Extra Space Storage Inc

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2021 Extra Space Storage Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during a session, you need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and if you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I want to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jeff Milliman, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Victor. Welcome to Extra Space Storage's fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. In addition to our press release, we have furnished unaudited supplemental financial information on our website. Please remember that management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements, It was defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by our forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These forward-looking statements are qualified by the cautionary statements contained in the company's latest filings with the SEC, which we encourage our listeners to review. Forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of today, February 24th, 2022. The company assumes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements because of changing market conditions or other circumstances after the date of this conference call. I'd now like to turn the time over to Joe Margolis, Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Jeff, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. It is incredibly sad to wake up this morning to news of war in Europe. Without ignoring the human loss and suffering this will entail, we are also thinking of how this tragic event will affect economic growth, oil prices, inflation, interest rates, and ultimately our business and our company. Events like this certainly give us some perspective on our business and our lives, and in some ways make discussing the performance and outlook of our company seem less important. While we don't know how all of this will play out, we do know that historically self-storage has been a needed product in good and bad economic times, that the cash flow we produce is very stable, much more so than many other types of real estate, and that our company and balance sheet are structured and prepared to prosper in all economic conditions. Now turning to results. We had a remarkable, remarkable fourth quarter to cap off another strong year at extra space storage. Property level performance was exceptional across the board. Same store revenue growth in the quarter was 18.3 percent. Revenue growth was primarily driven by two factors. First, our same store occupancy 95.3 percent, which was a year-end high for extra space for the second year in a row. Secondly, strong new and existing customer rate growth. Expense growth remained in check at 2.5 percent, resulting in same-store NOI growth of 24.2 percent. We also had significant external growth in the quarter. We acquired 66 stores on a wholly owned basis or in joint ventures for a total investment from Extra Space of approximately $850 million. Total acquisition investment for the full year was $1.3 billion, primarily in relatively small transactions. We also closed $187 million in bridge loans in the quarter bringing the annual total to $333 million. We continue to execute on our strategy to sell a significant portion of our lower yielding first mortgage balances to our debt partners. We also continue to acquire properties originally sourced through our lending platform. To date, we have acquired 15 properties sourced through loans for $181 million. We added 69 stores to our management platform in the quarter for a total of 265 stores for the full year. To give context, including acquisitions, we onboarded 1.3 properties per business day in 2021. We experienced higher dispositions with more stores leaving our platform due to third-party owners selling property. but we were able to buy 58 of these, either wholly owned or with one of our joint venture partners. Our property NOI plus our external growth efforts resulted in core FFO growth of 29.1 percent in the quarter. I am proud of the Extra Space team. There are many contributions to our growth in 2021 and for how they have positioned us for another strong year in 2022. We are also proud to have been recognized not only for our performance, but the sustainable nature of the company we have built. For the second year in a row, we were named one of NAE REIT's leaders in the light for our sustainability efforts. And we are proud to be the only storage company to have received this award. Looking forward, industry fundamentals remain very strong. Occupancy levels remain at historically high levels, resulting in elevated pricing power to new and existing customers. Despite very difficult comparables, the strong market fundamentals and our team's ability to execute give us the confidence to guide to double-digit same-store revenue growth again in 2022, and FFO growth of over 13 percent at the midpoint. In light of this strength, we raised our dividend to $1.50 per share, a 50% increase year over year. We are off to a great start in 2022. We expect another exceptional year for extra space storage. I would now like to turn the time over to Scott to walk through some of the details of performance in the fourth quarter, as well as our 2022 guidance.

Thanks, Joe, and hello, everyone. As Joe mentioned, we had a great fourth quarter and year with our 2021 Core FFO coming in six cents above the high end of our guidance. Our outperformance relative to our guidance was driven by property performance and higher than expected interest income partially offset by higher than expected interest expense. Our external growth in the quarter was capitalized by $210 million in sales proceeds from the disposition of 17 stores. We also issued $276 million in OP units and we drew on our revolving lines of credit. Our balance sheet has never been stronger and we will term out our revolving balances through future unsecured debt issuances. Currently, only 8% of our debt maturities over the next mature over the next two years, and our focus will be to lengthen our average debt maturity and to further ladder our maturing balances. Our unencumbered pool is now over $12 billion, and our net debt to trailing 12 EBITDA is at five times. We continue to have access to many types of capital, giving us significant capacity for future growth. Last night, we provided guidance and annual assumptions for 2022. Our new same-store pool includes a total of 870 stores, a relatively small net increase from last year, with new additions partially offset by sites removed due to disposition or redevelopment. Same-store revenue is expected to increase 10.5% to 12.5%, driven primarily by rate growth. Same-store expense growth is expected to be 6% to 7.5%. primarily driven by higher payroll, marketing expense, and property tax expense. Our revenue and expense guidance result in a same-store net NOI range of 11.5% to 14.5%. The acquisition market continues to be competitive, and we will remain disciplined but opportunistic. We plan to continue our strategy of looking for off-market opportunities and plan to capitalize a portion of our acquisition volume with joint venture partners. Our guidance assumes $500 million in extra space investment, approximately half of which is already closed or under contract. We also expect to close $400 million in bridge loans and plan to retain $120 million in new balances in 2022. We have plenty of capital to invest if we find additional opportunities to create long-term value for our shareholders and we will continue to be creative as we deploy capital in the sector. To support our 2021 and 2022 property growth, we made significant investments in our people, our infrastructure, and our technology. This resulted in higher G&A expense in the fourth quarter, and we anticipate a higher run rate in 2022. This is primarily driven by payroll and technology R&D, which would advance initiatives that will support our growth for years to come. The return of historical G&A expenses temporarily paused during the pandemic also contributes to this increase. Our core FFO is estimated to be between $7.70 and $7.95 per share. We anticipate $0.23 of dilution from value-add acquisitions and CFO stores, up $0.12 from 2021 due to the significant acquisition volume of non-stabilized properties in the fourth quarter. Interest income will be somewhat weighted to the first quarter due to the timing of note sales and potential modification of our next point investment. 2021 was a great year for Extra Space, and we are already on our way to another strong year in 2022. With that, let's turn it over to Victor to start our Q&A. Thank you.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. And to withdraw your question, just press the pound key. Our first question will come from the line of Elvis Rodriguez from Bank of America. You may begin.

Good morning out there and congrats on the quarter and year. Joe, quick question on strategy from an acquisitions perspective. I think you're, if I recall correctly, you had about $700 million in your guidance at the end of 3Q, but did $1.3 billion. What type of opportunities are you seeing? And I have already closed on call it $250 million year to date. What type of opportunities are you seeing? And what gives you sort of some comfort or pause on the $500 million that you shared and maybe being able to do more as the year progresses?

Great. Thank you, Elvis. So we saw a good number of kind of year-end tax-motivated transactions come in the fourth quarter, and we were able to execute on those. Most of them, almost all of them, were single properties or groupings of a very small number of properties. We also were able to do one larger portfolio where we were not the high bidder on the portfolio, but through OP units and shares, we were able to offer the seller some tax deferment, which allowed us to capture that transaction as well. Looking forward, you know, our target of five or guidance of $500 million is an assumption. We're pretty far along the way to getting there. If there are opportunities to do more deals, we certainly have lots and lots of different capital sources and debt capacity to do it. And we'll do it. But what's in our guidance is $500 million.

Then just as a follow-up, are you able to share a cap rate on your 4Q acquisitions?

So almost all of our fourth quarter acquisitions were unstabilized lease-up deals. And on a wholly owned basis... first-year yield, and this is fully loaded. This includes cost to manage, capex, tax reassessment. Our expense structure was in the threes, was in the low to mid-threes first year. And we stabilized in the mid-fives, and a little over a year, maybe 15 to 17 months was average stabilization for those deals. When you do those same deals in a joint venture structure, you can add 200 to 225 basis points to those numbers. So first year in the mid fives and stabilizing in the high sevens.

Great. And then for my second question, maybe for Scott, can you talk about the floating rate debt in your portfolio? I know you mentioned potentially doing an unsecured deal sometime this year to term out some of the line of credit debt. But can you talk about the overall variable debt as a part of your structure and how comfortable you are given the rise in rates?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, you prefer rates to be falling, but they're rising today. So part of our strategy has always been to have some component of variable rate debt. We typically have operated 20% to 30% variable rate debt It gets a little higher when we have more drawn on our lines of credit and we are terming some things out. This year we have about $535 million drawn at the end of the year, so that causes us to be about 25% variable rate debt. As we look forward in ways that we hedge, you know, one of the natural hedges that we do have is we do loan money. You know, we have these bridge loans and different types of investments that are variable rate instruments. So there is somewhat of a natural hedge on a portion of that, but we also will look to term out our draws on our line of credit this year through the bond market. Thank you.

Thanks, Ellis. Our next question will come from Juan Sanabria from BMO Capital Markets. You may begin.

Hi. Thanks for the time and good morning. I just wanted to ask what benefit, if any, is assumed or expected from the lifting of rent restrictions and if you can give us any color on where that represents the most upside?

Sure, Juan. The short answer is we believe that the lifting of the state of emergencies in California will give us about 50 basis points across the portfolio in lift. And obviously, there's a lot of assumptions to go into this, you know, primarily what's the length of stay, the future length of stay of the tenants that have gotten these increases. So, you know, our guidance assumes 50 basis points.

And that 50 is revenues, I'm assuming?

Yes. Okay.

And then just hoping on the expense side, you could flush out a little bit about how much ballpark you're expecting kind of the major line items to move for 22 that's embedded into your guidance.

Yeah, Juan, our guidance assumes close to 7% on the payroll number, and that is not only wage inflation, but that is operating more closer to fully staffed. Last year, you actually had negative payroll, and so it's a really tough comp. And then property taxes, we're assuming about 5.5% growth, and then marketing, about 10% growth. Great.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Juan.

Our next question comes from Michael Goldsmith from UBS. You may begin.

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. You had a very strong 2021, nearly 20% same-shore NLI growth, 14% same-shore revenue growth. I was wondering how much of the gains from last year is influencing how you guide for the upcoming year? It's been clear from those like you and your peers that have guided or report at this point that the strength of the performance in 2021 is influencing expectations in 2022. And within that, given your seems to a revenue guidance of 10 and a half to 12 and a half percent, and the comparisons are considerably harder in the back half, how should we think about the performance in the upcoming year from first half versus second half? Thank you.

Yeah, so clearly a strong 2021 influences performance in 2022. for a number of reasons. One is we have very high occupancy, which gives us pricing power, particularly when we still see strong demand. We see no diminution in demand. Secondly, you know, as rates go up and we put new tenants in, that takes a while to flow into, that rent roll takes a while to flow into performance. So as we put tenants in, in the later half of 2021. That helps give us a rise throughout 2022. And we already mentioned ECRI. But you're right that even with this strong performance that we expect throughout the year, our comps are tougher at the back half of the year. So, you know, the rate of growth will moderate even though we should have strong performance throughout the year.

Are you able to help kind of frame it? Like, do we start the year at kind of the high end of the guidance and at the low end of the guidance, or should kind of the difference widen, or will the difference be greater than that?

So, you know, we obviously finished the fourth quarter really strong. So, you know, we would expect the first quarter to be our strongest quarter. We would expect our first quarter to be really good. I mean, we don't see it moving down significantly, partly because you had easier comps from last year. And then that rate of growth declines throughout the year as we get tougher comps. We don't expect rates necessarily to go backwards, and, you know, we expect to have pricing power, but the comp can be more difficult. Therefore, the rate of growth, the decline as we move through the year.

Understood. And as a follow-up, we touched on a little bit on existing customer rent increases. For 2022, is there any change in your approach to them given the environment, you know, You know, given the environment, are you looking to push the magnitude of rent increases harder or more frequently or maybe pull some rent increases up prior to the peak leasing season? Just trying to get better understand like the level of confidence surrounding the same sort of revenue growth that's driven by the rate piece. Thanks.

So with respect to ECRI, we're coming off a period where it was really unusual, where we voluntarily stopped, where we were restricted by the government for a long time, where we had outsized rent growth, which increased the gap between what people were paying in current street rates. I would imagine in 22 we would get back to a more normalized protocol for ECRI. What was the second half of the question? Do you remember? Could you repeat the second half of the question? I'm sorry.

Just, you know, it was related to the magnitude of rent increases more frequently, or would you pull some rent increases prior to the peak leasing season to create vacancy when you have, like, the most potential for the most captive audience?

Yeah, so, and I'm sorry I made you repeat that question. You know, I think we're always trying to maximize revenue and not, you know, leave bread on the shelf. So, I don't think we are planning to create vacancy so we'll have more vacancy in peak leases. We have natural churn every month and the ability to raise existing customers rate increase. So we're trying to continuously maximize revenue and not look at particular months of the year.

Thank you very much. Good luck in 2022.

Sure. And our next question will come from the line of K. Ben Kim from Truist. You may begin.

Thanks. Good morning out there. So going back to your capital deployment, obviously you guys had a pretty robust quarter in 4Q. I was just curious, high level, did you just end up seeing more deals fitting your bullseye or did the size of your bullseye change? And a similar question for your CFO deals. I noticed that your CFO pipeline really expanded noticeably. Similar question there.

So I think if you look at the pattern of acquisitions in any year, it's back-end loaded. I think there is a normal seasonality. And it was probably more pronounced this year, and we just saw more deals that made sense. We didn't change our underwriting or our discipline. We just happened to be able to capture more opportunities. And we do have more CFOs now. We did see more of those opportunities that made sense for us. But again, nowhere near where we were in, you know, 16, 17, 18.

Got it. And implicit in your 2022 CFO revenue guidance, what are you thinking for street rate growth compared to what it was in 4Q?

So we'll see. In terms of street rate growth for the year, I can tell you a little bit about our assumptions and what we're seeing in the first quarter. So our achieved rates in the first quarter so far have been very similar to the fourth quarter. Our achieved rates were up 20% in the fourth quarter. We're seeing that into this year. We haven't seen significant degradation in occupancy. Our occupancy is slightly below where we were before. our rate of growth will slow in terms of street rates. And what I mean by that is we push rates as much as, you know, 20% to 40% depending on the month, depending on the comp from the prior year. We don't expect that in 2022. So we don't necessarily think that we will decrease rates, but we do not expect that kind of growth in 2022.

If I could pick a little bit more, try to get a little more out of the answer. Any kind of range you can provide?

They're going to be better in the first quarter than in the back half of the year. You know, I think that's really all we can provide, and part of that has to do with the comp in the front half versus the back half of the year. Okay, thank you, Guy. Thanks, Kevan.

Our next question comes from Kevin Stein from Stiefel. You may begin.

Good morning.

um i was just wondering uh so you sold like 200 million properties i was just wondering if uh the reason for selling them was it just really good pricing or was there any strategic reason for that i would say both i mean we always look to optimize our portfolio and either select markets or individual assets where we prefer to have less exposure and to do so in a period of time where cap rates are at historic lows is very advantageous we sold about half of our sales we did last year into a venture where we were able to keep management and some exposure to those assets and the other rough half we sold out right but we're able to keep management 12 of the 14 properties. So I think it's both a strategic play and also happened to be good market timing.

Thanks. Our next question will come from line of Todd Thomas from KeyBank Capital Markets. You may begin.

Hi, thanks. I was wondering if you could talk about the contribution to FFO that's embedded in the guidance from non-same store growth in 22, and can you share how much of an NOI yield increase that you're anticipating on the non-same store?

So, make sure I understand the question. You're trying to understand where in addition to the property NOI, where the growth is coming from? Is that for the contribution outside of non-same store or the property?

Yeah, outside of the, so outside of the same store, I think in the prepared remarks, you mentioned, you know, sort of a mid 3% initial yield stabilizing in the mid fives on what was acquired during the full year. Plus, you know, some other non-same store assets, you know, CFO deals, et cetera, what's sort of embedded in the guidance for NOI, for the NOI yield uptick that you're anticipating on the non-same store in 22?

Yeah, maybe the best way to think of it, Todd, is if you take the same store performance, which we've given, and look at your NOI there, you're at the midpoint, you're 13%, And then you look at the FFO growth, and our FFO growth is slightly higher than that. So effectively, all of the non-same-store properties are contributing to the level that the G&A is going up, that your interest expense is going up. So it's effectively a wash. So the non-same-store is a wash in terms of... offsetting the other increases. So you have several other increases happening here. You have GNA going up, you have interest expense going up, and then you have an additional, you know, amount of dilution from some of the lease-up stores that we bought at the end of last year. We have 23 cents this year versus, you know, our dilution from last year.

Okay. Okay. And For the management fee and tenant reinsurance income growth, the guidance there, what's that based on in terms of net growth to the third-party management platform? I mean, how many ads are you anticipating throughout the year?

So management fees and tenant insurance both increased by the increase in joint ventures from last year, as well as an additional 100 stores net is what our guidance assumes for next year.

Okay, so up 100 stores net in 22. Got it. Okay, and then just lastly, I think, Scott, you mentioned when you were talking about where achieved rates were year-to-date and similar to the fourth quarter. I think you mentioned that occupancy slipped just a little bit here to start the year. Can you just tell us where occupancy is today and what that year-over-year spread looks like?

Your spread is slightly negative. The best way to explain it, we have two different numbers. You're about negative 40 BIPs year over year, but you're also comparing a new same store pool. So just want to make sure we're not solving for the exact amount. And again, you know, we're not solving for occupancy. And so we view this as still being in a really good spot, you know, But when we're at 94.6% today and we're pushing rates as hard as we are, you know, occupancy is one component of this.

Okay. Okay. So 94.6% is for the new same store. That's occupancy as of today? That's correct. Okay. Got it. All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Todd. Our next question comes from Samir Cano from Evacore. you may begin.

Hey, Scott, just on the occupancy question, I mean, what are you baking in sort of in the second half of the year, sort of that summer peak to end of the year decline?

Yeah, so, you know, without giving exact occupancy, I can maybe just give you a little bit of input. We're not assuming that we get a benefit from occupancy in 2022. Last year in 2020, I think we got 250 basis points of benefit from occupancy, and then I believe we're ending the year slightly negative to where we're starting where we ended the year this year. But again, no benefit that we experienced in 2021, and so we do see occupancy is still being strong. In 2022.

OK, and then and then I guess on the on the guidance for for GNA. I mean, it did go up, I think it was about 20 million. Just trying to see if there's anything sort of one time in nature there. I know you talked about payroll and kind of return to normal. But, you know, I know you talked about investments in technology as well. So is there anything kind of one time in nature that we need to think about as we think about sort of 23?

I'm not sure if they're one time in nature, but we're certainly making progress. longer-term investments that don't have an immediate payoff. So, our company is growing very fast, and we're making investments in infrastructure that will, you know, facilitate continued growth at the pace that we want. And we're also making certain technology and R&D investments that won't add anything in 2022, but will be long-term beneficial and accretive. The flip side, which I don't think is temporary, is the increase in payroll. I think we're just in a new payroll environment, and that's going to be ongoing, in my opinion.

Okay, thank you.

Sure.

Our next question comes from Smedes Rose from Citi. You may begin.

Hi, thank you. I just wanted to ask a little more on the acquisitions outlook, and you and others are seeing a pretty marked slowdown from last year's elevated activity. I'm wondering, is it anything you're seeing on the sort of the quality of the assets that are for sale? Is there just less stuff for sale? Is it a purposeful sort of pullback on your part? Or maybe you could just talk just a little bit more about what you're seeing, maybe what's changed since last year.

As I said earlier, I think there's a seasonality to this and there's a natural slowdown early in the year. We are still seeing things on the market for sale. I don't think quality is very different than it was last year and prior years. There's some stuff of good quality and some stuff of less quality. But I think your overall thesis is right. It's hard to imagine that the volume in 2022 will match 2021. That was just an enormous year in number of transactions. I'm talking about the industry, not necessarily for us.

And then could you just update us on what's been happening with the length of stay? Where is it now and maybe where was it pre-pandemic as a reminder?

So length of stay has steadily increased from the beginning of the pandemic to now. We're now at about two-thirds of our customers have been with us longer than one year, and maybe 42 or 43 percent of our customers have been with us longer than two years. And those are absolute all-time highs. We've never had that level of long-term customers in the portfolio.

All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Mitch. Our next question comes from Caitlin Burrows from Goldman Sachs. You may begin. Hi.

Good morning there. Maybe just a question on supply. Wondering if you guys could go through your current expectation for supply in 22 and maybe even 23 and how much visibility you think you have at this point and what's shaping those views?

So we continue to see a moderation in supply. We look at new deliveries that affect our stores, so not national statistics or markets that we're not in. And, you know, if you look over the last three years and into 2022, it's kind of been a steady moderation. 28% of our stores were affected by new supply in 2019, 23 in 2020, 20 in 2021. And our best projection is about 18 percent in 2022. So, new supply hasn't gone away. Stores are still being delivered. We get the opportunity to manage an awful lot of those, which is a good thing for us. But it is moderating. 2023, I don't have any predictions for yet. I am concerned that given the tremendous performance in the asset class and the amount of capital seeking exposure to storage, that we'll see an uptick in new development. And we know how to manage through that. We've done that before. It will provide opportunities for us either to manage stores or participate like our CO deals or make bridge loans. But I would not at all be surprised to see this pattern of moderation of deliveries reverse itself in 2023. Got it.

Okay. And then maybe just following up on some prior points, I know you mentioned you don't expect the same amount of rent growth in 22 is 21, but with such high occupancy in rents, what are you currently seeing in terms of price sensitivity of customers and maybe how that ends up impacting whether they decide to stay or go?

Well, we certainly track folks who vacate after they get rent increase notices from us, and that has increased over time. As we have sent out these notices, we see more tenants vacating because of that. But that's not problematic for us because it's not to a number yet that it doesn't make sense to hand out the rate increases. And demand is so strong, we're very easily able to backfill those tenants.

Ed? those higher rates, or I guess what ends up being that spread then between the new person and that proposed rent increase?

Yes, at those higher rates.

Great. Okay, thanks.

Our next question I'll come from David Belager from Green Street. You may begin.

Good morning. Just wanted to touch on interest rates and cap rates. The market's certainly expecting a number of rate hikes this year. I imagine you haven't seen that bleed into the transaction market just yet, but how quickly would you expect cap rates to rise in a rising rate environment, just given, as you've mentioned before, there is a lot of new capital that's seeking storage exposure?

Well, it's the right question, right? And, you know, traditionally, as interest rates go up, cap rates go up. But the fact that you mentioned that there's so much capital wanting to invest in self-storage may cause that to lag, may cause rates to go up and cap rates not to react immediately. But it's an unknown and a very important question.

And to that extent, if we were to see cap rates rise and perhaps your cost of equity capital mostly unchanged, would that entice you to be a little bit more aggressive on the acquisition front?

Sure. If our cost of capital was the same and cap rates went up, that would spur us to be more active.

Got it. And one last question real quick on migratory patterns and just national mobility. I've heard a number of market participants cite that as a demand driver in the last several quarters. And there also seems to be some data out there from the residential side that seems to suggest that moving activity really hasn't materially changed since pre-COVID levels. Is there something specifically since the pandemic was brought on about moving activity that has led to customers being a little bit stickier than they had in the past?

So I would posit that the stickier customers are not the moving customers. The customers where we've seen length of stay increase the most are the customers that cite lack of space. as a reason for storing, not those who cite moving. So kind of a simple example is the individual who turned the extra bedroom into a home office or a room for kids to go to school in tend to be slower to turn that back to what it was if they do it at all than someone who's moving and at some point move and don't need the storage anymore.

Got it. Great. Thanks.

Sure.

And our next question comes from Ronald Camden from Morgan Stanley. You may begin.

Hey, most of my questions have been asked, but just wanted to go back to the comment on sort of the expiration and the contribution to same-store revenue. I think you talked about 50 basis points. Hoping we can get a little bit more color. Is that mostly L.A.? ? and maybe what do you think is sort of the mark to market on that part of the business with these explorations? Thanks.

Yeah, that was – I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. That was the 50 basis points was as a result of California, which is mostly L.A. for us, lifting their state of emergency.

Got it. And then so any sense of what – That seems a little – I'm trying to get a sense of the conservatism baked into that. Any idea of what the mark-to-market could be on that portfolio and how that compares to the rest?

The mark-to-market being the gap between in place and what we're raising people to?

Exactly.

So – So we sent out rate increase notices for those tenants, and we obviously know what that all adds up to, but it's not a number we're willing to share.

Okay, no worries. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Sure. Our next question, I'm covering Mike Mueller from J.P. Morgan. You may begin.

Yeah, hi. Just a couple of quick ones here. First of all, I know you talked about yields on the fourth quarter acquisitions, but what was the average occupancy for what you acquired in the fourth quarter? And then is the focus in 22 to buy assets with a lot of lease up potential as well?

So I'll answer those in reverse questions. Yeah, I think most of our opportunities in 2022 will continue to be stores that have some lease up, some value add. Average occupancy, I'll try to look up real quickly, but I don't think it's going to be a very meaningful number because many times you have stores that are at high occupancies that look like they're close to stabilized, but they're not at economic stabilization. right? You've gotten to that high occupancy by leasing it up below market. So the uplift is in moving rates to market, not necessarily in gaining a lot of occupancy.

Got it. That makes sense. And then I guess just one other question. In terms of returns, when you're sitting there and looking at a CFO deal, how different is that targeted return versus what may be a a typical, if there is a typical operating property that you would come across that has a decent amount of lease up potential?

So it kind of depends on time, right? So if you are looking at a CO property that you think is going to stabilize three years out, just to be simplistic, and you compare that to a lease-up property that stabilizes 24 months out or a lease-up property that stabilizes 12 months out, obviously for each of those you want to be compensated a little bit more for the additional time that it takes you to get there. So your yield will be highest on the CO and lowest on the property that stabilizes in nine months or six months. And then the other factor is our view of the risk of achieving those numbers and other maybe strategic factors to buying the store or not buying the store.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Our next question is from Keegan Carl from Vandenberg. You may begin.

Hey, guys, thanks for the question. So just wondering if we could dive in a little bit more of the R&D expense side of things for tech. Please give us some more color on the investment, how it's being allocated, and maybe how it compares to your historical average.

Could you ask that question again, please?

Yeah, so in regards to your tech spending on R&D, just kind of curious if you could give us any color on how it's being allocated and how it relates to your historical average.

I would say it is higher than it has been historically. In terms of getting into the details of what we're investing in, things like that, we feel like it's probably not something we'd talk about on a public call because we feel like it's something that gives us a potentially competitive advantage.

Got it. I guess just from our seat then, is it fair to assume that maybe some of these investments over the longer term can sort of mitigate and offset some of your future payroll expenses that you're expecting to be permanent?

So I would say that's a part of it. You know, we certainly are looking to become more efficient and have the right amount of staffing at various stores. But in no way are we giving up on store managers or don't value our store managers or understand the importance they have on the revenue line item and what they add in terms of increased revenue at the store and taking cares of the store, etc. I would also say that's probably a minority of what we're focused on in terms of kind of innovative ways to participate in this business.

Got it. Thanks for your time, guys.

Sure. Thanks, Keegan. And once again, we'll start one for questions. Our next question comes from Elvis Rodriguez from Bank of America. Maybe again.

Hey, Scott, just a quick follow-up on the marketing spend. You said plus 10% year over year. Can you share how the impact of the privacy changes that are happening with cookies, et cetera, are impacting sort of your online word search spend?

Yeah, it's not impacting us as of now.

Okay. Thank you. All right.

Thanks, Elvis. And once again, that's star one for questions. And I'm not showing any further questions in the queue at this moment. I'd like to turn the call back over to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Great. I want to thank everyone for your interest in Extra Space and for your good questions today. Clearly, we are in a very healthy business. We're set up very well for 2022, and we're excited to talk to you about our performance throughout the year. Thank you very much, and have a great day.

And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.