Self-Storage Industry Sees Another Big Merger | NYSSA News

THE SELF STORAGE REPORT — EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode: Self-Storage Industry Sees Another Big Merger | NYSSA News Host: Chris Berg — Abernathey Development Co-host: Thaddeus Campbell — S3 Partners Recorded: October 3, 2025 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJyaSq2oTys Key topics: New York SSA fall conference recap; SmartStop acquires Argus Self Storage management in a $21 million deal; H. Michael Schwartz and Ben Vestal; land-use attorney Tony Joffrey on the legal limits of self-storage moratoriums; New York lien-law bill to allow online auctions; NYC Council Int. 295 and its proposed 2% annual rate cap; California SB 709 disclosure requirements awaiting Gavin Newsom's signature; insurance costs rising from roughly 20 cents to 35-40 cents per square foot since 2020-2021; Johnson Insurance Services and Terry Campbell joining the show; Live Oak Bank's Bashesh Shrestha on banks stepping back from storage lending; Bob Williams of Key Bank on why the distressed-refinancing wave never arrived; Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and the New York mayoral race; Roam's push to make all mortgages assumable; Snapbox and Madison Capital Group and the new scale threshold of 150 stores. 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: The New York SSA just had their fall conference. We're going to give you the inside scoop as to what the top minds in self-storage were saying at the New York SSA. And of course, what does that really mean for you and what to anticipate over the next 12 to 18 months in self-storage. Welcome to the Self-Storage Report. I'm your host, Chris Berg, your AI storage guy. Oh, by the way, I'm doing some amazing things with AI and how it's helping me with storage right now. So, if you want to find out more, uh maybe we'll chat about that today on the show. and also doing land acquisition for Abernathey Holdings here in the great state of California which is opposite of the great state of New York. Glad that our co-host here Thaddeus Campbell with S3 Partners was at the New York SSA. He's got some clips. He's got the inside scoop and what I want to know from you that first off welcome. It's great to have you as always. Um for the people watching today, the most important thing they should know from the New York SSA, see how I'm rhyming, bro? Do you like that? Is what? Thaddeus Campbell: I want to know how long you practice to do this. Chris Berg: Practice. Thaddeus Campbell: Did you strip that that rhyme out and practice it? Chris Berg: No. Hey, I'm like I'm like Eminem of the Self-Storage Report, bro. Like, let me let me freestyle. Thaddeus Campbell: I'm going to remind you you're from Fargo, North Dakota, my friend. We to keep you in your place. Chris Berg: There's an eight mile in Fargo. Come on, man. Thaddeus Campbell: Yeah. Is there an eight mile road in Fargo? I haven't seen it. Oh, that's f I grew up 17 miles from a stoplight, so I'm not breaking out into rhymes anytime soon either, my friend. I had an amazing time at the New York SSA show. Actually brought me back like 25 years when I was a roving TV reporter. Uh kind of fun to to talk to a bunch of people up there. Um reminded me of how important it is that we really get involved at a state level, a national level. Of course, we'll talk about that later. National elections going on for the SSA. Um, but amazing information on a local state SSA show that I I took a lot of great stuff out of. So excited to dive into that. The one of the things we've been talking about a lot lately and I wanted to dive right into um you played a clip a couple weeks ago from Cerritos, California, and the town had placed a moratorium on self-storage. And I thought this was fantastic. They had a a land use attorney come up in New York. Obviously, he's a New York attorney in discussing New York laws. But one of the things I found fascinating was that the restrictions on a town for wh why they're allowed to have a moratorium are very specific. There has to be a clear emergency in the town for them to place a moratorium on a specific type of an asset. And not only do they have to have a clear emergency, they have to have a timeline to fix that emergency such that it's not allowed to be an ongoing moratorium where a developer can't work. Chris Berg: Wait, wait, wait. So, you're telling me all these moratoriums that I'm seeing throughout the state of California potentially could be illegal moratoriums. And so, what what determines if it's an emergency or not? Thaddeus Campbell: Really important to understand at this point that he is in New York. And so, this is New York law, right? Under the state of New York, there's very clear guidelines for what that looks like. The reason I'm bringing this up is that I urge you if you are in a state where there is a moratorium to get a land use attorney and really understand in that state what are the specific restrictions that those towns have because what Tony Joffrey was saying was a lot of times these boards will use a moratorium as an immediate tool to stop something they don't want and they listen these are elected people man the guy's a a postman he's a a CEO of a local bank He's a, you know, he's a sales guy and a local local car. He's not or her for that matter, they aren't legal experts. And so, while they may enact him a moratorium, it's our duty as developers to really understand what's the legality state-to-state, right? And so on that note, I want to play a quick Chris Berg: Can I just add one thing? Thaddeus Campbell: Yeah, go ahead. Chris Berg: Um because I think what's important for to people understand as well at least what I've been hearing from some of the land use attorneys I've talked to and other people in the that are in the entitlement space is that you know all these people that are in planning, it's not even so much the elected officials is a lot of these people that are in planning, they go to these different kind of like you went to the New York SSA event, right? There's different conferences obviously for city planners and then the rumors start to go around like yeah man we just uh we just put a moratorium on self-storage because it doesn't really get us any sales tax. Oh, hey, that's a good idea. Maybe we should like So, they're going back without like you're saying without any real legal probably pre precedence. Look at me today with an you know, SAT word. U but where you know they're saying, hey, let's give this thing a shot, right? Like we want more tax revenue, so let's put a moratorium on this. And man, if it if they're if you're telling me that that LC transit to California as well and it could potentially be against the law for them to put moratoriums in place, that is a fascinating conversation. Thaddeus Campbell: Certainly worth a conversation with a local yan land use attorney and I I want to just have Tony Joffrey talk about what we can do as developers to try and make sure that we're we're not getting stuck in this process. Tony Joffrey (clip): So I think engaging with the municipalities and giving them the facts, identifying the benefits that you know it's a great ratable low impact to the municipality. It's something that they probably haven't conceived of considered and then importantly what they are obligated to consider and consider uh importantly in terms of the criteria for a valid moratorium to exist. Chris Berg: Thought that was so on point. What is it in that particular state that those boards on a local level have to follow for rules? Thaddeus Campbell: New York is very clear. There are some there's very clear restrictions on where you're allowed to put that moratorium in. And ultimately what the guiding force of that law is you're not allowed to restrict a landowner in terms of what they're allowed to do to develop that property. So there's a lot of a lot of um legal protections for the land owner. Chris Berg: Maybe I've got PTSD to to bring this up and I'm going to do it anyways. Is the fact that like what what I'm the lens I'm hearing you through is just how many rights we acquiesced during COVID sort of like well if they say that's what we need to do then that's what we need to do right and and what I'm hearing you say now is like just cuz they say it doesn't mean it's actually the right thing to be doing and so I think it's important for us to push back. I think one thing too is you want to find that balance because you start pushing back too much and they're like oh these storage guys right so but just thank you for that. That was fantastic. Thaddeus Campbell: Yeah, Tony Joffrey. Fantastic. Following up on that, they had a legal panel that so Tony talked specifically about moratoria that are going on throughout New York. They had a a legal panel updating some of what's happening on a state level in the state of New York. The state SSA is advancing a bill that they want to be passed updating lean laws so that we're able to now do auctions online. The way the state of New York law is written, you're not able to um foreclose on a unit, right? If somebody's not paying you, you're not allowed to auction that on online at the moment. So, they're trying to update the lean laws. That's the positive. You and I touched on my friend Stan Bonia back in May I talked to brought up, I think it's called INT295 that went through the New York City Council. That bill keeps coming up every year where they're trying to pay put a 2% restriction on rate increases year-over-year. It looks very much like that's not going to go anywhere. It doesn't have any legs. the the um advocates for the New York SSA are in touch with the city council and the leaders there. So, not a lot of progress on that bill and we don't think it's going to be a problem. But goes to the point of being involved in your state SSA because if the state SSA isn't paying attention to these things and they don't have their attorneys going and speaking on their behalf to stop them in their tracks, it only takes one of those in a state. And by the way, so far 5 of them around the country that have been passed, including SB 709 out in California, which is just waiting for Gavin Newsom's signature. Not a rate cap, thankfully the way SB 709 was ultimately adopted by the California legislature, but does put significant disclosure things that that self-storage facilities now have to follow. So overall side of it, I want to just make sure that get involved. And I want to listen to James Kley, who's a member of the New York SSA board. um uh Treasure Self Storage uh CEO as well. So, want to hear James Kley speak on this. Let me do this. James Kley (clip): Government, you're moving towards a governmentont controlled private industry, which no, nobody wants that. And uh you know, you see it in New York City with apartment rents and other things and and look at it's proven that it doesn't work, right? I mean, how many there's so many empty apartments that can't be repaired because of the rent controls and landlords just can't afford, you know, the capex to get them back into circulation. Chris Berg: Wait, is that like I didn't know there's a bunch of empty apartments in New York just cuz guys won't put the capex in. Thaddeus Campbell: There are apartment buildings in New York City that you cannot afford to renovate and get out to the public because the rent control prices on those units do not allow the owner of that building to raise the rent enough to cover the cost of capex. Meanwhile, in the Hudson Valley alone, there's a 25,000 home shortage for what they need for residents right now. Right. So, and I'm not even talking about New York City. Um, just up the river in the Hudson Valley. So just things that we want to pay attention to in storage as far as being involved in making sure that we're avoiding some of these issues down the road. Chris Berg: And not to get too far down the path here, but I mean also is there potentially going to be this mass exodus out of, you know, the the financial capital of the world if the mayoral race goes where we think it's going to go. It's a fascinating time in New York. Thaddeus Campbell: Something we'll touch on down the road. Right now a 15% lead uh over Cuomo in the the polling. So certainly looks like Mamdani is going to be there. One thing we did hear um from the folks at the New York SSA is don't be too worried about Mamdani being elected mayor of New York. Ultimately, the mayor of New York doesn't have any policy control. That all gets controlled from the state house as far as his platform of putting rent control and controlling the MTA buses and other things that he's he's campaigning on. Ultimately, he's going to need Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, to back those things. And while she has backed him because he's the Democratic candidate, she's given no indication whatsoever and in fact the opposite that she's going to back his policy play. So don't think it's going to be as big of an issue as it otherwise could have been. still something to keep an eye on and for us in self-storage where the last thing we need is rent controls and and you know listen we're going to talk about this and something else that came out of this that was touched on is the increases in property taxes and specifically in insurance right now that are way more than 2% a year. So we can't have a 2% rate cap and expect to be continuing to profit in the industry. Chris Berg: Yeah, completely agree with you there. What what I wanted to say is that you know if uh Mamdani ends up winning New York City whether he's got a lot of policy impact or not I just think the platform that gives certain people to go stand on and say hey look what's happening here to go and bleed into 2026 is going to be a very interesting conversation Thaddeus Campbell: 100% something for us to keep an eye on but it goes back to what I've been saying that we can't afford to sit on the sideline and just operate our individual businesses we can't not in this day and age we have to be as members of this industry proactive active in getting involved, whether it's your state board, whether it's a national board, whether it's not even you being on the board, but just being involved to make sure that we have a voice here and and we're protecting our our information. I did want to mention that insurance came up. Tim Ryan of Newmark, he's an appraiser, um gave me a a statistic that I thought was crazy. Back in 2020, 2021, the average insurance cost per square foot was roughly 20 cents. Right now, it's 35 to 40 cents. It's almost doubled, right? And so very timely. Thought that was a very interesting thing to hear. We of course have brought our friends at Johnson Insurance Services to become our partner on the insurance side. We feel this is such a an important thing going on in self-storage world. Most of you guys in the industry know Terry Campbell. Terry's been in the industry from the beginning. The guy's been around since the or the 1990s. started out, crazy enough, Chris, as a CAD guy for BCO out of North Carolina in the early 1990s. Ended up building Live Oak's platform. Was the CEO of Copper Storage for a while, their Copper Storage management platform, has really done everything in the self-storage industry. So, really excited to welcome Johnson Insurance Services and Terry Campbell. He's going to be coming on as a guest on the show, Chris, and couldn't be more timely. New York, of course, has gone up by almost double. Listen, some of the facilities in Florida, some of the places in California affected by wild wildfires. Colorado, same thing, affected by wildfires. Areas that are being North Carolina is hurricanes right now. Um, it's a major impact in self-storage. So, really excited to have Terry come and join us and have that access to, you know, what can we do in this moment to kind of mitigate some of the pressure that's coming on NOI. We know rates are not going up quickly right now, right? So any increase in expenses is really affecting the bottom line. Chris Berg: Yeah, very well said. I mean, there's actually people out there I know that more in the multifamily asset class, but they're actually prep preparing their investment thesis around more the Midwest because there's a lot of the coastal issues around insurance and whatnot. Something that we're watching very closely here as we're getting ready to break ground on some sites in California. Um, you know, and we just are presuming, hey, rates are going to continue to go up. We got to write that into our plan and see where that puts us at the end of the day with our investors. Thaddeus Campbell: We're seeing it. Shout out to our friend Logan Freeman, a friend of the show out in Kansas City. That market is is growing incredibly rapidly. Indianapolis starting to see some great growth. Richmond, Virginia, just far enough in from the shore. They're they've got a huge Amazon presence coming into the town. So, some of these areas that are not your typical primary market are seeing a ton of growth because of this pressure that we're seeing from from some natural events that are are causing people to to uh you know, rethink where they're going to locate. I want to play off of what we talked about with Terry Johnson. I mentioned that he started the Live Oak lending program. really cool to hear Bashesh Shrestha, the vice president of lending for self-storage at Live Oak, um had their best year ever in 2024, which was a little interesting and I want you guys to hear from his mouth why that was a little concerning why it was honestly even though good for the folks at Live Oak Bank. Bashesh Shrestha (clip): The reason we had such a great year was because a lot of banks kind of took a step back. a lot of lending relationships said, you know, guys, I know we are sophisticated developers, sophisticated operators, but I think we're going to take a step back from storage for now. Thaddeus Campbell: So, Chris, interested to get your thoughts. Live Oak was able to step into a bunch of these situations where developers are looking for, and by the way, the vast majority of Live Oak's work is in groundup construction in 2024. 2025 they're seeing a pivot Bashesh told us into more acquisitions of existing facilities. Still the bulk of their their projects are groundup but much more on the acquisition side because as we know the the number of groundup development projects has shrunk considerably but interested to get your take on that overall pullback from self-storage from traditional banking. Chris Berg: Well, I think what's interesting is I actually was at a capital markets conversation yesterday in Beverly Hills and the conversation was almost the opposite because FHA and a lot of the government money that goes into real estate. Now, as we all know, money is fungible, right? So, you look at some of these institutional places, they're not really doing office right now. There's some other asset classes out there they don't necessarily love. So, they're looking for other alts. And what the conversation was yesterday is because of the FHA situation, they're actually putting more capital into the multifamily space, which is pushing out some other capital in other places is because you can get such great rates. If you've been around for a while, if you've got good connections at FHA, you can prove that, hey, I can turn this around and be a good investment. So now you've got this capital looking for other places and some of those are going to be banks as well. Now, was that necessarily mean storage? That wasn't really spoken about specifically, but again, money's fungible. it's going to look for the best returns. And that's really where the big conversation was yesterday is as this capital starts to continue to move into the marketplace. And we see it in the stock market and everyone's like, how can the stock market continue to just go up and up and up, there's just so much liquidity in the system. And so my point being is that as these guys are chasing returns and you and I have talked about this, if things go in a bad direction and according to employment numbers that we might be going in that direction, um, self-storage typically a pretty safe asset class. I think you're going to see more and more and we said last week more and more of these funds are saying hey we got to have 4% or 5% of this in self-storage which is going to I think produce a really interesting conversation down the road is you've got all this capital chasing a fixed amount of assets Thaddeus Campbell: Love that take and and I think one of the things that has happened since last year and and credit to Bashesh and his team at Live Oak for taking advantage of it is we had that period of six to eight months in 2024 where there was a lot of uncertainty in the general market and so it took going to effect on those that maybe weren't as closely associated with storage. Obviously, as we're moving towards the end of 2025, we're not seeing that much that level of uncertainty as far as where rates are going to be. Um, and so you're seeing people stay. On that note of rates, one of the things I heard from the banking panel that was up there. Um, we're not going to see the distressed assets you and I thought we might see. And one of the fascinating things I heard um from a gentleman from Key Bank who was fantastic, Bob Williams from Key Bank mentioned that in 2020, in 2021, even early 2022, as we were seeing these massive refies at 3.5% rates, they were actually getting 10-year terms. In some cases, even with life insurance money getting 20-year terms on these loans. So that idea that we were going to see this catastrophe of you've got a 5-year balloon due and you've got to refi your 3.5% into a 6.5% um is not coming to fruition. The really only pain that the banks are seeing is from guys who spent a bunch of money to buy a piece of land, get entitlements and could not get out of the ground. The people who were able to get out of the ground, they've been able to sell at CO if necessary and get out of it unscathed without losing any money, maybe even making a little bit of profit. Bashesh told me after the fact when we were doing the interview, he's like, "Look, I got a little nervous um in 2022, 2023 because the operating budgets that people had to cover their interest at a three and at a 5% construction loan, all of a sudden they were at an 8% or 9% construction loan and it blew through those capital reserves, but people were able to make it through. Extra space came with their bridge lending program. Public did a bridge lending program. There were enough options there for people to make it through that we are not going to see the the necessarily I I expected it to get ugly and and we certainly are not going to see that. Chris Berg: No, it doesn't sound like it. So, any other clips you have because I got one more question for you about the SSA. Thaddeus Campbell: No more clips. That was I I got 3 people. I I ran the limit of my my old school reporter talents. Chris Berg: I think you crushed it. It was great to get those clips. What I want to know from for from you being there because you had a chance to hear all this information like what was the most important thing that you think people should know that you took out of the conference. Thaddeus Campbell: I something I loved and credit to Dylan Don from storage post. I may be massacring his last name. I don't know Dylan personally but um made an incredible point. AI is coming. technology is coming. But technology for the sake of cutting expenses or increasing margins is not working. The technology that's really working is the technology that's aimed at helping the customer experience. That I thought was an incredibly insightful comment that Dylan made and and really crazy the level of things that are happening technology. A lot of the places now are running call centers. if they don't run their own call center, they have uh, you know, there's national level call centers that they can third party out to. Um, they're now using AI to listen in on the call and rate it and give feedback to these call center operators. So I think what we're going to see over the next 4 or 5 years, and this transitions right into our next topic, I think we're going to see consolidation for sure, but we're going to see an increase in the ability of the self-storage operators to give a great customer service experience to customers. Chris Berg: Very well said. Also want to say thank you to TractIQ, our data partner. They do an outstanding job. So, if you're looking at the yeah, I need some more information to underwrite, maybe you want to kind of kick in the tires as being an LP in a deal um that somebody's presenting to you from a a syndication standpoint or maybe it's a fund. TractIQ can give you some really great data on hey, the supply, the supply that can be coming in, the housing developments that are coming in, obviously rental rates and pricing, basic demographic info. They've got a great executive summary they can put together on a site for you as well. One of the things I've been doing recently is taking that executive summary because it's really really robust, putting it up into a ChatGPT and then asking it, hey, give me a feasibility study. How would you underwrite this site? Asking it questions. So tracked can help you do that in a very simple way and you can find out more by just going to TractIQ.com. Again, that's TractIQ.com. You mentioned a moment ago and again the Nostradamus report is what we could probably call this show at times as well because a while back you said hey Chris what I see taking place in this industry is more and more consolidation. We found out late last week SmartStop uh acquiring Argus self-storage management $21 million deal. What's your take? Thaddeus Campbell: Yeah, a a collaboration that they've decided to go on. Ben Vestal who's very close to my boss Barry Sherman at S3 Partners. He and Ben have known each other for years. They've been on the board of the Colorado SSA for nearly 20 years together. Um Ben started Argus 20 years ago is involved in management. Also they have a advisory platform. They're brokers as well in the space. Um real estate brokers selling self-storage facilities. They've decided to team up with SmartStop. We talk a lot about H. Michael Schwartz and some of the really intelligent things he's been doing over the last year as SmartStop has become one of the 5 publicly traded REITs in the United States. Um, and they've decided to cross paths as SmartStop has this very aggressive growth policy. They're going to lean on that that management background that Argus has to help them fuel their growth. And it it takes me back to a year ago when um Snapbox and uh Madison Capital Group decided to combine, you know, Matt Lang was on the board uh was on the panel at New York SSA and mentioned that and just said, "Hey," and I thought this was fabulous and goes to the point of why SmartStop and Argus would decide to to team up and combine forces. Matt said, "Hey, 10 years ago, 20 stores was scale so that you could compete." Then it was 50 stores. Now it's 150 stores. If you're going to compete with the data that public storage has, that extra space has, that CubeSmart has, you have to have an economy of scale of stores to be able to create the operational efficiencies. We talked about insurance, right? Well, if you've got 150 stores that you can bundle in an insurance package, you're going to get a way better rate than if you've got 3 or 4. And so we're gonna I think we're going to continue to see congrats to Ben Vestal and H. Michael Schwartz, 2 great guys in the industry. I think that's going to be a very powerful collaboration there. Um, and honestly was trying to get Ben. Ben Ben's been very busy with everything going on. He's going to come and talk to us here at some point. I'm going to get an interview with him and really pick his brain about exactly why that was the right team up and and what they're trying to do. Hopefully have that for next week. If not, certainly in the next couple weeks. Chris Berg: And if anybody out there's got a connection to H. Michael Schwartz, the SmartStop. I think he's fantastic. I've had a chance to visit with him a couple times, but let us know, connect us with him because we'd love to bring him on the show uh as well. So, we all know one of the big drivers for self-storage demand is just people moving from home to home, apartment to apartment, but we've seen such a dry up in the demand because a majority of the people right now are in these super low mortgage rates. I mean, really, really low rates. There's no real incentive for them to move, especially if you're a baby boomer. It's like, what's the point? Well, there's a new company out there called Roam that is now saying, "Hey, you know what? I want to make not just some loans assumable, but all loans assumable. Um, there are some loans right now that are assumable. So, let's say, you know, you've got this 3% rate that, and I'm coming in and trying to, hey, man, I don't want to pay the 6.5% or 7%, but we can work something out." Well, what's really interesting with this Roam company is that now he's saying, "Hey, Thad, he wants to give you a chance to build some passive income where I come in and and I'm not going to get the 3% that you've got, but you're like, "Hey, man, I'll give it to you maybe for four. you get a piece of the action every month. It's a really unique model. The reason I want to bring it up today is because exactly what he's trying to do is get more people moving and feel good about some of the rates they can get, give it more of an open decentralized market to get people out there and uh buying real estate some more. But he was on uh the podcast with Anthony Pompliano and has a really interesting clip. One, some of the things that Thad and I have been talking about when it comes to the state of mind of some of the people in the younger demographics, which we're going to talk more in a minute, but also I want you to listen at the end here. mentioned like hey this is a really important piece because it was what it does for the economy and also to get people moving. Roam executive (clip) [attribution inferred]: I think everyone in this country is excited about home ownership and home affordability. You know I think one of the things we spoken about is if you look at one of the key reasons why somebody like Zohran Mamdani won um or why socialism is on the rise with uh folks in Gen Z, it's largely because people feel like they don't have a stake in the capitalist system anymore. And the largest way many of us accrued a stake in the capitalist system was through ownership of real assets like real estate. And if you can't give anyone a chance to afford a home, of course they're going to say, why don't we turn over the table and try something else because what's in it for me here? And so our view is that there is a lot of good politics in being able to make all of the loans assumable. Um it will not have, you know, much of an impact on the mortgage market because it would be limited to only the 20 and 21 loans. Um and additionally, the benefit to consumers would be substantial. Homeowners would come on and list their homes in the market because they could collect a premium or they could collect passive income as we're now demonstrating. Home buyers could save a substantial amount on a monthly payment basis. Um, realtors would obviously be put back to work. But the most exogenous and most important effect that I think people don't think about here is actually that it would put about $100 billion of additional spending into the economy and about 1.5 to 2 million jobs. When people move, they hire movers, they pay for furniture, they check out new coffee shops, they go out to new restaurants in their new neighborhood. Chris Berg: So, we'll see if that bears out to be true. But your reaction? He left out 1 very important thing people do when they move Thaddeus Campbell: For storage. Certainly critical to our industry, Chris. So, you know, and I thought the the comment about Zohran Mamdani and what's going on in New York was spot on. You know, we as as Gen X. I I think we owe it. And I know you're doing this through your Kingdom Warrior podcast. Love what you're doing there. We have to educate young people that while you may feel like you're shut out of the capital system, that is not the reality. That's the message you're getting sent on Instagram and it's the message you're getting sent on on TikTok. Um, but it's not the reality of what's really going on in our country. Yes, in the housing market, it's become very hard, but that's not the only avenue to go out and and take advantage of the capitalist system in the United States. So, I think that, you know, I wanted to just mention that I I see what you're doing with the Kingdom Warrior podcast and it's been really Actually, you made a a post earlier this week and I want to I want to put it up. This is a post that Chris uh made. He's really doing this podcast to talk to 20 and 30 year old men that maybe feel like they don't know what's going on. They don't know how to get ahead. And Chris, this was so on point. This idea of like, hey, what happens if you buy a coffee at Starbucks every day or what happens if you buy stock in Starbucks every day? I'm just wanted to give you kudos for putting this up and and what you're doing out there. By the way, you know someone's on the right track when they start getting haters commenting on their post. you you had people coming at you like this is hogwash. And I'm like, look, anytime you're trying to educate younger people into the reality of we're we're messaged every day, buy by by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy by buy stuff. We're not messaged every day invest in yourself. Whether that's investing in your education or whether that's investing in assets like the stock market or like real estate. So kudos to you to what you're doing there. obviously based in your faith in God and Jesus Christ, which I think is fantastic, but not just saying, "Hey, believe in God and believe in Jesus Christ, but educating people about what are the things you need to do here on earth to live a god-like life." So, wanted to give you incredible kudos for that work. Chris Berg: Thank you, man. I really, really appreciate you saying that. And, you know, we're trying to build something that I wish I would have had, right? I say so often to friends. I'm sure I've said this to you and if I haven't, you know, I I've meant to is the fact that I just wish somebody would have grabbed me when I was 20 and said, "Hey, all this stuff you want to do is great. Just go do real estate. Just go learn how to, you know, buy and invest in great assets because it's going to take so much of the stress off your life." And I say that because, you know, I've mentioned this a couple times. One of the things that came up for me at the SSA in Vegas was to pray for the Federal Reserve. And I'm like, what is this about? And yet for these young men, when you've got the Federal Reserve printing so much money, which again I wasn't privy to back in my 20s, they're debasing you, your time, your energy. I don't think that's right. And so if you can start to look at ways, the last thing you want to be holding right now is dollars. You know, Ray Dalio, you say, "Hey, cash is trash." That may not have been true when you were going to go get 4% or 5% on T-bills, but right now, I think you can see where things are going. There's going to be a ton of ton of liquidity in the system in 2026 because of the big beautiful bill. Um, we can see where the market's going. You can see where gold's going, where silver's going. I just would encourage people to get educated. And I'm not going to go as far as Ray and say cash is trash, but just realize that you're I mean, I think I posted this as well, and I wish I would have sent this to to Eric to put up, but in the last 5 years, I believe it was, you know, you've lost 28% of your buying power here in America. Like that that is stunning to me that 5 years ago, I was getting 28% more for every dollar where now, you know, you're getting 72 cents. And in just 5 years, Thaddeus Campbell: What I will tell you though, Chris, they printed $4 trillion new dollars in 2020 and 2021 into early 2022, there were only like $5 trillion dollars in existence. So, while it's gone down 28%, expect it to go down even more because there's more dollars out there and people are going to pay for what they pay for. Our message to everyone that watches the show is be the person that educates yourself and is able to understand. I can remember the first time I ever heard the word quantitative easing and I had no idea what it meant. And because I had no idea what it meant, I became a victim of what it means. So the message is educate yourself. The tools are out there especially now. Um intelligence has been democratized with the internet. You have the ability to go on TikTok and go on Instagram and watch mindless things or you can go on YouTube and research and educate yourself on things that are actually going to help you succeed in the realities of the world we live in. Chris Berg: Great stuff. Thank you for that. I appreciate it very very much. As always, thank you for joining us here. Um again, want to remind people too, you can go vote for the national members of the SSA board. Um Arman put out this post. I reposted on LinkedIn. So if you want to uh go to my LinkedIn page, you can find the link there. thanks to Arman. But, you know, we've got some people there that we know that are running to be a board member for the SSA and and that I think you said it perfectly just a few moments ago. Like, this is no longer like, hey, let me go buy this asset, kick back, and just collect checks and go sit on the beach. Like, you've got to get actively involved. You got some people that are raising their hand and going, look, I really want to make a difference for this industry. I think those people should be rewarded. So, go check out uh who's running. um do some due diligence and then vote for the people that you think are going to give us the best chance to go out and continue to provide great service and win as um asset owners. Thaddeus Campbell: By the way, huge shout out to Jessica Johnson. Please vote for her. There's other people there that I love, too. Jessica was going to give us an update on the Florida SSA, which unfortunately I couldn't get to cuz I was in New York. She's so busy running around the country at different events. She didn't have time to get me that update. Cool. She's going to give us a video update on the Florida SSA for next week. So, we're going to get to see Jessica Johnson's face, not just what she's saying about it. Um, so shout out to her. She's so involved. She's on the Florida SSA board. She might even be the president right now, to be honest with you. Um, unbelievable involvement. So, if you're if you are voting, look for her name. There's a bunch of other great people there too as well, Chris. And and to the point that we said earlier, you know, get involved because your involvement is going to be important to avoid some of this legislative pressure that we're starting to see as a self-storage industry. Last thing I want to say, um, got a really cool LinkedIn message today um, from Andrew Dwick. I'm going to share this message that he sent to us. That really enjoy you and Chris Berg's LinkedIn post. They're consistently informative and helpful for staying on top of what's happening in the self-storage industry. Kudos to Andrew Josh Workinstein from Arco Murray gave us a shout out too. Ben and Jerry, we're not gonna say their last names. We've had people reaching out to us um that have been giving us some feedback on the show and really grateful for that. Means a lot to us when people give us their thoughts on what we're doing here on the Self-Storage Report. By the way, Andrew went on after this part of this to ask me how do I watch it live? And so here's a link to my LinkedIn page. And on my profile page, you'll see the live events every Thursday at 1:00. By the way, you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is YouTube.com — The Self-Storage Report that goes live one day after we tape the live show on the YouTube channel as well. So, lots of ways to watch us, get a hold of us. Thank you so much for everyone who's reached out. We mentioned 4 people that have done it, but there's been more than that. And Chris and I, listen, we work hard at this show. It's something we really care about. It's a way that we feel we can give back. We're not board members of SSA, but we love to do this show and give people information about what's going on and affecting our industry. Um, and we really listen, we're human beings. It's nice when someone gives you a pat on the back. So, Andrew Dwick, thanks so much for the message. Meant a lot to get that. Chris Berg: Yeah, Andrew, thank you very much. And if you've got other suggestions as well for the show, maybe there's topics or bits you think, hey, you guys really should be focusing this or talking about it. We're always open. We've only got four eyes and four ears doing the best we can, but we can't see obviously see and hear everything. So, appreciate you for that. I mean, great stuff. Thank you for going to that event, bringing back great content for people to hear the buzz and what's happening so they can start to map things out for themselves personally as well within the business. Um, this is the Self-Storage Report. I'm Chris Berg. That is Thaddeus Campbell. We'll see you back here live next — END OF TRANSCRIPT —