Welcome to the How Did They Do It Real Estate podcast. Have you ever wondered how people succeed in real estate and what steps they took to get there? If so, this podcast is for you. Your hosts, Selah and Eileen Prach, interview top experts in the real estate community to share with you their real estate journey and how they achieved massive success. Our goal is to provide you with valuable real estate resources and help you apply it to your own real estate goal.
Thank you everyone for joining today's episode of the how did they do it real estate podcast. I am your host, Sailaprak. Today, we have a special guest, Chris Long. Chris is the founder and operator of Long Yard Storage. After nearly a decade as a carpenter and business owner of Conrad Construction, Chris ventured full time in the realm of self storage.
Having created the very first long yard storage in his hometown of Ottawa, Ontario's, Canada. He migrated to United States to pursue the international build out of the company. He is responsible for the construction, stabilization, and management of the assets. So, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time out today. Welcome to the show.
Yeah. Excited to be here. Thanks for taking the time. Hi, Chris. Can you please share a little bit more about your background and how did you get started with real estate?
Yeah. Yeah. So I've always been interested in real estate, even as a kid. I mean, there's just something about owning real estate and getting paid to do it, and it's kinda once you have that bug, it's hard to look elsewhere. So I always knew I wanna get into it.
It's funny because I I didn't know what path to take. And then at 1st, I was gonna be a real estate agent. I kinda didn't really like that too much because I like being involved in the real estate and actually seeing the change. So, anyway, I got into construction and started my own construction company, got into my first residential project, bought a house, turned into duplex. And then I was like, I like this.
I like it. And then I did it the second time. And it wasn't too long until I realized that that especially in Canada and Ottawa, it's just really bad for tenant laws. I was like, okay. I love real estate.
I love everything going on here, but these tenants, you know, it it's not fun. So I just pivoted the strategy. And then it's funny because everything kinda lined up at once. I had this commercial property near my house, and I needed space for my tools and my equipment. And the light bulb went off.
I mean, how come these storage yards don't exist? And they're not really a thing in Canada. So I figured, what the hell? I'm gonna go all in, and that's what I did. And I started up.
So that's a little bit about my journey with getting started in real estate and how I got into my first project and a little bit of how I, got into Longyear's. Awesome. So, thank you for sharing that, quick synopsis. I wanna go back a little bit. You mentioned earlier is that you were trying to get into real estate and couldn't decide, originally.
It's like, oh, you're gonna do real estate as a realtor's agent or and how did you end up in the construction? Yeah. Well, I had a lot of family in the trades. It's what I knew best. So that would probably be, like, a good quick summary of it.
And to be honest, I just didn't like the idea of you know, when I looked at the options, it it to me, I love building, basically. I'm a builder by heart, builder by nature, whether I'm building a business, building a great team around me, or building a long yard. I I need to be involved in the infrastructure and to actually see the project evolve. So when I thought about how I wanted to get into real estate, that part of it needed to be in my it was in my DNA. So I I I couldn't, you know, as much as I love talking to people, the other half of me doesn't you know, I love seeing things happen and watching the dirt change.
So it was just a part of me, and and that's what made me decide to go in that direction because, like I said, I I had to be involved in that part of the process. So you mentioned about, like, going into, like, a rentals, having a duplex, and then you said that the tenants law is is really pro tenant's in Ottawa. And how did you Can you walk us through the process? Like, one of the things that topics that you put in here is that how one deal is creating a financial freedom. Can you walk us through how how that happened to you?
Yeah. So and that would be the long year in this deal. I mean, getting into real estate, going over quickly again is like, I had one tenant that didn't pay me for a year in residential. And by the time I got them out, and then they destroyed things, and you're stuck high and dry. And it it didn't take me long to realize, you know, you can still make money in this and do it differently.
And then that one property, the commercial property, I bought it for 470,000. Now I did a vendor take back. So at the time, the down payment was my portion was 47,000. I bought it with my brother. And, so we sat on it for a while.
And this was the first property. This is the property that created financial freedom. It was just the one, and it it changed my life. And it's funny because sometimes you know what to do, but you just take a while doing it or thinking about it for a long time, and that was that scenario. So I sat on this property for a little while.
My brother and I, we bumped heads. We didn't agree. And so I had to buy them out, and I had to go open by myself. So it was a tough, you know, barrier to entry just getting it going. So I bought, like, I bought a 470, and then it was 47,000 down.
Then I had to buy my brother out, and then I had to develop it. But that one property, all in all, I was out of pocket from 200,000. I bought it for 4.70, and then I got an investor to come in for around 500. So in total, we bought 4.70, 700,000 for value add. So you're in for 1.1, 1.2.
And now, you know, it it's worth easily over 4,000,000. And that was my very first commercial project. And now the cash flow that it brings in allows me and my family to live in Florida and to expand the business internationally. Now it's one property, so it did create financial freedom and building a business is, you know, another layer. But that one property essentially gave me the cash and the lifestyle to live.
My wife is a stay at home mom, and she homeschools the daughters. And, you know, I'm working away, and it all cleaned down to one deal. So, yeah, it is really life changing. When was that? That was so we bought the property in 2017, and we sat on it for a while.
So I didn't do anything for a long time. But then we cut the ribbon in 2019, and shortly after that, it got formally appraised at 3,600,000. So you mentioned it's a value add properties, commercial property. What type of property was it? It's land.
So it's land with a house. And that's the beautiful part about the Longhehr's business model. So we have kind of like a blue sea effect where everyone's chasing these multifamily deals, and you kinda have a 1,000 people looking at one property. What we're looking at all the opportunity around it, and we can make opportunity work all day long. So it's a piece of dirt, and because of the cash flow and the business strength on it, it it got appraised at what it did.
And, we're just excited to do this over and over and over again. So now I wanna get into, the the business model, like you mentioned about LongYard, and it's just a piece of land. Tell us a little bit more about LongYard Storage. What did you guys do and what did you guys provide? Yeah.
So long yards and our slogan is more than storage because we are just more than that. So, basically, you think of mini storage, we are a yard that's fenced in and we provide storage for the big stuff. So self storage is small for small stuff, long yard is storage for the big stuff. And that's what we do. So we have a fenced in yard, and you have small businesses that need the space.
You have larger corporate clients. You got homeowners. You got hobbyists. The list really goes on. And it's an extensive list.
So and a lot of people try to compare it to Boating RV, but we are not. We are not Boating RV. We are contractor yards, and those yards provide tons of different opportunities in themselves. And then in the yard, we can bring you power, we can bring you a camera, and then we also could bring you what's called a long box, which is a container that pops up and an and folds and unfolds. And the same thing for an office.
So you got everything to to run your small business or to create an affordable storage space, and that's what Longhairs is. So, basically, your company will be purchasing land, and then if somebody needed a space to actually store equipment or tools or anything like that, you will fence them up. It depends on, what's the size that, the customer would want. Is that correct? Correct.
Except we're not only buying land. We're looking, we're actually joint venturing with land owners. So if anyone listening owns land, they think this model can work, please reach out to LongYards. So it's a joint venture. We also I'm a frank we're a franchise system, and we have franchisees that are starting to launch in Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal.
So there's that revenue. And then, corporately, if we decide to buy the real estate because it's a great location and great opportunity, then that's what we're going to do. So we have different avenues for acquisition and expansion. But, like, as you said, the the core LongYard's model is that it's providing these adaptable it's adaptable storage solutions for the small business owner and for anyone else that needs space. Got it.
So can you give an example of from a business owner standpoint, if they wanted to use Long Yard, what does the service would look like and how much would they expect to pay? Well, it varies on the size. So we have common size smaller yards, anywhere from 4 to $500 a month, and walks the same way as self storage. So they pull up their phone, they reserve the unit, they pay, they sign the lease, they upload their credit card, they get their gate code, they get a welcome video, and and they're off to the races. So we try to automate the business as much as we can.
They obviously have to follow rules with our business model. It's a little bit unique to the marketplace, and and how we make them follow rules is, you know, that's with our business. And also how we get our clients, we need to make sure that we're still getting good clients, that are gonna be respectful of the space, and and that we can see for being there for a long time. So, yeah, a little bit about getting them and and what they expect if they roll up to a loan here. Awesome.
And you mentioned about that you also do a joint venture with other landowners. And let's say you identified an opportunities with a landowner that's coming in and wanted to do a joint venture with you. How does the process look like, and what would a landowner expect out from having a partnership with Longyield? Yeah. Great.
So it's pretty simple. Landowner provides 2 things. They provide the land and they provide the financing. And we provide the systems, the business, the marketing, the management, and we make it turnkey. And that's pretty much the relationship.
So we want to keep it simple. And we oversee the build out. We make sure the zoning is good. And and like I said, the only thing the 2 things they provide is the site and the financing. And typically, it's almost a no brainer because SBA, we have different loans out there.
Because Longyear's got approved for SBA, so you could get loans down 10 to 15%. And then you're just increasing the value of your land by like I did with my scenario, you're adding, you know, in many cases, 7 figures with a small upfront capital. So mutually, we figured this is actually a great way to acquire and expand our business. And then you also mentioned about the franchise side of the business as well. So how does that work?
Right. So we are a fully built out franchise. And like I said, we have franchisees that are signed up. And how it works depends if we either own real estate or if you're in a good market and you want to own the real estate. So depending on where you're at with that process.
So let's say you, for instance, wanted to buy a franchise, you're in Atlanta, then we'll we'll dedicate a territory for you, and then we'll we'll joint venturely look for real estate that works for the Longyear's model in your area. Then we'll just go through the process together. We walk you through everything. The Longyear's buy box, what the requirements are. We wanna make sure the site selection is secure.
And what we have is what's called a gold log or go home guarantee, which sounds kinda funny. But basically, it's a $5,000 deposit. There's no commitment. If we don't find nothing for you within around a 100 days, then you take your $5, and you walk away. No commitment.
But we're in good faith to find a piece of property. And once we find a piece of property, then we get married. So then we, you know, we lock it up, and we show you all the systems, help you lease it up, all the support that you need. And at this point, we're allowing the franchisee to own the real estate, and that's a little bit about the franchise side. We love hosting this show.
When we started this podcast, we were doing all the editing and postproduction ourselves. Now we are very excited to have this particular company as a partner of the show to do all the postproduction for us because it gives us the freedom to focus on the 2 things we care about, serving you, our listener, at a higher level and growing our own multifamily business. If you are like and me, then you want to add value to others while scaling your business. A podcast is the best way to do both, and we invite you to contact Adam Adams. He can help you launch your podcast, market your show for more listeners, and take all the post production off your plate so you can focus on your business instead of in it.
Listeners of this show can get a free consultation with Adam. To schedule your free consultation, find the link in the show notes. And for the franchisees and the split in terms of the revenue side of things, how does that work? So on the franchise side, it's more cut and dry. It's more of a royalty structure.
So it's we're actually probably raising a royalty fee, but right now it's 6% of the royalty and 2% for marketing and ads. So you're you're about 80% off the top. But another thing I wanna add to the franchise side is we have long boxes, which we sell and rent, and we get it at a wholesale price. So we get these containers, these units at around 50% market rates, and our franchisees strongly benefit from selling and renting those. So, you know, even when you factor in the royalties and the revenues, by the time we get your products at such a great you know, we have good purchase power that it gets passed on to the franchisee, and it's a win win.
But so the franchise model, that's pretty much how the the royalties work. Got it. Got it. So is there an opportunity for limited partners to participate or limited investors to participate in the Long Yard business model as well, or is they just for joint ventures and franchisee only? No.
And that's on the corporate side. So, basically, there's 3 ways we're growing a business, corporate, joint venturing with landowners, and franchising. So because each opportunity kind of presents different ways to do the deal, but we need to keep it pretty simple in those territories. But for corporate, we do have a syndication that we're working on in Central Florida, and we are familiar with GPs and LPs. And, we will happily entertain, an investor dropping on board to enter you know, look at corporate locations with us.
So I know this is more like every syndication dealers is, like, just different deals by dealers, and the projections and all the returns and everything are also different. And for educational purposes, and what is typical of breakout look like for a syndication with long yard? So it's kinda tricky because franchise law with long yards, I have to kinda dance around a lot of numbers. I can't promise or make commitments. Correct.
So on the numbers of the business, but on the real estate side, it's a little bit more different. It's a little bit more. I mean, it it it's really deal specific. I mean, you are seeing great returns. I will say that the returns come quickly, and it's a unique model.
So a lot of investors that are getting behind us love it for those reasons. And I'm just happy to be open book when, you know, I'm talking to a potential investor. So is there a potential exit from the deal as well, or, like, is it a 5 year hold, 7 years hold, or how long is the time frame, for a typical deal? Yeah. So if we're doing SBA, you're you're typically looking at a refinance after 3 years.
It depends on the strategy of the lending environment. But right now with you know, you can look at a 3 year exit on a refi, or you could do a long term hold, or you could sell. And that's one option as well. Now we are selling as a long area. It's because we keep the name, but we provide a lot of value, and we have investors that wanna come and buy a turnkey product.
And there's different accents for deferred scenarios. So where is LongYard operating right now? What does the portfolio look like? So we're still fairly new. Like I said, we we cut the ribbon on our first location in 2019.
I just immigrated into the states, immigrating. So our first location is, just being in early build out development in, Central Florida Winter Haven. We have locations in North Carolina that are going through early phases. We have franchisees that are jumping on board. We have, you know, ones that are signed up, and they're more focused in different parts of Florida.
And then Toronto, we're just about to launch it in Montreal. So we're a little bit, still early, but we're in a a good growth projection phase and really excited for the future. Just wanna get surrounded by great people. So now it's gonna be on a little bit on a personal side. I just wanna ask you, like, you live in Canada.
And what made you move to Florida or the United States? Yeah. Well, it's funny because, first of all, 2 quick answers, standard of life and business opportunity. So in Florida, I mean, you know, if we wanna have a family day, we could just drive more in Disney. And I for having daughters, that's really special.
And it's funny because the wife I wanted Texas because I thought it was, you know, it's just great for business, and she won in Florida. You know, we're in Florida, so she won. So it's and business. Right? You just US is 10 times the size of Canada.
There's so much more opportunity, and the lending environment and appetite is more advantageous as well. So I figured I wanna be where the heat is quite literally and where the action is. And that's why I'm in Florida, and that's why I think it's a great market. Florida's just massive for business growth, and I think it's perfect for long years. Have you seen any challenges when you first moved to the US, especially starting out as a a new business owner here in the US?
Well, there's lots of challenges. You know? I I went from bootstrapping my first location to now building an international real estate development company as a franchisor. So I kinda have these gear in the headlight moments like, oh, that's how that works. And, so lots of challenges, but, you know, my why is greater than my how, and I'll and I'll figure it out.
And I'm I've always been fortunate enough to be surrounded by great people that help me find obstacles that sometimes I don't even know exist. But I I'm I'm kinda simple in a way where I built Longyear because I needed it, and now I think the world could benefit from my product. And I find I'm just gonna find great people that are aligned with that vision. And it's a simple philosophy, and I think it's gonna go a long way. Is do you have any tips for our listeners in terms of, business owners who wanted to scale up their business?
I know you started in Canada, and now you explain this, like, as an international, business itself. Any tips of anybody who wanted to be successful like you? What can they do? I'd say focus, staying you gotta get really clear on your vision, and you gotta really clear on your core values in your team. And that's one of the biggest things.
Like, what's your north star? And for me, it's like building as many yards internationally as possible. And then we break that up into different ways to do it. So, you have to get very, very clear on your goal and your vision, and then you have to surround surround yourself with great people that are aligned with that. I think that would be the quickest, sweetest way to say it.
Obviously, there's many layers. Staying focused on on your systems and getting really clear on your marketing. That's one of the big things we're learning right now is the marketing and just getting great leads and and focusing the right area and targeting the right leads. There's so many different levels to it, but it's super fun. And I just think it comes down to that foundation, having a true north star and a good team and and clear vision.
So do you have any what about, on a day to day's activity? Do you have any basic, like, best practices that you do every day and in order to making sure that you get everything done on times or anything that you can share on a day to day activity and making sure that we stay focused? Yeah. So as a CEO, you have to be very goal oriented and timeline oriented with all your team members. So anytime that you're asking someone to do something, it's like it's not just asking.
It's like, when can this be done? And then there's accountability. So I would say the biggest thing as a CEO is keeping you're just keeping everyone in line, and you're constantly guiding that road towards the vision and making sure that things are not straying off too much. So I'd say that one of the biggest things, the second biggest thing is communication. Have clear expectations for communication and have communication lines open.
So we use Slack as an example for communication, and this could be you have different channels for different, targets in your business. And then we have Monday as our software, which creates timelines and transparency for all your goals with your team. And it and you can create checklists in Monday with workflows that are designed for each phase of the development of a project. So I would say implementing a good software with checklists and great communication. But as a CEO, like, you just keep everybody in line, and it's not an easy thing to do.
And sometimes you you you gotta say no more than you say yes, but it comes with discipline. And I'm I'm not a real expert. I'm learning every day. But right now where I'm at, these are the the tools I've been using. So, Chris, what is next for you and LongYard from here?
Just continue surrounding ourselves with great people. We understand growth and scaling takes human capital and the right people at the right time, and it takes great locations. So right now we're hyper focused on getting great locations with great people in Florida. Because, we understand, you know, your your first phase of growth has to be very successful, and you can't really have too much room for error. So taking our first few steps, even though I know where we're going, you gotta be very delicate with how you take those steps so you're not falling and going backwards.
So it's very site selective, very, relationship intensive, and that's our focus in the short term. The next year is to organically and strategically grow through Central Florida, which gives us a lot of quality control, and then we're off to the next phase after that. I know you don't have a crystal ball. You know, it's like in the real estate world 2023. I've been listening to a lot of, others, real estate investors out there on podcast, on YouTubes, and on the confer at at conference and all that.
And they feel like in 2023, there's a potential downturn. How did you feel about that statement and especially for your business model as well for 2023? Yeah. It's a great question, and I don't pretend to be an economic, you know, future crystal ball holder. But what I will say is that in recessions and times of downturns, there are still great opportunities to be made.
And I'm more on the side of optimism, and I believe recession as a whole can be looked at, through different markets. Look what you're seeing in California and New York with residential real estate compared to Florida. So there's more stable markets and there's there's others that are fluctuating a little bit more because of the politics going around it. So it's not always a black and white, what's gonna happen in each market. That's one part of it.
And on a bigger scale, you know, because our we are a business backed by real estate. So our business allows us to be more flexible and creative, which allows us to mold to different markets and adapt. So, how we can, you know we could focus our markets in the strong areas at the times that we feel like that market's gonna be that that has the strength to support the business. And we'll just shy away from where we believe that the market's not as strong. So broad term, will we see uncertainty?
Will things go down? Yes. But being laser focused and knowledgeable in your market and in your business will give you the competitive advantage to overcome obstacles. Got it. So, Chris, I know, sir, I wanted to ask this question.
So you're talking about market earlier. And how do you select where where you're going to get the land or for Long Yard? Yeah. That's a great question. We're very we're very focused on the feasibility and location of a long yard.
So there's many, many factors, and it took us a long time to really dive into that checklist data that says, is this location great? I will say a few bullet points on a high level. So if there's any listeners and they they think their property could work, create visibility. Obviously, the zoning has to support outside storage, and you wanna be pretty close to the core of the city. Great.
You know, ideally, a new build, new development, low unemployment. There's a lot, but just and I like great visibility. So those are a few bullet points off the top, but we definitely go really deep on the feasibility to make sure that it's gonna be successful. Because our business model, it's all depending on the strength of the lease up and the market around it that supports the growth and and to really make sure it's gonna be successful. For the last 6 to 9 months, we've been studying that data very intensely to make sure that we're ready for the next phase of growth of our business.
So what is your next phase? Expand. Let's go. Find people with land, franchisees, and corporate, but it's more hyper focused in Central Florida with great locations and great people. What is one thing that you know now about real estate that you wish you knew when you first started?
Oh, man. That's a really good question. There's so much. There's so much. It's hard to answer that one.
I would say learning great leads and great marketing, I wish I knew about earlier, which would present more opportunities, and we've learned to get those leads and to market them. So I feel like marketing is just kinda like the queen on the chessboard, and knowing how to best utilize that piece just is really a make or break for a business and merging that with real estate, it's a game changer. So, Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show today to talk to us about your background, about long yards, and about what you think about what the market would look like and also the future of LongYard. So if our listener wanted to find out more about you or wanted to, learn more about LongYard or wanted to invest with LongYard, where can they go? Perfect.
Yeah. So my cell phone's 941-278-1995. You could email me at clong@longyards.com, and check us out on my website, longyards.com, and you could find the email address, info at longyards. And I'm happy to reach out and talk to anyone who is interested or thinks they wanna get involved with the model and, excited to see where the conversation goes. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I appreciate it. Looking forward to chatting again in the future.
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