What's up, guys? Ron from Ron Rohde Law, and we're back with another interview with Chris Long. He is the founder of Long Yards, and this is it's an incredible new business concept, which if you follow this channel, you know that I love industrial outdoor storage. I'm always talking about new ways to invest in industrial real estate. And what Chris has done is is really pretty incredible.
He has taken outdoor storage and cut it up into smaller leasable sizes. So, Chris, tell us more about this awesome idea and and your background. Yeah. Thanks, Ron. Excited to be here.
So it's crazy. I think all businesses start with a problem and, you know, you end up finding a solution. I was a contractor in the trades. I'm a licensed carpenter, ran construction company for 10 years as a general contractor, and had a problem storing all my equipment, my tools, my trailers. And it's like, how come, you know, there's not a simple contractor yard?
And what I discovered is this massive gap in the marketplace. People, you know, if you're looking for first of all, it's hard to find industrial land to begin with, which I'm sure we're excited to get into. But then if you're looking for a piece of land to lease, typically, if you're lucky, you'll find half an acre, but it's an acre and above in most cases. So what we found is that pocket in the marketplace. It's yards from 2000 to 20000 square feet, and we basically take land, carve it up into a bunch of mini yards, and rent them out.
And that's what long yards does. And then the magic of it is solving so many problems for these little businesses that just need that small space that's month to month, it's affordable, and it's just made for them. And we bring in the containers and the offices. So yeah, excited to dive into it, but I I solved the problem for my business. And now, I mean, we're on a path for 12 locations and it's just been life changing.
So excited to cover all angles. That's awesome. I mean, I I remember when when we first connected and we were chatting, I think you just had one. Right? You had the one yard.
Right. So we're actually fully I am a Canadian. Some people might get that accent right away. But, so my first location is actually fully up and running in Ottawa, Ontario, which is the capital of Canada, and then when I decided to move, to the US, our our second, let's call it corporate US flag, is actually in Central Florida in Winter Haven, and that's about wrapping up construction. So we're almost at the finish line with that one, and we had a long lifespan of, like, entitlements and a whole bunch of stuff we can get into, but a lot of learning curves.
And we have our one of our first franchisees. He's, finally near the end of the process in in Abilene. And besides that, we have multiple other locations. So a little bit about the life cycle and and where we're Okay. Yeah.
I mean, I imagine permitting and getting a CO is is gotta be one of the biggest challenges. That's what we see on the bigger yard spaces, you know, 2, 4, 5 acres. What what's the CO process for you like with with your use? Yeah. That's a good question.
So we wanna make sure that we have different tiers of land in our underwriting process. And we we categorize it by like all the way from tier 1 to tier 4 where tier 1 is like you're ready to go existing business already in usage. And that is typically the easiest for the CEO. We're on obviously, on the flip side, what we categorize as a tier 4 is like raw dirt. Now they each come with a pro and a con.
You know, you're gonna pay less for the raw dirt, but you got a lot more time ahead of you. So how do you, you know, navigate that? But, you know, we want ideally to scale and grow existing parcels that already have the industrial usage that are ideally heavy industrial. It just allows our process to be that much quicker. Yeah.
That makes sense. I mean, I think what we're seeing in infill locations is the more approvals you have, the the the more shovel ready, parcel is, just the more value it has because it's saving time and reducing uncertainty. So you pay more for an infill location that has an existing does it have to have a building on it or just a CEO or or That's a great question. So, I mean, there's so much we have an entire funnel. And at first, it goes like total market.
We have a tam, total adjustable market value. And then it goes to the zoning, and then it goes to local building requirements, and then it goes to feasibility. And we go through this funnel to identify parcels, and then at that point, it goes afterwards. So, yeah. It really depends on on the property, the zoning.
But to answer your question, it really depends on the area. Some places in Texas, they want if it's no building, they only want to give you 5 years. Now our lenders, and of course, you don't want to build a house and only live in it for 5 years. It's like, no we want to see this. We're in this for the long game.
So the answer to your question really depends on the existing business, and then even you can get created by acquiring it. That kind of allows you to sneak underneath, kind of the trigger for new entitlement. So yeah. It's some areas they wanna complete a structure, maybe it's just a little office. But if what we're finding in a lot of places at Dallas Fort Worth, we had a property, and the land was not enough.
That was only conditional. They wanted to see a structure in order to give us the full occupancy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that echoes a lot of what we're running into in DFW too is having a building really opens up your your uses.
I guess, walk us through a a prototypical yard because I think for some people that have tuned in this long, they still don't know what we're we're talking about. Like, if you pull up to the yard, is there an office with a office manager? Like, what are we seeing? You said containers, but what are the fencing, like, lighting, security? Yeah.
So picture self storage, right? You go to your self storage facility, you roll up your door, you go in your unit, put do your stuff, go outside. You're typically going on an acre, 1 to 5 acre property, 60 to a 100 units, whatever the case. Mine's the same thing except storage yards. So you drive into the road and on the side instead of self storage units, it's actually individual yards.
When I say individual yards, it's as simple as that. You open up your gate, you got in a completely enclosed fenced yard with what we try to bring is power, camera, and if you need an office or a container, we bring it to you as well. So that's basically longhards. It's contractor storage yards. It's like bringing the self storage world to industrial real estate.
And how does the rent compare to to mini storage? I don't know what kind of price per foot that a, you know, what, a 10 by 20 would look like. I guess that's really small, but, is it, like, half the price? Is it a tenth of the price? That's a great question.
And some of the the r and d that we're doing and we're constantly doing research and development because, like, we're such a there's so much data, and we're so new that we need to, you know, run it for the long term. So I wanna be very focused on markets we could target and what the results are gonna be. And it's funny because we're more close to boat and RV and like land price than self storage. And what we're trying to do is to compare, the rates of storage yards versus what's the closest tracking, metric that we could follow. And self storage is actually the farthest one.
So it can self storage fluctuate so much in different areas where there's other, you know, comparables that we could track that has a closer that's not doesn't fluctuate as much. It runs a little more parallel. So it's not self storage. It's really funny because, you know, some places you're buying land at one play at one price per acre and renting out for x, where in others, you could get it for a lot more and your ROI is higher. And so we've been able to target markets that give us those results.
And because we're looking at international, we could focus laser focus on these markets. But it's not self storage because it's very it's very niche, but we need to find what can we follow to be as predictable as possible with our rates, and and that's a journey in itself. I mean, I think that's a great comment. Self self storage is very, very susceptible to supply and demand, and we've seen a ton of building of new supply. So you're probably seeing that in markets that have a similar population.
If they've overbuilt mini storage, those those rates are coming down. Just, you know, they they need to get revenue. They need to compete. And so it's not a true metric of what your rate should be because you don't really have competition. And that kinda leads me to to my tie in of, you know, what you think the comparable should be because where are these people storing these trailers and tools before they came here?
Like, where are they coming from? That's a yeah. So if you have any blue collars in your family and anybody listening to this, they're like, where are these guys storing? But if you ever sat at a dinner table, or have an uncle who's a landscaper or a contractor, it is a problem and it's a continual problem. They're either shuffling their equipment around, they're leaving it on job sites, they don't have like a yard that's close to home.
And and that's the problem. So and we're the solution and and going back to like, you know, with self storage supply and demand, there's a lot of guys out there. It's not just these contractors and small businesses, it's homeowners, it's hobbyists, and and it's also logistic companies, and it's also corporate entities. And we're we're not just going after one client, we're very diversified with our with our base of clientele. So I mean, there is massive market need for what we have and the big one of the biggest bottlenecks is industrial real estate.
It's finding the right properties and being able to acquire this. And we're solving that not just in one way. So, you know, real estate changed my life and it allowed financial freedom on my first deal, and that was my first long errands, and it really was a life changer. But then they you know, I had this hat on only looking at, well, real estate. But we can do land arbitrage.
We could take land and that is already approved. We don't have to necessarily buy it because sometimes the price per acre doesn't necessarily make sense. We can't spend a $1,000,000 an acre and do our build out. It's just not feasible. But can we do land arbitrage?
Can we go do a lease setup and do a revenue share with the land owner? So there's different ways for us to, you know, expand our model that make it adjustable to the market. It's just it's just a different model. Yeah. I I mean, I think it's great.
If if you have that kind of business growth mentality, you can you make money off of providing a service, and un owning the underlying real estate is kind of an option. It's not it's not critical for your path, because, again, you don't have, like you're not building a big building. You're not building something super unique that no landlord would agree to. Your structures and your improvements are, you know, for the most part, pretty standard and not intensive. It's not like a big coverage building.
So that makes sense as a short term. You know, I'm a lender. I may lease it to you on a short term basis or even 10 years because when you're done with the lease and you vacate, I still have my dirt free and clear, you know, ready to build or do whatever I want with it. So that makes sense to be able to grow and serve the needs. So Yeah.
Well, answer that question then. If if you have somebody in the trades, where are the most common place? Are they just storing it at home? Are they are they putting it in some other warehouse, like, a in enclosed warehouse and that's too expensive or what? Yeah.
So, like, in my case, I mean, I had 3 trailers. I had a skid steer. I had a bunch of equipment. And, I mean, first of all, my wife was just like, Chris, our house looks like. She cleaned it up.
Every time family came over, I had to, like, make sure they were presentable and clean. So that was always a challenge. And then between that and mixing up on the job sites, it was always just like mental energy. Like, where's everything going? There's no home base.
So I think that's what a lot of contractors are dealing with. It's like, where can I just get this for 2 weeks until it's being used and out of the way? Can I how long can I leave it on this job site? How much equipment can I leave on the job site? Then it becomes like a logistics nightmare that sometimes you wanna avoid.
So I think that the biggest it's it's not a solution that really exists, and I do think in some cases they're overpaying because the gap in the marketplace, which is the problem we solve, is these contractors they need okay. I need space. Well, what's on the option of marketplace? It's probably a 1 acre office and above space. That's a 3 5 year triple net lease.
And sometimes in a year and a half, you don't know where you're gonna be. Whether or not you're gonna grow twice the size or whether or not the market's gonna change, and you're now going to the other side of town for your clientele. So by us being month to month, which is by the way what SBA loves about us, it just it allows the affordability and the adaptability, for these businesses. So that, you know, it it's really supporting them and what they need the most, which is really the power of the business. What about what about flex space?
So, like, 100% indoor. You got a 12 foot, 14 foot roll up. I know that I I'm pretty involved in, you know, the flex space kind of development side. But these contractor garages, they're they're, again, they're fully enclosed, but we're talking, like, 1 to 2000 square feet. It's just expensive.
Right? Are they are they signing those types of leases to pay for 100% enclosed storage? So that's a question based on the opportunity. So with each parcel as an example in central Florida Winter Haven, we have 26,000 square feet of warehouse. And we ran what's the highest and best use for the warehousing.
And we we compare flex versus self storage. And because we had an undersupplied market and the rates for climate control self storage were the highest, with the highest best use, we decided to do that. And it's still complementing to our clientele. But flex is a very good marriage with long yards. You have contractors that need bigger bays.
So if the opportunity presents itself with flex warehousing and additional land, that's a long airs home run. And that's, you know, that's a good location. So flex, I love flex. It's like self storage for contractors just on a bigger scale. And there's you know, with the buildings on the land, it gives you a lower cap rate and higher evaluation.
You know, but the build out cost, it's a slower return on the ROI. So every opportunity is a little bit unique, and we wanna make sure our pencils, and we also wanna make sure we're hitting home runs. And if you compare numbers on the flex versus the long errands, like, it's it's it's night and day. But, in any case, yeah, flex is a great business model, and and we love it too. Yeah.
I I mean, there's so much that goes into it, and I think it's great that you really understand the tenant needs because kind of in my head, right, I I I don't have that kind of background. Tools. What kind of tools are okay to be stored outside? What's not gonna get stolen? What type of materials can be stored outside, and is it a a time thing?
Is it a time of the year? They don't need to be out in the winter. All sorts of things. You know? I I've gone by my tenants' stuff and different stone materials, different metals, can go outside.
But, obviously, you know, you're not putting wood or some kind of hardyback or a fiberboard outside. But it is really interesting what tools sometimes they'll put hand tools, you know, shovels are fine outside. How much does that I guess, again, do you guys understand and make recommendations to people when they come up Hey. You're gonna wanna store that inside. We'll get we can lease you a container.
Well, here's my here's my favorite thing about my clients. They're blue collars, get it done type of people. So I don't need to hold their hand. They're looking for a solution in the marketplace that doesn't exist and they will adapt. And what the beautiful part about this is they know what they need and in the marketplace, there's that price and inconvenience and where we are is we're just more affordable because it's just land.
So they'll go in and they'll set up their own setup. They'll put in a dome. As long as it doesn't need permits and it's following the lease requirements and not contaminating the soil, then it's good to go. So a lot of these guys, they're coming into our units and because we're month to month, we're like, you know, let's see what the data says. But they're staying there a long time and they're setting up and everything they're setting up is just for them and their business.
So you're seeing all these little ecosystems of how different businesses operate. The masons are different than the fence guys and the welders and etcetera, etcetera. And it's really cool to see that. But look, they may get their own home, and these guys are a get it done type of client, which is my favorite. Well, you probably like that then.
The more that they customize their space, the more that they invest a little bit of time to create little lean to's or different shelters or, you know, put this equipment here, that makes them stickier tenants and makes them less inclined to leave even if you if you raise the rates. Exactly. We have a very low churn rate, and and we played around with our yard size. We have, you know, small, medium, large, and we're like, what's gonna stick the most? Who's gonna stay the longest?
What's what's the data gonna tell? And we're we're evolving that data constantly, and we've evolved. We moved around. But yeah. I mean, even as in the self storage world, I mean, a few self storage masterminds.
A lot of them want small business clients because typically they stay the longest. And and they're consistent with their bill payments because it's a need. They need the space, you know. So, yeah, they're they're great. Yeah.
Well, to answer that, do you have to have do you have somebody on-site 20 like, during the business hours? Or how does management work? Yeah. Management is based on it's a bit of a each location depending on the capex, the warehousing, but for the long yard, it's model. It's it's it's almost very similar to self storage in a lot of ways with how it's underwritten and the management works.
You don't need someone full time. Again, these clients, give them a yard. They lock the gate. As long as it's safe, they can get to where they're going. They don't need too much hand holding.
Now sometimes you get 2 or 3 clients to give you as much work as 55. So you need to kinda hold their hand a little bit and just, you know, make sure they're being dealt with. But it's not it's a part time gig and with a competent manager on-site with good systems and operations. We have cameras everywhere. We can it's very clear, transparent.
A lot of that language, multiple just be a get being an iOS or industrial storage or self storage. So, we obviously have protocols we wanna follow and it's a little bit different, than self storage because of the way we create our SOPs. But it's not a full time. It's it's anywhere from maybe 5 to 15 hours a week depending on the season. Okay.
So are you guys thinking that's typically self managed from from the investor or you need to hire somebody to manage, I don't know, it sounds like 3 or 4 locations. Is that the optimal setup to have, like, a regional manager? Yeah. So ideally, with partners, either a franchisee or a corporate partner, the the game plan is to have 3 locations in an area that's somewhat close to home, and then you can have 1 employee manage the 3 of them. That's kinda like an optimal optimal scenario and then you're, you know, it's just the economies of scale and it's very ideal.
So, yeah, one part time employer or a full time for 3 is is probably a good metric to to aim for. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, I think everything is similar to other asset classes, but I I like to probe and find out where is it different. And, obviously, I know why it's better.
I mean, I think your demand is through the roof. That's doing another plug for iOS is just we're seeing if if the economy continues to do whatever it's doing in this weird pause or inflation's still bad, people will store materials outside even if they were previously indoors. And that's what I like about iOS is that we're lower lease rates for the same amount of space. And so if you have, you know, your your brand new backhoe or excavator and you say, well, I'm I'm actually storing that inside right now, Ron. 2 years down the road, you might switch that and say, well, I can park it outside and save 20,000 a year on rent.
That's that's significant for some of these businesses, and they're capable of storing it outside, but that's the same thing with long yards. Right? You're kind of that minimum cost to properly store something securely, but it is it is exposed to the elements. So Yeah. It's a great it's a great conversation because I think in a lot of economic uncertainties, there's 2 classes that are pretty, you know, consistent.
It's the the lowest paying client or the super wealthy. This is the middle class that kinda gets hurt a lot. And with long hours, it's kind of weird in a few approaches because you have companies that can downsize and benefit, and then you have smaller companies that are upsizing and they could benefit as well. So you get the tail end of all shifts in the marketplace. And because, you know, a little layer on top of everything going on with as we're seeing AI and the world shift and, just jobs are kind of becoming a little uncertain and changing quickly.
We're kind of like a foundation old business incubator for startups. If you think about it, I don't know the light. Because we're we're an affordable place where small businesses can go, get what they need, and kind of get started. And that in itself is just a small business incubator that reaches when you think about to a massive audience of just these small business, you know, blue collars. There's so many logistic companies or whatnot.
So, yeah, I think we benefit. I'm not too worried about the economy. Age is being that blue collar mindset that these guys, things are going a little bit weird. Usually, it's the the blue collars in a lot of cases, you know, health and medicine and that typically shine through. And and we're we're there.
We provide business for them. So Yeah. I mean, it's it's kind of atypical too to think about, like, in the trucking side when business is good and a lot of these guys are on long haul routes and and they're out on the road, they might be on the road, like, 20 day 25 days out of the month, and they say, Ryan, I don't need any parking. My my 30 trucks, 28 are on the road at any one point in time because we're always picking up and going, it's when the economy slows down, they still have a $100,000 truck that they're not gonna park it on the street. But then if they're slow, they need a place to park it.
So we we're thinking our occupancy might actually go up even if the economy slows down just with the lack of freight activity. What I like too is, do you do tenant interviews? Like, do you ask them on a on a somewhat systematic basis, like, how their business is doing? What could you do to help them more? Because, you know, you said you're you're in touch.
You, like, kinda do hands off, but I'd be very curious about the data and asking them what could you guys do because maybe you could be a funnel to a flex location or a long yards that's owned or partnered with. And Yeah. The biggest data that we have right now is, like, who's our client, the age, the distance you're willing to drive. There's a lot of other, you know, metrics. We survey them, and we wanna know general information.
Always most of their habits, so we can just be very confident with our expansion. I know them pretty well because I just grew up in a blue collar world at 14 and let's work in the trade. So for for a good, at least, amount of them, I I kind of know their habits and behaviors. But the the most of the data is, like, how far they're willing to drive, what distance are they coming from, household income, age, and and those kind of things that we wanna get dialed in as much as we can. And then we do interview a few of them just to promote the marketplace.
Like, what has it done for you? Why is it how is longer beneficial to your business? We can use that copywriting and so on and so forth. So, yeah, I mean, we're trying to extract as much as we can from our clients a 100%. Alright.
So you're just trying to create a profile right now more for marketing and to find out what brought them in so you can fill more yards versus, like, deep diving into their expansion or what they do for business and that sort of thing. Yeah. Exactly. We're we're finding such an influx of different avatars of clients. So I haven't you know, I'm kinda looking at it like a broad net right now.
Where are they coming from? What's their habits? And then over time, if I discover there's 30% of this avatar, that stays this amount of time, then my energy and resource can be focused on on them, and where do we target and how do we target them. But for now, it's more like as a broad sense. Like, I wanna make sure that that the mass data is as trackable as possible, and then I'll get more granular as time goes on.
And we are, you know, a start up. So we also have bandwidth on our corporate side. We can only study and do so much on r and d. And between looking at land, zoning parcels, the zoning, building code requirements, studying our our clients. Well, you know, we're heavily focused on acquisitions and supporting corporate and franchise partners as well.
So, I think at this point, you know, there's always room for improvement, but we have a pretty good hold on on who our clients are and what's important to them. Awesome. Awesome. What about technology? Are you guys using, like, software to to do billing?
Are you doing text messaging? Like, how's that? Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of automations.
And And what's beautiful about Longview is you pull up to the front gate, there's a QR code, you scan it, goes through our website, you can literally DocuSign the agreement, upload your credit card, get a lease, welcome video, here's your yard info, done, hands off. And what's really neat about our facility too is you can text the gate. So if you're renting a yard, you're storing, let's say, masonry equipment and you got your crew or a homeowner coming to look at a certain type of stone, you could track them, come into the yard, text the gate, open it. They're getting a little VIP service. We can manually open the gate from the cell phone while you're watching the cameras, follow them in the yard, then you can have a grid system on your fence, a b c to 12 whatever.
And then you can literally go look at pile of v 7 and you see the client talking to the landscaper, and they're looking at the exact stone all virtual. So it's really kind of diving in on the software side. We wanna automate that as much as possible, and we feel like we have already a good leg up, but, with constant tech and innovation, we're always trying to improve. But, yeah, we we rely heavily on tech, which just reduces the man hours. Is that a third party software?
Yeah. I mean, that's Easy Storage Solutions. So What what dropped the link? What's the name of it? Easy Storage Solutions.
Okay. Yeah. I use Easy Storage as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So so the text to open the gate is part of their Yeah. Access Yeah. Role? Yep.
Okay. Not a lot of people know that. Yeah. I didn't know. I mean, we have one of the newer, LiftMaster units that is Wi Fi enabled, and you can is it so it goes through, like, my queue or not?
Well, the software is PDK that integrates with ESS. So Okay. How that all integrates, I'm I'm not to that level. But, I you know, we run all the conduit to do the prep, but we have, you know, the experts come out. We just do the final troubleshooting.
Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
I I mean, I think, it makes sense that you you wanna embrace that technology because the more remote that you can make your product, just the better it's gonna be for everything, for for daily, for customer, you know, experience, and then also for exit. Right? You can sell it to an investor and say, hey. You can buy this yard and not 90% remote, but you don't need to have somebody on-site 40 hours a week like a like a mini storage because, again, I think I think the comparisons there to mini storage are retail customers that you're not as repeat, so you get a lot of new people. And when new people are walking up, I want somebody to talk to them versus, you know, with, with business tenants in industrial.
We get the same guys. Once they know the drill and it's it works, then then they're good. I think that's pretty futuristic that you can control and watch. And and you said the tenants have access to your cameras? Yes.
So we get online? Yeah. We give them access to the main cameras so they could just it's kinda like the a community feel. Right? We want everybody to know that they're looking out for each other and everyone looks out for their neighbor, and that's kind of a cool thing.
I don't know if it's more of a Canadian thing. We'll find out how that works in the states. You know? I look. I'm a lawyer.
I'm trying to think of, is there a liability reason you wouldn't want people to have access to it? And It's it's the sound is the biggest thing. So you have to disclose it in the lease agreement, and you you you should, remove the sound so people can't hear. And then as long as you have audio. Yeah.
And then as long as you have visual, representation on the fencing and then the entrance that you it's under video surveillance, which is pretty standard for a lot of facilities, then that's understandable. They they don't have control. They just have visual access. Okay. Yeah.
So they don't have control. They have view only and no I think no audio is right. Whoever whoever told you that legal advice is probably good. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's fascinating. There's no expectation of privacy.
There's no constitutional issue, and and you disclose it. But then you get the benefit in in my perspective. The tenants who have higher value stuff or the tenants who are just more neurotic, they can check their cameras and they can watch it all the time if they want. And it allows them to lease from you or pay a premium to be right underneath the camera as opposed to to the side. And they say, oh, I have, you know, my mom's lawnmower in here.
It's really, really valuable. I'm I wanna watch it all the time. You say, yeah. No problem. You know, we can give that to you.
Versus my setup, it do have remote cameras and I have it, you know, I have it all on my phone. I don't let I don't let them access. So they have to message us if they want footage from a particular time. Got you. They don't get real time.
They don't get the live access, but, and again, it's pretty infrequent, but sometimes tenants do. They'll they'll message or say, hey. Something happened, or can you just pull up this footage and send it to me? And it's a little bit of work, but what you have is, hey. I don't wanna do any work.
I'll just give you access. And it's it's it's twofold. It's it's for the sense of security, which is one of our biggest things. We want, you know, it's a blue branding. It's that sense of security.
It's a sense of being a high level above everything else in the marketplace for outside storage. But it's also a little bit of a bright thing. So, you know, if you're a contractor, you're with your friends and family or whatnot, like, yeah, look at long hair. Some people you're explaining long hair. It's like, well, look at these cameras.
Alright? Because sometimes people listening, they're like, it might take them like 5 or 10 minutes to get it. You show a video or a picture. Boom. It's instant.
So it's an education process, my business. And the more value we can create and support these small businesses, the more they're gonna wanna tell about it. And that's how we get more clients, you know. So, it's just it's a it compounds. That's like, no.
I think that's a great Eva. I'm gonna look into sharing my cameras with them because I can't see any downside. And to your point too, if they have a new truck or they they wanna show somebody, oh, look how tech automated where I park is. I can look at my truck 24 hours a day and know that it's there. That's that's valuable.
And then if they advertise too, I would say I would probably say we're the only truck parking yards that let you monitor your own stuff. Watch your own stuff in real time. That's capable, but I don't think other people are doing it. Right? But it doesn't cost you anything too.
That's the other crazy thing. Yeah. It's free. And, there's a future to this as well. Now we're exploring this, but we can get automated drones.
You know? Where it can literally go fly around every few hours and it can have sensors on the fence panels. So say anyone's coming around and a fence panel gets vibrate vibrations through theft in the middle of the night or whatnot, it'll automatically go and alert them and then and alert the authorities or you can censor however you want it. So that's really cool. So just imagine pulling into your gate, and you see the automated drone just flashing blue and red.
And then, like, you're like, oh my god. This I feel like I'm in, like, a police impound lot or something like You even have a gun on there. That's a It can't a taser. Yeah. Taser.
Maybe in Texas or Florida, but not in Canada. You can have, like, a little water pistol. But, you know, in the US, it's like a an m 4. How comical would that be, though? Like, some somebody is cutting your fence and then a little drone comes up and just shoots them in the face with a water gun.
It's that's how we be more surprised and be like, oh, wow. That's how we keep our managers on track. We go and follow them with the drone and spray them when they're not moving fast enough. That's our efficiency. Yeah.
I mean, that's a that's a great example, I think, in in particular for iOS. Right? We have these large lots, that are fairly large coverage. It's hard to get cameras on every square foot of of a 5 acre or 4 acre property. But the drone could easily access it from its charging dock in in addition to, you know, doing a perimeter scan.
Yeah. I wanna look into so do you know of any drone patrols? Because how does that run with, like, the FAA? I guess it could be piloted from somebody remotely at the like, observed Yeah. When it flies.
But it can be remote. Right? You could pay somebody $6 a day in the Philippines to be like, hey. You sit there. You control the drone.
It's gonna go and go automate. If anything happens, if you see it flying towards a baby, you know, you you hit stop. You take control. But I feel like that's all they want. They just want a human to be able to take control, but not necessarily hit any buttons.
Yeah. And I believe different states in different areas have different laws and requirements on that. So Well, it's largely federal. It's it's it's largely governed under federal law. It's like usurped for for FAA jurisdiction.
So I'm that that's the good thing for for us, though. I don't think it's too much state or local. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah.
I haven't gone to that. They may have other ordinances that they interpret, but in terms of the the flying, the pilot license, and that sort of thing, it's federal right now. So Okay. Yeah. That's cool.
Yeah. I mean, we'd love to get into that space in the future, but for now, not yet. I mean, the prices, some of them the one charge is, like, $16 a month for an automated drone. You're like, okay. You know, we're not we're not a $45,000,000 facility, you know, in the courtyard.
So there needs to be a bit of a a market adjustment, I think, for drones. But they're they're I think the automations and and what you're talking about the remote that you can have a VA do because even we have cam VA study, they watch the cameras at night. Right? Just check-in. Very, very feasible.
Yeah. I mean, that's to me, that's the future. That's leveraging technology and robotics or we won't use the buzzword AI, but just to supplement human abilities so that you could have somebody remote monitor 14 facilities, 20 facilities. Right? You could easily do that, from from a remote location as opposed to the old days.
Somebody would have to be here in Dallas driving around and, oh, I get a phone call or some sensor trip. So I I triggered a landline phone call, and I have to go drive out there and put eyes on it. Huge waste of of resources and time. Oh my god. For many reasons.
So we're vertically integrated. We go, we find the land, and we can do entitlements, construction development, and then management lease up. So, you know, when we're set up with a little office and we got this remote drone, we can literally oversee the construction development live with these drones. Literally fly up to the bulldozer guy, check the surveyor, making sure that the site work is done, the underground conduit's being done, and you can probably eliminate 80% of the infield work with the management at the least by having because it's so focused. Like, you you get real time and you could just meet with the guys, put on the headset, you're talking to them, and you're following around on a drone from halfway around the world.
How cool is that? Right? Yeah. I mean, how much improvements do do you have? And and this is just kinda wrap up too.
We'll we'll kinda close on this one. So tell us, I guess, a little bit about the improvement process because you're putting gravel down. You're what kind of fencing are are we having? Yes. We use a modular fencing system.
It's like a hybrid. It's a little bit unique to the marketplace because the fencing actually moves around. So it adapts. If a client, you know, there's 2 medium sized yards and there are only ones left, and the client wants large one, we move the fencing in the middle. But it's it's not just like your temporary fence.
It's more like it slides into concrete. So we use a hybrid model of of, like, bringing 2 worlds together. Because I'm a builder and I just love innovation, I introduced that to the long model, myself. And I mean, yeah, if you're looking between a 3 and 8 8 acre facility, the build out is still not inexpensive. It's between $38100,000.
You have your underground conduit, your electrical, you got your cameras, you got your fencing. Fencing, you know, in Florida, we're being quoted $55 a foot. So, you know, we we can do it less, but it's still not cheap. But the return is still much very faster and the impact on the the facility as a whole is still definitely worth it. Yeah.
That's what I was saying. Your your your improvements are still very temporary. You can even the conduit stuff, but there's no foundation, there's no structural permitting and and vertical construction. The modular stuff, you could pack it up and move it to another site theoretically. Right?
And that's that's exactly we're a land banking business in a way. So, you know, 5 or 10, eventually the land in a lot of cases becomes worth more of the business on the land. So with a lot of businesses, you can't just tear down your self storage building, you know, it's not efficient. Us, pack up your fencing, go to the next site or sell it. We have that versatility.
It's like self storage self storage on steroids. I I kind of explain to people. So it's fast build out, it's modular, and it's adaptable and it could be taken with you. So it's just a lot different than what's in the marketplace. Yeah.
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, Chris, it it was great chatting with you. Love to hear about the growth and kind of the path. So what's the best way for people to get in contact with you if they're if they're interested in learning more?
Yeah. They can go to the website, longairs.com, complete a form. You could also email me directly, clong@longyards.com, and, always happy to, meet new people. Awesome. Well, it was great chatting.
We'll have check out one of the facilities in person. You said the Abilene? That's probably the closest one, right, for me? Yeah. You're you're in Dallas?
I'm in Dallas. Yeah. Yeah. So Abilene would be the closest one. We we had the 1, Dallas Fort Worth, but that fell through the cracks, unfortunately.
North Houston, we have a territory secured, but it's still preliminary in the development. So, yeah, I believe it's probably gonna be the first one to finish line close to Well, I'd love to do a, on-site tour. Maybe if you come down for the grand opening or, I'll just drive out there with the, with the owner. That'd be really cool. I'd love that.
Awesome. Alright, guys. Well, thanks for tuning in to this, LongYard's iOS mini stair mini storage on steroids, and we'll see you next time.