JF 4087: Solar-Powered Storage, Smart Financing and Future Growth ft. Steven Wear

The Best Ever CRE Show

Best Ever CRE

Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.7 • 996 Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amanda Cruise and Ash Patel interview Steven Wear, chief marketing officer of SSSE, about the firm’s nationwide self-storage investments and how it’s evolving the model through creative financing and energy innovation. Steven explains how SSSE focuses on secondary and tertiary markets to avoid oversaturation and zoning risks, and why they advocate for local moratoriums once they’ve entered a market. He discusses using substitution of collateral strategies to maximize returns on seller-financed deals, creating a self-sustaining capital engine. The conversation also explores how SSSE integrates solar power, geothermal, and potential data center partnerships to turn storage facilities into power-generating assets, revealing a forward-thinking vision for the future of self-storage. Steven WearCurrent role: Chief Marketing Officer, SSSEBased in: Chicago, IllinoisSay hi to them at: https://ssse.com/ | LinkedIn Alternative Fund IV is closing soon and SMK is giving Best Ever listeners exclusive access to their Founders’ Shares, typically offered only to early investors. Visit smkcap.com/bec to learn more and download the full fund summary. Join us at Best Ever Conference 2026! Find more info at: https://www.besteverconference.com/ Join the Best Ever Community The Best Ever Community is live and growing - and we want serious commercial real estate investors like you inside. It’s free to join, but you must apply and meet the criteria. Connect with top operators, LPs, GPs, and more, get real insights, and be part of a curated network built to help you grow. Apply now at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠www.bestevercommunity.com⁠⁠ Podcast production done by⁠ ⁠Outlier Audio⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever noticed every investment pitch deck looks perfect, charts up and to the right,
0:05.0	bulletproof plans, great returns, but how do you know which projections are realistic and which
0:10.1	sponsors to trust? That's where SMK Alternative Fund 4 comes in. SMK reviewed over 350 opportunities
0:17.3	in the past six months and invested in just five high conviction deals. The fund gives
0:22.0	accredited investors access to recession-resistant real estate, industrial, multifamily, mobile home
0:28.3	parks, and private debt, with top operators. Avoid high individual deal minimums and gain
0:34.1	diversification through one allocation. SMK capital management, a family-owned firm with over 15 years of experience,
0:41.6	conducts rigorous due diligence on each investment to ensure strong performance potential
0:45.9	and capital preservation.
0:47.9	The fund targets a five-year hold with immediate cash flow, 11 to 16 percent annualized
0:52.8	returns, and tax benefits through 30 to 40% passive losses
0:57.3	in the first year. Alternative Fund 4 is closing soon. SMK is giving Best Ever listeners
1:02.6	exclusive access to founder's shares typically reserved for early investors. Visit
1:07.7	SMKKAP.com slash BEC to download the full fun summary.
1:13.1	Best ever listeners, welcome back to the best ever CRE show. We have another beyond multi-family
1:20.0	episode for you today. Man, I'm boshing my speaking today. So good luck. Good luck to everybody
1:26.5	listening today. I can't say substitute. I can't
1:29.3	even say beyond multifamily. Luckily, you did a lot better in today's interview. You did great.
1:35.1	Hey, Amanda. You know, interesting guy today, Stephen Weir that we interviewed a gentleman out of Chicago
1:41.6	that is doing some neat things in self-storage.
1:45.5	And if you would dive into this whole financing thing that he's working on.
1:50.0	Yeah, it was quite interesting.
	...

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