Unconventional Real Estate Investments: Masters in Business with Bob Moser

Summary

Masters in Business with Bob Moser – Unconventional Real Estate Investments

Host: Barry Ritholtz (Bloomberg)
Guest: Bob Moser (Founder & CEO, Prime Group Holdings)
Episode Date: February 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the unconventional side of real estate investment with Bob Moser, founder and CEO of Prime Group Holdings, the largest privately held self storage owner, operator, and investor in the U.S. From his college beginnings to building a $10 billion real estate portfolio across several asset classes, Bob shares his journey, methodologies, and the reasons self storage has become such a resilient and desirable investment. The conversation goes beyond financial metrics into strategic acquisition, technology, and insights for navigating the evolving landscape of commercial real estate.

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Bob Moser's Path to Real Estate (02:36–06:29)

• Early Passion and Background
  • Bob’s fascination with real estate began as a teenager, getting his real estate license before college while attending Union College (03:30).
  • In college, his thesis focused on valuing income-producing real estate, linking demand with property value, identifying fragmented asset classes ripe for consolidation (03:57–04:21).

“If you're going to be a good real estate investor, you have to have the ability to find the assets.” (Bob Moser, 04:14)

• Innovative Asset Discovery
  • Used FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) in New York to access water and sewer permitting records, enabling him to identify undervalued and fragmented properties (05:03–06:50).
  • Compiled boxes of physical data pre-digital era, systematically calling owners, often knowing more about the asset than the owner by the time he made contact (06:29).

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First Deals and Early Entrepreneurship (07:40–09:45)

• Early Transactions
  • Brokered deals before owning properties; first acquisition financed by his mother’s home equity loan after persistent calling paid off (07:58–08:30).
  • Identified likely buyers by analyzing ownership patterns from his lists, building a network via targeted intelligence (08:58–09:16).

"My goal was to know more about the real estate than the owner did by the time I called them on the phone." (Bob Moser, 06:29)

• Transition from Broker to Owner
  • Ran parallel brokering and investing efforts until first significant liquidity event in 2005, selling assets to Sam Zell and shifting into asset accumulation (09:45–11:16).

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Building Prime Group & Strategic Shift (11:16–15:01)

• Liquidity Event and Learning On-Site

  • Sold a package to Sam Zell, gained liquidity, and focused on building a diverse portfolio, from RV parks to shopping centers (11:16–12:04).
  • Emphasized understanding operations firsthand by managing properties directly.

• Discovery of Self Storage’s Resilience

  • Portfolio review post-2007 revealed self storage assets outperformed during downturns, shifting focus exclusively to self storage, consolidating fragmented markets (12:35–14:05).

“I do not buy aspirational real estate. I buy real estate that people need for all different economic cycles.” (Bob Moser, 14:05)

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Self Storage: Business Model, Appeal, and Technology (15:01–22:45)

• Geographic and Strategic Underwriting

  • Prioritizes locations with natural or regulatory barriers to entry, focusing along U.S. coastlines and mountain cities with tight supply (15:01–16:42).
  • Uses proprietary software and AI to identify and target off-market self storage facilities that fit strict criteria, handled by a dedicated deal team.

• Business Model Advantages

  • Lowest break-even occupancy among institutional asset classes (40% occupancy covers expenses).
  • Month-to-month leases enable fast adaptation to market changes—no long-term lease risk (20:09–20:39, 38:31).
  • Minimal tenant improvement costs compared to multifamily; sweeping units versus major renovations (20:46).

• Ancillary Revenue Streams

  • Implements programs for insurance/tenant protection, 24/7 access, and more (21:37–22:24).
  • Auctions on abandoned units have moved online; not a profit center but a necessary process.

“Self storage has the lowest break even occupancy of any institutional real estate asset class I can think of.” (Bob Moser, 20:09)

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The Buy-Side Methodology (28:02–32:57)

• Proprietary Sourcing

  • Deals originate from years of relationship-building, with team members persistently contacting owners and tracking critical events (28:02–29:31).
  • Pre-acquisition efforts include extensive due diligence—sometimes years before an owner is willing to sell (28:02–29:13).

• Hands-On Relationship Building

  • Personal touch includes holiday visits, birthday cards, and tailored solutions for sellers (29:31–30:20).
  • Assists sellers with post-sale options, capital gains, and reinvestment strategies.

"If they called you and they knew a lot about your business...you’re more intrigued to say hey this guy spent the time to learn a lot." (Bob Moser, 29:31)

• Avoiding Competitive Bidding
  • Deals are bought off-market to avoid auction “winner’s curse” and overbidding (31:18–32:10).

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Industry Landscape and Scale (24:44–37:36)

• Fragmentation and Consolidation

  • Self storage was ~80% mom and pop ownership as recently as 2015; now closer to 70–75% (25:01–25:59).
  • Merchant builders still dominate new supply rather than institutional players, preserving fragmentation and opportunity.

• Fundraising and Scale

  • Third fund of $2.5 billion, the largest of its kind (26:15–27:42).
  • Employs 700–800 people, operates ~350 facilities in the U.S., Canada, and Virgin Islands, with major offices in Saratoga Springs, Jupiter (FL), and Chelsea (NYC).

• Small Business Demand

  • 30–40% of tenants are small businesses, using units as adaptive, scalable warehousing without long-term lease obligations (37:36–38:31).

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Operational Details, Risks & Technology (38:31–48:18)

• Lien Law Advantage

  • Self storage uses lien law, not landlord-tenant law, allowing easier resolution and fewer eviction complications (38:31–39:35).
  • Applies across most U.S. states and present in Canada/Europe.

• International Expansion Strategy

  • European market has fewer “mom and pop” owners, making U.S.-style rollups harder (39:43–41:08).

• Navigating Macroeconomic Shifts

  • Floating rates, inflation, lender relationships, and hedging strategies help mitigate risk (42:28–43:14).
  • Demand drivers include demographic shifts, migration, and work-from-home trends (43:32–44:51).

• Office-to-Residential and Tech-Infused Projects

  • Converting underused office properties to high-tech self storage (Chelsea/High Line project), employing app-driven access and keyless lock systems that work without batteries or WiFi—reducing labor and improving user experience (44:51–47:44).

“We have actually harnessed the free energy of your cell phone to unlock the lock... No batteries needed, no WiFi needed.” (Bob Moser, 45:51–47:24)

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Market Outlook & Long-Term Value (48:18–52:36)

• Interest Rates and Cyclicality

  • Five-year treasuries often the benchmark; flexibility matters more than maximizing leverage (48:40–49:30).
  • Self storage’s need-based nature buffers capex freezes and uncertainty.

• Time Horizon and Value Creation

  • Advocates for long holding periods; compounding and value realization accelerates after the first decade (50:22–52:36).

“Real estate’s boring for the first 30 years, but it’s true...then it starts to multiply on itself.” (Bob Moser, 50:22)

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Personal Insights, Mentorship, and Advice (52:36–55:25)

• Mentoring and Learning
  • Influences include Ken Langone (Home Depot founder) and Ira Harris; emphasis on learning from everyone (52:53).
  • Book recommendation: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (53:38).
  • Advice to new grads: Don’t worry about others’ earnings; do more than you’re paid for; maintain enthusiasm (54:22–54:39).

“Enthusiasm is probably the biggest driver of success I can think of.” (Bob Moser, 54:39)

• Biggest Lesson
  • Earlier mastery of people management would have boosted growth; empowering teams is key (54:52–55:25).

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Notable Quotes

• “If you’re going to be a good real estate investor, you have to have the ability to find the assets.” (Bob Moser, 04:14)
• “I do not buy aspirational real estate. I buy real estate that people need for all different economic cycles.” (Bob Moser, 14:05)
• “Self storage has the lowest break even occupancy of any institutional real estate asset class I can think of.” (Bob Moser, 20:09)
• “If they called you and they knew a lot about your business…you’re more intrigued to say hey this guy spent the time to learn a lot.” (Bob Moser, 29:31)
• “Real estate’s boring for the first 30 years, but it’s true…it really takes a while.” (Bob Moser, 50:22)
• “Enthusiasm is probably the biggest driver of success I can think of.” (Bob Moser, 54:39)

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Key Timestamps

• Bob’s background and early methods: 03:20–06:29
• First acquisitions and financing: 07:40–09:45
• Transition to owner/investor: 11:16–12:04
• Discovery of self storage resilience: 12:35–14:05
• Business model deep-dive: 20:09–22:45
• Proprietary acquisition process: 28:02–32:10
• Industry structure & competition: 24:44–25:59
• Small businesses as tenants: 37:36–38:31
• Tech in self storage: 45:51–47:44
• Time horizon and value investing: 50:22–52:36
• Mentorship and advice: 52:53–55:25

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Tone & Style

Bob Moser’s approach is hands-on, data-driven, persistent, and fundamentally long-term. He combines old-school asset hunting with modern tech, showing both humility and competitive grit. The conversation is pragmatic, strategic, and full of practical wisdom—offering unique insights valuable to both novice and seasoned real estate investors.

Transcript

[Barry Ritholtz]

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[Barry Ritholtz]

On Bloomberg Radio this week on the podcast. What a fascinating conversation. Bob Moser is founder and CEO of Prime Group Holdings. They're the largest privately held self storage owner, operator, investor in the country. Fascinating conversations. Started acquiring properties in college, eventually started doing RVs and mobile homes. Just really fascinating methodology of identifying undervalued properties. I thought the conversation was fascinating and I think you will also. With no further ado, Bob Moser of Prime Group Holdings.

[Bob Moser]

Thanks for having me.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So let's start out with your background. Bachelor's with honors in economics from Union College.

[Bob Moser]

Yes, sir.

[Barry Ritholtz]

What was the original career plan?

[Bob Moser]

Tell you the truth, it was always real estate. So I've always had an affinity for real estate. Really? My mom tells the story that when I was like 14 or 15, she'd drop me off at the local real estate broker's office and I would drive them nuts for a couple hours. And it was either that or just to get rid of me out of her hair probably, but I always had it. Got my real estate license before college. I got my brokerage license while at college and actually started the business basically my sophomore junior year while at Union.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Wow, that's amazing. So your college thesis focused on how to value income producing real estate investments by comparing demand and value. So you really knew exactly what you wanted to do by your senior year. What was the outcome of that college thesis?

[Bob Moser]

It's a good question. So it was on the valuation of income producing properties using hedonic and non hedonic regression analysis.

[Barry Ritholtz]

When we say hedonic, you're adjusting for.

[Bob Moser]

Quality, location attributes of the property, taking away basically the revenue stream, what else adds value to the asset? And I was really hyper focused on fragmented real estate assets. So basically every real estate asset, when you look at it, goes through the same life cycle when they're originally owned, developed, managed by local regional developers. Then over time the larger groups come in and consolidate. So I was looking for that reflection point when that consolidation starts. And I was focused back then in college on the thesis for manufactured housing communities. And when you're a college student, people pick up the phone when you call because they're always trying to help somebody out. I was very fortunate to speak to Sam Zell and some other obviously leaders in the real estate business and they gave me some great insight. One of the ones he said to me was that there's a lot of buyers but there's not much product out there. You have to go out and find product for people. If you're going to be a good real estate investor, you have to have the ability to find the assets. So I decided to start a company in college to facilitate that transaction. Obviously I didn't have any money, was a retired New York City detective, my mom was a teacher's aide. So I didn't grow up any wealth, but I Figured out that if I could find good product, there was enormous amount of buyers to buy it. I did this by using the Freedom Information act of New York and then various other states where I figured out that I could track all real estate asset classes using the same common denominator of water and sewer permitting. I went down to Albany and I made my request and union was trimester. So I had these big gaps off around Thanksgiving, the New Year's and one day UPS knocked at my door and I had converted my parents upstairs bedroom to my corporate office like any kind of broke entrepreneur would do. And he's like. And handed me a box. I'm like, oh, there's my real estate information. And he's like, actually that truck out there is. I had boxes and boxes of the old dos printouts of every self storage facility, every mobile home park, every RV park, marina, multifamily.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Just so some of the younger listeners can appreciate this. Forget AI. This is really before there was any sort of usable Internet where you could say, hey, let me scan ny.gov and find all the real estate permitting. This is physical paper stored in physical office buildings and file cabinets.

[Bob Moser]

I had to pay per page on the printout.

[Barry Ritholtz]

And what did that cost? And how long ago was this?

[Bob Moser]

So this was back in 97, 96, 97. It probably cost me a couple hundred dollars, which I really didn't have as a college student. But I realized quickly that that information was the key to finding assets. And what I would do is I would systematically go through these lists, basically county by county, asset type by asset type, identifying the institutional quality assets that were still owned by mom and pops or non institutional investors. And then I would do a deep dive on those assets. I would call and get the rent. I would call the tax assessor to get the real estate taxes. My goal was to know more about the real estate than the owner did by the time I called them on the phone to see if they'd be interested in selling. And then I would continually call them every 30 to 45 days after that until they became a seller.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Huh. That's unbelievable. So that's what led you to unconventional and overlooked segments. You mentioned marinas and RV parks and other things like that, manufactured homes. How long did it take you before you managed to acquire your first property?

[Bob Moser]

So there was a. I acquired my first property shortly after college. And what happened was there was a mobile home park in Streetsboro, Ohio. It was actually called Camelot Village. Again, a guy named Mike Duffy owned it. And I used to call Mr. Duffy probably every 30 days to see if he would sell his asset. And one day I finally got him to sell, and I made a nice fee on the transaction, but I still needed a little bit more. And the year I graduated, my mom took a home equity loan against the family house.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Is that how you financed this acquisition?

[Bob Moser]

That's how I financed my first acquisition. So before that, I was facilitating transactions, making fees almost like a broker, but not a listing broker. And then the first asset I bought was when my parents took a home equity loan.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So if you mentioned you got your real estate license in college, how are you finding buyers for these sort of unconventional properties? Are you going to the big institutions and saying, hey, I have a property that fits into your portfolio?

[Bob Moser]

No, what I actually did was I had these lists, obviously, that I got from the foil request. And I kept on seeing the same name show up buyers or sellers that were owners.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Okay.

[Bob Moser]

So if I knew they owned five assets in that particular region, I thought, hey, if I develop one or I get a relationship with a seller that would sell, I would bring it to that.

[Barry Ritholtz]

You knew where to bring it.

[Bob Moser]

100%.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Huh. Really, really quite fascinating. And so when did you found your own real estate brokerage firm?

[Bob Moser]

So that was basically in college.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So that was in college.

[Bob Moser]

That was in college. I became a real estate broker before college. I was a licensed salesperson. And then you have to have X amount of hours under your belt before you can become a brokerage. And I got my brokerage license in 97.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So how long did you do that as a. As a broker rather than an investor or they kind of ran parallel paths?

[Bob Moser]

No. So I was basically working exclusively for generating fees from like 97 to 2000. Ish. 2001. I started buying my first asset around 99, going into 2000, obviously the first one I bought. It took me a while, obviously, to give up the transactional side until I could support myself on owning assets.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So you ramp up various assets until 2013 when you start Prime Group. Was that the path?

[Bob Moser]

So what I did was, so my mom took the home equity loan my parents did against their home. The first asset I bought, actually, I had sold to that gentleman 10 months prior. And I called him up and I said, hey, Wayne, I sold you this property. It was on Cape Cod. Would you be interested in selling it? And I sold it to him for 3 million. He ended up selling it to me for 5 million. Wow. 10 months earlier. And then I moved up to Cape Cod and I actually ran the asset for the first two years. To see how the business worked because I didn't want to be that owner that would tell people what to do without actually being able to do it themselves. Then I bought my second property and then I bought my third. And then by 2005, August 12, 2005, I had a large liquidity event. I sold a group of assets to Sam Zell. That's when he converted mhc, which was Manufactured Housing Communities, his REIT to Equity Lifestyle Communities. And he started to focus on RV parks. So on that date I sold him roughly five assets back then, which provided a substantial amount of liquidity to myself. And I went out and did a bunch of. That's when I really started to build the portfolio.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So I want to draw a line. So you're a college kid randomly calling big real estate investors, including Sam Zell.

[Bob Moser]

Who took your phone call, took my.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Phone call and you had a long conversation with him.

[Bob Moser]

I did, I did.

[Barry Ritholtz]

And so how many years later is it like, hey Sam, it's me, Bob. Do you remember me? I have some assets for you.

[Bob Moser]

It was funny when you say that because when I was dealing with the CEO, there's a CEO at the time I always wondered because I never really spoke to him then after. So I wonder if he actually put two and two together. I'm sure he did. But it was, it was a really interesting transaction. You know, it was, the RV world was an interesting business, the RV parks. It was basically I was the first one to really use securitized financing in the RV park world. That hadn't been really done prior. So it was a, it was an interesting time.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So now you have a liquidity event, you're tapping into Wall street securitization or the fund. This how at what point do you say, oh, there's a ready source of capital. I could just put a roll up strategy and run all these properties more efficiently than mom and pops can do. Every one of these would have to have a separate accounting and a separate tax filing and all that stuff. You centralize that and suddenly it's productive and efficient.

[Bob Moser]

100% basically from let's say 2000 through 2005, 2006, I was acquiring a lot of mobile home RV parks. I also owned shopping centers, a little bit of everything. It was a pretty diversified portfolio. What really transitioned to me to become an asset special, which we are now, was how well Self Storage was doing during the first financial crisis. I was doing a year end portfolio Review in around 2007, 2008 and the Self Storage assets were a smaller part of my portfolio back then, but they were outperforming everything else at that time. It wasn't like they were going straight up. But they were so defensive and they were doing so well when all these other assets were getting beat up. And I decided at that point to become an asset specialist, singularly focus on self storage. So I sold off over the next few years I sold off the rest of the mobile home and RV parks. I had multifamily that went to third party management. And from that time forward I continued just to consolidate self storage. This was on my own balance sheet at this time. And then I started the commingled fund business around 2014. So from basically 2007, 2008 through 2014, I was using my own capital or in house capital to acquire these assets.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So I'm curious, why would self storage do well during the financial crisis? Was it literally people were losing their homes, they had to figure out where all their stuff had to go or what was happening in that period that made that such a standout performer?

[Bob Moser]

I would say it was more the defensive nature of it where these other assets were decreasing dramatically, storage was holding its own. And it's need based real estate. I do not buy aspirational real estate. I think that's where a lot of people get in trouble. I buy real estate that people need for all different economic cycles. And that's what self storage is. It's upgrades, downgrades, death, divorce, all of those types of life cycles that happens in life creates a need for storage.

[Barry Ritholtz]

It seems like you are in a variety of different regions everywhere from Saratoga to Springs to Chelsea here in New York City. How do your underwriting assumptions differ relative to is this urban, is this suburban, is it, is it exurban, is it out in the sticks? How do you look at these different spaces? Obviously valuations differ and rents differ. What's the thought process?

[Bob Moser]

We truly obviously real estate and that sound cliche, but it's location, location, location. If you look at our portfolio, basically you take the United States and it looks like a U. We're up and down the coasts right now. We don't have exposure in Texas. The reason why is that there's a lot of open zoning in Texas and one of our major requirements is barriers to entry. And the reason why we're along coastlines and then we're up picking up in the mountain cities out in like Utah and Colorado is that there's a barrier that's natural barrier keeping the population tight to a nucleus. So we want to be in predictable downtown retail corridors when we're choosing the asset. So that's the first glance over deciding where we're going to buy. Then it goes down to what is the supply, what's going to constrain the supply in that particular market. Because like any other type of real estate, there's always areas that are oversupplied and the key is finding these areas that are undersupplied. When I was first doing this with paper, it was a lot of obviously calling on the phone, calling the assessor, feeling the market out, visiting. Now we have built very sophisticated software that helps us pre identify these areas that we should be buying. Not even the area, the exact asset we should be buying even though it's not for sale. We built out this program where basically I can put in our buy box and it populates out of the 60,000 self storage facilities in the country, the ones we should go after even though they're not for sale. And then what we have is our deal teams which are a group of roughly three dozen people internally that we allocate the deals that fit our criteria to and then they continue to call and visit those owners until we convert them to sellers. So we truly buy everything off market and it's 100% organically originated.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Really, really fascinating. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Bob Moser, CEO of Prime Group holdings, discussing the prime storage business. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. This message is brought to you by Apple Card It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every Purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple. Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple card you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, apply at Apple co getdailycash Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.

[Public Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Support for the show comes from public on public. You can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated Assets are completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market paid for by Public.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Ready Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures so have you heard the story about the prescription plan? With savings automatically built in, it's where a family of any size can feel confident the cost of their medication won't hold them back. Go to CMK Co Stories to learn how CBS Caremark helps members save just by being members. That's CMK Co Stories. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest this week is Bob Moser. He is the CEO of Prime Group holdings, specializing in privately held self Storage commercial real estate. The firm has acquired over $10 billion in real estate assets across 350 locations, 28 states, Canada and the Virgin Islands. So let's talk a little bit about the business model of self storage. I see these areas popping up everywhere. I see these self storage facilities popping up everywhere. How widely used are they? How profitable are they versus, you know, traditional commercial real estate? What is the appeal that just over the past 10, 20 years this space has exploded?

[Bob Moser]

It's a great question. Self storage has the lowest break even occupancy of any institutional real estate asset class I can think of. At 40% occupied, you're breaking even on expenses. It's very risk adverse. It's a very risk adverse asset from top to bottom. When you're looking at what the tenant signs to become a tenant. These are month to month leases. So we can adjust to what's happening in the macro environment at any given time. There's no lease risk whatsoever in the asset class.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So no lobby, no doorman, no showers. None of the things that multifamily makes so expensive.

[Bob Moser]

Well, you think about a multifamily. If you're going to turn a unit, it's going to cost you anywhere from let's say 1500 to 5000 depending on what you're doing. Self storage is $5. We're sweeping it and replacing a light bulb if there is one. So tenant improvement is what really hurts, especially office. But a lot of real estate assets you're constantly chasing that capital improvement.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Really, really quite interesting. What about ancillary revenue streams? We've all seen those silly reality shows where they find these, someone abandons a unit and they find some million dollar painting in there. How much? Nonsense.

[Bob Moser]

Yeah, I haven't had that luck. But it's funny that you bring that up. So prior to those TV shows, we would have the auctions on site, kind of like you see in those TV shows. What happened though? Everybody all of a sudden started showing up to these, had a personality. They thought they were on tv.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Right.

[Bob Moser]

The traffic became overwhelming on the assets. So everything now is virtual. So when we have an auction, it's all done online, but it's not a revenue source for the business. So we put our properties through a five step value creation process. And one of those steps is diversifying the revenue stream. Stream. And it's a great question because there's substantial amount of value picked up in self storage through these ancillary revenue streams. One of them is a tenant protection program where the tenants are able to push the liability of a storm or something happening to their goods onto the landlord for paying a certain price. There's obviously, there's prime access if you need access past the operating hours. So let's say you need access 24 hours a day. You're a small business, you can pay for that. So these items obviously add up when you have 2 to 300,000 units like we currently operate.

[Barry Ritholtz]

I hadn't even thought about the idea of a storm. So you live near a coast. There's a big hurricane coming. Hey, I have a bunch of furniture. I don't want to get soaked if we're swamped. Let's move it inland to a storage area.

[Bob Moser]

100%. And God forbid something happens to their home, you know, obviously a lot of stuff gets moved into the storage facility.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So you guys are the largest privately held self storage set of ownership. What's the competition like? I know Blackstone is in here. We see cubes everywhere, we see public storage. Who are your big competitors and is there an eventual play where someone takes you out?

[Bob Moser]

Correct. So there's the group of public companies that you were just mentioning. You have extra space, you have public storage, you have Cube Smart, U Haul.

[Barry Ritholtz]

U Haul. I didn't even think of U Haul.

[Bob Moser]

That's right. Correct. You know, most people think of them just as the moving business, but obviously they own a substantial amount of self storage. Substantial amount. What we do differently is we operate differently. We have a different, I would say rationale. When it comes to operating compared to the REIT, where the REITs are highly focused on occupancy, they want to keep their occupancy above 90, 92% where I'll trade occupancy for top line revenue. So what we'll do is in the off season, when it's slower, we'll hold our rents, create some occupancy and then come spring when the season's busier, we have room to put the higher payers in. Where the REITs are more focused on keeping that occupancy steady at 92, then come spring they have no room to put those people in. So we really focus on driving the value. We've looked at what works over the last 20 years and now we've just implemented it on scale across the portfolio.

[Barry Ritholtz]

And then the related issue I see are the mobile pods people sometimes use seems sort of adjacent to the space. What are your thoughts on that?

[Bob Moser]

So we're not in that business. It's a lot more labor intensive.

[Barry Ritholtz]

You got to physically drop the pod off and then come collect it later.

[Bob Moser]

Correct. So in storage, one of the main benefits is we take no availment risk, so we're never taking possession of the person's goods. Where the pod you start to cross that line a bit. So on the storage, it's 100% the consumers or the client's possessions, we have no contact with it. They put their lock on it, they're the only one that has access to it. We're 100% hands off.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So this really went from kind of a niche to a mainstream investment class over the past couple of years. You were really early in this space. What did you see that others miss? And what do you think a lot of commercial real estate investors quite understand about this space?

[Bob Moser]

It was the fragmentation again. The first fragment assets I was focused on were the mobile home parks and RV parks which I saw starting to consolidate and then obviously how well storage did during those tougher times, which really led me to storage being highly fragmented. When I first entered the asset class, even back in around 2015, 2014, it was roughly 80% still owned by mom and pops. Wow. So just the REITs and the institutionals only owned 20% of the of the outstanding supply and today it's probably closer to 70, 75%. So there's been a lot of consolidation. But what's interesting about storage is that the new supply coming online is being brought online by what we call merchant builders. So they're regional developers who have an extra piece of land they're shopping center developers who put a storage up on that corner lot or that key lot they might have. It's not the large institutions building the supply. So it keeps it pretty fragmented. So they're the ones adding the new supply to the market.

[Barry Ritholtz]

That's really kind of interesting. So a couple of years ago you did a raise a couple of billion dollars from outside investors. Seems like that's a good chunk of money to go out and start either buying or building. How do you look at the two options?

[Bob Moser]

So we don't like taking construction risks. So I like that we buy cash flow. So day one for an asset to make it through our IC committee, we have a very high threshold and that part of that threshold is cash flow. We pride ourselves on being able to distribute free cash flow to our investors pretty early in the fund's life, even during the investment period, which is pretty rare. But the fund business started in actually 2015 as a smaller fund. Up until that point I had only purchased on my own capital. And we did a test fund that did very well. It was a smaller fund, it was only 154 million. And then the second fund, we grew it to 725 million. And then the third fund is the one you're referring to is roughly $2.5 billion fund.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Why go to outside investors rather than go the securitized route? Is it that much less expensive to do?

[Bob Moser]

It was basically it's scale play. I knew the asset class was going to consolidate quickly once the large institutions understood it better or when the large investors did. I wanted to have that foothold in the market. The best way to do it was through the commingled fund way. And also by doing that I think we were able to disrupt things a bit because we pride ourselves on delivering what we call entrepreneurial type returns. We are operators. We are in the field on a daily basis. We're in the office grinding this out. So we try to deliver direct property level returns to our investors.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So not hands off REIT like numbers. So you mentioned your investment committee. Walk us through the typical acquisition. How do you source these things? Is it still just calling people up and saying hey, let us know when you want to sell and following up and then what's the process like through the investment committee?

[Bob Moser]

So this is where it takes the correct personality to be this part of the team. And these are what we call our deal team members. So what we use is our proprietary software we have developed in house that we load our entire buy box into this software and it projects it's an AI system. Every self storage that fits that criteria in the country and it has every data point about that asset, the owner, how big it is, the taxes, the rate, everything you could imagine. Then we allocate that deal to the deal team member that covers that area. Then he or she continues to call that owner every 30 to 45 days until we convert them to a seller. So some of these deals that we're buying today we've been working on for a decade and we finally got the seller to the point to sell. It's a very thick skinned long relationship but it's a numbers game. If we have 36 people with good information calling these owners and the reason why we do so much upfront information is we want to know more about the asset than the seller does in a way because we want to separate ourselves from anybody else calling them. We want to show that we're sincerely interested in buying their asset when we're able to to tell them or even educate them about their own asset at times.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So I get calls and emails from private equity guys, hey, do you guys want to sell? Blah blah, blah. It's like it gets annoying at a point. What's the conversation like with a seller? Hey, spoke to you back in October. Just checking in, seeing if anything changes. How receptive are people to this?

[Bob Moser]

So it's more than. And I get those same emails and it drives me nuts. Or the phone call, will you sell your property? I'm like which property? What area? So when we call, you know we're referring to an exact asset. We've already been by the asset. We know what the numbers are, we know the size of it. We've done. We might have spent already two weeks researching that asset before we called the owner. And instead of somebody just blindly calling you Barry. But if they called you and they knew a lot about your business and they knew the numbers are estimated, sometimes you're more intrigued to say hey this guy spent the time to learn a lot. But then we visit them on the holidays, we find out when they're their birthday is we send them a card. But it's a constantly being in contact with them. And then we try to solve that problem. What they do with the money afterwards, how do they maximize their sale proceeds. And we hold their hand through the process and they become one of our biggest referrals sellers.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Huh. That's amazing. Maximizing returns afterwards. I'm going to assume that some combination of it's obviously capital gains, there's a bunch of depreciation that comes along. There's a lot of different things a seller can do. I would not have thought that a buyer is going to facilitate that process.

[Bob Moser]

We'd hold their hand through it because we want to eliminate any kind of friction. We need to buy assets, we need to buy that asset. Like you said, we're not blindly taking a shotgun and just waiting for something to come to market. We're specifically targeting assets that fit our criteria so we know which ones make sense. Until we dive into the actual initially, it's all hypothetical. Until we get the actual numbers from that seller, that's the only time things would change.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So this sounds like it's a really unique approach in the commercial real estate.

[Bob Moser]

It is.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Are you concerned that someone's going to say, hey, these guys seems to have figured it out, let's do what they're doing?

[Bob Moser]

Well, we have 25 year head start on them. So we have decades of information gathering, decades of conversations with these sellers. Moreover, however, it's a heavy lift, it's a burdensome, it's expensive, what I carry on my deal teams. But the reason we do it is because there's no other way to buy assets the way we do and create the value we do. If we were buying them on the open market, you think about it, if we weren't buying it this way, we would be buying it like 99% of every other asset where it gets brokered. Beautiful pictures are taken, it's presented in its best color, it's shotgunned around to 100 buyers. You go through multiple layers of bidding and at the end you overpaid for the asset.

[Barry Ritholtz]

The winner's curse in an auction situation.

[Bob Moser]

Exactly right.

[Barry Ritholtz]

The more buyers there are, the more likely it is the winner overpaid 100%.

[Bob Moser]

So we bypass all that and we go directly to the seller and we solve problems for them.

[Barry Ritholtz]

That's really fascinating. I would not have guessed that degree of complexity, sophistication and facilitation to the seller.

[Bob Moser]

Here's the crazy thing. We're closing six to seven deals a.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Month, so one or two a week on average.

[Bob Moser]

When you look at it that way, we will bundle them up so they all close in a certain maybe couple quarters. But yeah, when you average it out.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So it sounds like just the prep before you make an offer. If it's a few weeks, it sounds like you're spending tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars easily.

[Bob Moser]

Really. But you think about it, if I don't get that asset today, I might get it in a month. If I don't get it in a month. I might get it next year. If I don't get it next year. We're into this for the long run. We're building a, I think become the best operator of alternative assets.

[Barry Ritholtz]

And when you guys raised fund three, that was the largest dedicated self storage fundraise at the time. I think that was $2.5 billion or something like that. Is that still the largest? Have there been other subsequent raises in the self storage space?

[Bob Moser]

That's the largest I know of. That might have been one of the largest property specific funds raised as well. I've heard that before.

[Barry Ritholtz]

And what's the total self storage headcount? That's over 300 now we have over.

[Bob Moser]

300, close to 350 assets. We have around 700 or 800 employees around the country. We have two main, actually three main offices now. We have one in Saratoga Springs where it's our main headquarters. Then we have one in Jupiter, Florida and we're just opened an office here in West Chelsea.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Really really quite fascinating. Coming up we continue our conversation with Bob Moser, founder and CEO of Prime Group holdings discussing the state of commercial real estate today. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

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[Barry Ritholtz]

I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio and watching Masters in Business on YouTube. My extra special guest this week is Bob Moser. He is the CEO of Prime Group holdings, the largest privately held self storage investment group in the United States, over 350 locations across 28 states, the U.S. virgin Islands and Canada. I want to talk a little bit about the state of commercial real estate today, but I still have a handful of questions I have to ask you about self storage. You mentioned small businesses are a big customer. I wouldn't have guessed that. What percentage of your units are rented by small businesses and what do they use this for?

[Bob Moser]

It's a great question. It's probably one of the most overlooked aspects of self storage. Self storage has two demand drivers, which is very unique in real estate in general. You think about residential. You have residential demand. An office has business demand. Self storage. We have both residential and business demand. A lot of people think of self storage. They think of storing their grandmother's couch. It's far from it. That might be 1 or 2%. The rest is 30 to 40% are small businesses. Contractors, landscapers, a lot of pharmaceutical reps. So we are their warehouse. We are the warehouse for that small business that employs the majority of the US Population. What's nice about storage being on a month to month basis, the terms of the contract. They can expand or contract as needed with their business. They don't have to sign A long term lease with an industrial or a warehouse. It's a perfect fit for an entrepreneur or a starting business or even a mature business.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Huh. Really, really interesting. And we were talking previously about Self storage isn't covered by the traditional landlord tenant law. This is a much easier set of rules to operate under. This is a lien law system. Is that true in all states?

[Bob Moser]

Most states, 100% and actually it carries to Canada as well in parts of Europe that we're looking at. But yeah. And it's basically very similar to like a bank loaning money, their collateral or the lien against a particular asset. And that's the way they look at it. And remember we take like I was saying before, no availment risk so we have no idea what's being stored, what the value is. So that is the collateral to their lease. If they don't pay that, there's an auction process. Obviously we don't want to auction off anybody's goods. And if let's say we send out 50 auction notices, maybe one or two go because hopefully we can work with that tenant and get them caught up. But it provides a way to collect the rent that's owed. Unlike a multifamily where it might take you a year if you're lucky to evict somebody that's not paying. Self storage is a lot quicker, easier process.

[Barry Ritholtz]

And you mentioned Europe. I don't think you have a whole lot of exposure currently in Europe. How big a push are you looking to make on the continent?

[Bob Moser]

So we've been doing a lot of digging in figuring out what the different aspects in different cities. It's interesting because some of the owners in Europe, let's say, let's look at London, there will be two or three owners, owners that own the majority of that inventory. Our play again is going out and buying from that one off owner. I really haven't gone into that much. But it's an important aspect to our business is we identify the institutional asset that's still owned by mom and pop. So we target that person that owns one or two facilities and the reason for that is that they're not a professional operator. And the chances are that we'll be able to achieve our returns if not better than what we estimated based on putting our systems and processes over the that family operated asset. So in Europe they've been consolidated into groups. So it really doesn't provide us that ability to buy assets that we think are highly under managed. So we're very risk adverse. So we'd like to see exactly how the value is going to be created. You know, we have a game plan on every asset, what levers need to be pulled in order to create that value. And one of those is a lot of the optimization of the rent roll, optimization of the actual unit mix, the layout of the facility. And if it's a larger, more professional owner, the chances are those low hanging fruit might not be there. So we're still trying to find the markets that have that fragmentation, where there's still one offs and two off owners, because that is really our bread and butter.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So in the US the laws vary somewhat from state to state, but it's fairly uniform. How different is it country to country in the EU or uk?

[Bob Moser]

Yeah, but even in the states when it comes to the actual implementation of the Lean Law, it does. There's different timings, there's different fees that can be charged, there's different things that you do with the proceeds from the auction. Let's say you receive more than what the person owed you. Some of it gets donated away, some of it gets contributed back to that seller. Depending on the state. That extra free proceeds determines where it goes. So we have a whole legal compliance team that works on this on a daily basis to make sure that each state law is being followed. Every municipality in the us, every territory in Canada, the research we're doing right now in Europe and in Australia, trying to find the markets where we know we can go in and consolidate, get economies of scale out of it, but buy the assets the way we want to buy them on this one off way.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Really interesting. So commercial real estates have seen higher rates of costs. Interest rates and inflation have been kind of stubborn and sticky. What sort of refinancing stresses does that create? Or are you sidestepping that whole interest rate chase these days?

[Bob Moser]

So we're very fortunate being in real estate for as long as we have. We have developed really deep relationships with the large institutional lenders from Citibank, the Goldman, the jp, the BMO to Northern Trust. You know, I'm sure I'm missing one, I'll probably get a call after this. But we have very deep rooted relationships and we're relationship oriented. So we're there, we work with these banks and it's a flight to quality during this time where lenders are going to the lenders they have long term relationship and track records with. But we spend a lot of time making sure that we're hedging our interest rates, we're making sure that we're putting the right debt on the assets. At the right time making sure we're not cross collateralizing too much. So a lot goes into it.

[Barry Ritholtz]

I can totally imagine. We've certainly seen shifts in demographics with everything from. From migration and remote work and aging populations. How does that affect demand for commercial real estate? Both self storage and other related real.

[Bob Moser]

Estate for it's a big demand driver for self storage. So when you think about it, people now are living in apartments more. I think I just heard the average the first time home buyers now until like they're 40 now, late 40s. It's crazy when it used to be like 28 or 26. So obviously they live in smaller apartments. They need place to put their stuff. They need storage. Storage is almost like a trade off. Is it that extra bedroom that might cost you $500 a month or is it a storage for $75 a month? You know, so it's always a trade. Same thing with an office. Is it that bigger office where you can have stuff on site or do you supplement it with a less expensive at the self storage? So this goes back to self storage being a need based real estate. And this is why during tougher times the aspirational real estate state are the ones that take the hit. Like we've seen in office lately.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Yeah. Speaking of office, we've seen a lot of underutilized office properties. Work from home continues. Hybrid working continues. How is that affecting what you're doing? I just saw related to this. I just saw a piece in the Wall Street Journal this week that there has been a sudden surge of office to residential conversions in lower Manhattan which two years ago everybody said oh it's too expensive, it's too time consuming. Do you track that sort of stuff? What sort of impact does that have?

[Bob Moser]

We're actually working on one of those now.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Oh really?

[Bob Moser]

It is. That's pretty interesting.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So we so commercial office to residential real estate.

[Bob Moser]

So what it was was we there was a group of assets in West Chelsea that we ended up buying that one of them by actually two of them by right. Could be self storage. We're converting one to a high end storage of the future. We're calling and I can go into that more modern, a lot of technology driven self storage. And the other part of the project was a nine story building that's on the high line that we are going in to have it converted from office to residential.

[Barry Ritholtz]

On the high line. All those properties have become incredibly valuable with some starchitech designers and that sort of stuff. It's always, it's always fascinating. I'M sure that's going to be interesting. When you say high tech self storage, I can imagine an app and an ability to have stuff brought out to you or stuff brought into you. What does high tech self storage look like?

[Bob Moser]

So we have actually harnessed the free energy of your cell phone to unlock the lock. So it's pretty interesting. So it's almost like a PayPal, I believe, or Apple Pay uses. So basically, if you look at the lock is what controls this business. The actual lock that's putting on and you have this, a physical key, you can lose that key, you know, it's hard to share. Like, let's say you're a small business. How do you give your employee access without giving multiple keys? So we've devised and have built a lock that your cell phone gets an electronic key sent to it and then you can use that to open up the lock. There's no batteries needed, there's no WI fi needed.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Some of the new EVs are the same way where you show up with a phone and it not only unlocks the car, it lets you start it.

[Bob Moser]

So we're bringing this to the self storage business and we have our first 5,000 being deployed as we speak right now. But what's really nice, it's catering not only to the residential, but the business consumer then can share their key for one time use or time use with an employee. The other thing is if they're late and don't pay, their electronic keys turned off. But also the customer gets a full audit at the end of the month when their unit's been opened, what time it was, so. So they know who's been in and out of their unit. Really tracks it 100%.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Huh. That's really fascinating. If it's not WI fi, how does the key operate? Is that Bluetooth or something else?

[Bob Moser]

No, purely off. So your cell phone gives off energy just sitting there. And it was enough to harness to actually flip that solenoid. It's pretty amazing. So we've been working for a couple years to get this perfected.

[Barry Ritholtz]

I'm assuming there has to be a battery.

[Bob Moser]

No battery. Your phone. No battery. No battery. That's the key to this. And it's good that you brought that up because everybody else has done it with a battery in the loc and.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Eventually that battery, that battery dies. Digital safes have a battery. The first time the battery dies on your safe, you know, you're like, oh my God. And you call them up and say, just, just replace the.

[Bob Moser]

This wasn't Supposed to happen right now it is. So if you think about it, one of our facilities in Astoria is 3,300 units. Okay, that's 156,000 square feet. So first of the month comes, if people haven't paid, that manager has to leave the front desk, go around and double lock those units. Right now the electronic key just magically freezes the unit so it reduces our labor. It gives the consumer a better product and easier product to use. Not to worry about losing a key. They have a lock for free on their unit, they get an audit of their unit. It gives them everything they want to know. It's a great win win, huh?

[Barry Ritholtz]

Quite fascinating. So given your perspective and experience in all sorts of commercial real estate 2026, there's a lot of questions. People have no idea what's going on on in terms of rates, in terms of government policies and tariffs and all these different things. What are you seeing in the commercial real estate space circa 2026?

[Bob Moser]

That's a good question. I was on the phone on the way down here with some of my bankers talking about this. Where does the curve look like in the short term? Obviously I think SOFR is going to be coming down. Obviously rates are being lowered. I'm hoping to see that on the five year treasury as well.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Is that your benchmark typically for fees as opposed to 10 year for mortgages?

[Bob Moser]

Yeah, so I look at the five year quite a bit. We'll do 10 year on some but the length of the fund really the five year is probably the most conducive in a fund structure. It gives you the flexibility. You can refinance out of it but you're not locked into a point where at times the debt could be a penalty if it's under leverage. You eliminate a lot of buyers at the end end when you do a roll up or if it's too costly then you have defeasance and everything else that goes along with it, you know, maintenance. But the five year works well.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So we've been hearing from various manufacturers. There's no sort of clarity as to policy. Everybody is kind of frozen capex in place and are a little reluctant to build or acquire. I get the sense that's not really an issue with your business going back.

[Bob Moser]

It's need based real estate. People need it to no matter what the life cycle is, whatever the macro economy is, they need space for their products, goods, inventory, their personal items.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Really, really fascinating. Last question before we get to our favorites. So what do you think commercial real estate investors aren't thinking about or talking about but perhaps should be what's really overlooked in terms of pick a subject assets, geographies policy that's getting overlooked of in terms but but really deserves more focus.

[Bob Moser]

I really think it's about how to really create value in real estate. Real estate is not a short term investment. And a lot of people look and I'm not even talking three to five years is short in real estate. I remember years ago this old timer told me that you know, real estate's boring for the first 30 years, but it's true, it really takes a while. Not only did it not be boring, but to be actually, you know, profitable, lucrative. And then you start really, then it starts to multiply on itself. As the rents go up, up and you stabilize those expenses, things start to grow rapidly. But I think it's the longer term vision to really create true value in real estate. I think the time horizon needs to be a little bit bigger than three to five years because what happens and people are put in the situation where they have to sell or they have to do something where instead real estate has to live through those cycles and it's just the best way to manage them. And just buying the right assets, defensive assets, like when we're buying an asset, one of the biggest thing is traffic count. But it's not just traffic count, it's traffic pattern. We want to make sure like on our storage assets, you're driving past that facility every day on the way to work, on the way to school. It's location, location, location driven. People have to remember the basics at times. And sometimes we get away from that and we start to look for things that are too sexy or stay simple, things that people constantly need. And you'll realize when you buy assets like that there's inflation hedges built in like storage. I can adjust rents on a 30 day notice. You know, there's a lot of inflation hedge built into those type of assets.

[Barry Ritholtz]

It's funny the line real estate is boring for the first 30 years. After Sam Zell passed away, I read a biography of him and one of the things that kind of that stunned me was he owned some of his properties for half a century, forever. That's just, that's just an unbelievable number.

[Bob Moser]

It's almost like the Warren Buffett way of buying real estate. And that's the way I and I think that was probably the hardest thing for me to get my head around doing the funds because I know what real estate can do over. When you get past that 10 year period, that's when your values start to really start escalating and really really growing and it's really having the right LPs understanding, you know the asset classes long.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Term is really long term when it comes to real estate.

[Bob Moser]

I'm God willing I'll be here when I'm 94.

[Barry Ritholtz]

So so let's jump to our favorite questions that we ask all of our guests starting starting with who were your mentors who helped shape this obsession with real estate from the earliest days and helped shape your career?

[Bob Moser]

I've had I've been very fortunate to have some great partners along the way from some of my like Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot was a really close friend and mentor and but along the way I've been I think everybody you learn from, everybody you meet along the way I think you kind of and when you look at the that anybody can be a mentor at any given point in time. But I've been fortunate to have some of the largest investors in the world like the late Ira Harris who was absolutely amazing and taught me a lot just life lessons speaking to them, knowing the long term look at assets, how to be patient, what to look for. There's a lot that have added up over the years and hopefully now I'm passing that along to others.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Let's talk about books. What are you reading and what are some of your favorites?

[Bob Moser]

I think probably my favorite was Remnants of a Stock Operator. It was a great book.

[Barry Ritholtz]

What about streaming? What are you listening to or watching? Anything keeping you entertained these days podcast wise, besides yourself?

[Bob Moser]

We were all in listening to some of that on the way down. I was just listening to actually your interview with Unlang Sloan's CEO Wilhelm Schmidt.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Of a fascinating guy.

[Bob Moser]

Really. Really. It was a great interview by by the way. I didn't realize how big into cars he was.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Can I tell you there are worse places to be than a beautiful sunny weekend.

[Bob Moser]

I can imagine. Newport. You sounded very happy.

[Barry Ritholtz]

I had a good time that weekend. So final two questions. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad interested in a career in commercial real estate investing?

[Bob Moser]

I think it's in anything don't count somebody else's money. I see a lot of younger people wondering what the other person next to them is making and concerned about that. Always do more than what you're paid for and you have to be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is probably the biggest driver of success I can think of.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Enthusiasm. That's really fascinating. And our final question. What do you know about the world of commercial real estate investing today? Would have been helpful back in the 1990s when you were first starting out.

[Bob Moser]

I would say it was more about managing people. It took me a long time to learn how to manage people. You know, I didn't have the benefit of working for a company. I started my own business in college, obviously grew it straight through. Never had that experience. It took me a long time to learn how to manage different, I would say strengths of different people. And I wish I and the ability to empower people. It took, you know, obviously it took me probably a decade and a half before I really felt comfortable doing that. But yeah, I think that was probably if I had done that earlier, I'd probably be bigger.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Really, really quite fascinating. Thanks Bob for being so generous with your time. Time we have been speaking to Bob Moser. He is the founder and CEO of Prime Group Holdings, America's largest privately held self storage investment fund. If you enjoy this conversation, well be sure and check out any of the 592 that we've done over the past 12 years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, Bloomberg, YouTube, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack team that helps me put these conversations together each and every week. Alexis Noriega is my video producer. Sean Russo is my head of research. Anna Luke is my podcast producer. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You've been listening to Masters and Business Business on Bloomberg Radio. So have you heard the story about the prescription plan? With savings automatically built in, it's where a family of any size can feel confident the cost of their medication won't hold them back. Go to CMK Co Stories to learn how CBS Caremark helps members save just by being members. That's CMK Co Staries.

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