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spk04: Center Spaces Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30th, 2023 was filed with the SEC yesterday after the market closed. Additionally, our earnings release and supplemental disclosure package have been posted to our website at centerspacehomes.com and filed on Form 8-K. It's important to note that today's remarks will include statements about our business outlook and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties discussed in our filing under the section titled Risk Factors and in our other filings with the SEC. We cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Please refer to our earnings release for reconciliations of any non-GAAP information which may be discussed on today's call. I'll now turn it over to Ann Olson for the company's prepared remarks.
spk00: Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining CenterSpace's third quarter earnings call. With me this morning is Bharat Patel, our Chief Financial Officer. We're happy to be here today to discuss with you our third quarter results, our outlook for the remainder of 2023, and an update on our investment activity. We're pleased with our results on revenue and expenses. In year to date, we've increased core FFO by 6.8% year over year. Starting with revenue, in our same-store portfolio, we achieved a 5.7% year-over-year increase. This is slightly ahead of our expectations, as we realized sequential revenue growth even as new lease rental rates have moderated. With respect to revenue trends, in the third quarter, we executed one-third of our lease expiration. On same-store new lease tradeouts, we achieved 2.3% increases and 4.9% increases on renewals, resulting in a 3.9% blended lease tradeout. Sequentially, market rent is declining as leasing slows into the fourth quarter, and we expect that trend to continue. In October, our same-store leasing tradeouts look positive at a blended 0.8%, which is a combination of new lease tradeouts of negative 2.4% and renewal lease rental rates increasing 5.3%. This slowdown in leasing has been factored into our revenue guidance and with over 86% of our leases in the books for 2023, we're focusing on occupancy to close out the year and maintain a strong position headed into 2024. This will capitalize on the stability of our portfolio fundamentals with 23.8% rent to household income levels and a collection rate in the third quarter of 99.6%. With respect to expenses, we had a 6.1% year-over-year increase. The largest driver of increases continue to be real estate taxes and insurance. This quarter, non-controllable expenses were up 11.3% year-over-year, driven by a 21.4% increase in insurance costs. We are not anticipating that we'll be seeing any relief on the insurance front into 2024, so we will focus on what we can control. Cost control measures implemented at the beginning of the year continue to benefit our repairs and maintenance costs. This and lower utilities expense are offsetting the impact of increased on-site compensation. Our overall results also benefit from lower G&A expenses after the CEO transition earlier in the year. Our results and outlook for the remainder of the year led us to increase our guidance. Bharat will cover our guidance projections in more detail in his remarks, but I wanted to highlight that we reduced our estimate of 2023 value-add capital spend due to timing of projects. We have seen market-specific softening in some leasing that is keeping our eyes sharp on our underwritten premiums, and we will maintain discipline and stay nimble into next year if there are projects that don't hit our expected returns. On balance, we're focusing our value-add capital on our highest return opportunities, which at this time are in the smart home and smart community category. Our current plan has implementation of smart home technology in about 50% of our total communities by the end of 2024. In addition to this implementation, during the quarter we completed 350 in-unit renovations as well as associated common area amenity enhancements. Moving to investment activity, earlier this month we announced that we had sold four communities in Minot, North Dakota, marking our exit from the Minot market for an aggregate sales price of $82.5 million. This disposition included approximately 50,000 square feet of commercial space. We also closed on an acquisition in Four Columns, Colorado, Lake Vista apartment homes was purchased for $94.5 million, approximately a 5% cap rate. The acquisition included the assumption of $52.7 million in mortgage debt with an attractive interest rate of 3.45%. Our year-to-date transactions continue to benefit portfolio quality, and we're pleased with the execution of our dispositions and the addition of Lake Vista, which is a 2011 built community with 303 homes. Our entrance into the Fort Collins MSA creates a broader geographic footprint in Colorado and is an extension of the operating scale and efficiencies we have built in the Mountain West. We like the diverse economic base in Fort Collins, including healthcare, high tech manufacturing, and education. Cost of home ownership is high with a median single family home value of $560,000 and the market features significant outdoor amenities, including being a gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Otherwise, transaction activity is slow as price discovery continues, and we maintain focus on strength in our balance sheet for when activity picks up. Now I'll turn it over to Barab to discuss our financial results, balance sheet, and outlook for the remainder of 2023.
spk01: Thanks, Anne, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report another quarter of strong earnings with core SFO of $1.20 per diluted share, driven by a 5.4% year-over-year increase in same-store NOI. On a sequential basis, same-store NOI decreased by 3.7%, driving a sequential decline in core FFO as revenue was relatively flat, while expenses grew due to higher spend in certain categories typical of the summer months when we have a huge chunk of our leases expiring. Our balance sheet remains in one of the strongest positions the company has experienced. We ended the quarter with no balance on our line of credit and a weighted average interest rate of 3.46%. We have a well-laddered maturity schedule with a weighted average maturity of approximately seven years and minimal debt coming due in the near term. Our net debt to EBITDA pro forma for our Lake Vista acquisition and Minot dispositions is approximately seven times. This metric includes the mortgage we assumed as part of the Lake Vista purchase. As the coupon of 3.45% on the mortgage we assumed is significantly below the current market rate, it resulted in a fair market value discount of 3.9 million on the date of acquisition. This discount will be amortized over the remaining term of just under three years at a rate of $370,000 per quarter and will increase our interest expense relative to the coupon payment. Consistent with our past practice, we will make an adjustment for it in calculating our core FFO. Historically, this adjustment has decreased our core FFO per share as we have been amortizing above market debt. Now, I will discuss our financial outlook for 2023. Based on our Q3 results, we are increasing the midpoint of our full year 2023 core FFO guidance by 2 cents to $4.67 for diluted share. There were no changes to the expected increases in same store NOI or revenues at the midpoints, where we still expect 9.25% and 7.25% increases respectively, as revenues and expenses were generally in line with expectations during the quarter. We were able to capture a loss to lease and a bulk of expirations before we saw rental rates and demand soften towards the end of peak leasing season, which is something we experienced at the same time last year and generally aligns with historical trends for the portfolio. On the expense side, we have seen decreases in certain controllable categories that grew significantly last year and we expect the trend to continue. Lastly, after completing our Minot dispositions and Lake Vista acquisition, guidance incorporates no further transactions for the year. To conclude, we are pleased to report another quarter of strong operating results while simultaneously advancing our key strategic priorities of improving portfolio quality and market exposure through capital recycling. I want to compliment the team for their flawless execution of our plan in an extremely challenging transaction environment. And with that, I will turn it back to the operator to open up the line for questions.
spk08: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, you may do so by pressing Start followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. When preparing for your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. And if you'd like to revoke your question, please press Start followed by 2. We will now take our first question from Brad Huffern from RBC Capital Markets. Brad, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
spk06: Yeah, thanks. Hey, everybody. On the new lease number in October, Bharat, it sounded like you said that that's a relatively normal number for October. Is that correct? And I guess just any color as to whether you're seeing, you know, any additional pressure versus what you would normally see on lease rates.
spk00: Morning, Brad. This is Anne. Thanks for your question. I think Rob did reiterate that is fairly normal. We have seen through the second half of the year in particular a real return to pre-COVID seasonality after a couple years of, you know, very steep run up. So we aren't concerned about what we're seeing in October. It is pretty isolated to, you know, markets where we had very steep increases in the Mountain West and or have more supply pressure on a relative basis than the rest of our markets. That would be you know, Billings, Rapid City, and the other Mountain West. A little bit in Denver. We're down in October about 0.9 in new leases, so not real steep. And then we're about flat in Minneapolis.
spk06: Okay, got it. And then on supply, not something that you typically have to deal with, but that's obviously been the theme this quarter. So what are the markets where you're seeing elevated supply? I think you just gave a couple. And then what are your expectations for supply in 2024?
spk00: Yeah, that's a great question. It certainly is a big theme. You know, one of the hallmarks of our portfolio is our markets are more insulated from supply. They're smaller, but that also means that they're more susceptible to supply. So someplace like Billings, which is a small market, has very little supply, but it has impacted it slightly there. I'd say our most supply affected markets are Denver and Minneapolis. We feel good about our position in those markets. Our rents are still, you know, at a level below new Brand new product to keep us a little bit insulated, but we are feeling pressure there with respect to 2024 I think, like most of the industry we're really expecting supply to moderate and, in fact. unlikely to see a lot of new products coming on or starting lease up in 2024 but we may have some product that's you know, has taken longer to lease that falls in into 2024. We expect the effective supply to be much muted in 2024. Okay.
spk06: Thank you.
spk08: Thank you, Brad. Our next question comes from John Kim from BMO Capital Markets. John, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
spk03: Good morning. This is Robin Hanelen sitting in with John. I wanted to touch on the focus on occupancy for the remainder of the year. What level of occupancy translates to the respective high and low end on the same store revenue? And could you also give us a sense of how occupancy is split between your value add and stabilized same store portfolio?
spk01: Hey, Robin, this is Rav. Yeah, so with respect to Q4, we expect occupancy to be in the mid 94 range that is what we have kind of built into the guidance so i would say 94.5 to 94.8 percent is what we are kind of factoring into the guidance and with respect to value add it's about 25 basis points which is attributable to value add from an occupancy perspective got it
spk03: And do you consider Fort Collins a standalone market from Denver, and could we expect future investments in the market?
spk00: Yeah. You know, Fort Collins is near Denver, but does have its own MSA and some of its own economic drivers, particularly with respect to Colorado State University and, you know, Hewlett-Packard has a large base there. So a little less energy and gas concentration than the Denver market – you know, the core of the Denver market. So it does have its own demographics and available information, a little bit less supply driven there. So we do consider it a separate market. It is an extension for us of Denver from a regional and scale basis on an operations basis. It's within 30 minutes of some of our assets that are in the Denver MSA, including our asset in Longmont. And I do, you know, we are going to look there to continue to scale out that Mountain West platform. So, you know, when we see some transactions come back, we would like to see more in Fort Collins.
spk08: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, John. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Wes Goloday from Berg. Once your line is now open, please go ahead.
spk02: Hey, good morning, everyone. Going back to that smart home technology rollout you put in this year, how much of a lift has seen for revenue was it this year? And would you expect a greater lift next year?
spk00: So this year, we started this year. So the increase on the revenue side has been relatively minor. simply because we're in the middle of the rollout. We think that that will continue into next year. There isn't a large component. I think the premiums on those are about $40 to $60 a unit, so not a massive lift on the revenue side, but we really do expect a lot of expense savings, particularly into next year from some of this. Our return, our calculated ROI that we're targeting on those is about 21.4%. So great investment. It's a combination of cost savings for us and revenue.
spk02: Yeah, thanks for the return on that as well. Appreciate that. And then you did a lot of capital recycling of late. And just wondering, when you look at the portfolio now, see where pricing is, is there a chance to do more of that?
spk00: I think so. We're really taking a keen eye to what in our portfolio is performing well, what markets and types of assets we think have long-term growth potential, and where we may do some trading out. The flip side of the coin on the dispositions is that there's a real dearth of acquisition opportunities, particularly in markets that we like. There's a lot of capital still waiting to be placed, even with high interest rates and a lot of sellers who are holding. We do see on the disposition side, we think we can still achieve really good pricing given the amount of capital. With respect to the Minot sale, we had four full portfolio best and final offers, which we felt was a very strong bid pool for those assets in North Dakota. So, you know, we're keeping a strong eye on it, and we'd like to be well-positioned, really focusing on the balance sheet right now so that we can take advantage of what opportunities come, whether those be in the form of capital recycling or new opportunities.
spk02: Great. Thanks for the time.
spk08: Thank you, Wes. We now have a follow-up question from Badha Fan from RBC Capital Markets.
spk06: Hey, everybody. I'm back. Just a couple of quick little things. Rob, can you give the loss to lease and the earn in that you're expecting for 2024 currently?
spk01: Sure. The loss to lease as it stands as of today is about 2.8%. The earn in is about a point and a half. Now, you know, this has kind of declined. As you know, it's a point in time number. So this has declined over the summer months into today, and that's a similar trend that we expected last year into this time as well.
spk06: Okay, got it. And then on the expense picture for 24, I think you said no relief expected on insurance, not expecting to give guidance, but would you expect relief overall on expenses next year, or should we expect them to remain elevated?
spk00: Well, am I giving direction to you or to the people running my budgets here, Brad? I think what we're going to see and what we're starting to see as we have started to see some of the budgets come in for next year, I think we're going to see some relief on taxes. Those are going to stay relatively flat. I think our portfolio was very fully valued, and with the higher interest rates, we have good reason to believe that those will stay relatively flat insurance no relief other in other places you know over the past couple years we've had a lot of pressure on wages and on-site compensation I think we could see that moderate some back to normal levels you know three to four percent there rather than the double digits we've seen in the past couple years and but repairs and maintenance and turn costs continue to be a struggle as vendors are difficult to find and are and they are still feeling some inflationary pressure in those services, professional services categories. So I think, you know, we're optimistic that we'll be able to hold revenue and grow NOI next year. That's really our core goal and focus right now is making sure that we can grow the NOI.
spk03: Okay. Appreciate the follow-up.
spk08: Thank you, Brad. Our next question is from Buck Horn from Raymond James. Buck, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
spk07: Hey. Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just wondering if you could comment on any recent updates on leasing traffic trends, either physical traffic in the communities or online. How's that been trending through the end of October?
spk00: Yeah, sure. You know, starting in June and July, we really saw kind of a slowdown in leasing traffic. We have been able to offset that slowdown, which, you know, through the third quarter was about 20% year over year less leasing traffic and that'd be a combination of online foot traffic, you know, phone. And we've been able to offset that with higher retention. More people are staying in place. That makes sense. Less people are looking and so they're staying where they are. and also with higher closing ratios. So, you know, we've really been focused on making sure that our leasing techniques are effective, that we're meeting the customer where they are and really getting those leases in the door. Into October, we're seeing that same slowdown. It feels seasonal. You know, in a lot of our markets, people don't like to move in the winter. And generally, people are looking a little bit further out. So people coming in today are looking for apartments for November, December, you know, we're feeling a seasonal slowdown there, but nothing that's concerning to us from an occupancy standpoint. We feel like we're going to be able to meet our goals this year.
spk07: Got it. Very helpful. Thanks for the color. And just following up on the personnel or just, you know, the cost you've seen in terms of just wage and onsite costs, I'm just curious if you're thinking about how, you know, you may be competing against more lease-up properties next year. You know, is there an issue with other developers or other properties potentially coming in and trying to poach some of your employees to get their properties leased up if they're familiar with those markets? Or how do you manage that process and maintain good retention with your on-site staff?
spk00: Yeah, that's a great question. And you're highlighting an issue that I think is, you know, facing all operators across the country, which is there's no pipeline of new leasing team and or maintenance professionals or, you know, anyone who works on site for us. And so as new supplies delivered in the amount of units and communities out there, it does stretch the same staffing pool. So we have been focused on retention in the way of professional development, additional training opportunities, and really trying to get some career pathing going for our onsite personnel to make sure. And culture is huge for us, making sure that this is a great place to work. And then also on the replacement side, we're really focusing on talent acquisition, onboarding and making sure that we can get the right candidates and give them the tools to be successful right out of the gate. Another huge thing for us, as you know, is trying to leverage the technology that we've invested in to make it, you know, what can be a very simple business easy to execute on site. And I think the easier we can make it for them to be successful in their jobs, the better chance we're going to have to keep them from going to that lease up down the street. Got it.
spk07: All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
spk08: Thank you, Buck. Our next question comes from Michael Gorman from BP IG. Michael, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
spk05: Yeah, thanks, Anne. I was wondering if you could just talk about some of the new supply in some of your markets and the possibility that given the financing challenges that that might turn into potential opportunities if the developers can't roll the financing or maybe can't get the lease up done quickly enough. And then maybe if you're seeing that and then what your appetite would be to take on lease up potential through acquisitions.
spk00: Yeah, I think there's two facets to what we're looking at from an opportunity perspective for investment to your question. One is existing developments that might have refinance risk and or a developer who wants to redeploy that capital because of timing or otherwise. We are interested in stepping in, probably not at an early stage lease up, but we have before taken properties that are between 75 and 90 or just coming into stabilization where you really have that first full year of lease expirations to work through. That would have been the case for us with Lira, which we acquired in Denver in September of 2022 that had just finalized lease up, had a developer that for numerous reasons needed to get out of it. So we are looking for those opportunities. We think that pipeline is going to grow. And then the other side is developers who are needing additional equity. We're really out there looking for opportunities to place mezzanine financing that might give us an opportunity to own the asset upon stabilization. So we've taken a few of those full circle in the past couple years, and that's another place where we see opportunities in that development pipeline for us.
spk02: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk08: Thank you, Michael. We will now take a follow-up question from John Kim from BMO Capital Markets. John, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
spk03: Hi, Robin here again. We've heard reports on new tenant application fraud. Is this anything you've seen in your markets, and what is your bad debt today, and where do you see it going in the near term?
spk00: Yeah, we haven't seen very much fraud. Historically, we've had a little. When we did the new implementation with Yardi, we really beefed up the processes. So we have kind of a dual verification process. And we haven't seen very much fraud there. On the bad debt side, Barav can comment on that.
spk01: Yeah, so for Q3, our bad debt was about 30 basis points to 40 basis points. That is consistent with pre-COVID trends. So we have seen a return to normalization over there. We typically see that fluctuate between 25 and 50 basis points, and we've been towards the lower end of that throughout the year.
spk07: Got it. Thank you.
spk08: Thank you, John. We have no further questions registered. So with that, I will hand back to your host, Anne Olson, for final remarks.
spk00: Thank you. Thanks everyone for joining and I'd like to thank our teams for the tremendous work they have done. It's been a year of uncertainty and everyone here at CenterSpace has continued to prioritize what's really important to drive results. So I'm grateful to be here and for all of you that joined us this morning. Have a great day.
spk08: This concludes today's call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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