Latest / Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew / Self Storage Investing at Scale w/ Ryan Gibson of Spartan Investment Group

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Self Storage Investing at Scale w/ Ryan Gibson of Spartan Investment Group · Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew

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A storage company raised his rent twenty five percent over the first six months,
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and instead of getting mad, he decided to buy the entire industry.
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Ryan Gibson spent twenty years as an airline pilot before turning that frustration
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into a ninety property, seven and a half million square foot self-storage portfolio,
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now the twenty-ninth largest operator in the country.
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In this episode, you'll learn why self-storage is recession resistant thanks
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to what Ryan calls the four D's.
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the counterintuitive hiring advice he'd give his younger self and how he's using
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AI to automate investor reporting across fifty-five properties.
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If you want to build systems like this into your own investing business,
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head over to RealDealCrew.com.
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Let's get started.
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Ryan Gibson joins me here today and you can learn what his team can help you with,
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including there's some free training that's available there.
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So head over to Spartan Investor dot com.
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Clickable link will be in the show notes.
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Really appreciate your time here tonight,
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Ryan.
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Thanks for having me, Jack.
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So well w w let's start things off.
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There's a plane in in your backdrop.
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This has gotta be the first time for me to have somebody doing this in a hangar.
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So it's kinda cool. What what's let's start with the the you being a pilot
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and then finding your way as an investor.
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Yeah, so yeah, spent twenty years actually I've been an airline p or
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I was an airline pilot for twenty years,
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but I but I have been a pilot now since two thousand,
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so I guess that'd be twenty-six years.
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And what I've got right behind me,
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I'm actually about to go do some mountain flying in a Cessna
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one eighty five Skywagon. It's kind of a bush plane for for those that don't know
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f the airplane model and yeah,
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based in Washington, so we're actually gonna go do some flying
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in the Cascade Mountains this afternoon.
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with a friend that rents a hangar right down the road from from this hangar.
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So yeah, I was an airline pilot.
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So my my story is kind of, you know,
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I was an airline I I learned how to fly in in high school and then
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got all my ratings and, you know,
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shortly after college I got hired by the airlines and but w have always been
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entrepreneurial and learned about real estate investing and about five years
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ago retired from the airlines altogether and just fly for fun.
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because my business has taken off and we've built a portfolio of about about ninety
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properties ~ spread across fifteen states and about seven and a half million square
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feet of self storage. And my you know,
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I along the way, a lot of pilots have wondered how I did it,
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how to get involved, how to get educated.
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So that's what you know, I passionately built a training course
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on on passive investing in real estate and also have a podcast called Passive Income
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Pilots that is
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geared towards pilots learning about all the different types of investing
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you can do, from how to save money on taxes,
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to invest in real estate to, you know,
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life insurance or be your own bank investing to also depreciation,
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and in a litany of things, you know,
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everything from oil and gas to stock market investing.
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We've had a l quite a number of guests on the show,
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all through the lens of like, you know,
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what we go through as airline pilots in our careers.
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So it's very good.
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Y could you talk a little bit about how you found your way into self storage?
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Was that kind of a winding path to find that asset particular asset class
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or did you kind of land there right from the beginning?
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Yeah, ca kind of a winding path.
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you know, one of the things that what my story was is I really wanted to
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be in real estate. And, you know,
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as an as an airline pilot, I was making good income,
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but I also wanted the passive income and the tax benefits.
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And so I kind of did what everybody does when they want to get into real estate.
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You know, w go out and buy a bunch of single family homes.
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And what I didn't appreciate was the amount of what I loved is the returns.
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The returns were pretty good and cash flow was pretty good,
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but my return on life was bad.
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I was spending a lot of time sort of managing these assets and I
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was thinking to myself as I was doing this is a lot of pilots were interested
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in what I was doing and wanted to do it,
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but necessarily didn't want to put in the time.
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So I started thinking about, you know,
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the benefits of passive investing for people and wanting to offer that to pilots,
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but I didn't want to scale thousands of single family homes.
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I w so I started looking at different asset classes and self-storage came right
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to the top because I actually had a personal experience with it.
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You know, when my
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Son was born, we renovated our house,
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and I didn't think I'd ever use a self-storage unit until we
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did our home renovation. And the next thing you know,
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I'm renting a storage unit. And about six months into the lease,
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the the property owner raised the rent 20%.
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And I thought, you know, geez,
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you know, I've only been here for six months.
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They're already raising the rent.
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and even if I wanted to move out of that property or that unit,
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I there was no units even available.
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So that got me like really curious into storage unit investing.
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so I started looking at, you know,
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who are the big conglomerates in the space,
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who's making the real money. And I found that,
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you know, public storage, extra space,
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cube smart were kind of the big REITs that were that were you know,
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really the powerhouses, but they only owned like 10% of the facilities at the time.
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And really the opportunity was to go buy these mom and pop properties,
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which made up, you know, ov almost 70% of the industry.
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And then just reposition them better for for success.
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And so my business partner and I,
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we said, hey, we're let's do this storage thing.
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So for years we spent time traveling the country,
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learning about the investments.
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and now for the better part of a decade,
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we've been investing in self-storage.
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we have over two hundred employees now.
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We run our own national brand called FreeUp Storage and we build
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our self-storages as well with our own construction company.
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And you know, we love that self-storage.
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is dependent and fueled by life events.
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You know, I always say the four Ds,
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you know, death, displacement,
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downsizing and divorce are what create a need and a demand for storage.
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And those things in life never stop happening.
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So it's lent itself to be a pretty good industry,
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to weather recessions and also do good d during,
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you know, good times and in bad.
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So it's just been a really d fun industry to kind of get get our hooks into and
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now we've grown to be one of the largest operators.
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We're the twenty ninth largest operator in in the country and this is what
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we focus on today.
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You that's that's really impressive.
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Twenty ninth largest. Like are you focused on a particular region
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of the United States?
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You know, the nice thing about storage is it doesn't matter if you're in
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a blue or red state. There is no eviction laws,
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right? You can auction off a delinquent customer and have moved
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out within thirty days of of, you know,
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the the delinquency. So we focus on population growth.
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You know, where are the jobs going?
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Where where's the puck going, right?
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So we're we're in the southeast United States,
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we're in Texas and we're in the Pacific Northwest.
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that's been pretty robust with occupancy levels,
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rental rates, and job growth. And that's where we focus.
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So we have about 30 stores in Texas,
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we have about 25 stores in Georgia,
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and then we have you know, about 20 stores spread across Florida,
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the the Carolinas, and Kentucky,
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Tennessee. And then we have a smattering of properties up in
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the Pacific Northwest between Washington and Oregon.
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And that's kind of where our footprint has grown.
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And I think
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Part of our success is scaling in certain markets.
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So like we have a lot of properties within a in a in a certain geographic region.
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Like we have a lot of properties in Houston as an example.
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We have seven assets in the Houston market,
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then also one a little bit to the north.
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So that gives us kind of that economies of scale that help us reduce
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our payroll and just be a little bit more efficient and intentional about
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a market that we're in.
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I was gonna ask you a little bit about that because that what at what point
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or what's the trigger that makes you decide to land in a market because
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you have that that sense that you can have that economies of scale.
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Like what's what's the trigger there that makes it worthwhile for you?
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Yeah, so we're gonna look at we're gonna look you know,
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ki c the the thing about self storage is,
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you know, we can be intentional about what markets we go to,
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but typically there's so few for sale that we kind of find ourselves looking
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at deals that come to us. And then if the market is a fit,
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then we'll continue to pursue.
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And typically that means that we're gonna only buy within thirty minutes
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of a major metropolitan area. You know,
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we want access to population.
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and some kind of a story behind why that facility is gonna do well
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and why people will continue to live in that area.
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and then we just kind of dig in from there,
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you know, we look at how is that property sitting on the main road?
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Does it have a lot of visibility from,
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you know, d is the traffic count good?
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You know, is the property occupancy thriving because of a lack of supply
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in that market? Is there some kind of a
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overall story behind why people continue to move to that area or
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is there a limitation on building and more storage properties in that market?
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So we kind of start with the macro and we we hone in on that specific site
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to make sure that it has enough demand for executing our business plan.
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You know, just kind of tying things back to the the air being a pilot again.
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Th you know, one of the things that my family enjoys is is the T V show Mountain
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Men and we s see consistently
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yeah.
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Marty is always inspecting his plane and it's a very meticulous process
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and we've seen it a number of times now.
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that he goes through this every time before he takes off.
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Do you carry any of that methodical behavior in your investment
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and selection process?
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Yeah, absolutely. I mean we put every property through a seven hundred point
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due diligence checklist. So seven hundred items,
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the whole yeah, the whole team is meeting on a daily or weekly basis when we're
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putting a property under contract,
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going through the checklist and being methodical about every deal.
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And actually we wrote a little book on due diligence,
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so happy to share that, you know,
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with the listeners. By going to our site,
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you can you can ask, you know,
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you can get a copy of it. but we actually take you through
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the different components of the due diligence checklist.
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And all the things that you should do every time you do a deal.
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And you know, it's interesting,
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like there's a story about two pilots that worked for Boeing that were,
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you know, the number one pilots in the world at the time.
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And they were doing a test flight and they took off and didn't do
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a very basic thing. They didn't remove aileron guslock from the controls
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and they crashed. And that was actually what created a checklist
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was that event because
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you have these very experienced people not doing something very basic,
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which is making sure your flight controls are gonna be free and clear before
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you take off. And I I encourage real estate investors to do the same thing.
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Even if you're really experienced,
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you still go through a methodical checklist because we're people
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and we're gonna forget things and we're gonna get distracted.
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And we get complacent, right? I've done fifteen deals.
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I don't need to, you know, get out this checklist because I've done this
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and I know what I need to do. And that's when we get dangerous.
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Right. And the same thing goes for flying.
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When you start getting complacent and you start not planning and sort
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of assuming that everything's gonna be routine,
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that's usually when you when you're at your most vulnerable spot.
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Yeah, that that's really interesting because especially knowing hu as humans,
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we like to believe that as investors we're we're kind of logical and we
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we have it we we're going to make the decision based on the numbers.
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But we do have a tendency to try to convince ourselves that there's
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a deal there when there isn't,
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or we might fall in love with a property where we probably shouldn't have,
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or we might even get addicted to the the the
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the rush of the deal. Like so having something in place and
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a standardized process makes a lot of sense.
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Absolutely. Yeah. And and I think the nice thing about it too is w
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as you gain experience, you can add to your checklist,
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right? You can or you can say,
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Hey, maybe we edit that that line or we replace it with something else or
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we and we refine it. And I and I think that's a big part of our process.
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So
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One of the other things that I would like to for you to talk a little
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bit about is some of the the real estate between our ears
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and leadership and everything associated with it.
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Because being a pilot, I would imagine that you kind of manage stress differently
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when it comes to this type of thing,
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when it comes to investment. Could you talk a little bit about that?
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What strategies you might use or
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In fact, when it comes to entrepreneurship,
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it's kind of a lonely occupation.
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So maybe there's even something there.
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Yeah,
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I mean I think that one of the things that will mess up any real estate deal
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is too much debt, too much leverage,
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running a little flying too close to the sun,
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pushing the limits. And as a real estate investor and as a pilot,
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you're you're kind of in the same you're you're you're constantly evaluating,
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you know, am I am I at my max limit?
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Am I am I gonna be able to respond or maneuver
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If I'm doing something, you know,
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this close to, you know, the sun,
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right? I and and so I kind of think about that from a conservatism standpoint,
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you know, when we take on debt on a property,
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you know, we're not running up the max leverage.
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You know, we might go to 50% or 55% on a deal LTV.
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And I think that's where you you keep a safe margin so that if you get into trouble,
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you can fly out of it or you can have excess gas.
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You know, I kind of think about the same way when you're pre-flight planning.
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You know your personal limits.
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You also know the limits of the airplane and the limits of what you're capable of,
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and you always want to have that safety margin.
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So I think that's kind of the strategy that we have in our entire portfolio,
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which is don't over-leverage, fixed rate debt,
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don't get over your skis, and always have an exit strategy and have multiple exit
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strategies. And I think that's what really makes us,
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you know, and my my business partner is an Army vet.
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And so he's, you know, yeah, him and I share a commonality of of a prior profession,
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which is, you know, if something bad happens,
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people die. Right. And so we have this mindset of,
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you know, if something bad happens in this real estate deal,
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we want to make sure that we've got the the firepower to get out of it.
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And that's usually not over leveraging and and making sure that you've
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got multiple exit strategies on every deal that you're looking at.
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We're gonna explore that little bit more,
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but before we do, I just wanna remind everybody it is spartan-investor.com.
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That's gonna be a clickable link in the show notes.
14:30
Take advantage of those resources that Ryan has pointed to you there.
14:34
If you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
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do us a favor, share this with one of your friends.
14:40
If you're watching us on YouTube,
14:41
give us a like and subscribe. So you just mentioned some
14:47
some things there that I think is kind of blowing people's mind because
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I think especially when I get a lot of real estate gurus on the show.
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They're trying to entice people into real estate investing.
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It's all about n no skin in the game.
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You can get this d just just time,
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sweat of your brow, and leveraging as much as possible.
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So you're
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You're playing it very, very safe if if you're talking about fifty
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to fifty five percent L T V.
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Yeah, I've never been a big fan of of no skin in the game or no money down
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or you know high leverage. It you know,
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I think I think you you see that now.
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You know, I think we see a lot of multifamily deals going bad and we have
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a lot of distress in the market and people are looking at that and saying,
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Well, you know, they got caught up in interest rates or they got caught
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up like everybody else got caught up.
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And, you know, really, you know
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We did have a spike in interest rates,
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but the problem is is that and I know a lot of operators that actually didn't
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get caught up in into that because they didn't over leverage and they planned,
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right? And so I think you really run the risk of having a problem
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the second something goes a little bit bad and you lose your optionality,
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you lose your runway, you lose time.
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And I think I think that's really important.
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I I think when you're when you're thinking about,
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you know, I I like to tell the story,
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I think like
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Five or six years ago, maybe longer,
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I went to a a real estate meetup and there was a guy on stage and he said,
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you know, you can buy a house,
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you can, you know, renovate it,
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you can rent it out, you can refinance it,
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and then you'll have a 30% buffer when you're done of equity,
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right? So you have 70% debt, 30% equity still in the deal,
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and you'll have all your money out.
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And I thought, I'd rather have it be fifty percent,
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but you know, seventy percent,
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okay, you gotta get deals done.
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But then a couple years later I went to that same conference or that same
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you know meetup and the same guy was up there and he was saying,
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well, it's getting harder to find deals.
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So now I like to have an 85% and a 15% buffer and I thought,
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my gosh, we are getting to the end of the of the cycle.
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I mean we're we're starting to see people justify,
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you know, a higher leverage. And so if that rent or that tenant moves
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out or something happens or that value drops,
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like you're you're upside down.
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And now it's like, yeah, you may have had low skin in the game,
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but now you're gonna have to either lose the asset and lose the money
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you put into it, or you know, worse,
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you might have to come out of pocket at a very inopportune time and
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put equity into the deal. So yeah,
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I'm not you know, I I think real estate's cool because there are a
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lot of strategies you can you can do like wholesaling or,
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you know, subject to and all these things.
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And I just I just never really found myself finding
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a no money down situation. I it's always been you know,
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y if it's no money down, it's usually a lot of sweat equity.
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If it's if it's a lot of sweat equity it's you know,
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it so it's it's kind of they they kinda go hand in hand,
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I think.
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Mm-hmm. Yeah, it makes sense. What do you think is the outlook here?
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Like you you are right. I in fact I think we're seeing some of that going
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on right now where especially commercial properties,
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yeah, we're just in my neck of the woods,
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we just haven't seen it bounce even back from the COVID days.
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Yeah, I think it's really market driven,
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right? I I think if you're in a market where there's been overbuilding
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and oversupply of anything, multifamily,
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self-storage, office, whatever it is,
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you know, right sizing that to like the expectations for what demand would
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be is gonna tell a big story. I I think real estate,
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you know, you can you can look at it from a macro level and say,
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okay, this is how real estate's doing in general.
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But I do really think every deal is subject to where it's at.
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Hyperloc market. And so, you know,
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there's a lot of self-storage deals out there that are struggling because
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the market was oversaturated and people built too many of them in that hyper five
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mile or three mile market. There's a lot of deals that we're doing right
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now that are undersupplied and they've leased up very quickly
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and they've they've held their value really well.
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So I just think you have to have that discipline.
18:56
And I think when money got inexpensive and interest rates fell and
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Everybody was trying to get into real estate.
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I think it created a lot of supply at an at a high leverage that really tripped some
19:07
people up. But I think the fundamentals are still there.
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You know, I don't see this drastic recovery or this amazing time to buy right now,
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once in a lifetime opportunity.
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I don't see that. But I see the fundamentals are still there.
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We're not, we're not, real estate isn't dead.
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It's not something no one's going to invest in.
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It's going through its
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It's going through its trough,
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it's going through its down cycle.
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And that's part of the process,
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right? And you know, right now the stock market is on a all-time bull run,
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right? And so that'll have its day.
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And so I think this is what we have to do as investors is we have to just look
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at it and say, everything kind of when it when it kind of feels like it has no end,
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that's probably the time that it will,
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you know. And, you know, when everything kind of feels terrible.
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That might be okay time to start,
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you know, maybe looking or considering or educating yourself and investing,
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right? And the nice thing about real estate is it moves really slowly.
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I mean, nothing happens overnight.
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You know, stock market, you got to chase it around a little bit sometimes,
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but y you know, real estate takes a long time to develop and to change
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and and things like that. And I think you just have to have the right debt
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and the right market to to be successful.
20:18
Well you kinda already asked answered my next question was gonna be around
20:22
if you you foresee being able to take advantage of of the environment.
20:27
I mean you're you're playing it really c safe,
20:30
so maybe there would be some deals to be had?
20:32
Well, in self storage, unfortunately,
20:33
there's not a lot of distress.
20:35
So we don't see deals coming to market at a discount.
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you know, I I I see some lender some some loans that have been t or some deals that
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have been taken back by the lender,
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but they're not deals I really want anyway,
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'cause they they didn't have the right fundamentals from the start.
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Because if they did, they would be probably doing okay.
20:51
so there I you know, I don't see a huge discounted
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market up from you know down from what it was.
20:58
I mean I I do see we we find opportunities on a regular basis that that are good,
21:03
you know, good opportunities, but I don't see that you know more than I have before.
21:09
In fact, I think it's still kind of a stiff market because you have you have
21:15
a lot of sellers that are saying,
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you know, I can't get what I I can't get twenty twenty one pricing.
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Yeah, I'll just hold it for another five years and wait for the market to come back.
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So you don't have that many transactions happening.
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And then you have the the big publicly traded REITs buying a lot right
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now because they they can with their stock price.
21:33
And so I I just I don't see this blue ocean market
21:38
of endless deals ~ coming up. Now again,
21:41
I I I take it one opportunity at a time.
21:44
You know, we look at hundreds,
21:45
if not thousands, of deals every year.
21:47
you know, and pick the best ones,
21:48
right, for our for our investors and the ones to purchase.
21:51
But, you know, I don't I don't see it being some,
21:54
you know, special time to to invest.
21:57
You know, you've talked about pilots in this situation,
22:00
but are you you don't can you talk a little bit about the investor experience?
22:06
Like let's say somebody came to Spartan Dash Invest dot com and
22:10
and showed some interest here.
22:12
What could they expect? What's the
22:13
Yeah I
22:14
what's that like?
22:15
Yeah, I think I think we we like to meet you where you're at,
22:18
right? We don't there's no there's never a deal that's lifetime once in a lifetime.
22:22
You know, we we recognize there's a lot of people making an investment
22:26
for the first time and they've never done a real estate syndication
22:30
or they've never done a real estate deal or they've never invested in self storage.
22:33
So we ha that's why we have the academy,
22:35
we have free training on our on our website,
22:37
because we want you to be very comfortable.
22:40
And if it takes you four or five months to
22:42
come around to learn and make a decision or even longer,
22:45
that's totally acceptable. We also have a lot of investors that
22:49
are quite seasoned and experienced.
22:51
And so we can sort of meet you where you're at there with some of
22:54
the more technical nuances of what you want to learn about the waterfall,
22:57
how the deal's structured or the market fundamentals.
23:00
And we've had a lot of people invest in the way that I got into self-storage,
23:04
my first deal I did with another operator.
23:06
So my
23:08
you know, I wanted to learn, kind of look over the shoulder of somebody doing it.
23:12
So I invested my first storage deal was in a syndication.
23:14
And so we have a lot of people who are trying to learn about the industry
23:17
and a great way to do that is to put some skin in the game and then follow along
23:22
with the pro with the project.
23:23
So, you know, I I kinda I you know,
23:25
I like to say, you know, in my,
23:27
you know, in the capital raising environment that I've cultivated at Spartan,
23:30
it's a very consultative process.
23:33
You know, we we say if you're ready,
23:35
then let's
23:36
Let's do it. But you know, we try to give you all the education
23:39
and tools and resources before you have to make a decision on on doing
23:43
a deal or not. So
23:45
Well, it it had to have been fairly d daunting regarding scaling to
23:50
the level that you but if you could look back at those early t days,
23:56
what was the position you hired for first?
23:59
Finance.
24:00
Finance and accounting. If you don't have good books,
24:02
you have nothing. So if you don't if you can't make your payroll,
24:06
pay your bills on time, you know,
24:08
keep track of all your finances and accounting,
24:10
then you're gonna fall apart pretty quickly.
24:12
lenders are gonna want that information to give you a loan and your tax
24:16
CPA is gonna want that information to close out your books.
24:18
And then you need to know how much money you have,
24:21
how much runway you have.
24:23
And so I I would say finance and accounting is is the foundation
24:26
to any business that gets its start.
24:28
And maybe, maybe as a founder or an entrepreneur,
24:31
maybe that is your background and you're good at that and hey,
24:34
good for you. But find somebody that really knows what they're doing when
24:37
it comes to putting together your P and L's and balance sheets.
24:40
And then just, you know, you've got to manage your costs.
24:44
And you know, and I I always like to give people the advice,
24:46
there's no such thing as a fixed cost ever.
24:50
Nothing's a fixed cost. You can renegotiate your salaries,
24:53
your payroll, your contractors,
24:55
your vendors, your leases, your interest rate on your loan,
24:59
your terms. Everything is negotiable.
25:01
So don't ever think you're backed into a you know,
25:04
into a corner on on fixed costs.
25:06
So and then I would say, you know,
25:08
after that, after you kind of get that foundation,
25:10
you need to find somebody who can drive revenue and really build incentive.
25:15
for people, right? So you really need a good incentive.
25:17
People want to be motivated by however you create your ecosystem is,
25:22
you know, through, you know, hey,
25:24
if you hit this occupancy or you raise this money or you go,
25:27
you know, clean up this NOI or grow NOI,
25:31
you know, you get a part of the the deal or you get you get a bonus.
25:34
You know, those things are really like we're very motivated as people to
25:39
do a good job. And I think having those benchmarks is what really drives good
25:44
results.
25:44
You can't you can't grow unless you measure it,
25:46
right?
25:47
That's exactly right. Yeah.
25:48
Well, I I really appreciate this,
25:50
Ryan. before we start jiving into the rapid fire and closing out this episode,
25:55
is there anything else we should have tried to hit on?
25:56
No,
25:57
I think it's been a great, great interview so far.
25:58
I'm gonna diverge a little bit.
26:00
I'm not gonna quite close things out yet,
26:02
but I I was c curious, like what has you excited right now?
26:07
Do you you have a project on the horizon or or something an experience that you're
26:11
you're looking forward to personally that that we should be aware of?
26:14
Yeah,
26:15
I would s yeah, so I I would say you know,
26:18
the transaction markets down. We're not actually buying a lot of deals.
26:21
We're actually gonna only do maybe one or two more deals this year.
26:24
And what I'm personally excited about as a business owner is,
26:27
you I'm a I'm a professional asset manager.
26:29
I manage a lot of different properties across the the the country.
26:33
And AI is a buzzword, I know. but just b however we can be more efficient
26:38
in our reporting and our data and our cost controls.
26:43
in our in the way that we move money and the way that we manage our teams,
26:47
I think there's so many opportunities right now as entrepreneurs to to really
26:53
run an efficient operation. And so that's what kind of gets me out of
26:56
bed in the morning and gets me excited.
26:57
Well, I appreciate I'm glad I asked that question and I appreciate
27:01
the segue because if you need help implementing those type of solutions,
27:05
especially AI automation and the like,
27:07
that's where I come in. So head over to realdealcrew dot com,
27:11
learn a little bit more there.
27:12
Happy to jump on a call and and try to find some of those efficiencies.
27:16
Well, Ryan, if you are ready, we will dive into the rapid fire and close
27:20
out this episode.
27:23
Let's do it. I'm ready.
27:24
What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
27:27
that they're not spending as much time as it really takes on a deal.
27:30
It always takes longer and you should always plan for it to be
27:34
a time consuming endeavor, whatever you're doing.
27:37
They they people love to lie about how long it really took or how much they really
27:43
struggled.
27:44
If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
27:46
what would it
27:47
When you hire people for your business,
27:50
don't hire other entrepreneurs.
27:52
Go find the number one or number two person in the industry
27:58
and convince them of your vision and get them to join you in their specialty.
28:03
So if I were to sell start self storage all over again,
28:07
I would find the number one operator in the country and I would
28:10
go recruit that person endlessly to my organization to build a platform.
28:14
That is a great tip. I in fact I think you might be the first one who who said that.
28:18
It sounds very Alex Hermosy.
28:20
Yeah, I mean, y here's the thing,
28:21
guys, like we're entrepreneurs,
28:23
so we're real estate people or whatever.
28:25
What do we what do we all do? We all go to a real estate conference
28:28
and then we pretend that that's where our partner is or that's where
28:30
our next leader of our operation is.
28:33
But one, we don't have all the experience in multifamily or storage
28:35
or industrial or whatever you're doing.
28:37
But there's probably someone working at a publicly traded REIT
28:40
or some powerhouse company that's you know,
28:43
a VP or a president of that operation section.
28:46
That's who you want. You don't want
28:49
You know, another entrepreneur,
28:51
another you, right, that has no
28:52
No,
28:53
skill in that industry, you want someone that knows how to organize teams
28:56
and lead operations, right? And that's I think the the biggest takeaway
28:59
I can I could I would give myself.
29:01
Yeah. And even if that person is expensive,
29:03
it's worth it. It's expensive not to have that person.
29:07
It's really expensive not to have that person and limp along for years
29:12
and not have a great operation.
29:14
That's expensive and time consuming.
29:16
Yeah.
29:18
Is there anything in your business right now that keeps you up at night?
29:21
You know, I I think that I often wonder about,
29:24
you know, we you know, we a lot of these operations,
29:27
you know, we buy you know, businesses from mom and pop owners and,
29:30
you know, we we improve them. And I always often wonder,
29:33
you know, you know, how slow the transaction market's gonna be.
29:36
You know, how are we are we gonna kinda we know,
29:38
we've scaled to ninety properties,
29:40
have a really great platform. I kinda wonder like,
29:43
you know, we want to grow to three hundred,
29:44
but you know, growth has really slowed and I kinda wonder about,
29:47
you know, how much
29:48
Spartan. So Claude is now working with our property
29:48
Finally, what single process or tool have you implemented that has
29:51
had the biggest time saving impact?
29:53
I appreciate you giving us so much insight,
29:55
Ryan. It was great to chat with you.
29:57
Great to meet you. One more time,
29:59
it is Spartan-investor.com. Clickable link in the show notes.
30:04
Take advantage of all those resources that are freely available there.
30:08
that's very generous, Ryan, to have spent the or made the investment in your
30:12
Likewise, Jack, thanks for having me.
30:14
time and your resources to to put that stuff together.
30:17
So again, it is spartan-investor.com.
30:21
I hope you'll consider coming back again.
30:23
It was great to talk to you and I hope we can do it again real soon.