Independence Realty Trust, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Independence Realty Trust's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and the replay will be available on the investors section of the company's website shortly after this call concludes. At this time, I will turn the call over to Stephanie Krewson-Kelly, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Krewson-Kelly, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Independence Realty Trust Conference Call to discuss second quarter 2026 results. On the call with me today are Scott Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Sebra, President and Chief Financial Officer, Janice Richards, Executive Vice President of Revenue Strategy, and Jason Lynch, Senior Vice President of Investments. Before we begin, please note that any forward-looking statements made during this call are based on our current expectations and beliefs as to future events and financial performance. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Such statements are made in good faith pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and IRT does not undertake to update them except as may be required by law. Please refer to IRT's press release, supplemental information, and filings with the SEC for further information about these risks. A copy of IRT's earnings press release and supplemental information is attached to IRT's current report on the Form 8-K that is available in the Investors section of our website. They contain reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures referenced on this call to the most direct comparable GAAP financial measure. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott Schaeffer.

Thanks, Stephanie, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I am pleased to report that operating momentum is building across our portfolio as market conditions continue to improve. As our results demonstrate, rental rate growth has improved throughout the year, driving a 120 basis point sequential improvement in new lease rates during the second quarter, with further improvement in July. Additionally, as of today, with 65% of new lease activity completed for the month of August, new lease spreads for like-kind leases are slightly positive. The consistent upward trajectory in leasing spreads is a clear signal that our markets are in recovery, which, when combined with the new Wi-Fi revenue stream that we've established, supports our confidence and our guidance for same-store revenue growth. As expected, the volume of new deliveries has declined in our markets, and macroeconomic drivers of demand continue to outpace national averages. Recent employment data continues to highlight healthcare as the primary driver of national job gains over the past year. This is visible across our footprint. Thank you for joining us. Good School Districts, proximity to essential retail and employment centers with monthly rents that are meaningfully less than new construction continues to attract and retain residents. Bearing this point, the steady improvement in market conditions has resulted in greater lead generation volumes over last year and a decrease in concession use. Importantly, overall market occupancies across our portfolio have generally reached levels that support market-wide rent growth. The combination of durable demand, rising market rents, and normalizing concessions has driven sequential improvement in rental rates that I mentioned earlier. New lease tradeouts for like-term leases at our Midwest communities were positive 2.3% in the second quarter and a positive 2.1% in July. New lease spreads at our Sunbelt communities were a negative 3.8% in the second quarter and improved 180 basis points in July. And in the West, new lease tradeouts were a negative 3.2% in the second quarter and improved 340 basis points to a positive 20 basis points in July. Taken together, net effective rental rate growth in our markets is gaining steam. With the recovery that is upon us, rent premiums from our value-add activity will also increase. Because we perform a full repositioning of the apartment community, our renovated properties successfully compete with newer Class A properties by offering modern interiors and attractive on-site amenities at a lower price point than new construction, while delivering a mid-to-upper team's return on investment. Our approach to value-add renovations enables us to capture an immediate rent premium and benefit longer-term from lower repairs and maintenance and turn costs. The higher rents and lower operating costs realized on renovated units has expanded our NOI margins and boosted same-store NOI by more than 20% annually. Additionally, over the past two years, we have significantly decreased the time it takes to renovate units such that moving forward, we can increase the volume of value-add renovations without impacting occupancy, further benefiting future NOI growth. Lastly, as I referenced at the beginning of my remarks, during the quarter we successfully completed the initial phase of our community Wi-Fi initiative ahead of schedule. This new revenue stream not only supports our outlook for same-store revenue growth this year, but will also contribute at least one incremental penny of core FFO per share to next year's results. In short, our markets are in recovery, we are on track to achieve our 2026 guidance, and we are excited about the earnings momentum building towards 2027. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Core FFO per share for the second quarter of 28 cents was ahead of our internal expectations, driven by stronger-than-expected same-store NLI growth of 1.2% that outpaced the 80 basis point midpoint of our original guidance range for this year. The outperformance was driven by stronger revenue growth and lower expense growth. Same-store revenue growth of 90 basis points in the quarter was led by a 7.3% increase in other property revenue along with continued improvement in bed debt which declined to 1.1% of total revenue from 1.3% in the prior year period. Average occupancy of 95% was down 20 basis points sequentially and reflected our deliberate strategy of capturing rental rates over occupancy to maximize revenue. Looking ahead, revenues from our community Wi-Fi program will contribute significantly to other property revenue and same-store revenue growth during the second half of 2026. More on this in a moment. Rental rate growth in the quarter was fueled by a combination of stable asking rents and declining concession use. Asking rents across our markets increased by 3% from January through May and have held steady since. As demand strengthened during the year, we were able to reduce concession use from 54% of new leases in April to approximately 28% in July. As a result, like-term new lease tradeouts have improved throughout the year from negative 3.9% in the first quarter to negative 2.7% in the second quarter and negative 1.1% in July. Finally, as Scott mentioned, with over 65% of our expected new leases signed for the month of August, new lease tradeouts for like-term leases are slightly positive. While this is early, we are excited to see the continued improvement of market fundamentals translate into better pricing power. We provided July and August data in today's prepared remarks. However, investors should not expect monthly data to continue to be presented on future calls. We are only providing this detail since, one, new lease tradeouts are in focus right now, and, two, this activity helps investors understand the momentum that is building from our confidence in achieving our guidance. which we will discuss momentarily. Regarding individual markets and new lease growth, seven markets had positive new lease tradeouts during the second quarter. Eleven were positive in July, and so far in August, 13 markets are seeing positive new lease spreads. Markets with the highest new lease tradeouts in the second quarter were Lexington at a positive 9.6 percent, Cincinnati with 4.6 percent, Charleston with 1.8 percent, Columbus and Oklahoma City both with positive 1.1%, San Antonio with 1%, and Louisville with 30 basis points of positive spread. Looking at our largest market, Atlanta's new lease trade-offs were negative 3.4% during the second quarter, and they accelerated to a positive 2% in July. Our renewal leases, our data science efforts are supporting lower renewal concession use and higher effective renewal rates without significantly impacting resident retention, which was 58% in the quarter. Today, renewal spreads on light-term leases are ahead of expectations, increasing from 3.2% in the first quarter to 4.1% in the second quarter and further accelerating by 50 basis points in July to 4.6%. August renewals, which are 95% complete today, are a positive 4.5%. All in all, our blended rent growth across light-term leases improved from 70 basis points in the first quarter to 1.3% in the second quarter, resulting in blends for the first half of the year of 1.1%. In July, blended rents on light-term leases were positive 2.5%. On the expense side, same-store operating expenses increased 50 basis points in the quarter, reflecting higher payroll and contract services. partially offset by decreases in property taxes and insurance. On our property Wi-Fi initiative, I'm pleased to report the program is running slightly ahead of plan due to earlier implementation at 19 communities that went live in May and June. Wi-Fi contributed roughly $400,000 of incremental revenue in the second quarter, which was ahead of guidance and is ramping quickly to achieve our original second half guidance of $5.5 million in revenues and $3 million of NOIs. Turning to capital allocation, our value-added renovation program remains our most attractive investment opportunity. Through the first half of the year, we have completed 1,026 units, putting us on track to meet our original guidance of 2,500 units. We achieved 16% ROIs on renovations in the first half of the year and, as Scott highlighted, expect to capture higher rent premiums going forward as market rents continue to recover. On the capital recycling front, we are under contract for the sale of Stonebridge Crossing in Memphis, which should close before the end of this quarter. We intend to use the proceeds to deliver and forecast ending the year with a net debt to EBITDA ratio in the mid-fives. Additionally, I'm pleased to highlight that in June, Fitch Ratings increased our outlook to positive from stable, and that both Fitch and S&P affirmed our BBB flat rating. Now, turning to guidance. We are increasing the midpoint of our same-store NOI guidance for the full year by 70 basis points to 1.5%. This increase equates to an additional 2.5 million of NOI as compared to our original guidance and is based on our outlook for same-store revenue growth, which we affirm at 1.7% for the full year and our expectation for lower operating expenses during the second half of the year. For core FFO per share, the expected increase in same store NOI is offset by $2 million of higher interest expense and a $2 million decrease in expected non-same store NOI. In addition, core FFO per share is benefiting from a lower weighted average share count due to our first quarter share repurchases. As a result, After all these moving pieces, we are maintaining the midpoint of our core fulfilled per share guidance of $1.14. Details on our updated SAMHSA guidance are as follows. SAMHSA revenue growth of 1.7% in the midpoint is unchanged. That implies second half growth of roughly 2.1% and acceleration from the 1.1% we delivered in the first half. We want to be clear about the components of this growth. Of the roughly $10 million of same-store revenue growth in our guidance for the year, $8.7 million is already in the books from revenue earned in the first half and the $5.5 million from our Wi-Fi program in the second half. That leaves about $1.3 million of revenue that will come from leases signed in the second half of 2026. As we sit here today, We've already signed about 50% of our leases for the second half of the year at blended spreads of 2.8%. To achieve the $1.3 million of incremental revenue growth, we need to sign the remaining 50% of our leases at blended spreads of 1.6% or better. Ultimately, all in all, as we sit here today, 87% of our full-year revenue growth is already achieved or contracted. Our revised midpoint for operating expense growth of 2% is 140 basis points lower than our original 3.4% midpoint, primarily driven by better results in both controllable and non-controllable operating expenses. For our non-same store portfolio, the reduction in forecasted NOI relates primarily to the slower lease up at the Tisdale at Lakeline Station, the development asset we consolidated during the first quarter of this year. The project's average occupancy of 36% in the second quarter was behind our original expectations. We made good leasing progress in July, with the community now 42% occupied. We expect this community to reach stabilized occupancy during the first quarter of 2027. Lastly, we are increasing the midpoint of our full-year interest expense guidance by $2 million, reflecting higher SOFA rates, including an assumed 25 basis point increase in September. and temporarily higher average debt levels associated with the timing of investment activity. As I mentioned previously, with the pending sale of Stonebridge and the associated deleveraging, we expect to end the year with net debt to EBITDA in the mid fives. Scott, that was a lot. Back to you.

Thanks, Jim. To summarize, same store results through the first half of the year are ahead of plan, driving the increase in our same store guidance for the full year. Demand remains strong as demonstrated by our year-over-year increases in leasing volume and the trajectory of new lease trade-outs. Our value-add program will benefit from increasing rental rates and the ongoing recovery, and the shorter completion timeline will enable us to increase future value-add activity with no impact on occupancy. Our Wi-Fi initiative is ahead of plan and contributing meaningfully to the revenue growth assumed in our guidance. As we move through the back half of 2026, we expect continued improvement in apartment market fundamentals to drive stronger leasing and earnings momentum into 2027. We thank you for joining us today. Operator, you can now open the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Eric Wolf with Citibank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. You mentioned that new leads were up year over year in concessions across your markets were down. If possible, could you just quantify those two data points of the leads and the concessions? I'm just trying to understand sort of how big of a shift this was and get some context around, you know, sort of how quickly market conditions are improving.

Sure. So lead volume is up about 5% year over year. and then concession usage, I'll kind of talk about it in two pieces. One would be just the volume of new leases that have a concession and the second would be the average concession. If you look at kind of the pace of concessions where we are right now in, say, the month of July versus earlier this year, April and March of this year, 52% of our new leases had a concession. and as you see in July, 23% of our new leases had a concession. And that compares against last year concessions for new leases, roughly around the same 23% mark. So year over year, concessions are kind of back to where they needed to get to, but where we are in July, it's a significant improvement from where we were earlier this year. That's all on top of, obviously, a 3% to 3.5% asking rent growth that we've experienced since this time last year. and then the average concession is hovering in Q2 of this year for purposes of new leases in the $1,300 range right now.

Got it. That's helpful. And then you talked about new leases being positive thus far in August. Can you just talk about where occupancy is today? You mentioned, you know, sort of addressing most of your sort of second half leases already. I guess based on sort of what you've signed thus far, would you expect occupancy to sort of stay stable from current levels?

Yeah, occupancy today is 95%, and yeah, we would expect it to stay stable. It might actually grow a little bit as we end the year. Okay.

Thank you.

Your next question is from the line of Austin Werschmitt. with KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everybody. Just going back a little bit to the concession question, I'm just curious, you know, which markets are you still seeing the heaviest concession usage and kind of, you know, where I guess the next opportunity or leg up is from driving down concessions? Can you just give a little detail across markets?

Great question. I'll start and I'll ask Janice and Jason to kind of chime in wherever I miss something or misspeak. But, you know, obviously the biggest positive move in concessions so far this year is really in Atlanta. You know, back in March and April, you know, 60 to 70 percent of our new leases had concessions. And in July, that was down to about 17 percent. So really a real positive move in Atlanta. You know, Dallas today continues to be relatively high on the concession usage. Back in March and April, that was roughly about 50 to 45 to 50 percent. And today we're running around 40, 42 percent. And then Tampa is also seeing a little bit heavier concession uses, although it is down slightly in July. Earlier this year, it was in the call at the 55 to 60 percent range. And right now we're hovering around 40 percent. But Janice, Jason, feel free to chime in.

Okay, just going back a little bit to kind of the back half, bad debt's kind of held a little bit above that 1% range after seeing some meaningful improvement in the back half of last year. Just wondering, what are you seeing into the third quarter and, you know, what's kind of the expectation now for further improvement into the back half of the year?

Yeah, back half of the year, our guidance implies, I think it's 95 basis points of bad debt. and that's kind of where we're running right now for July and August.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question is from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. This is Connor on with Jamie. Over the past several quarters, your team has highlighted the advantages of your Class B portfolio and its relative affordability. As concessions begin to moderate and supplies absorbed, are you seeing any meaningful divergence between Class B and newer Class A products in terms of retention, move outs, pricing power, other variables?

No, I don't think we were really seeing any significant change today between the class B, in terms of those core operating fundamentals between Bs and As.

Okay, thank you. And then you've previously discussed the acceleration in same-store revenue in the back half of the year from Wi-Fi. Can you walk us through the second half contribution? And as we move into 2027, should investors think about the initiative as largely ramped, or is there additional upside from this rollout over time?

Thank you. Good question. You know, we started the Wi-Fi program and we rolled it out effective early July. You know, obviously a few communities were done in May and June, but it's going to contribute about $5 to $5.5 million of revenue in this year, roughly about $3 million of NOI. That is kind of starting at an initial kind of ramp where there's about 70% penetration in July of all of our resident base, and then as leases turn, that penetration will grow. We expect it to be 80-85% penetrated by the end of the year, and that'll continue to improve in the next year, as well as you'll get an extra six months of revenue and extra six months of analog. We are currently evaluating additional properties for the program to be added to it next year because, again, this initial Wi-Fi program was only 19,000 units. So once we come out with 2027 guidance, we'll give you some more color on how significant that will be.

Great. Thank you very much.

Your next question is from the line of Brad Heffin with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, morning, everybody. Thanks for the questions. You know, obviously, positive new lease spreads has been an area of investor focus. Appreciate the comments about being slightly positive in August on like term. I'm wondering, do you expect to see kind of a normal level of seasonal decline after that? Basically wondering just if we can expect new lease to be, you know, around zero or better in the third quarter, or if we're going to see the normal September fall off and we'll have to wait until next year to see that on a

Thank you for having me. in terms of the month of July. So I don't know if third quarter will be call it zero, but in terms of guidance, what we've assumed is that we kind of maintain roughly a minus 50 basis points in new lease trade-outs through the end of the year. And that pretty much assumes that asking rents stay flat I will, you know, provide a little bit of additional color that it is coming upon, you know, good comps where we have large concessions in third and fourth quarter of last year that are not expected to be present this year. And that should both support new lease tradeouts as well as renewable tradeouts.

Okay, got it. And then on concessions, you said earlier that they were flat year over year in July. Just want to make sure I understand that commentary right. Is the full new lease improvement just coming from rate growth? Or is there something else there that I'm missing that's contributing as well?

Yeah, I would say if you look at year over year, it's coming from rate growth. If you look at it from earlier this year to now, it's coming from concession stopping.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Your next question is from the line of John Kim with B&O Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on your commentary on new lease trade-outs. Just given the success we've had so far through August and lower concessions, do you think it could be An improvement from the minus 2.1% you had in the second quarter. Again, just given the easier comps and commentary you've had.

In terms of the rest of the year?

Yeah, for the third and fourth quarter.

Yeah, we certainly think that third and fourth quarter should be better than what we, the minus 2.7 in the second quarter, for sure.

Okay, and then can you provide pricing? Commentary on the two assets held for sale?

The assets were held for sale in Memphis. We're still working through that closing process, so that's not something we typically disclose on this time.

Would it be within the typical range of cap rates that you've sold in the past?

Yeah, that's fair.

Okay. Thank you.

Your next question is from the line of Amy Probant with UBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I was hoping to get a little bit more context on how the peak leasing season played out. Is it fair to characterize this as a normal peak leasing season in terms of length and magnitude? And with the leasing season extending a little bit into July, is that due to stronger demand than normal or are easy comparisons more of a factor?

Yes, this is Janice. We're definitely seeing a robust, strong absorption rate throughout the markets that have supported the recovery that we're seeing on our new lease rates as well as asking rates. I think whether it's a comp set or it is concessions that's going to elongate, we shall see. We are coming up against an easier comp set that will allow for us to have more pricing power. and I think as we move into the leasing season, we'll see normal seasonal patterns kick in through the rest of the year.

Great, thanks. And then you mentioned that...

Sorry, go ahead. Maybe just a little bit of a follow-up, you know. The lead data in terms of the size and trajectory of leasing season is certainly suggesting it's back to a normal cycle. As I mentioned earlier, our leads are up 5% for the year, but to highlight, July was actually up quite significantly, closer to 20-25%. So we do see really good demand building, but we're still being cautious and we're still driving the focus on rates as opposed to occupancy so we can continue to deliver our results and focus on the long term.

Thanks, that's helpful. And then in terms of FedDebt, You mentioned 95 basis points in the second half of the year, which I believe is still well above where you were pre-COVID. So what do you think is leading to bad debt lingering at the higher level? And do you think that this is just kind of the new normal level of bad debt or could there be continuing tailwinds in 2027?

Well, we think there's a new level of normal relative to post-COVID. We think certainly not that fraud is a huge issue anymore, but the ability to have fraudulent IDs is still a lot easier today than it was in 2020. So I think that's something that we're continuing to use technology to try to sort out and figure out. but I think, you know, we certainly expect us to continue to make some forward progress in the 2027. Is there aspirations to get back to pre-COVID levels? Sure, absolutely. And we think we can get there. But it's just going to take additional kind of technology rollout and usage throughout the portfolio.

Okay, thank you. Your next question is from the line of Wes Galladay with Baird. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I want to go back to the comment about the increased leads. I guess, can you talk about your conversion rate? Are you signing more of those leads into leases?

Yeah, I mean, I would say our conversion rate is still roughly this consistent with where we've seen in the past. I mean, we really focus on, obviously, the whole conversion from, it's not just conversion from lead to tour. But, you know, the closing ratio of towards applications, applications to leases, and I would say just largely it's resulting in more volume of leases, yes.

Okay, and then you mentioned that Tisdale was a little bit behind on occupancy. Can you also comment on the rate expectations there?

The rate expectations are also behind some of the initial underwriting we made when we entered. If you remember, that was a joint venture development deal that we entered several years ago. The rate environment has been different or more difficult than what we originally anticipated. But the deal is ramping nicely. It is obviously experiencing a little higher use of concessions today, and we do expect to hit stabilized occupancy, if you will, in Q1 of 2017. Thank you.

Your next question is from the line of John Pawlowski with Green Street. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for the time. A few questions on expenses, but I want to make sure I heard that statistic properly. So lead volume was up 5% in TQ and it was up 25% in July. And if I heard that right, is that really a function of organic demand or were there other idiosyncratic factors with marketing campaigns or something unusual that happened in July from a year ago?

Yeah, it's certainly no additional marketing spend, just getting better at our various organic, what I would say, Search Engine Optimization, making sure we're ranking high with both Google algorithms as well as all the AI tools that exist today. And then I think from the standpoint of the fundamental driver of it is clearly from just the organic algorithm and the search demand.

And then on expenses, so it's been maybe two and a half years where repair and maintenance costs have declined on an absolute basis. I know turnover is down meaningfully versus two or three years ago, but curious if we should expect any kind of outsized, you know, well above inflationary costs on R&M in the next couple of years, if there's a kind of catch up to be had on the very, very low R&M costs for the past couple of years.

Yeah, no, I don't think so. You know, I think, you know, the teams are doing a great job of taking care of our properties and really focused on, you know, turning units and being, you know, smart about, you know, the use of vendors versus interior, you know, individuals on site doing various things. So I think, no, there's no expectation for any kind of outside increase in repairs and maintenance costs down the road. Okay, thanks for the time.

Your next question is from the line of Peter Abramowitz with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you for taking the question. Just wondering if you could give an update on a potential sale of the Mustang in Dallas. I know it's something you've talked about marketing for sale in the past. Just curious how the process has gone there and I guess pricing and kind of depth of demand relative to your expectations?

Good question. We have not made a decision yet on whether to sell the asset or not. We did market it to a limited extent, but it's a great asset in a great location with, we think, tremendous opportunity long term. So we're still analyzing what the best approach is, whether or not we keep it and or we end up selling it. The project is doing fine. It's basically stabilized. Occupancy is north of 93%. Concessions are declining. So as we look forward, we think it might be a good addition to our portfolio. But we're not ready to make that decision or give that answer yet.

All right. I appreciate that, Scott. And then it looks like you paused the buybacks in the second quarter after doing, I guess, a modest amount in the first quarter. Just looking at it, the stock was still trading at a pretty significant discount to NAV and for much of the quarter actually trading below the price at which you bought back stock at or below the price at which you bought back stock in the first quarter. So just wanted to ask about kind of the thought process of decision making there. around pausing the buyback and just kind of general thoughts on how you're thinking about use of excess capital today.

Yeah, good question. I think the decisions around the buyback, it's really just there wasn't any excess capital to use the buyback stock in the second quarter. If not, we would have certainly been a buyer of it. As Jason mentioned, the Stonebridge deal that's selling, that is selling here in September. And certainly, you know, if there's excess capital that comes from that, we will certainly be looking to buy back stock. I mean, our primary, our best source of, our best use of capital today continues to be the renovation program. After that, it's still, you know, given the stock price as of yesterday, we'll still be buying back stock. But again, it's all based on, you know, the availability of excess capital.

and frankly, where that capital comes from. The majority of the buybacks that we made were the capital came from The sale of joint venture assets that were not contributing to EBITDA. We have resisted selling assets, giving up the EBITDA in order to just buy back stock because, one, it becomes negative relative to leverage. But also, we like our portfolio and we like the long-term prospects of the portfolio.

Peter?

Your next question is from the line of Jason Wayne with Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for the question. Just on expenses, real estate taxes came in better than expected over the past couple years as well. I'm just wondering where you captured the tax savings this year and which markets you saw that in?

Sure. The biggest win so far this year has been in the Texas markets. You know, Texas re-appeals, you know, each or Texas reassesses every year and we go through an appeal process. You know, I would say the savings in terms of you know the appeal process can be a bit lumpy from period to period depending on the timing and obviously the success of the appeal. So you have some of that kind of working through this quarter where we had appeals from last year that you know came in this year and it came in better than we anticipated. But even that when you look at our guidance for the year we lowered Realty Trust, Inc.

You said you mentioned you see a path to achieve higher rent premiums on your value add. So is that something you're looking to grow? And kind of how should we think about that contribution in 2027?

Yeah, I mean, I think the rent premiums will continue to improve as rental rates improve. and as I said before, it continues to be our primary piece of capital. It is a fantastic program. It has really provided a tremendous amount of NOI growth for IRT over the years. So as we kind of look forward to stabilizing and improving market fundamentals, it is certainly a program that we will continue to look at to accelerate when it makes sense and where it makes sense.

And let me add, clearly the renovated units compete most directly with the new construction. So with all of the new construction that came online over the last few years that we're offering concessions, That actually put downward pressure on the premiums that we could then get on the renovated units. So as we go forward with less competition from that new construction, we really see the premiums and the returns expanding on the Value Add program. And then you add in there that we've significantly reduced the amount of time that it takes to renovate a unit so we can do many more renovations. without impacting occupancy and thereby generating much better growth.

Makes sense. Thank you.

You're welcome. Your next question is from the line of Austin Werschmidt with KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking the follow-ups. Scott, just sticking with the comments you had there on value-add redevelopment and kind of the ability to execute without impacting occupancy, I mean, how much from a unit volume perspective and spend can you really handle without increasing leverage as well as impacting occupancy? Can you just kind of frame up the sizing of that program, how big it could get in a given year?

Sure. So, you know, last year I think we did 1,700 units, give or take. This year we're going to be closer to that 2,500 units. Jim's telling me 2,000 to 2,500. I'm going to tell you closer to the 2,500. You know, when we started this program, it was taken anywhere from 30 to 35 days to turn a unit. Now we're down below 20 days. So we've made a significant improvement in the process and in the amount of time it takes. So we feel that we can really continue now to ramp it. I have always been resistant of doing too many because of the pressure that it was putting on occupancy. And I hated that headline risk of having a lower portfolio occupancy because of the value add. This will allow us to really ramp the program and presumably get to 3,000 to 4,000 units per year.

If you also remember, after the Steadfast deal, we took on those two on-balance developments and really used a lot of free cash flow to fund those developments. Now that they're behind us, obviously we took capital earlier this year and bought back stock, and that capital will be available next year, as Scott mentioned, put into the Value Add program.

That's really helpful. And then maybe just last one, just strategically, given the relative size of the portfolio and just ability for you to remain more nimble, what are the biggest other opportunities in front of you now that you are seeing fundamentals start to show some green shoots and improve into the back half of this year?

Well, it's all about a cost of capital. You know, we would hope that with the market recovery that we have a cost of capital that will allow us to go back and, you know, acquire again. We have always resisted growth for the sake of growth. You know, so we've been patient. Value add continues to be clearly the best use of capital. You know, we're generating again, as Jim mentioned, I think, in his remarks, You know, mid-teens, mid-teens unlevered returns. But again, there's only so much that we can do. So at, you know, 4,000 units a year, you're talking about $80 million. I would like to see, again, the cost of capital at a point where we can, or a level where we can then start growing again. There's opportunities out there. And, you know, we've proven that our strategy works.

Appreciate the thoughts there. Thank you.

Thank you.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Scott Schaeffer for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Well, thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest in IRT and look forward to speaking with you, many of you, in the weeks ahead. So thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.