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Earnings Call: Q2 2019

Jul 31, 2019

Speaker 1

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Public Storage Second Quarter 2019 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Ryan Burke, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ryan, you may begin.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brandy. Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the Q2 2019 earnings call. I'm here with Joe Russell and Tom Boyle. Before we begin, we want to remind you that all statements other than the statements of historical fact included on this call are forward looking statements that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected by the statements.

These risks and other factors could adversely affect our business and future results that are described in yesterday's earnings release and our reports filed with the SEC. All forward looking statements speak only as of today, July 31, 2019. We assume no obligation to update or revise any of these statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. A reconciliation to GAAP of the non GAAP financial measures we provide on this call is included in our earnings release. You can find our press release, SEC reports and an audio webcast replay of this conference call on our website at publicstorage.com.

We do ask that you initially limit yourselves to 2 questions, but of course, feel free to jump back in the queue for any additional questions or follow-up. With that, I'll turn the call over to Joe.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Ryan, and thank you for joining us. We had a good quarter, and now I'd like to open the call for your questions.

Speaker 1

Your first question comes from Shirley Wu of Bank of America.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning guys. So my first question relates to street rates. How did 2Q trend and so far in July as well and also your move in rates?

Speaker 5

Sure. Yes, street rates were roughly flat in the quarter. But as we have talked about in the past, we focused more on move in rates as those are the rates that customers will ultimately pay us once they become a customer. Our move in rates were down 4% for the quarter and this was a lever that we used to drive move in volumes. Our move in volumes were flat year over year, which is one of the better quarters we've seen on move in trends over the past couple of years.

In terms of other levers that we utilized in order to drive that move in performance, advertising clearly being one of them and a little bit less in promotional discounts. But flat on street rates and down 4% on move in rates.

Speaker 4

Got it. And that's trended so far as well in July?

Speaker 5

Yes. We take consistent trends as we've gotten into July.

Speaker 4

Okay. So a follow-up to your marketing comment. So it continues to remain elevated and it's a lever that you guys are pushing a little bit more, how should we think about the run rate for the rest of 2019 versus let's say concessions?

Speaker 5

Yes. Well, advertising has clearly been a lever that we've been pushing on through 2018 and into 2019 to drive volumes. And those incremental move ins from that channel support what is an overall tougher move in environment. And we like what we're seeing there. Public Storage has real advantages online with our brand name and our scale in local markets with which we can drive move ins into the local inventory, the power of the Public Storage platform online.

Advertising was up 49% in the quarter. That follows up 28% quarter in the first quarter. And as I've said in prior calls, we're going to continue to push on that lever as we see good returns there. So we'd expect that we continue to utilize that lever in the second half of twenty nineteen as well. In terms of other levers, we talked about using move in rates and promotional discounts.

While primarily our dollar special for the 1st month rent and we'll continue to use that through the second half of twenty nineteen as well. Great.

Speaker 4

Thanks for the color.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Metz of BMO Capital Markets.

Speaker 6

Hey, guys. Joe, just wondering if you can comment on the revenue growth here, the 1.9%. Just wondering how that fared relative to your expectations. And then as we look at the trajectory, supply coming on here, the softness in demand, you guys have spoken about, would we be off base to expect it to trend back lower from here and into 2020?

Speaker 3

So, yes, Jeremy, I think, first of all, certainly we were encouraged by the fact that we saw another step up in our revenue growth. So have been seeing acceleration if you look at the quarter to quarter performance sequentially over the last few quarters. Tom just reviewed one of the important ingredients and unique capabilities that we've got relative to leveraging the power of our brand, the initiatives we've got around customer search efforts and the things that we do operationally that continue to give us tools to navigate what clearly continues to be market to market, in some cases, a heavy level of competition that is with us and could be with us for some period of time. We've been now in this band, say, the 1% to 2 percent revenue range. You can look at our predictive metrics going into Q3, kind of puts us in that same range more or less.

The things that if the things that we continue to use and drive relative to the capabilities, however, are encouraging because again quarter to quarter we're unlocking and using different tools and different levers to continue to drive the level of activity, customer acquisition, and things that we can do to operate again in some cases a very competitive market. Supply, as I mentioned, is going to be with us this year. Our tracking points to again another year of about $5,000,000,000 worth of deliveries. We think in 20 20, it's going to taper down a bit, maybe 10% to 15%, but you can't ignore the fact that's still heavy. It is shifting, and we've talked about that for the last few quarters from some of the more heavily impacted markets that got hit early in the cycle to markets now that we've got even more focus on knowing that we're going to have to again ramp up our efforts to compete with new supply, whether it's in a market like Miami, Boston, Portland, Oregon.

Over the last few quarters dealing with these other markets that have been hit hard. But the good news is the resiliency of the business overall is strong. Our customer base encourages us because we're seeing really no different behavior. Customers continue to be quite sticky. And again, it talks to the overall resiliency coupled with the fact that our own capabilities, the scale, the brand and the technological tools that we're continuing to develop are working well.

Speaker 6

Yes. So it sounds pretty fair to a lot of its internal, no real change of view on supply, if I heard you correct, I mean sort of in line with what you've been forecasting. Is that fair?

Speaker 3

That's fair. And again, there's without question, it kind of points to on the flip side, what we've been seeing on the acquisition front, there is a growing pool of owners out there that are taking product to market. They've got more sensible expectations relative to exit values. So we're seeing some good opportunities evolve on that end of the spectrum. But at the same time, many developers still look at this product as a very attractive product to be built, whether it's to own short term or long term and or just flip because in some cases they can make good returns even in an environment where we're seeing many markets oversupplied.

So again, we're dealing with these levels of deliveries as an industry we haven't seen before. And as we all know, it can take anywhere from 2, 3 or 4 years in many cases for these deliveries to get stabilized and until they are, it's a competitive factor you've got to deal with.

Speaker 6

All right. And second for me, and you just touched on it a little, but if I look at where you're buying in terms of price per pound and I look at where you're able to do the expansions and the developments and even the yield you've talked about in the past, it seems like a pretty good trade off here. So just wondering what if anything is holding you back from doing more development and expansions just given that obviously capital isn't an issue? Is it just human capital? Is it the availability of sites or expansion potential as

Speaker 5

you look at it?

Speaker 2

Well, I mean there's a few things in

Speaker 3

the mix there, Jeremy. So one of the things that we've talked about is the fact that we've got a pool of assets that in some cases we've owned for 3 4 decades that continually become good candidates for potential expansions. Now you can look at that and say, okay, let's just go do it all at once or tackle it at one time, but property to property, city to city, you have to work through a variety of different entitlement processes. In some cases, you can't make any changes and others you have to go into negotiations or processes that could take months, years in some cases. So you've got that factor at hand.

And then the other thing that we're very cognizant of is the impact that any expansion creates to an existing revenue stream on a particular asset. So you've got to calibrate around all those factors. The things that we've been able to do is identify and leverage the skills that we've gotten our development team into that effort. So you've seen on a proportionate basis as we stand today about 64% of our overall development pipeline is tied to redevelopment. Now the thing that has been trending down over the last few quarters, we haven't seen as many land opportunities that have been attractive, but there is some level of similarity with what's going on with land as it relates to what we're seeing on just pure acquisitions, meaning there are a broader pool of owners out there that we're seeing, they're coming to us and saying, hey, I've got a piece of property, thought I was going to take it through full entitlements or maybe it's already entitled, but I'm not going to take that next step to develop.

So we're encouraged by that and the development teams out working hard to pull even more of those opportunities in 1 by 1, particularly if they not only make sense in the near term, but long term as well. So we've got, I think, some good opportunities in that realm going into the cycle that we're seeing ahead of us too. So thanks, Jeremy. I think we're going to take the next question. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from the line of Todd Thomas of KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Speaker 7

Hi, good morning. First question, Tom, back to the move in rent, so 13.81 square foot in the quarter, higher by about $0.22 a square foot. Historically, the seasonal uptick is a little bit greater from 1Q to 2Q and then rents tend to decline on a seasonally adjusted basis throughout the off peak season. Is the more muted increase this quarter indicative of the pressure you're seeing across the system? And would you expect the same seasonal patterns to hold throughout the balance of the year?

Or have you made some changes to pricing or otherwise that might cause those seasonal trends to change a little bit? I was just wondering if you could speak to that.

Speaker 5

Yes, sure. I did comment earlier around move in rates being down 4% year over year, which certainly takes into consideration some of the seasonality of our rental rates as we go through. I think generally speaking, you're going to continue to see the seasonality as our occupancy and our move in traffic is higher in the summer months than it is as we get into the fall and into the winter months. So the seasonality is not going to change. But we did use lower move in rates in the 2nd quarter as one of the levers to drive volumes.

So to give you an example, Miami, which is a tougher market that Joe highlighted where we're seeing new supply impact operations there, we were successful in driving move in traffic there. Move ins were up year over year despite the incremental new supply, but we did utilize rate and advertising. So rates were down, call it, 7%, 8% on move ins in Miami in the second quarter. So there's no question that there's a rate pressure where there's new supply and we're also utilizing rate to drive volume in some of those markets.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then as you push through rate increases to existing customers during the quarter and usually May, June July are bigger months for that, Any pushback or change from customers or change in the rent increase program throughout the peak season as results started to come in? And then maybe in a market like Miami where there is some rate pressure and you have customers moving in at lower initial rates. Is there any difference in sort of the rate increase program in those markets and at those stores relative to the balance of the portfolio?

Speaker 5

Sure. So the first component around just performance of existing tenants and the willingness to continue to remain customers post a rate increase to the rental rates. And that's very consistent, in fact, trending positively as we've gone through the quarter. So as we disclosed in the 10 Q move out volumes were down, which is what drove the increase in occupancy throughout the quarter, average up 20 basis points and actually finished up 50 basis points in the quarter. So while move ins were flat, move outs were down, and that's because that existing tenant base is performing quite well.

The existing tenants are exhibiting great dynamics. You look at delinquency numbers, they're supported by wage growth, the great labor market. So lots of good things happening there for existing tenants and we continue to see that throughout the portfolio. In terms of rate strategies in different markets, certainly what's going on with the move in and move out dynamics within a local market will impact our strategies for existing tenant rate increases. I'm not going to go into detail there, but certainly those are some of the factors considered.

In terms of how things have trended into July, move outs are down again in July. So again, very consistent trends.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from Ronald Kamdem of Morgan Stanley.

Speaker 8

Hey, just two quick ones from me. 1, just going back to sort of the move in volumes that you touched on. Given the elevated marketing spend, the question really is, is there any change in the profile of the customer that's moving in today maybe versus a year ago? So said another way, is it more millennials or is it is there just no discernible trend on that? And sort of a follow-up to that would also be, when you think about the returns that you're getting on the marketing spend, is that something that remains compelling where we can even see it increase even from these levels?

Thanks.

Speaker 3

So yes, Ron, I'll take the first part of that and hand it over to Tom to talk about the second part of your question. So from a customer standpoint, I wouldn't point you at anything that's shifted material materially, whether you link it to millennials or becoming a different type of customer. The good news is they're becoming good customers period. And there's no both statistical and or trend that we could point to that says that that's any different than what we've seen with other generations as they age into the kinds of things that drive them to decide to take down a self storage unit. So many of the very similar and same drivers that have affected prior generations today, maybe fewer homeowners out there, that are much more sensitized to the cost of owning a home.

They're looking at smaller apartments. They're making trade offs of keeping their stuff in lower cost alternatives and storage fits quite well with that. We are seeing good traction. We're doing a lot of surveys relative to the types of customers that are coming into us. And again, no change there.

In fact, we're continually encouraged that that too is evolving into a very powerful type of consumer that we see driving our business just as other generations have. So Tom, do you want to take the next part?

Speaker 5

Sure. Yes, the second part of the question was on marketing spend and the return we're seeing associated with it. The comments I made earlier, we're seeing good returns. It is a process here that's managed very dynamically at the keyword level and local level, such that we're adjusting our bids based on the demand response that we're receiving and the returns we're receiving. The returns have been good, and so we are pushing ever harder on that lever as we've moved through 2019 and we will continue to, but we will also continue to monitor that and ensure we are getting the return that we seek.

But returns are good there and we like that strategy.

Speaker 8

Great. I don't know if that was 2 questions, but the last quick one was just on just looking at the West Coast markets, clearly some of the strongest performers there. And I think you've talked historically about limited supply. But maybe can you talk about what the sort of the existing tenants there and sort of if there's any rent fatigue given that it's been a couple of years of rent increases or you're not seeing any noticeable trends? Thank you.

Speaker 5

No noticeable trends there. And the difference between some of those West Coast markets is, while I talked about Miami and move in rates being lower, Los Angeles move in rates were higher in the quarter. So there's different trends going on in those different markets.

Speaker 3

And just to add to that, I mean from a supply standpoint, you're correct. I mean, that the West Coast has been basically shielded from the amount of volume from a supply standpoint. We really don't see that changing, again, just because of lack of land inventory entitlement complexity. Portland is under some stress right now, but outside of Portland, we feel very good about the competitive arena on the West Coast.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Smedes Rose of Citigroup.

Speaker 9

Hi, thank you. Your acquisition Your acquisition opportunities still seem elevated. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of opportunities that are still in lease up versus stabilized? Are more lease up opportunities coming available to you that are interesting? Or maybe just some color on the overall acquisition outlook?

Speaker 3

Yes, Smedes, there's a variety of different reasons we've seen the uptick in acquisition volume. It's included some owners that have come to us directly. They haven't taken their properties out to market, whether it's because again they're under some level of duress and or they've just made a decision that it's time to exit either a specific property or whatever size platform they may have. And with that, we've seen a variety of different occupancy levels. We continue to look at properties that range anywhere from either newly developed and or fully stabilized.

I can point you into we did a 4 building acquisition in the Miami area. Each of the buildings had different levels of occupancy, 1 or 2 are more stabilized than the other 2 that have been more recently delivered to the market. So there's a range there. And we are seeing and hearing that there are there's a lot of activity out there relative to particularly within the brokerage community. Brokers are being asked to come in and do valuations for owners.

The last quarter, we saw a lot of inquiries coming into us with, again, a full range of different types of situations, let's call it that, all of which we consider, we underwrite, we take a look at. So we really haven't changed on our end the way that we continue to analyze and look at returns that we can get from these investments. What we are seeing are sellers that are far more agreeable and more anxious to make a decision to exit. And some again have gone to maybe clearer and more evident levels of stress, others again have just made a more rational decision and said it's time and a good point in the cycle to consider an exit at maybe a level or a price that 1 or 2 years ago was much more elevated and we wouldn't have engaged from a conversation and today we are. So as we reported, we've done more transaction volume this year than we did all of last year.

We've got about $87,000,000 under contract and we're seeing again beyond that good activity and are encouraged by some of the situations that are playing through.

Speaker 9

Thanks. And I mean just to follow-up on that, do you think, I mean you mentioned supply, the dollar amount of deliveries coming down next year. I guess most of that is probably financed and under construction. Do you have a sense of just looking out further than that? I mean, do you think the lenders are now starting to rethink the availability of capital to the industry and we could start seeing those supply numbers really start to drop off pretty quickly?

Speaker 3

Yes, that's tough to predict. There's a number of different conflicting drivers that are still in the mix. So there are still a lot of As I mentioned, there are still development returns that some individual developers are going to look at and say it's still a good reward risk balance. So they may launch and still may get the funding to do it. On the flip side, I don't disagree with your comment that I think more and more lenders are becoming more stringent in the way that they're underwriting and basically putting lending packages out to developers.

So hopefully that creates some level of added discipline we haven't seen. But again, there's still fuel out there. And like I said, we're sensing that there's likely to be in that 10% to 15% stage or shift down going from this year to next year, but that still puts you north of $4,000,000,000 of deliveries. That's a lot of product. So we're keeping a very close eye on it.

We're not confused about how it impacts certain markets, as I mentioned earlier. And the good news is we feel more and more encouraged that we've got the playbook to continue to navigate around it.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 10

You bet.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Sakwa of Evercore.

Speaker 11

Thanks. I guess most of my questions have been asked at this point. But just in terms of maybe business customers, any sort of change or anything new that you're seeing on that front as customers kind of looking to come into the self storage product?

Speaker 3

Yes, Steve. I couldn't say something materially different. We have and we'll continue to embrace, I would say, a healthy level of business related customers that ranges anywhere from something as tried and true to the landscape or a local contractor to maybe in today's world, again different types of entrepreneurs and or even more sizable companies that do feel it's sensible to have something in close proximity to another facility or a customer base, etcetera. It can range from a percentage standpoint, property to property anywhere from easily say 10%, 15%, 20% to sometimes much higher, again depending on the location of a particular property. So, there's again I would say a consistent and good amount of activity that we see just from business customers and we embrace and cater them just as much as we do to individual and tried and true consumers.

Speaker 11

Okay. And I guess just one other question. You've done some very, very large facilities like Girard up in the Bronx, several 1,000 storage facilities and units. Are there any kind of lessons you've learned off of some of these? Is this kind of the economic returns pencil out?

How do you sort of look at that as the few that you've done and kind of the pace of those going forward?

Speaker 3

Well, we certainly have done more than Girard. We've got now several facilities that are close and in fact Jersey City is now larger than Girard. Jersey City is our largest current system or current property in our system is about 4,000 100 units. We opened that just a little over 2 years ago. Today, it's nearly 90% occupied.

So what leads us to and how we basically place design and configure something of that magnitude in the market is we use a lot of analytics, we look at the level of competitive activity and then we take a lot of the day to day metrics we see in like properties we may own in particular, we decide how big to go. But there's no question the bigger facilities like this create another level of complexity that again we have to tune our operational teams to again handle. So Jersey City, it wouldn't be unusual for instance as we fill that up to have 40 to 50 move ins literally in a weekend. And if you bench that against kind of a traditional size storage facility that might be a volume you'd see in a month. So you've got to have a team of people running the asset.

You've got at a different level, you've got different complexity relative to the design of the facility itself, number of elevators, the way the floor to floor configuration works on unit sizes. And with the amenities though, however, with these bigger facilities, customers love them. And again, they are very efficient, very customer service oriented because we're running again larger teams that are clearly accessible and at the counter well, opened all day long. And again, we're looking at expanding that platform where it makes sense in many different parts of the country. So that's too though if I connect that to some of the activity that we're seeing on the acquisition side, naively a number of owners or developers have come into the business thinking, okay, it's a good idea to just go as big as we can.

We'll go into the city, we'll if we were thinking about building a 50,000 or 70 5,000 square foot product, we'll go to 100,000 or 125,000 or even in some cases larger than that without the skill, knowledge and capability to actually run a facility of that size. And it's not unusual and we see it time and again where a facility like that can get to 50% or 60% occupied and it just stalls. Because if you don't have the ability to drive volume, understand how to cater to existing customers, if you haven't got the right technology capabilities or day to day customer service, you're going to flat line. Now that creates in many cases a good opportunity for us and we're seeing more and more of them.

Speaker 11

Okay. Thank you very much.

Speaker 12

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from Eric Frankel of Green Street Advisors.

Speaker 12

Thank you. I'd just like to circle back on the marketing expense. How exactly do you calculate the return on investment for increased for the increase in marketing? And how much of the increase in marketing is just the increase in click rates online and just how much you have to pay Google?

Speaker 5

Yes, sure. So without getting into too much detail as to how returns are calculated, it's a pretty simple concept around what's a customer worth to us and what are the acquisition costs all in, which it takes to acquire that customer and ultimately get them to move in. And so we have the ability in today's world online to track and understand much more about our customers and to be able to tune that those bids much more dynamically than it's been done in the past. So we can monitor those returns on a customer by customer basis and really keyword by keyword

Speaker 12

basis. Okay.

Speaker 5

In terms of the overall costs and the competitiveness online, there's no question that we're not the only one pushing on this lever. Some of our traditional operating competitors are pushing on that lever as well and probably seeing similar good returns. So we'd expect that to continue. In addition, we have other folks, both regional operators as well as called valet storage operators and other types of folks that are bidding on keywords and driving the cost per click higher. I think on the last call, I noted that cost per click for similar positioning was probably up double digits, maybe call it the teens, it's north of that today.

Speaker 12

Wow, okay. That's helpful color. Thank you. Just a quick follow-up question. I just noticed in your Q that you expect to spend roughly $1,100,000,000 on investments over the next year or so.

That's actually down from $1,400,000,000 last quarter. And so your comments have kind of implied that you're seeing an expanded menu of investment opportunities. I guess you're not budgeting as much. Is there a reason for the disconnect?

Speaker 5

I think if you're looking at liquidity and capital resource analysis, we highlight that we have capital resources of about $1,100,000,000 But then when you walk through the uses, a lot of them haven't been identified. So one of the clear uses is our development pipeline, which as it stands today, we have about $329,000,000 of cash required to complete that existing pipeline. But as Joe mentioned, we'll be adding properties to that pipeline over time. But we'd expect to spend that $330,000,000 roughly over the next 18 months. In addition to that, we have acquisitions that are under contract at quarter end that Joe highlighted earlier around $87,000,000 and we're seeing more opportunities there.

So we'd expect more acquisitions as we move through the year. But the $1,100,000,000 is really our capital resources, which are the cash on hand that we have, the revolver capacity as well as retained cash flow over the next 12 months.

Speaker 12

Got you. So the revolver capacity is kind of the limitation on that number?

Speaker 5

No. I mean, we could go out like we did in the Q2 and raise additional capital if there's opportunities that match it. The financing environment right now is pretty attractive from a rate standpoint. We could issue 10 year bonds today, touch under 3%, preferreds are probably around 5%, maybe a touch under 5%. So attractive capital capital capital needs over the next 12 months.

Speaker 12

Right, right. Sorry. Okay, got you. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from the line of Todd Stender of Wells Fargo.

Speaker 11

Hi. Just on the 3rd party management platform, can we just hear, I guess, how it's performing? And then since you are being so acquisitive, you're obviously talking to potential sellers. Is 3rd party management brought up in those conversations if you get potential reluctant seller that you can manage it for? Maybe just some color there.

Speaker 3

Yes, there are a number of things that we continue to see and learn through our entrance into the 3rd party management business. So, the program continues to grow our backlogs building. The backlog, as we expected, will take time to turn into actual openings because it's primarily oriented toward either pre and or in development opportunities. We've now got this year we've added about 23 properties to the program. In total, our entire program is 62 properties.

But we're seeing and learning many different elements of the business as a whole, including a number of owners that may have a range of different horizons to ownership, whether it's more limited in time or it could be long standing. So with that are going to come a variety of different potential opportunities. The other thing that's not surprising, but there is a bit of activity around just owners that are looking for a change as well. So we're seeing some activity tied to that whether under a public third party management platform or a private one. So again, we're seeing good opportunities there.

We're able to balance and now with the team built internally drive activity into even more markets that we want to grow from a scale and presence standpoint. So we've got more outbound activity tied to that. And again, as I mentioned, a variety of different situations that could be interesting over time. Okay, that's helpful.

Speaker 11

Okay, that's helpful. And then just to go circle back with the acquisitions, I don't know if you characterized what you bought in Q2 and then what you have teed up in Q3. But just roughly the ones that are stabilized versus those in lease up maybe just the rents, what kind of upside do you expect in these properties? Are they stabilized or what kind of growth in rents can we expect?

Speaker 3

Well, it's like I talked a little bit about this earlier, it's a mix. So we've got property to property, a variety of different either occupancies and stabilized revenue components to the assets themselves. Some have been in place for a number of years, some are newer. And again, a typical, again, trajectory that a property go through, you might see a quick lease up, but then from a maturity standpoint, the revenue doesn't stabilize for years beyond that until you look at again a tenant base that becomes more mature. So we're looking and seeing good returns relative to the investment we're making into the pool of assets that we continue to buy and it's a collection of all of those factors.

So again, the other thing I mentioned, we like and focused on those opportunities as we speak.

Speaker 5

Yes. And Steve, maybe I'd just point you to the 10 Q where we break out on Page 48 what the occupancy and rate numbers are for those acquisition vintages. So you can see the 2019 acquisitions at 78.2% occupancy. So clearly, there's some lease up within some of the acquisitions that Joe is speaking to, and likely rent growth as those lease up as well.

Speaker 11

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Mueller of JPMorgan.

Speaker 11

Yes. Hi. Most things have been answered as well. But I was wondering what was the average effective rate increase that you were able to pass through to existing customers this year?

Speaker 5

I would say trends have been very consistent there. As we talked about in the past that does move throughout the year, both in terms of quantity as well as rate based on what we're seeing in our markets. The averages are around that

Speaker 6

kind of

Speaker 5

high single digits, 10% type number, but no real change there from a strategy standpoint.

Speaker 11

Okay. That was it. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Your next question comes from the line of Ki Bin Kim of SunTrust.

Speaker 10

Thanks. Good morning out there. Your debt to preferred equity ratio is about 33%. Do you have a view on longer term what that mix should look like?

Speaker 5

Longer term, we said we're committed to both of those markets as financing tools. They're both provide great attributes. We thought it made a lot of good sense back in the fall of 2017 to really add debt to the playbook in order to finance acquisitions and really gives us access to a deeper institutional pool of capital that allows us to raise more in a shorter period of time to fund acquisition opportunities. And so as we look at those two markets, I would expect that we continue to utilize both. As you highlight right now, about 33% of that is debt and about 67% of it is preferred stock.

We don't have a particular target where we're going to target a specific number, but would expect that we utilize both going forward.

Speaker 10

But in the current environment, does one look more appealing than other?

Speaker 5

They look frankly, both look pretty good right now. The gap between a 10 year bond and a preferred stock offering today is around 200 basis points, which is pretty consistent with the post crisis averages. So pretty consistent. We obviously just raised $500,000,000 of 10 year bonds in April. We redeemed 6% preferreds because they were in the money at the end of June.

As we go through the year, we've got 5.7eight preferreds that are callable in December that certainly are in the money as we look at them right now. So we'd expect there certainly could be an opportunity to add preferred stock to the capital stack as we go through the year in addition to what we did with bonds earlier.

Speaker 10

Okay. And just going back to the advertising question, you said you're getting a good return on advertising spend. I'm sure it's a utility curve to everything, right? Where do you think we are in that utility curve of getting a good return on advertising?

Speaker 5

Yes, we're still seeing good returns. And so you've seen us increase our spend throughout the period. There are some keywords that certainly are at levels that we feel comfortable with where we are and there's others that we can increase further. And it will depend on the traffic we see in our local markets as we dynamically evaluate that. But returns have been good.

And that's very much a decision that is at the very local and granular level, not at the aggregate level.

Speaker 10

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. At this time, I'll now turn the floor back over to Ryan for any closing or additional comments.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brandy, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Speaker 1

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

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