 Welcome back to Community Matters here on Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. Today we're going to talk about COVID and how COVID has affected retail in Hawaii. There's been a certain amount of press on that lately. So we thought we'd check in with Stephanie Sophos, who is a real estate professional into commercial and retail properties for a long, long time. Let me say that. Welcome to the show, Stephanie. Thank you, Jay. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you. Great to see you. It's a real long time. We've been together a real long time. We're not going to get detailed about that. So this is kind of remarkable because we have a show, a regular show on restaurants, restaurants in Hawaii. Every two weeks, we talk to members of the Restaurant Association, Hawaii Restaurant Association. Some of them are able to get through it. Some of them aren't. And a lot of them are sort of scraping the bottom of their bank account. And it touches your heart that these people really care about their businesses. They want to do the right thing by staying in business and also by servicing their clientele. And I think there's probably a parallel to retail because there's something about having a retail establishment that is a community kind of experience, except the nationals. And we should make the distinction there between the locals and the nationals. But what has happened in the 2020 period during the, what I would call it, the height of COVID is a lot of them stayed in business. They managed to scrape it together, the retailers. But after COVID, it essentially collapsed. And now all this space, huge amounts of space on the market, rents are down for new leases, oh my goodness, for the retailers. And a lot of them are simply out of business. Can you talk about what's been going on? Well, like we talked about before the show started was when it first happened, when the pandemic hit us in March of 2020, everybody was in shock. And they got their PPP very fast. And that was enough to keep their employees going, to keep some of the rent paid and keep their inventory going. And then summer came in and we went from, we went from tier four to tier three, from tier one to tier two to tier three now. And then the holidays began and everybody, all the retailers wanted their inventory, they were pushing their inventory for Christmas and they were getting their Christmas money, getting their Christmas sales. And then in January, it was their after Christmas sales. And some PPP has come in the second round, but they can't hold on, they just can't do it. It's just, it's not coming back fast enough. And you know, they're still, they can only still have I think 50% of their store open. Restaurants are only 50%. You can have 10 people or more in restaurants, but it's still very difficult. And you know, after a year of struggling, you just, you're tapped out financially and now you're starting to see a rise in bankruptcy. And that's been accelerated. You're gonna see a lot more bankruptcies in the next six months, within the next six months. A lot of people just can't do it anymore. The moms and pops are the ones that go first. The nationals have deep pocket, am I right? They're less likely to fail. Well, nationals have been failing too. I mean, the difference is the scale of economies. And you know, what I said, I've said to people is that you might have a billion dollar company, but they don't have, and they have a billion dollars in assets, but they don't have a billion dollars in cash. And so they're struggling and they're struggling and they have multiple stores and they have 1,000 of tenants, thousands of employees. So you can imagine how it just exaggerates down the line. But the mom and pops, you know, they come in with a whim and a song and a prayer. And after they think that they can hold on and they have about maybe three to six months of reserves. And that's been gone now for the last four or five months. And the PPP is second PPP round has helped, but it's not going to be able to get them forward for the rest of the year. When you talk about reserves, three to six months of reserves, are you talking about reserves to cover rent or inventory? Both. Usually when you go into a business, a retail store, you have your business plan and the business plan has to be approved by your landlord. And they usually have a minimum of six months. A lot of the little guys who are in the ancillary and secondary, they might only have about three months. And that's gone. That's all gone. And I'm really sad. I took a, I've been doing some interesting walking through Kahala Mall through Wynward Mall, down to Waikiki, downtown Honolulu King Street. I'm just blown away of how many stores have gone out of business. So I want to throw one other coal in the fire. And that is Amazon, you know? And I say Amazon, I name Amazon. Sure, you know, we're talking about the internet, internet sales and all that. But Amazon is the king and the king, the king of the kings there. Because if I go to a lesser known one, you know, a lesser known Amazon, I'm not sure I'm going to get the same service. I'm not sure the prices will be as competitive. I'm not sure they'll have as much variety for me. I'm not sure that they're going to refund my money in case I don't like it and so forth. So Amazon becomes the king more and more, it seems to me. And people who were not using Amazon, say in up to, you know, 2019, all of a sudden they found out that Amazon was a good bet in 2020. And even with the pandemic, they could get it reasonably quick and they could refund, return it if they, I get it and so forth. And so they developed a relationship with Amazon even if they didn't have one before. Well, they got into a rhythm, didn't they Stephanie? You're buying everything you could buy from Amazon because they would get here only a couple of days later and you didn't have to go into the shopping center. You didn't have to expose yourself to who knows what. So people got into a rhythm which they are still, they're still doing that, aren't they? Absolutely, absolutely. And that is the new paradigm. But the other problem too is that, like during the Christmas holidays, I did try, and I'm just talking for myself personally, I did try to shop at Kahalamol and at Palmawana and help the local businesses. But it was a nightmare. You know, you went into the stores, stand here, don't move, wear your mask. You can only go six, you have to be six feet back. Okay, do you have a card? We don't want to take cash because we don't want to trend. We don't want to have transactions that we have to touch money. It was a nightmare. So, and I am a very seasoned shopper. I am a very seasoned retail person and I was turned off. And I tried, I tried three times and it was so uncomfortable. And so I went to Amazon and I didn't have to worry about stuff. I got what I wanted. If it didn't fit, if it didn't, if I didn't like it, I could take it back, send it back right away. No problems. So I went shopping the other day because we were talking about I was gonna come online and talk to you. And the experience has gotten a lot better. It's almost back to normal, but it still is a bit uncomfortable. And so you, you know, the world has changed and that everybody wants it like that yesterday, quickly. I want my, I want my coffee now. I don't want to wait. Look at Starbucks. You go into your phone now and you go to order and you walk in and you get your Starbucks. There's no money exchange. There's no, hello, how are you? How is your kid? How's the dog? You just walk in. Stephanie, your order's ready. Pick it up and you're out the door. That's a little uncomfortable for me, but that is how the millennials are shopping and they love it. And going forward, we're all gonna cater to every retailer, every, every commercial activity is all gonna be catering to the millennials and the world's has changed. They've changed the dynamics. I went to Apple, the Apple store this morning, pick up a computer they were fixing for me. And first of all, they gave me a hard time getting in. Yep. Which was really, it was the same experience I had when I delivered the broken computer in the first place. Only in that case, I was carrying the thing and it was heavy. So I thought, well, they're really missing on something. And I go in and now I'm supposed to pick up my computer that's been fixed. And I had to wait. I spent like an hour at the Apple store to just pick up a computer that had already been fixed. And to their credit, they called me and told me, you could come and pick it up now, no problem. But it was a problem. It was like much too much time. And I'm saying to myself, it was almost better for me to get on the net and buy a new one at Amazon and not fool around with this whole repair affair. And even Apple, which should know how to do this kind of thing technologically, they haven't really gotten to where they need to go, my view. So when you mentioned Starbucks, it touches a nerve there because what it says to me, and I would really like your thinking on this, is that the guys who were watching the store, so to speak, that's a pun. The guys who were watching the store, they figured out that you gotta change the paradigm. You gotta use the internet. You gotta make it easy and quick as easy as ordering mail order. And you have to use every piece of technology that you can find and they're the ones who did well or relatively well. And they're the ones who are gonna stay in business going forward. Am I right? Correct, absolutely correct. And it's sad because we've talked about this before. Shopping centers in your region, your smaller shopping centers and the tenants and mom and pops, you would shop and away people are very loyal. And they'd go and be, they would go to shop. Look at Love's Bakery. Look at all the people who would shop and buy their bread at Love's Bakery because of the history and the localness and the, sorry, and the people, it was like a family. But that's changing now because the millenials don't care. You and I care, but their sense of community is social media. And that's a big, big key going forward. You see people on TV. I am a social media influencer. I'm an influencer. I have my YouTube account. And you see all of the young people, they're on TikTok. They're on, they do all of their shopping on Amazon, on Apple. They don't go to the stores. The only time they go to the stores is go to the Starbucks where they went on their computers before now they can come back and they sit there and they socialize. But you and I, we used to like to shop and hey, how are you, George? How are you, Harry? Good to see you. How's the kids? No more. It's going forward. It's a new world. Yeah. And that goes to the question of making selections. You know, before you could have some face time with a salesperson in the store. Before you could call, I mean, for example, Amazon, you really can't talk to anybody, but if you wanted to get camera equipment, you go to B&H Photo in New York. It's a tremendous operation. And you could talk to somebody all day and they would give you advice and consultation. Problem is they couldn't deliver as fast. So I think, as you say, it's all migrating to completely, completely online and social media to teach you what you really want. And of course, there's all that AI out there that sends you all this email telling you what you want to do. It's a predictive analysis. It's a little scary. So what I'm getting at, the change in the paradigm here is that you buy it based on what's on the web. You don't talk to a human being very much. If it comes and you don't like it, you can send it back, hopefully. And no human person is involved. Except maybe you talk to your friends on social media, they give you advice, which could be wrong. So it's turning into a fulfillment center. You know what I mean? It's a fulfillment center rather than a store where you're actually having contact with somebody. Yeah, I don't know what that's going on in the background, sorry. I think the other thing that's happening is that when we were growing up, sorry, see, you know what that is? That's the UPS people delivering products. So they have a certain sound. So what I was gonna say is that when you and I were growing up, we could go to a shop and they were big stores and we could sit around and look at stores in different colors and different sizes and be around and see people. Now, you're gonna, because of this paradigm shift, the stores are gonna get much smaller. I'm sorry about this. And so it's gonna be kind of like a showroom. You're gonna go online, you're gonna see what your product is, what you wanna buy, you're gonna ask for it and they'll have it for you when you go to the store. And then you will buy that, you will buy from that store, maybe that particular shoe, I'll have three sizes, a nine and eight and a half or a seven and you'll try it and then you'll buy it. But that might even be going away more. I think the only thing that you're gonna see now, where it's gonna grow is your grocery stores because people do want their food and they wanna shop. Like a Costco will grow even more, Sam's Club will grow even more, Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon will grow exponentially. And because people, that's something that you have to go and physically buy. I mean, you can get groceries to a certain extent, but a lot of people want to see what type of groceries they're buying. And so that's gonna grow, but your stationary store and card store, that's dead, even your photo stores are dead. Your clothing stores, unless it's like a brand like what you're wearing, a rick or a polo, they have the scale, the rick might not, but they have the, he has the name, the polo has the scale of economies, they will maintain. But your smaller group, they're gonna go out the way. It's gonna be a, and your shopping centers are gonna get smaller. You're gonna see the spaces that are large that can't be filled and they're gonna be filled with like churches. You see that right now. You see that in Akahi Park. There's the shopping center. They have a church at Kahala Mall. They have a church upstairs, which used to be the country kitchen restaurant. Yeah, you're gonna see your restaurants, like even Pizza Hut, which is the larger, which used to be their product, their prototype was 5,000 square feet, will probably be 2,500 square feet going forward. And yet your whole foods, which was 30,000 square feet of space will go to 60,000. So that's where it's gonna shift. Your restaurants, your restaurants are, unless you're a cheesecake, which is like in Waikiki, it's 18,000 square feet and average restaurant will be 3,000 square feet, like the pig and the lady. So because they have, because of the costs, they're so prohibitive and to get people to come down, it's gonna take that smaller space to get maximum profit. And of course, this isn't just a show, but that same process is gonna go on with office space because people are, they have learned to use Zoom for business meetings and why should they change? They like it so much and they're gonna continue to do that. So all these new processes in place will probably continue or some of them anyway. So I wanted to ask you to look at this now for a moment from the other side, look at it from the side of the commercial real estate program. You got, you know, the article in the advertiser a few days ago said something about how more than 300,000 feet had been vacated in the past three months. It was really extraordinary. Yeah, it went from, they went from a 4% vacancy to I think, what is it, 14, 13% in one year? That's incredible. Yeah. That's incredible. So the landlords and not every landlord is Alamoana Center. Although a good percentage of Alamoana Center is presently right now today vacant. And every mall in the state, a good percentage of it is vacant. But the smaller malls, the strip malls, you know, the landlords must be dying. In fact, every retail landlord must be worried about how he pays his mortgage. Oh, I would think so. What is happening to them? Oh, I think Alamoana is about 11% vacant right now. They went from like three, two and a half to 3% to 11% in one year. So I think they have a vacancy. They were 1.4 million square feet and they have about 140,000 square feet of vacancy down from 10 to 20,000. That's amazing. So to answer your question, they're gonna be struggling. Everybody's struggling, the commercial. You know, you made a comment about office. Office is gonna be a big struggle. I don't believe there'll ever be another big office building built in downtown Honolulu again. I think you'll see apartment buildings. You'll see condominiums because people like that. Right now condominiums are not popular because of COVID. Everybody's going crazy and buying single family houses because they want to cocoon around their own places. That will change because we have a finite amount of land and it's prohibitively expensive. So you will go back to condominiums, but you'll also be going down to your business. As you said, it's gonna be in your office, in your home. So you're gonna have, maybe you have a free bedroom condo in one bedroom is the office. And the retail for the landlords, it's gonna be very dire. It's gonna be very, very dire going forward in the next few years. And I'm very concerned about that. I think I've read from different periodicals that 40 to 60% and I think it's more 60% of the commercial tenants have not paid the rent. They have, they're actually being slow or they haven't paid the rent. And they're not gonna be able to because they can't get their businesses going. And that is extreme. I mean, I think Hawaii had a vacancy, they had a delinquency of about, normally when you do your budget, your delinquency is about 5%, 5 to 10% at the max and they're now at 60. So what happens and how that works is that when you have a shopping center, say, let's use Paloma Juana and you buy that shopping center for $800 million and you put 300, you have a 500 million mortgage. Well, you base your, you get that big mortgage from institutional financing based on your performer of your rents. So your rents are here. The landlord can't drop the rent to here. He can't lower the rents. He can't bring in new people at this rent because his performer was based at this rent. So he'll leave it vacant for as long as he can until he can try and get these rents back to where they are. So if that can't happen, then the institutional lenders can call the loan that's usually what happens with commercial payment. If the landlord can't pay, the lender can't pay. If he can't pay, the lender will call the loan. So I'm not saying this will happen to all of Moana because I'm not privy to their financing, but in a lot of, that's your dog. So what you're gonna go see going forward is many shopping centers will, either go bankrupt or you'll see them sold quickly. And that means that the commercial paper has been, has the lenders have called the loan and are selling the paper for maybe less, but they have to get that income coming in to pay those big debts. And there's a lot of people, it was all based at this performer because the economy was so strong now it's here. And I don't know where we're gonna go from there. Well, let's explore a couple of things on that. Number one, it seems to me that if landlords, whatever their rates are, if they have empty space and nobody's paying rent, they need to have resources to keep on paying their mortgages which are frequently a good percentage of the value of their shopping center or strip mall or their premises in general. And if they don't have that reserve, then A, they have to go out of business because they're gonna get sued, they're gonna get sued by the bank which has an obligation to sue them for its own regulatory purposes. They can't just allow this default to continue, they will sue them and then there'll be a bankruptcy or some kind of workout. And then you see all kinds of violence done at the point of contact between the banks and the landlords. This isn't necessarily good. And the banks wind up with all these commercial properties that they can't use. And it's just an awful reason. And then they're sold at 10 cents on the dollar but the investors who have purchased these commercial, the commercial paper because a lot of them are sold on second and third levels will end up being burned. And that creates a whole nother thing. That's what we saw in the, we saw that in 1990 with the SNLs when the SNL debolical happened and everything crashed. And we saw that in 2000, we saw that in 1980 to 1990 when the Japanese bubble burst. And then we saw it again in 2007, when the commercial and the residential burst because of all those loans. I'm concerned, I've been doing this for 40 years since I became a real estate broker at 20, excuse me, at 21. And I've been a broker for 41 years. So you know how old I am. And I've gone through three major events. And I'm concerned that this might be another one coming because it feels like kind of like the roaring 20s we've had the Spanish, they had the Spanish flu back in 1919. And then everybody got healthy and then they started spending and the flappers were out and then everything was great. And then boom, it hit the stock market crash, the real estate market crash. And I don't like to be a doomsday Debbie but I really am concerned because the stock market's up, the real estate market's up. The real estate market, it went up 27% last year in Hawaii and in some areas, 40% the residential market I'm talking about, commercial actually declined. And the stock market went up 22%, 23% last year and everything's still going up. People are buying properties, real estate, residential homes, the houses, single family homes. Average is 15 offers per house. You know, they're doing a bidding war and I saw a Kailua property that was advertised for 1.2 million but was it worth probably 900,000 and it ended up selling for 1.4 million cash. So to me, that's insanity. And it's going on and every day you see it going up and up and up and up and it scares me. Why is that happening? I don't know, to be honest with you. I don't know. It just seems that people are nervous and they're pulling money out of the stock market, putting it into the real estate, but even the real, but that doesn't make sense because it's a hard asset and there's no flexibility when you put in real estate and you're buying at top of the market. So what does that mean? You think it's going to go even higher? I don't know, what do you think? I'm very concerned. I mean, I don't get it. I'm always concerned when I see values go up so fast that the ordinary person can't afford them. And sometimes that's because money is coming from offshore and they don't know what to do with it. So they put it here thinking that Hawaii is a safe haven for investment. I'm not sure you can say that these days. Right, you can. But I think the failure of these retailers and the trouble the banks are having with properties where the tenants can't pay rent and so forth. And you were saying you can't predict how this is all going to wind up. But let me ask you to do it anyway. What is going to happen if you have all these landlords who go belly up and banks who suffer and take over properties they can't really use? What's the end product of that locally and nationally? Well, what happens in these situations is that the market will crash. The properties will go into foreclosure bankruptcy and they have to be resold. And there is quite a bit of bottom feeders out there who have a lot of cash and they'll come in and they will buy them and they will change it up, make lots of cuts, pre-eat up and then sell it again or build it up so they get an income. And it's all about the value. And so you will see that happen. You'll see here and across the mainland of the United States and in Europe and in Asia it's happening across the whole world. You look at your markets right now globally, New Zealand, Japan, Australia, Korea, which are our markets, they're not letting people into their country and they're not letting people out of their country. Australia says they're not even gonna look at it until June and New Zealand. And in Europe, they're shut down again because they're having another round of COVID. And so France is shut down, all the hospitals are full, blah, blah, blah, blah. So America is kind of reopening and they're coming back but the damage is already done and you have to and you're gonna see more and more bankruptcies and you're gonna see the bottom feeders come in. But what that is, that means a lot of mom and pop retailers will be collateral damage. They will be foreclosed on because they won't have their money, they'll be kicked out, they'll be sued and a lot of them will go bankrupt, these individuals will go bankrupt. So it's not a very good scenario going forward. And in Hawaii, you have a government that doesn't understand business and we could go for a whole another hour about that. They don't understand business. All they think about is that their government workers are getting their pay, they're getting their benefits, they're getting their salaries, they're getting their retirement and that's all they think about. And what did they think? They're thinking about raising their salaries again, the legislators another 10%, they're thinking about increasing taxes, they're thinking about increasing minimum wage which affects small business. They're not thinking about any relief to the businesses. So what will happen is that Hawaii will be fine for about the government of Hawaii will be fine for another 18 months because they got enough money from the federal government to take care of the 18 months of fiscal of their fiscal. They have the rest of this year and next year of their fiscal year. Come the next round, Governor Iago Begay will be out, new governor will come in and then what do you happen? There's no money for business. And the only business that might come back and will come back a little faster than commercial will be the hotels, but the hotels won't be as large or as packed because even Rick Freed, who is chairman of the Hawaii Visitors Authority has said, said in the paper, we don't need another, we don't want or need 10 million tourists again. We want to balance, we want to balance. Well, that's great. Okay, I'm, you know, I'm for that. I like quality, not quantity, but how do you pay the private sector salary and how do you keep the hungry government agent, government who has 68% of their dollar goes to to salaries, benefits and retirement and not infrastructure. How are we gonna move forward? You can't have one without the other and we're coming to a crash. And it's gonna be a crisis. Might not be a crash, but a crisis. Well, I mean. And that will be an 18 months, 18 months to 24 months. I know you've made predictions on this show before and they've all come true, Stephanie. So we gotta take all that very seriously. But I'd like to ask a couple of things that spring out of it. You know, what we've really been talking about is not just the decline of retail, or for that matter, the decline of landlords who have retail tenants. It's a decline of the economy because all of this slows down the economy and it affects everybody. You can't stand on the sidelines and say, oh, that's them. You know, I'm not a retailer. I don't care or I'm not a landlord. I don't care. But that has a direct effect on everybody or maybe a strong indirect effect on everybody. So when you make the 18 month prediction, you're really talking about a result that will affect every man, woman and child in the state. Am I right? Correct. And it's very concerning to me. You know, I'm getting up there and I'm not gonna be making the income that I used to make. And I might go into semi-retirement. I'll always be doing something because my brain needs that. But, you know, I'm not gonna be making the income to pay the taxes and I'm one of many people that are in that road, in that area. And who's gonna pay the taxes? And you keep taxing people, they will leave. And then what are you left with? You're left with a great majority of poor and very small, very rich. And they may, your middle class will be shrunk and gone. And so who's gonna pay for all? And they don't get it. They don't understand. You've got to, if I were the queen, or if I was governor, I'd be sitting down with business people right now today and say, how do we rebuild our economy? I don't want you to have, I don't want the economists from the state. I don't need another large, what do you call it, management consultant and all these guys who come in and tell you what you want to think. You need to talk to small business and you need to talk to retailers and say, how can we help you get back on your feet? And what that would mean would be deferred, you know, a reduction in taxes. Yeah, because if you reduce taxes, it's the same thing, you reduce taxes, but you get more volume, you're gonna get your income, you're gonna get your taxes. You're gonna get your taxes. But if you tax, if you, so an example is that if you make $100 and you lower, and you're at 5%, but you lower it to 2.5%, then okay, you're only getting 2.5%. So you're getting $2.50. But if you get that, and you, he now can take that $2.50 that the business person and put it in his inventory and now he makes another 50. So instead of making $100, he's making $200. Well, that 2.5% is 5%. So now you're where you need to be, but he can then get more volume and grow his business and hire more people and create a lively put for lots of other people. Yeah, but they're not focused on that. They're focused on this huge bureaucratic juggernaut of people who regulate us. And instead of helping the business community, they help the government sector. This is not really the thing to do. I totally agree with you. One last point though, Stephanie, before we go. So make me what you call the bottom feeder. Make me a person who sees all this misfortune. What do they call it? Shodden Freud, somebody who takes advantage of the other guy's misfortune. What am I looking for these days? Am I looking for a retail business that is on its last legs? Am I looking for a property that has just lost the retailer? What kind of assets are the greatest bargains for the future? B, you're looking for commercial properties that have a lot of vacancies and they're hurting. Retailers, they come and go. And they're not gonna, and unfortunately they're collateral damage. God bless the small business people, but they're dead. If they go out, they're done because they're tied to leases with personal guarantees. Their cash flow is dead and they're done. And so that's the first thing is you look at commercial properties who have lots of holes and Swiss cheese. You have, I call it Swiss cheese. And they're not that, they're some of them downtown and on King Street, there's some properties there. These are older in green families that don't wanna sell. Maybe they have lots of reserves, but there'll be several that will say I'm ready. And especially on the, in Kauai, Kauai is devastated. Kauai is absolutely devastated because of the constrictions. And so number one, I'd be looking at commercial properties with a lot of vacancies. Number two, I'd be looking at apartment building because a lot of apartment... You mean rental apartment buildings? Yeah, residential apartment buildings because again, they went, their vacancy and delinquency was 5% and now it's 40 to 60%. And a lot of those people have not paid because we have a moratorium. The governor issued a moratorium. I think it extends to May 30th. So whether you pay or not, some people have not paid since March 15th and you can't evict them. You mean last year? Of last year. So what is that? It's 13 months of no rent for 30 or 40%. Those people, those owners are gotta be done. And so there's an opportunity there. If you're gonna be a... But you have to have the cash. You're gonna have... Then a lot of people do have cash. They're not like you and I, they're flushed and they are really flushed and they're ready and they're whittling. Are you talking about local or offshore? Both, both. Offshore, I will tell you, offshore is not looking at the way right now. Offshore has not been able to bring their money out. And I can tell you that a lot of the Asian population that bought in Kakaako, a lot of those condominiums are 30% less than what they originally purchased. And because they got stuck in the mainland, I mean, it's stuck in their countries and they need their cash. So offshore is not gonna be a player for a while. You have many mainland people. Those are who... And the local people in mainlanders are the ones who are buying residential real estate right now. And they will then move into commercial and apartment buildings as soon as they can. And so those are the two big investments that I would be looking at moving forward in the future. One of the things, definitely before we run out of time and that's this. Suppose, I know this is an odd question, but suppose I want to start a retail business now. Now in the past, you know, those leases have gone from 20 in our lifetimes, 20 pages to 30 pages. Actually, they started at more like 10 pages. That's a 50, 60 pages with all kinds of boilerplate that's really hard to swallow. And the landlord will say, sign it or don't take it. It's up to you, but I'm not changing one syllable. And furthermore, there's always, as you said, a guarantee, a personal guarantee of you and your wife and your children and your dog. Everybody guarantees the lease, which makes it for a complete family disaster when something goes wrong, like now. So it seems to me that going forward, somebody who wants to start a retail business, A, takes less space. B, they say, well, I'm not signing your 60 page lease. We'll go back to the 10 page model and I'm not giving you a guarantee. Is this possible? No, no, no, no, not with it. What I would tell somebody who wants to be in retail is like I said before, run, run fast, run hard and run. I don't, no, no, the landlords will never change unless we go into the Great Depression and let's God forbid that ever happens, but no, it's not gonna happen. You're gonna have, but what you will have is pop-up stores who will do that. They will say, I have a product, I wanna sell it, tied to the internet, come see our product, we're here this week, we'll be over there next week and those pop-ups will do fine. And those are daily or monthly no guarantees leases. Those will win, but they are in line stores, no. And at this point for the next 18 months, I would tell people, you got a great idea, put it on the internet, start selling out of your home, grow your business, get a lot of money into your pocket and then think about it in a year or two. We'll have to leave it there. Stephanie, I so enjoy these discussions. We'll have to do this more often. I think that was really very valuable to our viewers and I'm looking forward to our next time together. Stephanie Sofos, some people refer to Stephanie as a real estate diva, and she is the ultimate consummate professional. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jay. God bless you. See you soon. Aloha.