Housing Market Slowdown: Is Buffett Signaling a Fed Pivot?

THE SELF STORAGE REPORT — EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode: Housing Market Slowdown: Is Buffett Signaling a Fed Pivot? Host: Chris Berg — Abernathey Development Co-host: Thaddeus Campbell — S3 Partners Recorded: August 21, 2025 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKjTLB8KxL8 Key topics: Lowest share of Americans moving since 1948; Berkshire Hathaway's $991 million stake in Lennar and D.R. Horton; Lennar's roughly 120,000 unsold completed homes vs. July 2009; Lennar's new investor portal with 7/6 ARMs at 4.99% and 2 months free rent; 75% of homeowners locked in at 4% or less; $80,000 US median household income; new homes now $33,500 cheaper than existing homes; Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole speech and September rate-cut odds; the August 1 jobs report and May/June revisions; Alex Burnham of StorageMart on 10-year Treasuries vs. mortgage rates; SmartStop's Michael Schwartz and $500 million in maple bonds; Gen Z storage demand vs. aging baby boomers; the 18.6-year real estate cycle; Walmart earnings and tariff pass-through; SSA Vegas, Toy Storage Nation Dallas and New York SSA Tarrytown. Note: Speaker attribution reconstructed from raw captions. Light cleanup of transcription errors only; wording preserved. Timestamps and YouTube chapter markers removed. Turns marked [attribution inferred] could not be attributed with certainty. ————————————————————————————— Chris Berg: Welcome to the Self-Storage Report. We are starting with a shocking stat today as we're trying to do a bunch of stuff here in the background as well. But a shocking stat that I want to share. I think we all know now that, hey, storage demand is really driven by people moving. Wait till you hear this stat, Thad. Right now in America, we've got the lowest percentage of Americans moving since 1948. Basically since we started the census. Thaddeus Campbell: Wow. Chris Berg: Okay, we're gonna skip that piece because now we can probably hear myself twice. So, um, welcome to the show. I'm Chris Berg, host, with my friend Rad Thad, Thaddeus Campbell, co-host as well. I do land acquisition for Abernathey Holdings. Our friend Thad is with S3 Partners. And Thad, I wanted to start with that stat because I just think it's really, really powerful to help us understand like what in the world has been going on for so long where we've seen the rates just kind of continuing to go down and down and down. Um, and you know, you and I have been very bullish on self-storage. I'm still very bullish on self-storage. And yet, when I talk about, hey, the lowest number of people moving since 1948, I do want to show up a quick, uh, screenshot as well to give you an idea of what we're looking at here. Just from pure data, and hopefully you can see this now, but you can see since 1995, the number of people that have been moving has been reduced dramatically. What's your takeaway with the data I just shared, and what does that mean for self-storage? Thaddeus Campbell: I'll tell you what, we've got a couple things we're going to cover today and I think it all goes together that, you know, we know obviously interest rates bottomed out so deeply down in 2020 or 2020, 2021. You know, when the Feds raised rates in 2022, a massive number of homeowners have an incredible interest rate locked in on a 30-year mortgage. And so the desire to go sell their house and buy another house where their interest rate is all of a sudden at 6 1/2 or 7 is just not there. It hasn't been. Flip to the other side of that equation where new home buyers, we've talked extensively, are priced out. Certainly doesn't surprise me to see this graph trending the way it is. One of the things I've recognized over the last 20 years, 30 years really, homes that are being built new have continued to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And as we've seen construction costs rise markedly in the last few years, that's just priced new buyers out of the market. Um, you know, the average home buyer now is in their 50s, which is hard to fathom. Not a great sign for the self-storage industry. Although we are starting to see maybe some signs that the leaders in the market for home builders are recognizing the problem and changing their strategy when it comes to new home builds, hopefully to start making homes more affordable, because certainly in the self-storage industry any increase in home buying and movement is going to be a positive for us. Chris Berg: So, let me share this because you sort of alluded to it and this is a big reason why we've seen such stagnation as far as people moving. And I was just talking to a friend of mine earlier today about, hey man, it was great when the rates are way down. Everyone was getting these very low rates in their homes. But if you listen to a guy from Vanguard, just like basic math, like everything always sort of reverts to the mean. And so maybe it was great for that time, but now it's put a chokehold on the market. I mean, to me this is pretty stunning when you start to add up some numbers here. You could say, "Hey, 70, 75% of the homeowners right now are 4% or less." Like there's no incentive to go do anything at 6 1/2, 7%. Now, when you start playing around with a mortgage calculator, what the difference is in your purchasing power between 4% and 6 1/2%, it's a massive difference in what home you can afford. Thaddeus Campbell: Throw on top of that is that a lot of Americans not only are locked in at a sub-4% or sub-3% mortgage, there's a lot of equity in a lot of those homes. So, we're not seeing what we saw back in 2008, even as people are getting displaced. We've talked a lot about what's going on in the job market. We haven't seen that distressed sale segment really flood the market with home sellers. And so, you know, certainly in the immediate future it doesn't seem like this trend is going to reverse quickly. Chris Berg: I want to jump on one other piece that you added as well, which I think does bode well for self-storage, but there's a mix of obviously signals here. When you look at, uh, what this is showing us is the size of the homes is decreasing over time. And you've talked about, hey, just from pure affordability, we've talked about D.R. Horton's earnings calls and they're saying the same thing, that we have to build smaller to make it affordable. And we're finding that, hey, this is actually, um, allowing us to go out there and sell the number of homes that we think we need to sell to obviously make our investors happy and to be moving product. Thaddeus Campbell: Yeah. And I think that leads into something we've promised to talk about today as we publicize the show. We know that Berkshire Hathaway just made a massive investment in a couple of the homebuilders, which we'll touch on. But, you know, maybe that's a piece of it, is that he recognizes that they're starting to understand what it's going to be necessary going forward to really have new home volume stay high. Chris Berg: I didn't think we were going to go there that fast, but since you did, Thaddeus Campbell: we don't have to. I was just teasing for the Chris Berg: I want to, because it's interesting. You and I, we always kind of have this nice sort of teammate thing that we don't really, we talk a little bit obviously about what we're going to do. We don't go in great detail, and here you always sort of build these bridges. So, you make a really fascinating point, especially since you and I have talked about the 18.6-year real estate cycle. Does history always repeat itself? No. Does it rhyme? Absolutely. And we've talked in the past where we believe based on prior data that, hey, home builder stocks peaked in September of 2024. They're going to try and go hit a new all-time high again. They won't, according to the real estate cycle. We'll see how this plays out, obviously, but according to the real estate cycle. And then things will start to go back down, that timeline starts to go back down. You know, now there's some cracks in the economy, which I think was really intriguing, as you mentioned, to see Warren Buffett, greatest investor of all time, and he would say to go put some capital into, you know, Lennar and D.R. Horton. And I say that in the context also of this. I haven't shown this to you because I want to get your actual live reaction, but if you look at what's going on right now, um, this is from Lennar. Okay, so I do want to make this clear. This is from Lennar, but Lennar has now got the almost highest number of unsold completed homes here in June of 2025, almost the same as July of 2009. And you can see it on a graph to make it a little bit more obvious. But point being is that there's a lot of inventory sitting out there right now that are unsold. And I think what's fascinating, Thad, that I want to get your take on. If you were just to watch sort of the mainstream media, you'd say, "Oh man, we don't have enough homes in America. It's way overpriced." But if you look at this actual data, maybe that's not the case. What say you? Thaddeus Campbell: Listen, what's uncanny to me is the relationship between where we're at on that graph today, going back to the timing that we feel the real estate cycle is going to play out, right? We think that late 2026, we're going to see this real estate cycle really take hold and have, you know, unfortunately, don't like to say it, but have a really struggling economy. Um, and look at where this graph is relative to what was going on 2005, 2006. Very similar. Um, and here's the deal. Lennar can't just fire those 120,000 homes, right? There is a cost to them of building those homes. And we discussed this a few weeks ago. The stark reality is the median income of a household in the United States is $80,000. You cannot afford the average price of a Lennar newly built home. Right? So, they're sitting on homes that the cost to build is more expensive than the cost for a buyer to go to be able to afford on a median income. You know, I don't see that problem getting better in the short term. Chris Berg: Well, here's what's fascinating. Again, you do a perfect lead-in for me, so thank you. Um, but if you remember, we also talked about one of the interesting things about Lennar is that they have one of the highest percentages of buy downs. Um, then there's cost of sales, right, that they've had in quite some time since, I think it was 2009. This sort of spells it out here. We've talked about in past shows. And so, you say, "Hey, this may not work, but they're doing everything they can to make it work." And I apologize because I didn't plan on showing this screen, but I'm going to now that you've set me up the way that you beautifully have. And so, um, this, when I saw this, and I can't see you right now, so I'm going to click on this and then I definitely want to see your reaction. So, here's what Lennar is now doing, bro. They've set up like an investment portal where the average Joe like you and I now can go and go look at all their homes across the entire country, which I'm going to show you in a minute, start putting in some numbers and go, "Ah, do I like that cash on cash? I see my returns there." And as you just mentioned, hey, this isn't going to work for a lot of people, but look what they're doing right now. They're doing 7-year fixed rate at 4.99. And they're buying down the rate, and then after that, which I wasn't really familiar with the 7/6 ARM situation, but then after that every 6 months you're on an ARM. So every 6 months making me up, down, up, down. So this is exactly what happened leading up to the 2008 crash, right? Like this is what got people in trouble, right? God bless, my wife at the time lost her home because she wasn't a savvy investor. They didn't know. They bought an 80/20 and it was 2006, everything was hunky-dory. Okay. And all of a sudden in 2008, the mortgage tripled. Thaddeus Campbell: And so these are the little things that we see late in the real estate cycle, as people trying, and this exactly what happened in 2008, right? As people started seeing the writing on the wall in 2006, 2007 and they wanted to keep everything moving. They started making those incentives to try and keep things moving. And what eventually happened in '08 is it made it way worse because they didn't just eat the pie when the pie needed to be eaten. They tried to salvage things and keep things going. We're seeing a lot of the same dynamics play out today. [attribution inferred] Chris Berg: And to be fair, I'd like to hear kind of where you go with this. As you mentioned a moment ago, a lot of people now have got a ton of equity in their homes. I think one of the things that's really important to note here in this conversation is that for the first time ever, a new home is now like $33,500 less than an older home. Right? So again, you're seeing this inventory, and that's why I'm trying to break through this conversation that many of us see in, as Trump would say, the fake news, right? The mainstream media, where, oh my gosh, there's no housing, there's no inventory. When you look at these Lennar numbers, that may not actually be accurate, especially now that a new home is less than an old home. One thing, but you also said, "Hey, it's the same as 2008." I see what you're saying about the incentives. I think 2008 it was like, "Hey, can you fog a mirror? Here's a mortgage." Right? So there's a few distinctions there, but as you're saying, which I really appreciate, I wasn't familiar with a 7/6 ARM. So I'm presuming that most average Joes aren't either. And you get in this, you're like, "Dude, 4.99 for 7 years." I mean, unless you're going to go sell the thing before 7 years, you might find yourself in a world of hurt. Now, here's what's fascinating that, Thad, do you want to comment on what I just shared there at all? Thaddeus Campbell: I listen, the overriding point I would make is that people start doing funky things with access to money as we get late in the real estate cycle. That has happened for 250 years since the US created a central bank. And every one of these 18.6 cycles that's happened, money has started to get looser and looser. Now obviously we saw the disruption of COVID where money was, you know, the Fed rate was zero. It was literally free to borrow money from the Fed and we've never seen that before. But we're starting to see, as we get late in this real estate cycle, people like Lennar, look, if the interest rate is trading to a normal person from a bank at 6.5 to 7, that's where it's been for the last couple months, a 30-year mortgage. And yet, you can go buy a new home at under 5. You talked earlier, there's always a regression to the mean, right? There's always a place where you're going to have to pay the piper. What does that look like for someone buying one of those homes? Listen, all I would say is be very smart. If you're banking on that mortgage rate being lower in 7 years, have some money in the bank ready to protect yourself because it could get ugly. Chris Berg: Do I love how too they've got, "Oh, by the way, 2 months of rent free on us," right? It's just, we're just going to put every single carrot out there that we can to try to move some of this inventory. I guess the most important thing obviously for this show is I'm curious, as we've set sort of this stage: what does this mean for storage in your opinion? Thaddeus Campbell: It's not a great sign for the immediate significant uptick in what we've seen going. I know we've referenced a lot in the, um, earnings calls for the four public REITs, you know, and SmartStop for that matter, the newest REIT, everyone sort of alluded to the bottom having already passed. I mentioned Alex Burnham. I've got a clip from him that I'd like to play. We're going to talk later about the Fed and what they're doing and I'll play that clip then. One of the things Alex Burnham did not allude to, the bottom being done. And I think one of the reasons he didn't is because he wants to see what shakes out with the housing market, especially based on what's going to happen with the Fed. Of course, Jerome Powell speaking tomorrow in Jackson Hole. Everyone's going to be listening closely to see if there's any underlying message about what they might do in their September meeting relative to holding steady with rates or a rate cut. I don't think anyone really expects an uptick in rates. Let's, fingers crossed, hope that that doesn't come out of left field. Uh, but you know, there's, for me, in the immediate, self-storage is going to bank on what's been helping them immensely, which is this influx of Gen Z that are renting self-storage at a much higher rate than baby boomers who are now aging out of the market. That's the only thing I can point to that's really salvaging the industry right now. We've kind of talked the last couple weeks. Shout out to our friend Noah Star who was on a couple weeks ago, and we're going to have him live in a couple weeks when we're out at SSA in Vegas, which is exciting. But one of the things we have talked about is how that demand driver of younger people using storage at a much heavier rate is, in this moment it's hard to understand how storage isn't getting hurt worse based on all the headwinds that are going on. Chris Berg: Well, I agree. I think you can build a really strong thesis as you mentioned. Hey, smaller homes are going to need more storage. You know, younger generation family renting, they're going to need storage. So, but there's going to be a point in time where all of a sudden, because one of the things we haven't talked about, Walmart put out their earnings today. Stock was down because there is now concerns about the tariffs. Everyone's talking about, oh, tariffs aren't inflationary, in some pockets that I listen to. And you're like, the tariffs haven't really been laid on yet. And some of the, uh, wholesalers, for example, like a Walmart, have been eating up those costs, but they're not going to do that indefinitely. And the reason their stock was down is because it's starting to eat into some of their profits. And so you get into 2026 again, as we've talked about, and these tariffs have been now at an impact, inflation's up. The Fed is, man, they are in such a box. I do not want to be Jerome Powell. And I want to hit on just one last thing where I think is you can just, you know, storage is going to have its challenge now. I think long term it bodes well. I just want to have some fun if you don't mind for a minute because this is the actual investment site I signed up for, but you can see you can go anywhere in the country. Thaddeus Campbell: Yeah. And dude, look at Florida and Texas. I mean, just a lot of inventory here. Don't look at Denver. That's all I ask you. Don't look at Denver. [attribution inferred] Chris Berg: Okay, I won't do that. Thaddeus Campbell: Stay away from Denver. [attribution inferred] Chris Berg: Um, but let's just go down here. Like, I love Miami. So, let's go down here and see what they've got in like a Homestead, for example. Now, it kicks up the home. Thaddeus Campbell: I mean, Chris Berg: and what becomes really interesting, look at this, man. You can kick in and go, okay, if I put in 25% down, they're going to estimate 3 bucks, or 3 grand a month for rent. But look at this. You know, negative 3 cash on cash. Um, great return, dude. It's all over the place, but they're laying out proformas. I mean, they're trying to make it as easy as possible for an investor to walk in here and go, "Hey, I'll give you 20% or 25." And so, again, if you're an investor, there may be some deals here if you're willing to wheel and deal with Lennar. I don't know how flexible they are in that, but I just think it's fascinating that Lennar has now built its own investment portal to just try to see if they can get somebody to go, "Yeah, I'll do that deal. Let's go." Um, what say you, my friend? Thaddeus Campbell: I mean, I'm trying to do quick math in my head. What's 119,000 times 300,000, right? You know, add five zeros and multiply by three. So, you know, you've got 60, you know, $600 million of homes, maybe more than that, that they're sitting on. Six billion. I don't know. I can't do that math off the top of my head. But there's a, yeah, they're going to create a website and create an investor portal because there's a massive amount of capital that they've put out to build those houses that they've got to see a return on. They can't have that sit out there forever. I'm going to actually pull up a calculator and I'm going to do some math and I'm going to assume 300 grand as the average cost of the house and, you know, you're talking 357, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 zeros. So $35 billion of homes that they have at a $300,000 cost to build. $35 billion of houses that they've got sitting there that are not realizing any income for them. So yeah, I might spend a few thousand dollars on building a website and getting it out to as many people as I can. Chris Berg: I just think it's fascinating though because what is important for people to note is that when we were in the COVID situation, you had a ton of institutional capital going after these single family rentals where it became kind of an asset class, right? People were going, "Ah, hey, I'm going to buy up these blocks. That's going to be an asset class." They have since now shifted their capital elsewhere. So, what's intriguing to me about this is now they're trying to get those mom and pops to step in. And if you think about retail allocations, even within the stock market or private equity, oftentimes retail doesn't necessarily get the best deal. So, I just want to put that out there, that you just run the numbers. Make sure you run the numbers and, uh, as Thad said, be wise, make good decisions, and keep some of your capital back. Thaddeus Campbell: Opens up a fascinating conversation because back in the late 2010s, Warren Buffett said, "A single family home is the best investment you can make right now." Right? As interest rates were going down and we saw that institutional capital come into the single family home market. It has since left, which is why we see half a million homes that are for sale that don't have a buyer for them right now. But yet Warren Buffett's investing in the homebuilders. And listen, you and I, my friend, are not going to second-guess Warren Buffett's investment strategy. I can promise you that. I am not going to try and say that I'm smarter than he is by any stretch of the imagination. So, we feel what we feel and we think what we think. But he sees something. Because he, and by the way, not a small investment, $991 million, also known as Chris Berg's net worth, right? Almost a billion dollars he put into Lennar and D.R. Horton. So, it was not a small investment by any stretch. Chris Berg: Well, it wasn't small maybe, you know, to your portfolio, since that's my net worth. Where, you know, you got to keep in mind the guy's got, what is it, 350 billion in treasuries. I mean, it's like, for him. But I'm just curious because he's obviously a great capital allocator. I just would love to know what his thesis is around going, hey man, I'm going to go lay some money down on Lennar and D.R. Horton, um, seeing that, hey, they've got all this unsold inventory. I mean, maybe he thinks there's going to be a massive lower in rates and, anyways, storage. I just think it's an intriguing thesis for us to realize, hey, lowest percentage of people since 1948, since the census began, moving, not good for the immediate returns, uh, for self-storage. So if, by way, one last thing I want to share about that because I think it's important for you and I to discuss, because we've talked about we want to be the place where investors can go and really learn about self-storage and ways that you can actually, you know, benefit from a great asset class. When I see that kind of information, that where, hey, the lowest percentage of Americans moving since 1948, and then I look at some of these, you know, I talked about Talonvest, bridge to bridge, and some of these guys that bought assets in, let's say, 2021 when rates were, you know, I can't even stand that, rates were way up here and they're under like, "Oh, yeah, dude. This thing's just going to keep going." And now they're like, "Whoa, my rates are down 25, 30%. My construction costs are like," there's going to potentially, if this continues the way it is, be some assets that I don't know if I would call them fire sales, but you're going to be able to get a deal. Thaddeus Campbell: You just worked into me perfectly because I wanted to talk about the Jackson Hole speech tomorrow, right? The Fed is out in Wyoming. Jerome Powell is expected to speak tomorrow at about 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. Um, and that's a closely watched speech every year, trying to read the tea leaves and see what's going on. Of course, they had their meeting at the end of July and at the time the jobs reports for May and June looked very strong. A day after they finished, or two days after they finished that meeting, August 1st, a new jobs report for July was released. And not only was July's jobs report not good, but they revised May and June and it was significantly lower than they originally said. So there's a lot of question right now about, of course, we know Trump is on Truth Social every day asking for Jerome Powell and, you know, complaining about the $2.5 billion renovation to the Fed, trying to put pressure on Powell to lower interest rates because he wants to see the economy thriving. Of course, as we're coming up towards midterm elections, wants to keep the House and the Senate. Um, there's a lot of pressure on Jerome Powell. Based on the meeting in July, it seemed very apparent that they were going to hold rates steady. With the jobs report that came out the beginning of August, a lot of question now is, is there going to be, and you mentioned also the uncertainty with the tariffs, are they going to do a cut? Will it be a quarter point? Will they do a bigger cut? You're hearing things all over. You're not hearing an increase from any side, which would be a shock if that happened, but going to be very interesting. You guys, if you go to the Wall Street Journal YouTube page, you can watch that live tomorrow morning. There's going to be a bunch of places it's streaming. I will certainly be watching tomorrow morning at 10:00 to hear Jerome Powell. I'm very interested to hear what he says. Of course, he's not going to say anything super specific about what comes in September, but it will be nice to see what he's thinking. Here's the thing that's a little crazy, and I'm going to play a clip for you guys. Maybe the Fed cuts interest rates and it doesn't have the effect we want in storage. Of course, what we want in storage is interest rates get cut, people start buying more houses and start moving more and we get more storage. I spoke with Alex Burnham last week, uh, vice president of acquisitions at StorageMart. I'm going to play a quick clip from Alex Burnham with his take on what's going on. Alex Burnham (clip): I think the mortgages are not based on, you know, the current federal funds rate. They're based, you know, they're priced off of 10-year treasuries. And the last time that, I guess it was last year, we saw a rate cut, you actually saw the 10-year balloon. And it was volatility that actually increased, uh, the overall cost of a 30-year mortgage and made housing less affordable. So, it was kind of this counterintuitive, uh, effect that occurred. Thaddeus Campbell: So Chris, you know, this is why I said earlier in the show, Alex didn't really come across with that same, "Hey, we've hit the bottom already." I think throughout the half-hour interview, which by the way will go live on YouTube next Wednesday, excuse me, the Wednesday during SSA. Um, he's not gung-ho about what's going on with the housing market by any stretch of the imagination. He's very nervous that if we do see a Fed rate cut, it's going to have the opposite impact on mortgage rates. And we're going to see, again, going back to what you talked about with tariffs and some of the volatility we're seeing. Does the 10-year Treasury actually go up instead of down? Does that negatively affect mortgage rates? And do we see what's already an incredibly historically slow housing market slow down even more? Chris Berg: Great clip. Thank you for sharing that. And yeah, if you look at the Fed minutes, you know, I think they're more concerned about inflation than they are about the job market, especially with some of the changes that have happened. And it's why you got the labor statistics woman fired, because nobody really knows if the numbers are actually legit or not. And so the inflation piece has got, I think, the Fed concerned. There are Fed governors coming out today as we're recording this, hey, we don't see a rate cut in September, which may surprise some people. And yet, if you look at the economy, like you're talking about the 10-year, and I know Trump doesn't want to hear this, but it's probably the right move. You start cutting into an economy with all-time high in stocks. There's been all-time highs in gold and bitcoin and assets, and like, just doesn't make a lot of sense because all of a sudden things heat up even more. And as you just mentioned, people don't trust it. Bond guys are going to be like, "Ah, I'm going to, you know, I need more return." Because if they cut, it's obviously better for risk assets. I need more return on that 10-year. Thus they got to raise the rates and nobody wins. So it's such a fascinating chess game. We'll see how it plays out. Um, but bottom line again, I think you're just going to have to be patient in self-storage. I'm hearing some really good people in self-storage being patient and saying, and I think again, I always go back to Michael Schwartz because I like him. I think this is why he's stacking up on the $500 million in maple bonds, or $350 million US, because he knows there's going to be this time where rates are going to be high, guys can't refi that loan, and I'm just going to sweep in and go, "I will take that off your hands. Thank you very much." At a discount. Thaddeus Campbell: By the way, the one thing that would happen if we saw the Fed cut interest rates, one would think, is that the ability for people who developed these assets in the last couple years to get a better cap rate. I know there's a lot of developers that are in deals that did not pro forma the way they originally thought that would love to see a rate cut with the hope that they can divest of an asset at a price that gets them out of it without getting scalded. So that could be, uh, you know, there's a lot of pe-, I agree with your assessment. I don't think we'll get a rate cut. I think what happened last year with treasuries is in the back of the Fed's mind. Why give a rate cut if it has the opposite of the intended effect? The only net upside of a rate cut right now, I think, is the housing market getting a little stronger, but it may not have that effect. So why do it? So 100% agree with you. But I know there's a lot of people in the storage world right now that are hoping that there's a rate cut with the idea that they can start to get some relief on some of these assets that are just not creating enough net operating income to support a debt service coverage ratio right now. Chris Berg: Well, yeah, and obviously if your rental rates stay low and there's not a strong demand, there's just, you know, I had a great conversation with a gentleman recently. He's like, "Hey man, anything we can do for you guys right now?" Like, if you can talk to Jerome Powell and if you can get people to start moving, like, yeah. But other than that, like, really not much you can do, my friend. So all right, we're going to wrap it up there. I want to remind you, come out and join us. Uh, we'll be here again next Thursday, but definitely at SSA if you're going to be at SSA in Vegas the first week in September. Come up and say hello to myself and Thaddeus. Love to get a chance to meet you. Maybe do an interview. Talk about having you on the show there in the future, whatever it may be. And if you want to promote some of these other upcoming events, that'd be great. Thaddeus Campbell: I love it. Yeah. 50th anniversary. Chris, I'm looking forward to 50 on the 50 with you at Allegiant Stadium. Beautiful new stadium that's been built out in Las Vegas. Get to listen to Darius Rucker. And quite frankly, we work, guys, in the greatest industry that I've ever been exposed to. There are just thousands of people in self-storage that are world-class people. So, really excited to be out in Vegas and get to say hi to everyone. Not the only event coming up. Shout out to my boss and partner Barry Sherman who is on the board of the Colorado SSA. They have their yearly show the 17th to 18th in Denver. Right. I will not be there. I'm gonna be in Italy. I'm gonna be living a tough life in Lamaria on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Chris, I'd show you pictures, but I don't want to make you feel that bad. Although, come to think of it, you did send me a picture from the Pacific Ocean with your feet up in the sand. So, I deserve doing that to you. I'm not going to do that to our viewers, though. I'm going to be away for a few days in the middle of September enjoying a vacation. I will be in Dallas, Texas on September 26th. So, if you're in boat and RV storage, um, come out to Dallas, Texas, Toy Storage Nation, Troy and Amy Bix, the leaders in this space of helping bring together the people that are the most prominent in the boat and RV space. Look forward to seeing everyone down in Dallas. And then the following Monday, right, September 26th is a Friday, my birthday is on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday in Tarrytown, New York for the New York SSA 40th anniversary. Right. A shout out to my friend Stan Bonia from Safeguard who's the director of new membership for the New York SSA. Listen guys, Chris and I have talked a lot on the show over the last 12 weeks as we've been doing the show about some of the things that are going on legislatively around the country. Cannot urge you guys more to go out to these shows if you're involved in any way in SSA. It's a few hundred dollars to join the SSA. It's a couple hundred dollars to go to the event. That money allows our state and national SSAs to go out and make sure that we don't see some of these legislative bills get passed that could really be even more crushing for the self-storage industry. So, I want to just urge you guys, come and say hi to Chris and I. If you see us when we're in Vegas, make sure you say hi and let us know what you think of the show. Give us suggestions, give us ideas. If you want to come be on the show, ask us that. Um, but we want to make sure that you're getting involved because these organizations are what are helping to protect our asset class and make sure it keeps being the jewel that it really is. Chris Berg: Amen. That's a wrap here on the Self-Storage Report. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again next — END OF TRANSCRIPT —