Justin Stoddart
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I am your host, Justin Stoddart. There’s no doubt that real estate investing is a very commonly well known strategy by the wealthy on how they became wealthy. One of the ways that people do that and one of the methods through which they invest in real estate that becomes a great avenue is through self storage. And I’m fortunate today to have on a gentleman who is the Chief Investment Officer of the 25th largest Self Storage operator company in the US and I’m excited to have him on. Before I introduce him, let me just remind you the purpose of this show is, that you know, you are the sum average of the top five people that you spend the most time with. My goal is to help you spend time with people that are going to stretch your thinking, that are going to raise that sum average, and help you to have not just bigger thoughts, but bigger actions and a bigger life and a bigger impact. That’s what I’m passionate about this. That’s what this show is about. If you want a regular summary, giving show highlights and action steps go to thinkbigger.realestate and you can sign up for that. So now getting back to our guest, his name is Kris Benson. Again, he’s the Chief Investment Officer for Reliant Investments, a fantastic company out of just north of Atlanta, Georgia. Kris, I want to thank you for coming on the show today.

Kris Benson
I appreciate the opportunity. Justin, how are you?

Kris Benson
I’m doing fantastic. I love this topic was interesting in college, I was in the entrepreneurial school, I was actually a construction management major, business minor and one of the classes that I took was an entrepreneurial class, and they invited in a gentleman who was stood about five feet five inches tall. But he, despite his small stature, he was extremely wealthy. He had built a fortune off self-storage. And I always thought to myself, what a fantastic way you have real estate investments with no plumbing, with no tenants, and yet reliable. Tell me a little bit about your passion for real estate investing and maybe how you came to a similar conclusion about this particular form of real estate investing.

Kris Benson
Yeah, for sure be happy, I would say for my passion of real estate came from probably a journey not too dissimilar than a lot of people, a lot of your listeners have. For me, it was trying to find passive income, right? I have the Rich Dad, Poor Dad, probably many of the people listening had, I distinctly remember waking up in my late 20s and saying, I had a corporate job that I was making a great living at was wildly successful. And I remember waking up thinking, I don’t think I can do yours. And for me, it was how was I going to replace my income and stop trading time for money and real estate was that journey for me. We did a number of different real estate asset classes Justin, we worked with residential real estate, that was challenging, it was going to be difficult for us to scale wanted. And so we ended up divesting of that portfolio, primarily duplexes, quads, that kind of thing. And we got into commercial multifamily 64 unit apartment complex. And that was really when the light bulb went off for us in regards to understanding the value of scale in the real estate world. And so, you know, how I got to storage was we were investing in some multifamily projects across the primarily as passive investors. So we’re taking capital and I had a group that kind of grew along with me as I went through my real estate journey investors who were interested in having passive income streams as well. And so we were investing in some big primary markets across the United States. And one of the operators that we had invested with essentially say cap rates have pressed to a place where we’re not comfortable, we’re going to stop buying. And for me, that was a wake up call, where I said, Maybe I should be looking at other asset classes. And that’s what got me to storage started doing homework, I’m a data guy. So I love to look at historical data to try to predict what I think’s going to happen in the future. In storage has, if you want me to walk through it, I’d be happy to but I there were really three kind of pillars that I that I based mom was self storage. And that’s really what got us in the game, or got me particularly in the game of storage,

Justin Stoddart
Tell us you know, I am I love that kind of your progression to this point of like, I need to be a real estate investor that’s going to create the ultimate life that I want. And then even your progression to, you know, through that to finding the right asset class that really fit you talk to us a little bit about what those three pillars are, you’ve got a super curious about why, why you chose the asset class that you did?

Kris Benson
Sure. So the three things that I looked at, or that I wanted to understand is one the history, right. So understanding in in the history of the asset class, how is it performed, there’s a data set that I can certainly send you to the link of the link to and your listeners or subscribers can have access to it’s called the National Association of data. And it’s a public data, and it’s on the publicly traded rates across the United States. So you can look up a read on basically any asset class you want. So residential housing, if there’s a residential housing, read Self Storage office, reads agriculture, it doesn’t really matter. But it’s a really nice way to compare apples to apples, how an asset classes done. So in the last 25 years storage is performed just under 17% a year, which is a pretty incredible number. I my world was in multifamily investing. And multifamily had just done just about under 13%, which is still but I was surprised to see that it they’ve been outperformed and really any of the major asset classes with more than a track record of 20 years storage had done better than so that was the big one for me the returns. First first first pillar and look at is I’m a big believer, the market cyclical. So everything that’s going to happen has probably happened in the past. So I wanted to see what happened in the last recession was storage. So went back and looked at that same data set on 2000 789, in stores last less than 4% of the market. And just to give you some perspective, apartments, what percent of its value, and then you know, to give you a baseline on the equities market, the s&p 500 was down just over 22%. So you know, you’re not losing money and the money you are losing is you’ve done better than most of the other, you know, established asset classes are wanting to write returns, and I got some downside protection and the hypothesis on that downside protection really is around in America, we see people don’t get rid of stuff. No, you catch people on the way up when things are going well, they buy things and they keep them in storage. And when people downsize. If they have to downsize from house to an apartment, they don’t get rid of their things out. And so I think it’s a view of there’s going to be a better day, and I’m going to need this stuff. And some of its just I think our American materialism so that demand for storage really is a little bit elastic. So those are my two pillars. And then the third one for me, which is you know why I’m sitting in Roswell, Georgia is you know, storage, less than 25. The asset class is owned by six publicly traded companies. So there’s five reads, that everybody probably has seen signs for cube, smart, public storage extra, those are the big reads. And then the six company, it’s not a read, but it’s public, that’s u haul and everything knows them from the moving trucks, you’ve also has a pretty substantial storage portfolio as well. So those six companies own about 25% of the market and the rest org. So there are companies like us regional operators, right, we have 53 properties across the eight states where the 25th largest, right, so between us and number one, boys, and then below us, there are still a bunch of mom and pop operators, so people who own one or two facilities that offer tremendous opportunities just to run them like a business. And so I see that as kind of a consult, you know, a roll up strategy where we can build our portfolio and make ourselves a really interesting target for, you know, not just our investors now, but maybe institutional capital, or, you know, if we get from 50 to 100 properties, or we become a really interesting target as far as how we can divest of those properties, you know, carve out 25 properties or more, because the buyer sets and those properties are different buyers than just one z two cents. So that’s where we are today.

Justin Stoddart
That’s fantastic and loved the comparison with what you guys are doing versus other industries, right, other investment opportunities, other investment vehicles, I think it’s really valuable. And I would encourage everybody that’s listening to this, whether you be a real estate agent, or even another professional is it, the more information that you can learn from people like Kris, right, that are experts at their craft, the more you step into the role of being a real estate advisor or an advisor of whatever industry you’re in, right, having not only the knowledge but the network to be able to speak educated Lee about returns, some of the resources that Kris is offering, you don’t have someone like Chris in your portfolio. So if you have somebody who wants to, let’s say, in Portland, Oregon, get rid of some rental properties, because they’re not happy with the landlord tenant laws, and put that money into a more passive vehicle that they aren’t having to actively manage themselves, they could reach out to Kris and invest that way. So I would encourage you to kind of think beyond just what Kris is speaking here. And think about how the this could really benefit you and your clients, the value that you bring to the marketplace. This really has the potential to help you stand out. As you really this this is a strategy behind this entire show. Hopefully people are seeing that is it, the people that I’m bringing to the table are experts, right, Kris, again, being a foremost expert in his industry, and that really providing some some significant knowledge for us to really be able to understand how the Self Storage industry works, who the big players are, which is interesting, I know when I drive through my town now I’m I recognize some of those names that Kris mentioned, those, those bigger institutional players. So anyway, would encourage you to kind of listen through those ears again, as potential investment opportunity for yourself, as well as just a new narrative for you to bring to the marketplace to your customers that separates you moves you more to the role of being an advisor, as opposed to just a sales and customer service representative, as many agents and sales professionals are, which creates a very easy opportunity for tech companies to commoditize, you replace you with a lower cost offering. Now, Kris, let’s talk…

Kris Benson
about a point Justin, just real quickly to mean, you know, and my background is sales. That was my corporate role for a long time. And, and I think it’s it, you know, sales doesn’t become sales when you can bring value to the other party. Right. And so, you know, that and I think I’m selling those actually right now. And I can tell you my experience with the real estate broker, is that right there, there are sales, it’s a transaction based relationship. And, you know, it’s always as a salesperson hard to see it and say, Okay, if this is what you’re going to do, I can go sell this better than you can. Yeah. So, you know, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting piece. And I think for your listener, or for your subscribers watching, I think it’s a huge point, right, the more value you can bring to other people, well, they’re going to turn to you when they need things, you know, not just maybe a sell my house now or help me buy this property, it’s a great point.

Justin Stoddart
Well, I think it gives people another reason to want to be in business with you, right, you have to the baseline is you have to be able to market and sell a house, you have to be able to help people find the ideal home for them. But if that’s where your value stops, guess what algorithms have already been written to replace that, and they’re doing it for less than what you’d be willing to work for. And so this kind of value of the stuff that you’re bringing to us, Kris, and again, not only just what you’ve shared with us, but having you in their network, so that you can come up in conversations and say, Look, I have someone in my network. His name is Kris Benson, he you know, owns the right, he’s the Chief Investment Officer for the 25th largest Self Storage operator in the country. And I’d be happy to put you in contact with him. So you can learn more about self storage and potentially become an accredited investor with them, which would create a very passive sounds like secure investment opportunity for those that may be looking to do so. Love it? Let’s talk kind of a couple questions here. As we we as we wrap up. What do you fear the most? And that’s that’s a question that probably not too many people ask themselves or, but but help us understand kind of what’s what’s the fear that you haven’t you live in, in a pretty secure life now where you found an investment vehicle, you’ve gone deep on it? And and financially, it seems to me from the outset that you’re you’re, you’re super secure? Is there something else that you know, that you fear?

Kris Benson
Yeah, for sure. I mean, failure is probably always my, my default answer, right? I hate to say it’s a driver, because I don’t think it’s a great one. But it is definitely a fear. And it’s not necessarily like losing money. My money, it’s it’s more of a letting people down. You know, we have a lot of investors who trust them with their capital, and it’s a significant amount of capital, and that capital represents time, right that they earned it over time, you know, however, they did that, whether it was jobs or liquidated business, whatever, you can’t replace that, right. And it’s a big responsibility that never goes away for me. So I would say failure is probably the big thing. And inherently, that fear of failure is what keeps you from moving forward. On the flip side, so it’s always been something we’ve had arrived with the idea that if I want to grow, and if I want to continue to do on achieve the goals that we’re setting out, we have to push through that. And and look, I you know, I don’t want to come across things are always rosy two nights ago, I literally slept zero hours. And it, you know, it’s hard to shut those things off in your brain. And it wasn’t anything catastrophic. You think that I couldn’t get my head around? And and those things still bother me. Right? And will always and hopefully, I hate to say this, but as an investor looking at us, you want us to be uncomfortable, always pushing to say, is this wrong? Because as soon as we get complacent, that’s when the wheels fall off. Right? It’s soon as you put stop pushing company like ours, you know, we have 160 we have 53 properties, like you said, we’re the 25th operator, we’re doing pretty well. But as soon as you stop pushing the getting better button, like hey, how do we continue to improve? One we’re going to lose lose for us means you lose the trust of your investor base. And when you don’t have that it stops basically the engine from running for us. So, you know, I but I think that’s probably it. And, you know, if I could give anything to to the people who are watching this, you know, I would say that you have to manage the fear to a point where you’re still willing to jump, right? Because anything unless you’re in the middle of it, right. So for brokers who are willing to do something else, or maybe trying to go and start their own firm, or whatever the case may be, you can educate to a point, right? You can read books, to listen and watch podcasts. But you’re never going to know everything. And if you wait until you know everything, you’re never going to do anything. Yeah. And I think that’s a part of it right is the ability to see the feet, right? I’m going to jump anyways. And you know, the knowledge you get out of that is incredible. And it’s not easy, but it’s defined at least my career along the way.

Justin Stoddart
That’s a great point. I love it. I’m gonna ask you one last question, which is the signature question of our show, which is you’re obviously a big thinker, right? Not only are you creating big opportunities for yourself and your own financial freedom, but you’re doing that for a lot of other people, both employees, as well as investors, right, as you have said, have invested their time, in the form of their capital in your company. You know, you doing some great things, you’re a big thinker. That’s why you’re on the think bigger real estate show. Tell us, Kris, what, what does a guy like you continue to do on a regular basis to continue that to continue to be a big thinker? And you may have already answered this, I feel like part of your last answer kind of answered this already. But what is there something else that you can teach us? That that teaches us how you continue to expand your own possibilities?

Unknown Speaker
I think you hit the nail right on. There’s two. It’s a great question. I think there’s probably two things that stick out for me is one I read a lot. You know, I just finished the autobiography of the CEO of Coke, right? Or one of the CEOs? You know, it’s interesting to see other people’s process and, and paths. Because for me, and this is sort of an inherent arrogance about me, I think will fade. And that’s, that’s how I look at things. And so when I see ideas of how other people have done things, that gets me turning like up, you know, like, how do I scale what they’ve done for what I’m doing now? So I would say in and then there’s a great quote, readers are leaders and leaders are earners, right? So, you know, I read a lot, all kinds of different stuff, not necessarily books. But I would say that that’s a good one that that continues to open your mind to what’s possible. And then the other thing I think is, is networking with people who are big thinkers. And that’s what getting the show, right is, you know, you’re the some parts of the five people you spend the most time with. And if you spend time with people who are small thinkers, then there’s no real surprise of what’s going to happen. If you spend time with people who expand and push you, well, then that’s probably what’s going to happen. And so we have a network here at Reliant my partner, Todd Allen is a big thinker. And so every day our businesses being pushed because way and are pushing each other. And that’s why the partnership is so strong. But I think for for people in your group, that’s a critical component is find people who will push you and not necessarily for a reason, you know, not for their benefit. Yeah, find people who will push you, because they want you to do the same back. And and I think when you find that network of people, helps a great deal.

Justin Stoddart
Great answer, I really want to thank you very much, Kris, for what you’ve what you’ve done, right? Just the fact that you’ve gone out on a limb left the corporate job to create not just a great life for yourself, but for other people, shows a lot about who you are at the core, right? It’s not just about success yourself. But it’s about significance. It’s about creating success through other people, which is significance and helping other people have a more secure, and better retirement, and legacy. So thank you for that. And also thank you for that you’ve contributed to this audience to think bigger real estate audience. And I will ask that what’s the best way for people to get in contact with you, Chris? Should they want to learn more? Should they want to refer accredited investors? Should they just be curious, just wanting to have you in their network so that you can be a contributor to helping them continue to be a big thinker?

Kris Benson
Yeah, sure. Appreciate that. So there’s three things three places I think you connect with me one on LinkedIn, it’s Kris Benson. It’s Kris with a K. LinkedIn I’m pretty active and keep me updated on what reliance doing rely on investments.com to learn more about our platform on the investor side. And then we also have we build a website called KrisBenson.com, it’s really more around education for real estate investors. There’s a web series of videos it’s free, you know, that basically walks investors from how they should be thinking of this and the reason we did it honestly, so that I’d have to answer the same questions millions of times. So it’s it’s enough to make people dance. You’re certainly not an expert, but I think a good baseline so Chris Benson calm, rewind, investments. com or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Justin Stoddart
Awesome, great stuff, Kris, again, want to thank you so much. And I would just end with this final charge to all of us, which is three simple words. Go, Think Bigger. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Kris. Again, for all that you’ve contributed.