CubeSmart (NYSE:CUBE) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Chris Marr: So our approach to marketing and specifically in search over the last couple of quarters has been to be consistent in terms of how we’ve thought about spend from quarter-to-quarter. We haven’t had very much lumpiness to that spend over the last four quarters. But it’s a week-to-week decision in terms of how we think about allocating, particularly on the paid search side both overall and to individual markets. And so again, it will be what it will be depending upon where we see the opportunities. We had pretty significant spend in the third quarter of last year. And so the change this quarter wasn’t that significant. I think as we go forward the answer will be incurring costs on that side of our marketing efforts based on the returns that we believe that we can generate.

Competitors have an impact on that. And again, that can vary week-to-week and month-to-month. Overall, costs continue to go up certainly from the search side then offset by efficiencies in terms of our bidding and how we go out our strategy on customer capture. So long-winded answer but — but that’s kind of the state of the union on that.

Michael Goldsmith: Thank you very much. Good luck in the fourth quarter.

Tim Martin: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Juan Sanabria from BMO. Please go ahead.

Juan Sanabria: Good morning. I just wanted to go back to one of Jeff’s questions at the top with regards to the same-store guidance changing but not necessarily earnings. And Tim, I think you made an allusion to and correct me, if I’m wrong that maybe just within the ranges for both the same-store and earnings that the delta between those maybe explain why you were able to maintain one but not the other. So maybe just hoping you could expand upon your comfort level within the revised ranges for both earnings and same-store just so we can get a little bit more clarity on how you really see things both at the core operating level at the earnings level? Thank you.

Tim Martin: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how to answer the question any different, than I answered it before. I guess to the comfort level we are comfortable certainly when you provide annual ranges and you get closer-and-closer to the end of the year. And we’re sitting here with pretty much October results in hand. We have 10, 12, so the answer at this point. So we’re pretty comfortable with the ranges that we have provided. And again, I think it’s — there are a lot of ranges of individual assumptions that underline — that underlie and support the overall FFO per share range. And so, it’s really — simply the offset is where we expect to land in each one of those provided ranges and then where we expect to land from an overall standpoint. So we’re comfortable with the revised guidance as we as we always are, given what we know at the moment that we provide it.

Juan Sanabria: Fair enough. Okay. And then just — maybe just a broader question, what are your guys’ thoughts on when these price wars for a lack of a better term might end? And what would be the catalyst to see things change to be less competitive? It seems like it’s kind of caught everybody by surprise.

Chris Marr: Yeah. I think the catalyst as we look out, are again going to be around consumer movement. And certainly the easy one to look at is, the single-family home environment, I think in August which I believe is the last reported data new home transactions were down 37%. So it’s fairly clear out there that, homebuilders are using a big buy down as the loss leader buy down in the mortgage, if they have a mortgage subsidiary as the [indiscernible] leader to try to incentivize folks to purchase new homes. And in most markets you’re just not seeing transactions occur on the existing home side. So that certainly would be I think a catalyst to create some meaningful improvement in overall fundamentals for storage. Again, I think, if we see again, interest rate policy move to be more accommodative rather than restrictive I think not only does that impact the single-family home, but it obviously impacts your interest rate on your credit card and other consumer borrowings.