Joe Shoen
Analyst · C.L. King & Associates. Please go ahead
The real easy pickings in storage or few and far between. Now this could turn Jim and I expect it will when some people discover there's more to with them having a location that looks like a public stores or U-Haul location. So I think there will some falling out and that's pretty typical real estate, there will be some opportunity then I hope, but there's a lot of sharp people out there so I don't think you'll be an immense opportunity. I'm seeing a consistent opportunity to develop new product. The biggest constraint is land use, is can we get a local community to go along with the program and if so, it's almost mind numbing that the amount of process involved in getting building permits and getting buildings open. And I don't see that getting any better, I don't think anyone in the storage business has a competitive advantage over us and that when I speak to my peer group they all sing the same song about that. And so when like two years ago, we bought several facilities that are already built by someone else, that's a real boon, because they just come right online and you can go, when you're having to develop things get a little agonizing and you'll have a property, you thought you were going to develop this year, you don't get anything done at all, because it gets caught up in a snag somewhere on the way. So there's a lot of opportunity, I continue to see, let me tell, I continue to see opportunity and I'm kind of an optimistic type person anyways, but I continue to see opportunity. I think that the industry is push prices about as much as that are pushed prices in my opinion and then we're not going to not raise prices if the rest of the industry does, but I think what somewhere is up about what this product can go for, so now we can't just foolishly spend to bring more product on we have to have a lot of fiscal discipline. And that's just fundamental management so I think there's good opportunities, we have tried to look has been different portfolios sold, people saw eight, 10 or maybe even 30 locations. We try to look at them, we could get the math to work. But we thought was fair for our shareholders. Now other people I believe all these units did trade of somebody to pick them up and they may do great you know I have no reason to doubt that, but the prices of these things are very competitive, I spoke to someone yesterday, and they indicated, they'd looked at the same portfolio we had, and we were both $20 million shy what it sold for, well that just made gave me confirmation that our analysis was okay, in other words, okay, we lost a very sadly, lost it. But I don't think paying extra was going to be prudent for us, so we're still we have a lot of stuff in the pipeline, but it's agonizingly slow, but it's starting if it comes on and as you can easily follow about 15 years or something and so you can see that historically we have a greater case reserve than we've had. And I keep want to be to hold that because I think our opportunity will come. But that's a real - that's a good question and we go through it all the time that versus the cost to holding the cash and we push and shove back and forth all the time, and I don't think there's a certain answer to it. But it's in any time you're holding cash can argue your sub optimizing it. But I'm open to that discussion, but I but I don't, I'm not hold and comfortable where we're at. And I think there's going to be opportunities, we're trying to get some progress going in Albany, you're familiar, you don't live that far away from Albany.