Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc.

Participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. I would like to remind everyone this conference is being recorded today, February 21st, 2025 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. I will now turn the presentation over to Mr. Aaron Reyes, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead,

sir. Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this call contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those described in our filings with the SEC, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. We caution you to consider these factors in evaluating our forward-looking statements. We also note that the commentary on this call will contain non-GAT financial information, including adjusted EBIT.RE, adjusted FFO, and property level adjusted EBIT.RE. We are providing this information as a supplement to information prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Additional details on our quarterly results have been provided in our earnings release and supplemental, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. With us on the call today are Brian Gilia, Chief Executive Officer, and Robert Springer, President and Chief Investment Officer. Brian will start us off with some highlights from last year, followed by commentary on our fourth quarter operations and recent trends. Afterward, Robert will discuss our capital investment activity, and finally, I will provide a summary of our fourth quarter earnings results, review our current liquidity position, and provide the details of our outlook for 2025. After our remarks, the team will be available to answer your questions. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Brian. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. Despite several headwinds during the fourth quarter, the portfolio finished 2024 strong, with full-year adjusted EBITDA and full-year adjusted FFO per share at the high end of our guidance.

The fourth

quarter caps off a productive year at Sunstone, in which we made further progress on our three strategic objectives, which include recycling capital, investing in our portfolio, and returning capital to our shareholders. All of these benefited the company and its shareholders in 2024, and will provide additional growth in 2025. During the first half of 2024, we successfully recycled proceeds from the sale of the Boston Park Plaza into the 630-room Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk for a net purchase price of 222 million after incentives, reflecting an attractive 9% capitalization rate on 2024 earnings. In addition to the compelling initial yield, we have identified several value-enhancing opportunities that we will capitalize on in the near term. The hotel has an ideal location, situated between two of the state's biggest leisure demand drivers, the Riverwalk and the Alamo, and the hotel is within walking distance to the convention center. This year, we are updating the meeting space to better align it with the quality level of the already renovated guest rooms. Additionally, leading up to the opening of the new $500 million Alamo Visitor Center and Museum in 2027, we will enhance the ground floor retail spaces as we expect this area will be a primary access point to the new Alamo grounds and offers the opportunity to drive additional lease revenue. Overall, we have been very pleased with this investment and we see considerable potential to grow group and transient business. Building on the success of our conversion of the Westin Washington, D.C. downtown, we continue to invest in our future growth and in 2024, we completed the conversion of the Marriott Long Beach downtown, which began its ramp up at the end of last year and which will continue into this year. We also advance the transformation of the Ondaz, Miami Beach, which is opening in the next few weeks. While the Ondaz has taken a bit longer than anticipated due to a very challenging permitting and approval process in Miami Beach, the resort is moving through final inspections and will begin welcoming guests mid-March. The resort looks phenomenal and we are very excited to demonstrate its earnings power as it ramps up in 2025 and 2026. Shortly, Robert will share some additional details on our work in Miami and our other capital investment activity. The last element of our strategy is the return of capital to our shareholders. In 2024, we return nearly 100 million to shareholders through our quarterly dividend and share repurchases at a meaningful discount to NAV. While our share repurchase activity will remain opportunistic, our common dividend will continue to provide a more consistent return of capital. That said, over the last three years, we have repurchased nearly 190 million of common stock or almost 9% of shares outstanding at the start of that period. Our strong balance sheet and liquidity position gives us the ability to enhance our capital returns as we move into 2025. Now shifting to our quarterly and four-year results, we were pleased with how the portfolio performed relative to our expectations. During the fourth quarter, excluding San Diego, which experienced lingering disruption due to the labor strike, group business performed well, corporate travel continued to move higher, and leisure demand showed some acceleration in wine country and in Maui during the festive period. Convention business at the Westin Washington, D.C. downtown had a banner year, leading our group hotels with 30% rep heart growth, driven by an 18% increase in full-year group room nights on a 6% increase in rate. -of-room spend at the Westin was up over 16% for the full year at $213 per group room. Group business remained strong at the recently acquired Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk,

which

grew room nights nearly 7% in the quarter and generated an impressive 18% increase in banquet contribution. For the full year, San Antonio group room nights were up 3%, rate was up 2%, and -of-room spend was up 20%. Given the upgrades we are making to the meeting space this year, we expect the hotel to continue to build and improve the overall quality of its group base. We also saw strength in our urban markets, where at many of our hotels, we strategically increased our group base, allowing our operators to compress transient rates. At our New Orleans hotels, fourth quarter group room nights were up 23%, compressing transient rates and resulting in a combined REVPAR growth of nearly 20%. We saw similar results in Boston with fourth quarter group room nights up 39%, as the hotel focused on filling open patterns and driving occupancy in shoulder periods. Our recently converted Marriott Long Beach Downtown had a solid quarter with REVPAR up 45% compared to a renovation impacted fourth quarter of 2023. We are pleased with the early performance of this recently converted Marriott, and together with the success we have seen from the contribution of the Westin DC, it reinforces our thesis on the value created from better brand alignment. On the expense side, we continue to work with our managers to offset rising costs through efficiency measures and increase productivity. Our margin performance in the prior year was impacted by renovation activity in Long Beach and the strike in San Diego. Excluding these two hotels and on Dawes Miami Beach, our margins were down only 70 basis points, even with minimal top line growth. Which speaks to the effort of our operators to be disciplined in their cost management efforts. While our 2025 budgets incorporate contractual wage rate increases at certain hotels, our expectation is that our operators will seek to drive efficiencies, higher rates, and incremental ancillary revenues to help mitigate these rising costs. Based on what we see today, we have a compelling setup to drive total revenue growth this year, which should translate into higher margins relative to last year. Looking forward to 2025, we are encouraged about the outlook for the year. The portfolio continues to benefit from recent investments, which should provide a tailwind for us in 2025 and 2026. Root pace is up approximately 10% with broad base strength throughout the portfolio and across quarters, with Q3 being the softest of the year. In addition to growth from our completed conversions at Long Beach and Miami, the portfolio will benefit from the easy comparison in the second half of the year in San Diego, which was impacted by the labor strike in 2024, and from continued growth in wine country. We maintain significant liquidity and look to recycle existing investments into new opportunities to grow our earnings and value per share. Despite being faced with a challenging transaction market in 2024, we were able to execute and acquire a high quality asset in San Antonio at a great current yield and with opportunity to add value. We expect to continue our disciplined approach to capital allocation in 2025, which could include asset sales, acquisitions, or additional share repurchases. To sum things up, we executed our three strategic objectives in 2024, and while the path was not as smooth as we would have liked, we are now well positioned to outperform in 2025 and 2026. We are focused on delivering profitability growth from our operations and realizing the benefits of our investment projects. We will further advance our capital recycling strategy by utilizing our available liquidity and balance sheet capacity to thoughtfully grow the portfolio. These actions should further support our capital return objectives in the coming years. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Robert to give some additional thoughts on our renovation progress and upcoming capital investments. Robert, please go ahead.

Thanks, Brian. During 2024, we invested 157 million into our portfolio as we had multiple capital initiatives underway. The majority of these projects have recently or soon will be wrapping up and we look forward to the earnings benefit they will now provide. As we have shared with you last quarter, we are nearing completion on a rooms renovation and lobby refresh at the Wylea Beach Resort and have been performing the work around peak periods to minimize displacement. As part of the scope, we are combining a few rooms to create four residential style oceanfront villa units with a kitchen, generous living area, and the ability to sell them in multiple configurations ranging from one to four bedrooms. While the first two have just come online, early feedback has been great and they are already allowing the hotel to better compete with its luxury neighbors and win higher quality group business. As Brian noted earlier, we have made substantial progress in Miami where construction is winding down and the resort is preparing to welcome guests as we work through the final steps in the cumbersome inspection and approval process. We are very pleased with the finished product and the degree of transformation we have achieved at this property. We have teams in the hotel now completing training and preparation work and we look forward to opening the resort in a few weeks. While our total capital investment in 2025 will moderate back to more normalized levels, we will still have some important value creating initiatives underway. In San Antonio, we will be renovating the meeting space starting in the third quarter, which should wrap up by the end of the year. While the hotel is in great shape, a refresh of the meeting areas will better align them with the already renovated guest rooms and allow our sales teams to market a more cohesive product and drive more group business. In San Diego, we are in the planning stages for a renovation of the meeting space at our Hilton Bayfront. While we are still finalizing the details, we would not expect it to begin until late in the fourth quarter. Overall, the level of investment we have planned for the coming year will result in less earnings disruption than in the last two years and we will instead get the benefit of the work we have already wrapped up or soon will be completing. As Brian alluded to earlier, the transaction market in 2024 was not as robust as we had hoped, but we continue to seek out opportunities to drive further growth by recycling capital and deploying our considerable investment capacity. We look forward to updating you on our progress as the year progresses. With that, I'll turn it over to Aaron. Please go

ahead. Thanks, Robert. Our earnings results for the fourth quarter came in ahead of expectations, as stronger ancillary revenue, better expense management across the portfolio, and savings at the corporate level served as a tailwind to inline rooms revenue growth. Full year EBITDA was $230 million and FFO was 80 cents per diluted share, both of which were at the high end of our previously provided guidance ranges. Prior to the end of the quarter, we fully drew our recently arranged $100 million term loan and utilized most of the proceeds to repay the mortgage on the JW Marriott, New Orleans. Following this refinancing, all of our debt is unsecured and our balance sheet provides significant flexibility. Inclusive of our extension options, we don't have any debt maturities until 2026. As of the end of the year, we had nearly $180 million of total cash and cash equivalents, including our restricted cash. And we retained full capacity on our credit facility, which together with our cash equates to nearly $700 million of total liquidity. Our net debt and preferred equity to trailing EBITDA did at 4.3 times as of year end, and we expect this will continue to moderate downward as we move through the year and realize the growth in our earnings. In fact, based on the midpoint of our 2025 guidance, our net leverage would be only 3.9 times, which further illustrates the strength and increasing capacity of our balance sheet. Included in our earnings released this morning are the details of our initial outlook for 2025. Based on what we see today, we expect that our total portfolio RevPAR growth will range from 7% to 10% as compared to 2024. Our strong top-line growth is a direct result of the multiple investments we have made within our portfolio. The debut of ONDOS Miami Beach is expected to add nearly four points of growth this year. But even if we exclude this resort, our remaining portfolio RevPAR is still projected to grow a healthy 3% to 6%. We estimate that full year adjusted EBIT.RE will range from $245 million to $270 million, and our adjusted FFO per diluted share will range from 86 cents to 98 cents. At the midpoint, this reflects annual growth of 12% and 15% respectively. While we expect the distribution of quarterly growth for the industry will be more balanced in 2025 than what was initially expected for 2024, we will have some portfolio-specific considerations that will influence the cadence of our overall growth. For the total portfolio, we expect that RevPAR growth for the first quarter will be in the area of 3% to 5% before increasing to approximately a double-digit range for the balance of the year as we benefit from the opening of ONDOS Miami Beach and experience the easier comparison in Q3 and Q4 from the impact of the strike in San Diego. This would generally translate into EBITDA distribution of approximately 21% to 22% in the first quarter, approximately 30% in the second quarter, with the remaining balance spread more or less evenly across the third and fourth quarters. In the 2025 outlook section of our press release, we have included the key assumptions that support our full year guidance numbers. Our projections assume that ONDOS comes online in mid-March and contributes $8 million to $9 million of EBITDA in 2025. Given the change in timing for the project, we incurred less pre-opening costs in 2024 than initially projected, and now expect that some of these items will be incurred in 2025. Following the redeployment of the Boston Park Plaza sale proceeds last spring and the change in deposit rates, we expect to generate less interest income on our cash balances in 2025 than we earned in 2024. As Robert noted, our capital investment activity for this year will be lower than our run rate in recent years and is expected to be in the range of $80 million to $100 million. Based on this level of investment and the nature of the projects we have planned, we will have meaningfully less earnings disruption in 2025 relative to what we experienced in the last couple of years. Now shifting to our return of capital, for the first quarter, our board of directors has declared a nine cent per share quarterly common dividend and has also declared the routine distributions for our series H and I preferred securities. While we retain ample capacity for additional capital return, the full year outlook that was discussed earlier does not assume the impact of any additional share repurchase activity. And with that, we can now open the call to questions so that we are able to speak with as many participants as possible. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question. Operator, please go ahead.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. As we enter into the Q&A session, we ask that you please limit your input to one question only. At this time, I would like to remind everyone to ask a question, press the start button followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key or start two. One moment please for your first question. The first question comes from the line of Lane Fenningworth of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just wanted to wonder if you could speak to the underlying demand segment assumptions within the seven to 10% RevPAR guide, or maybe you want to think about that, X the ONDAS contribution, but how are you thinking about leisure growth group contribution and BT within that seven to 10?

Sure. So looking at the RevPAR guidance for this year, it's based on the feedback we get from our hotels and what our hotels are seeing at this point. So when you look at the different segments, it assumes that group continues to be very solid. We're pacing above 10% for the year. So from a group standpoint, a continuation of very solid performance, from a business transient standpoint, continued strength and slight improvement in certain markets, but more of a continuation of what we were seeing at the end of last year. And then the leisure is expecting to see roughly what we were seeing last year with maybe a little bit of pickup in the third and fourth quarter in Maui. And so when you look at that and you put all that together, if you ask where is the potential risk or upside in the 2025 guidance, it really comes down to the leisure segment. And in multiple markets, whether it be Maui with recovery and slower than anticipated recovery, but still seeing, and we saw very good festive season last year to see some additional recovery, but not back to where we were in Maui and back end loaded to see some of this advertising and promotion, some of it really to catch. And then other markets maybe like Orlando too, where you have a new park opening. And if leisure were to pick up there, that would be some upside for us. When you back out, you know, on does and you back out the Long Beach lift, you know, there are some individual assets that are growing pretty strongly in the portfolio. And then there are others that are more closely aligned with the sector growth. And so from a cost standpoint, I think that that allows us to really focus on costs. And if we see additional revenue or additional pickup, then that should flow pretty well.

Okay, I'll keep it there. Thank you for the thoughts.

Your next question comes from the line of Smiths Rose of city, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. I wanted to ask you, could you just share with us what the pace of wages and benefits increases were in 24 at the hotel or the property level and kind of where you are expecting those to pace in 2025?

Yeah, good morning Smiths. So we've always said historically that wages and benefits have kind of been between the, you know, oscillating between four and 6%. Last year we were in the call it the mid fours. There were several collective bargaining agreements that were settled last year in our markets. And so this, you know, San Diego being one of them. And so that's in San Francisco also. So that's something that typically what happens is they tend to be front end loaded. And so that first year, the wages will be more than what will be the average wage over the life of the agreement. So if you look at that four to six range, we'll be closer to the higher end of that in 25. So definitely a step up from 24 and then we will moderate back down to 26 and 27 to get to, you know, below that and then bring that average back down to where we historically have been in the, you know, call it four or 5% range.

Okay, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Doric Heston of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Thanks, good morning. Like you said, this year the Andaz EBITDA would be about eight to 9 million. How are you thinking about the ramp in 26 for that asset?

Morning, Dory. So looking at the ramp and the ramp for 25 and then going into 26 and ultimately into 27, you know, the ramp will go, you know, start off in the, you know, probably around the 20% in March and then as we look into Q2, Q3, you know, probably around the -ish% occupancy getting into the high season in the fourth quarter where we should be in the, you know, in the 70s. Then looking into next year, when you look at the seasonality of Miami Beach, January and February are very big months. And so if we are looking at, call it eight to 9 million in EBITDA this year, next year we should easily double that EBITDA for 25, or I'm sorry, 26 and then as we get into 27, reach closer to that stabilization into the, you know, into the high 20s.

Good, thanks Brian.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Bellisario of Baird, please go ahead. Thanks, good morning guys.

Just wanna go over the NAPA assets again, touching on too much in the prepare remarks, but maybe give us an update on how the operational improvements that you're employing there are tracking against plan and then what's embedded in the 25 guide for these hotels, presumably you're assuming you'll realize top and bottom line growth at these assets in 25, thanks.

Yep, sure, so looking at 24 and all this information is available in our supplemental, you know, we had good EBITDA growth at both hotels as we implemented the plan that we had on the cost side and the plan that we had on the group side, knowing that the transient occupancy is going to be more tied to outbound travel and also the health and the San Francisco Bay Area market. So we had, you know, between the two hotels, a little over $3 million of EBITDA growth, so on a percentage basis that's pretty strong and that came from a combination of continuing to get each hotel closer to its, what we believe is the optimal group mix, you know, that's in the mid-60s at Montage and in the mid-40s and in the forties and we're, you know, we're getting closer to that, but still probably, you know, several points of occupancy away to get to that goal. So when you see the numbers for 25, you'll see that the group room nights or room nights in general are up, rate was down a little bit, ancillary spend still in the 900-ish range for Montage and over a thousand at Four Seasons and so being able to yield out that group customer. And so

that

went very well and we're pretty much on target for where we want to be there. On the cost side, that process started at the Montage and then followed at the Four Seasons. We were able to get about, you know, a little over a million dollars of cost out of the Montage while maintaining a very high customer satisfaction rating. So we were able to change process without changing the impact to the guests. Four Seasons, it was a little bit below that million, but we have additional work to do and that's in process now and again, the same impact on group satisfaction. When we look into 25, we do look at continuing to build that group base. A increase in leisure or a surprise in leisure this year is definitely upside at these hotels, will be upside at these hotels and given where we have the cost model set now, additional occupancy will flow meaningfully to the bottom line. Even without that and not banking on that growth yet, we still are anticipating another couple million dollars of EBITDA growth at each of these hotels this year.

Very helpful, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Darling of Green Street, please go ahead.

Thanks, good morning. Brian, going back to the recovery in Maui, can you frame what's embedded in the low and high end of your guidance range for this year?

Yeah, what we are expecting is that we continue to have solid group and this year our pace is up. We have, just to give you a context of the different segments in Maui, we have about 35,000 group room nights as our target for this year and in 2019 we ran at about 37,000. So from a group perspective, that demand remains strong, maybe a little bit less incentive group than there was before, but we're pretty happy with where the group business is. From a leisure standpoint, we expect a little bit of a lift in the second half of the year, but if you look, and for those very familiar with the island or for those that have just been to the island and can see, is that part of the leisure increase is gonna be, it's gonna be more of a step function. Conopoly is now just getting back to an operating base where they're taking group and transient customers and that any sort of temporary living or any other things are out of that market now and so that Conopoly has to get its base of business back which will then result in additional airline lift which will then help on the ticket prices and get more people onto the island which will bring more people into Waiolea. And so our expectation is that that's gonna take a little bit of time and maybe we see a little bit of that this year. And so again, if there is spring break and summer additional travel to the island and that picks up, then that would be an excess of where, definitely our midpoint, but maybe even some of our top end of our range too.

All right, thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Chris Warronco, Deutsche Bank, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys, thanks for taking the question. I was hoping we'd talk a little bit about your Renaissance Orlando. You guys had good success converting the couple of the other Renaissance that you had in the portfolio. I know you sold a few others. This hotel is kind of a little bit lower risk par versus your average, a little bit lower margin. I don't see it kind of on the 25 capital plan. Is there something to do there longer term or is it maybe a little bit more non-core, anything you could tell us on that, thanks.

Sure, good morning Chris. Look, what we have found through our two investments and one being a little bit more seasoned than the other is that rebranding definitely does work, depending on the type of hotel and the guest you're going after. And we've always said that our Renaissance hotels have done very well with group customers and maybe not as well with the transient customer. When you look at what happened with transient in DC, in 24 we went from comparing it back to the last clean year would be 19, but we had a occupancy index at the end of 24 for the full year of 113 compared to a transient occupancy index of 89 and 19 with a rate at 117 index compared to a 106. Group we also saw pick up not quite as much, but we went from 125 rep par to 119 split between occupancy and rate. So there you're saying it absolutely increased our transient occupancy, a better transient customer at a higher rate, which resulted in very solid EBITDA. In Long Beach where Q4 was just the first quarter of true ramp and we're starting to see that now. But when we look at our transient occupancy index in January compared to 22, which was a decent year before the renovation, we went from a 73 now to an 82 in January of this year. And our rate index has increased from 95 to 106. So we're starting to see that trade off now of being able to go after the higher rated Marriott customer. It also helps to have a product for both DC and Long Beach that is superior to its competitive set. When we look at Orlando, Orlando has always been a fantastic group hotel. It has a lot of meeting space and a huge atrium that can serve as meeting space or feeding space also. And so we've always done very well there. And because of its location in between the two parks, maybe not as strong on the transient side. Now this year we do have a new park opening a mile and a half, two miles away, which is much closer than the other parks. So now we're much more approximate, including being proximate to the convention center. So that should help the hotel. And then if we look at that and we think that there is the ability to get a better transient customer at a better transient rate, then we will do what we've done in the past and work with our partners over at Marriott and try to figure out if there is a brand available because remember it's not just what you want to do, it's also what's available in the market. And we would definitely look at that. As far as tier observation, the 25 cap ex is definitely coming down back to normalize the amount. So it's not in the plan for 25, but it could definitely be something that we're looking at exploring. And maybe if it makes sense, maybe something for down the road.

Okay, very good. Thanks, Brian.

Your next question comes from the line of Flores-Van Dijkum of Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Hey, Brian, thanks. I had a big picture question. You guys are a relatively easy company to understand because you've got 15 hotels. Your top three hotels generate over 50% of EBITDA. You're obviously, and as I think will supplant your Boston hotel once it's stabilized. As you think about your portfolio construction, ideally in three years time, how do you see that concentration? Would you like to have fewer hotels that are more meaningful or would you like to have more hotels or sort of diversify your income? Or are you broadly pretty happy with what you have today?

Morning, Flores. No, it's a very interesting question. And I think the way we look at the portfolio and one of our main focuses in our strategy is to recycle capital. And 2024 was a challenging year to do that. We were able to pick our spot and early in the year get a really good transaction done that we're very happy with and very happy with what it's gonna look like for the next several years in San Antonio. The year turned for the industry as the year moved on and being a relatively smaller company with an incredible balance sheet and great liquidity, we're able to pivot really quickly and take advantage of opportunities and buy back our shares when that makes more sense than acquiring. And the transaction market at that time really was not, there wasn't a lot happening other than maybe some very large transactions. And I think as we saw the expectations at the beginning of the year and where things ended up at the end of the year, we're happy that we didn't try to stretch to a transaction because it would have been a mistake and chances are the earnings of a hotel would have been much lower at the end of the year than what we would have thought. And so we made the right capital allocation decision at that time. In a more functioning transaction environment, which I think we are either getting to or we're rapidly approaching, I think the death side of the world is very supportive of transactions. I think that there's some economic uncertainty that makes things a little bit more difficult, but I think that there's more alignment in operations this year. In that environment, we're gonna wanna churn a portion of our portfolio. We're gonna wanna take some wins and get returns on assets that we've invested in and that we're happy with and that more importantly, our ability to value add going forward is going to be limited or would require major outlays that would take a lot of capital or take a lot of time or a lot of disruption, which we have to be aware of with a portfolio our size. And so going forward, we would like to accelerate recycling capital and I think that that means that we would be at a minimum the same size, but we have some very large assets and at the end of the day, if we could take a large asset and turn it into two assets, then I think that gives us a little bit more mass, which helps take some of the concentration out of the portfolio too. At the end of the day though, we're not afraid of concentration, especially if it's in fantastic locations. So I think to answer your question, yes, we would want to recycle more and that's something that we think we should be doing on an ongoing basis and given the market and the cost of capital that makes sense, that's what we'll look to do.

Thanks. Just perhaps a slight, with that, you've obviously had the wildfires in Maui, you've had the strike in San Diego, that probably makes those hotels less able to be recycled because they both have depressed EBITDA levels relative to peak. Should we continue view you as recycling other assets as a result of that later on this year?

Look, we are always in conversations, I mean, we're capital allocators, so we're always talking to people about different hotels in our portfolio and different hotels in their portfolio all the time. I would, while Maui is on a recovery on the leisure side, YLA still has done very well and EBITDA is still at or above 19 levels and maybe not as high as it was in 22, but we think we can get a path back to there. That's a phenomenal and very valuable and very scarce piece of real estate and so I think that the value of YLA hotel stock is probably maybe a little bit less volatile than other things, so I wouldn't say that that would preclude Maui is like, that's just, it's still a very liquid asset. San Diego bounce back and we're giving the majority of that EBITDA back this year and it's a phenomenal location next to the Convention Center, it's a very efficient hotel and so look, I think all of our hotels are always up for evaluation and I don't see anything being off the table.

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Scholls of Trulia Securities. Please go ahead.

Great, sorry if I missed this, just wanted to sneak a question in at the end here. What are you baking in to the midpoint of your guidance as far as total expense growth? Thank you.

Very sneaky, Patrick. Yeah. We mentioned it before, is that for total expense growth, we're in the kind of four, four and a half range, a little bit higher on the paper and then other big ticket expenses, real estate taxes are easing a bit, insurance, we have renewal halfway through the year so we still get the benefit of that coming down from last year. And our portfolio was pretty well located and it's done pretty well so we don't think that our renewal will be anything more than the average this year and then I think maybe utilities are a little bit higher but I think when you mix all that together, we're four to four and a half.

Okay, that was it, thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Brian Jelia for final closing remarks. Please go ahead.

I wanna thank everyone for their time and interest in the company and we look forward to meeting with many of you at upcoming conferences and many of you at upcoming property tour of the On Doss Miami Beach which we're very excited to show you. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes your conference call. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.