Dave Cramer: Good question. And a good thought. And thanks for being here. You know I – we had a lot farther to fall. If you really study what happened during COVID, where we started in ’19 and ’20 in our occupancy levels, which we’re coming close to now as we’re back down to it. We had the most occupancy gain of any of the peer group, any of them. And we had, we’ve had the most fall off, obviously. And if you think about where we’re positioned today, it’s still a result of that tough comp. I mean we’re finding our we look at supply demand. We look at marketing equilibrium. We look at where our portfolio can run at an occupancy level that generates the maximum amount of revenue that we’re trying to strive for. I think that’s the spread you’re seeing.
It just — as we cycle back down into what I would call normal patterns. We certainly are working to find the right balance between those two. I talked on the last call, I do think, as we look going forward, we want to make sure as we optimize our portfolio. Do we have the right unit mix in all of our locations for the right occupancy levels we want to run at? And so strategically over time, we are looking at sizes of units, how long they are on market? How full are they? Is there opportunities for us to change our unit mix a little bit and reattribute our properties versus just discount the unit down 40% to try to fill it up? We think there is a better approach to that and so I think as we cycle through this last quarters you know some of that occupancy comp and that spread will start tighten to what the peer group looks like year-over-year.
Jeff Spector: Okay, thank you. And then how – are you balancing the leverage, you know, your leverage? It is higher than the peers versus the share buybacks. You know I definitely appreciate the share buybacks. But at the same time, it just, it feels like an environment where a company should be reducing debt. So how are you balancing those two?
Brandon Togashi: Yes, Jeff, good question. It’s obviously top of mind for us and that that goes back to my earlier comment about this is a multi-quarter execution. So I think you know at the end of the day, our – intent is when we’re done with you know, with these core set of immediate initiatives that they’ve spoken to, you know our leverage is going to be you know equal to what it was before we endeavored to execute on all these strategies or even lower. Right. And so everything that we’re doing now is with an eye towards ultimately creating more liquidity so that when market conditions are more conducive, we can grow externally at the same pace that we enjoyed for you know several years And you know also address the annual debt maturities that we have coming up and you know put ourselves in a position, the best capital position to fund our growth and to address kind of those annual capital needs.
Jeff Spector: Thank you.
Dave Cramer: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Samir Khanal with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.
Samir Khanal: Hi, Dave on maybe getting back to the easier ECRI question. But can you — how much has that sort of moderated through the year?
Dave Cramer: You know it’s a good question, Samir. You know for us, I would say in the last couple of months, we’ve probably come up, are really, really high. We were pushing really, really hard through the summer. Frequency, a little bit elevated in the summer, but certainly on the amount of rate increase. And so it’s moderated slightly in the last couple of months. Frequency hasn’t changed, cadence hasn’t changed. But we’ve come off a little bit on you know the top in percentages of rate increases and some of – that’s a function of we got a lot of tenants process through the summer you know and so that was great. We got out in front of that piece of it and some of it were obviously you know as you look at market conditions and units that are opening up and those things.
But I will tell you, we’re still well above pre-pandemic levels and the technology is you know, we have better line of sight. We’re able to react quicker, understand trends quicker. I’m really pleased with the position we’re at to really continue to execute in the market conditions we are in.
Samir Khanal: Okay, got it. And then I guess the switching of the transaction markets. You know, it looks like you acquired a few assets. I mean, how are you thinking about sort of revenue growth, NOI growth, maybe the underwriting of those properties? Thanks.
Dave Cramer: Yes. And another good question. Certainly, you know we’re able to tap the Captive pipeline. So those are assets, obviously our PROs have had a good line of sight on them for a number of years whether they were filling them up or built them in, and worked through the process of seasoning them up. Certainly next year, and it’s going to be a challenging year as far as you look at revenue growth. But we also, we’re adding stores in markets where we have operational efficiencies. We think as we’re bringing them in, there’s still upside to those. You know we believe we brought most of those assets in around – right around our six caps today and as you look forward moving forward, you know, we’ll grow out of that and have some success around it.
And I think really with six caps a year forward-looking if you think about it that way. And then, we’ll continue to grow through it. But yeah you know from a revenue perspective, we’ve certainly moderated our expectations on underwriting and how we’re thinking about growth on assets we’re looking at. I think that also contributes to the overall market conditions of how people are buying properties today, it’s hard to underwrite tremendous amount of revenue growth unless an asset has some fillip left into it or some — something that’s not got on from a seasoning point of view, hope that helps.
Samir Khanal: Okay, got it. Thank you.
Dave Cramer: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Todd Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Todd Thomas: Hi, thank you. Brandon, Dave with regard to the buybacks. You know, I think you characterized it as a multi-quarter execution. So does that mean that you anticipate continuing to buy back stock here in the near term or do you pause a bit here? I just wasn’t clear on what the message was. And you know it sounds like some of the dispositions or the recap plans that that you’re alluding to you know are, you know, you are expecting to reduce leverage. But is it possible that leverage rises above the 6.5 times leverage level in the near term just between additional buybacks and the near-term negative NOI and EBITDA growth that you’re forecasting?
