And these are all activities, we like to see outside the risk. The PROs are really taking more of that risk and they’ll season the asset up and then bring it to us and see if it’s an acquisition target for us in the future. And again, from a source of capital, they’ve all done this over the years, they have a lot of good line of sight of where to get the pieces from. You know pricing wise, I’m not going to go – get into because there’s a lot of moving pieces there. If you’re building or you’re value adding or if you’re buying a CO deal that the pricing metrics are you know quite wide through all those pieces of it. You know, I would, if you look at it, I would say, you know from a number’s perspective, 10 to 15 stores have been bought by the PROs this year.
And they’re still sourcing more. And then you know there’s some other activity, I know they’re working on it. And for us, we like it, and the fact that it just continues to restock our Captive pipeline. ***EOF***
Todd Thomas: Okay, all right, thank you.
Dave Cramer: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question is from Spenser Allaway with Green Street. Please proceed. Spenser, please check and see if your phone is muted. Okay. We will move on. Our next question will be from Keegan Carl with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.
Keegan Carl: Hi guys, thanks for the time, maybe a two-part question here, just curious what you’re seeing top of the funnel demand and you know how that’s benefiting from marketing spend and then how you’re thinking about the mix between your marketing spend and your street rate?
Dave Cramer: Good questions and hi thanks for joining too. You know top of the funnel, certainly, we’ve been able to generate good activity there and a lot of that activity is, because of the additional marketing spend. And so we – the teams have done a good job really analyzing where we’re getting our best value from a paid search perspective. And really looking at how we can drive the right opportunity. I would tell you, what we’re focused on is conversion rate. And so as you think of the top of the funnel, you can produce a lot of people at the top of the funnel by marketing spend but it’s how you get them to convert through the funnel is important to us. And so that’s where discounting and street rate and that conversion piece all come together.
And so us – in the markets where we have good footing on occupancy. We have pretty stable street rates, conversion rates have been a little more easy to predict and a little more easy to maintain. Markets where you have some pretty wilder dynamic street rate movement, a little more challenging. I mean if you’re generating an additional 5% of the top of the funnel but your conversion rate is dropping by 4% and you’ve had a pretty volatile street rate market, obviously, we have to incite ourselves. We want to continue to spend and drive the top of the funnel and lower our conversion rate or we want to adjust our pricing and keep that conversion rate – the target levels we want to keep it at. I would tell you in our business, it’s a store-by-store, market-by-market, adventure, right?
And you know one thing I will talk about, and we’ve been talking about is our technology continues to improve. Our bid models are new and improved. And our AI technology behind those bid models, are new and improved. And so the team is much more efficient at what they’re doing today versus where we would have been a year, two, three years ago.
Brandon Togashi: Our call center investment as well, Keegan is another one to call out. I mean, that’s an area where we’ve really made some big advancements on our – what is now our proprietary platform. And that I should have added that when Juan asked an earlier question about our G&A, because that’s another area where our investment in these technologies manifests itself. The call center expense for us is in the marketing line item, in our property OpEx. So that’s – another area where you know that shows up and impacts the numbers, outside of just the pure G&A.
Keegan Carl: Got it. And then just one on guidance. Just curious what’s baked in from an occupancy perspective? I think Brandon said last quarter, you guys were expecting 200 basis points, 250 basis points drop from peak to trough, just wondering if that’s still in play and then where you ultimately see yourself ending the year at.
Brandon Togashi: Yes, I think it was 250 basis point to 300 basis point was the range we gave from the end of June through the end of the year. The working theory, I think for us and others in the sector was that maybe the back half of the year we wouldn’t see some of the same seasonal occupancy declines, because in the spring-summer, we didn’t quite see the same magnitude of uptick. And so that’s a potential scenario, you know that that – the optimistic scenario was baked into more of the high end of our guidance, Keegan. What’s played out is in fact much closer to kind of your typical seasonality. So we lost a 150 basis points from the end of – June through the end of September and another 90 basis points to the – in October.
And so that’s, that’s pretty much in line with kind of your pre-pandemic years 2018-2019. And so, what’s baked into our call it base case projections, which is really the midpoint of our guide is a continued de-sell or loss of occupancy of maybe – could be 100 basis points from the end of October through December. That wouldn’t be out of the norm.
