On for-sale versus land lease, or on TIF bond, or all of it? Chris Berg (21:46): Like if you were to construct it — this is the beauty of you, you've got both hats. So knowing that you've got to maximize what you want to do for the developer and for the city and the future of the city — if you were like, okay Chris, here's how I would package this thing. If you had a hundred million dollars to invest in TO, here's what I would present to you to get your hundred million bucks. Mikey Taylor (22:07): You know what? There's one part of this that I really want to achieve, which might force a certain direction. We have the opportunity of actually making a potentially big chunk of these for-sale condominiums. I would actually really like going in that direction if we could package it that way. And so if we went there, I don't think a land lease is gonna play. I think we would have to go for the for-sale direction of the land. But one thing that I'm looking at as a policymaker — and even just somebody who lives in the state that is worried about the next generation — the majority of product going up right now is multifamily. And the major reason multifamily is coming is because, when the state started changing the way the RHNA numbers are approved, and then with the builder's remedy that ultimately forced cities to start adding units — for the cities that only had maybe 2%, 3% growth left in them, their only option was to go vertical. And because of that, we're seeing more and more rental product and less for-sale single-family homes. And when you're looking at the overall metrics of our state, first-time home buyers are almost in their 40s now. The rent-versus-own is only moving toward renter. And so I don't personally love that. There's a place for renting, but in an ideal world, there's a time for renting that gets you in a position of being able to purchase. So that one I'm paying attention to. And I am gonna want to try to achieve that if we can. Chris Berg (23:49): So one idea, Mikey, I want to throw out to get your feedback. I don't know if you've seen this, but a friend of mine is working with churches. Churches own a ton of land, right? So one of the things they're doing is going to the church and going, "Hey, you put the land up as equity in the deal and be our partner." Is that something — it seems like a great possibility in my eyes for the city, because now you guys have got some equity in something that can build and grow and even be a revenue stream for the city, ideally reducing taxes, which would be a shocker in California. Is that something you've considered, and do you think it would be a viable option? Mikey Taylor (24:18): I think we actually are speaking of the same guy who's doing that fund. It's a really good idea. I really like that they're doing that — they pull the church in as a joint-venture partner and then they end up developing something on it. On the city side, I think this one depends on the city, on if they have land, how they go about potentially developing it. I would say most cities on that side are looking at doing 100% affordable housing or something in the discounted affordable housing, because they don't have to worry about a potential for-profit. Here's maybe a good way to say it. When I got elected, I was like, hey, I know how to make money for investors. What can we do for our taxpayers? If we're looking at taxpayers having ownership in land, why aren't we making a yield off this and growing our base? And I got some pushback on that. And some of it I actually understand. So I don't have a total answer for you, but here's a handful of things to think of. Number one, cities don't typically like using leverage or taking risk the way the private market does. In the private market, you can run fast. You could potentially break something. You don't want to break the city or the government. And so there's that one part. The second part is, when it comes to the city, the city just doesn't do business the way the private market does. If you're looking at real estate, they can't build real estate as efficiently as the private market can. It's more expensive. And so it gets really difficult to actually compete. And so where I've landed — I actually don't like the government being in the building business, owning business, building real estate, owning real estate. I would rather the private market do it. And so how those partnerships look — I will tell you after this downtown project is complete what I think is the best path. But where I'm leaning right now, I want to figure out for-sale. I want there to be a for-sale component to this thing. Chris Berg (26:27): I think that's good. I can't remember the name of the author right now, it'll probably come back to me. If you ever read the book Progress and Poverty, I would check it out. He's got a really interesting thesis. It was back in the 1800s about how land is taxed. And there's actually a pretty big movement in the US House around this author. Maybe I'll look it up before we go. Anyway, that can be a conversation for another day. So let's talk more about California. Let's take the micro of Thousand Oaks. You said, hey Chris, I think LA could be the greatest city in the world. I was just in Miami and there's cranes everywhere. Then I come back to LA and there's just not even a heartbeat, right? Mikey Taylor (27:06): Yeah. Yeah. Chris Berg (27:10): How do we revive California again — not just for Silicon Valley or SpaceX, but for the entire state? And I ask you that in the context of, I'm from North Dakota, so a very agrarian state. We've got Fresno, the Central Valley, we've got oil, we've got all these amazing God-given resources that, in my humble opinion, I don't think our state's done a great job of managing for the last, I don't know, 10, 20 years. Mikey Taylor (27:32): Yeah, I agree with you. I think it comes down to your outlook of how you make money. And I think, unfortunately, there's certain people that learn you can make money and grow through incentive, and there's other people that look at making money through — what would you say — fees and taxes. So one is more of a pay-me-now model, the other is a pay-me-later. And this works for all of us in business. There's two ways to get paid: now or later. And usually 99% of the time, if you delay the payment, you get to make more. So what does that look like in real estate? Let's say you have a dilapidated industrial building that is worth a couple million bucks, and it's kicking off a certain percentage of taxes to the city through your property tax. Well, would you rather charge the crap out of the developer through your fees to make money today? Or is there an opportunity for you to actually deregulate on the front end so that $2 million property becomes a $25 million property — and now on the back end, your property tax and the sales tax revenue that the city captures is way higher? And so I think we've just lost that as a state. When we're looking at our budget, I think what happened is we are crappy with managing our money. And so much of our money goes out that we run at a deficit, and then you're stuck in a position of having to survive. And when you're in survival mode, you need the dollars today. And so that's why I think our state has started to look at taxing everybody through the roof and ultimately narrating this message that business is bad, success is bad — "you need to pay your fair share and give me the money now." And that disincentivizes business. And so you contrast that to other states, and other states are going, hey, come build your company here. Come employ my residents. We will make it easy, because we know if you drive more people into our state, you create more business, that business goes up in value, and us as a state, we get to make more money. And so I think it's long-term versus short-term thinking. And right now California is stuck on the short term. Chris Berg (29:58): So how do you get people — I mean, look what happened in LA. The best guess right now is Mayor Bass is gonna win even after some of the debacles, and I don't want to get into that path but — Mikey Taylor (30:09): If that race happened today, she would not win. And so let's hope that over the next few months it changes. Because personally, I'm not a huge fan of either of them. Mayor Bass will be better than the alternative. Chris Berg (30:30): But the bigger question is, how are those our only two candidates in all of Los Angeles? Mikey Taylor (30:36): Well, my opinion — Los Angeles is a good representation of what the state of California looks like. And in our state, we have a supermajority, which means we have one view of how things are done. And that's not a healthy view of the political system. What's supposed to happen is you have both sides that ultimately get your decision to the middle. And so what does that look like in a two-party system — and of course, this is when done right — if you have the Republican Party that's typically for empowering the individual, right? I want to let the individual do what they will and give them as much freedom to take it as far as they want. That's maybe a very basic view of a Republican. Then you look at the Democratic view, and it's, yeah, okay, but there's gonna be people that are left behind in that model, and we have to make sure that we're helping those that don't have the ability to just build at will. And because of those two viewpoints, you end up with a healthy balance. We don't have the healthy balance here. And so when you look at the state level, you don't have a contrarian view that gets them to the middle. In Los Angeles, you don't have the contrarian view that gets them to the middle. And so we just keep getting pushed out in one direction. And it's very hard to course-correct when you don't have a difference of opinion. Basically, the only way you course-correct is when it gets so bad that all the residents go, okay, we are in a catastrophic position now, we're heading off a cliff, we've got to course-correct. And honestly, that's what I think happened in San Francisco. Chris Berg (32:26): But I guess then it becomes pretty stunning that it didn't happen after Palisades. And I drive down Malibu now and there's barely any movement. And it's been quite a while, right? So it just seems like that would have been something that would have tipped the scales, and maybe it hasn't. So — want to be respectful of your time. A couple of last questions. One is: what's your thesis overall on self-storage right now? Mikey Taylor (32:48): All right. I'll tell you what's going on. I'll tell you what the contrarian view might be. Self-storage right now in a lot of markets is soft. Cap rates are up. Concessions and rent decreases are happening, and there's just an oversupply in a lot of areas. Self-storage over the last six or seven years became very cool. It became trendy — boring businesses became the action. And because of that, there's just too much of it. And so what will happen is it will cool down. Right now, you're able to buy a lot of assets for 40, 50% of replacement cost. That means no development is gonna happen. Give it five or six years, and we'll be right back in the scenario we were in in '15, '16, and '17. So that's the natural evolution or cycle of real estate. Where I think the opportunity is — well, in a lot of these cities that are experiencing extreme housing shortage and housing crisis, what they're doing is they're zoning everything for multifamily mixed-use. It's all residential housing. And on a lot of the storage side, they're putting storage moratoriums and an inability to add a footprint on storage. So play that out. Everything is being zoned for more housing. That means you're gonna see population increase on the housing side. Simultaneously, you're limiting the ability to build storage. And so give that five or six years — I think potentially storage becomes the scenario we're in right now with housing, and it becomes undersupplied and the costs start running up the way we saw housing. So if you are a long-term investor, I think there's an opportunity to actually buy light-value-add, stabilized storage, and just hold. And you might be in a scenario where you see cap rates significantly decrease because you're adding housing with no storage to match. Chris Berg (34:58): Such a great thesis. With that being said — you said there's gonna be more population incoming. What I did see in the Thousand Oaks City Council meeting — and we can speak to Thousand Oaks and/or all of California — you guys have had a decreasing population, it looked like, for the last 10, 15 years. And so I think Thousand Oaks is amazing. One, how do you explain that? And what do you do to start attracting more people into your city, if you — I'm assuming you want to? Mikey Taylor (35:22): A hundred percent. So if you go specific to Thousand Oaks, our average age has doubled over the last forty years, and we're losing a thousand residents per year, at least over the last 10 years. So we peaked in 2016. The group that we're losing is 25 to 50. So we're losing the next generation. Now, there's a lot of factors on why that's happening. I think cost is a big one, job opportunity, your ability to make the income to live in California is hard right now. And so we're trying to right-size that. That's actually one of the big factors to why I think the downtown project had a 5-0 vote — because we're looking at how do you drive more commerce into our city? How do we drive more industry in here to bring higher-paying jobs? And then the other part, the youth for us — there's kind of two barriers. Number one, there's the desire to stay. And number two, there's the option to stay. And what we've had historically is the youth doesn't want to stay. What we've had recently is, for the ones that do, it's very difficult to do so on a cost standpoint. And so I'm trying to solve the first one — give them a reason to stay — and then secondarily give them the ability to stay. And I think this project could be the beginning of what could catapult a lot of activity happening on the boulevard that might create an environment where, instead of kids moving to Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, San Diego, or even other states, they may look at Thousand Oaks and go, you know what, I actually want to stay here. There's stuff to do. My community's here. There's art, there's culture, there's business. This might be the best place to start my business. And right now we just aren't. And so we're trying to fix that one. Chris Berg (37:22): That's so good. I mean, you got the Mastro's down there, you've got the lakes. Those could be a really great project. So anything else you want to add or share that we haven't talked about? Mikey Taylor (37:33): I would say on the population side, what we need to right-size is not just how do you keep residents here — we stopped having babies. And so if you're listening to this and you're young and you're stopping at one, have two. If you're stopping at two, go for number three. You will be able to pull it. It's not that bad. I have five now. I'm not saying you gotta get to five. But just go one more. You'll love every second of it. You'll be glad you did it when you're older. And it'll actually be very healthy for our society and our culture. Chris Berg (38:12): That was such a great ending, bro. Thank you. Congratulations on number five. I love that. If people want to reach out to you — because you mentioned you're raising your capital, it's retail. People want to reach out to you, invest. I think you've got an affordable housing fund open now. How do they do that? Mikey Taylor (38:26): So if you want to connect with me, you can do so on social media. My name is Mikey Taylor on all the platforms. We just launched a new fund that actually accepts both accredited and non-accredited investors. And we made the minimum $5,000, and it is structured as a REIT, so you can invest your IRA dollars into it as well. So this is our fund that was built so that if you want to play in real estate and you were locked out, this might be the option for you. That's the OmniFund at Commune Capital. And then if you're in the Thousand Oaks area, I am running again for City Council. So if you want to get involved in my campaign or help me get there, my website is MikeyForCityCouncil.com. Chris Berg (39:10): That's great. So again, MikeyForCityCouncil.com. And go to CommuneCapital.com — you can click on the offerings, there's the OmniFund there. If you want to set up a phone call with Mikey or someone on his team and get more information — Mikey, thank you so much for the conversation. We'd love to do this again as things progress, especially if you win. And just really appreciate your time and what you're doing for the city of Thousand Oaks, my friend. Mikey Taylor (39:32): Chris, anytime, and thank you for having me. It was great seeing ya. Chris Berg (39:35): Yeah, you too, man. God bless. I am Chris Berg. This is the Self Storage Report. As always, go to StorageDemandScore.com. Go to StorageDemandScore.com. Also, subscribe to our channel here. We'll see you back here soon on the Self Storage Report. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]