speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Our participants, please stand by. The conference is now ready to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Chartwell Retirement Resident Q2 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to CEO Vlad Volodarsky. Please go ahead.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Louise. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. There is a slide presentation to accompany this conference call available on our website at chartwell.com under the Investor Relations tab. Joining me are Karen Sullivan, President and Chief Operating Officer, Jeffrey Brown, Chief Financial Officer, and Jonathan Blakia, Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer. Before I begin, I direct you to the cautionary statements on slide two, because during this call, we will make statements containing forward-looking information and non-GAAP and other financial measures. Our MD&A and other securities filings contain information about the assumptions, risks, and uncertainties inherent in such forward-looking statements and details of such non-GAAP and other financial measures. More specifically, I direct you to the disclosures in our Q2 2025 MD&A under the headings Risks and Uncertainties and Forward-Looking Information for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. These documents can be found on our website or on the CEDAR Plus website. Turning to slide three, Q2 2025 marked the eighth successive quarter of double digit growth in our same property adjusted NOI and our FFO per unit. This performance reflects the outstanding efforts of our teams who remain focused on delivering exceptional resident experiences, growing occupancy and enhancing operational efficiencies. We now forecast reaching 93.5% occupancy by September and as we enter our historically robust fall leasing season, we believe we are on track to achieve our target of 95% occupancy by the end of 2025. Our sector benefits from a positive operating environment driven by a demand for our services from the robust growth in the seniors population and a multi-year slowdown in new construction. Thanks to the dedication, innovation, and empowerment of our people across the country, Charwell is well positioned to continue to deliver strong, sustainable results for all its stakeholders. My partners will provide you with more color on various aspects of our business. Karen will do an operating update. Jeff will dive deeper into our Q2 financial results. And Jonathan will discuss our portfolio optimization and growth activities. We'll start with Karen. Karen, over to you.

speaker
Karen Sullivan
President and Chief Operating Officer

Thanks, Todd. Moving on to slide four, our leasing activity continued to be strong in Q2 with occupancy growing in all four provinces. We held our third open house event in June, which resulted in 15% more personalized tours when compared to the June 2024 open house event. We refined our property marketing approach by launching localized campaigns with a tailored media mix that included direct mail, radio, print, and email to highlight each property's unique selling features and included customized sales calls to action based on local market conditions. These strategies resulted in a 15% increase in personalized tours for marketing sources compared to Q1. We also introduced targeted email campaigns to existing contacts in our database to nurture leads and support sales conversions. Our marketing prospect pool has grown to over 160,000 people. As part of our enhanced approach to business development, we participated in a number of events with real estate, finance, healthcare, and HR professionals, including the Canadian Institute for Financial Professionals Conference, the Canadian Real Estate Associations Conference, and the Chartered Professionals of Human Resources Conference, where we connected with 50 businesses interested in information about Chartwell for their employees, many of whom are the adult children of our future prospects. In June and July, Every Chartwell Property held residence pricing meetings to discuss potential in-year changes to rates and incentives in light of their occupancy and local market conditions. They also fully reviewed market rates by suite type and suite location for 2026 in preparation for our budget process, which gets underway in Q3. In Q2, we launched a Power BI dashboard for our general managers which allows them to easily access information in all six major areas of the business. Sales, occupancy, revenue optimization, financial results, workforce activity, and people KPIs. This new tool not only organizes this important data in one place, but will also assist management teams in driving their results. Turning to slide five, we reduced our staffing agency costs by 50% in Q2 2025 compared to Q2 2024, through our continued focus on recruitment and retention activities. In Q2, we also kicked off our project to implement Oracle Workforce Time and Labour, which will automate the entire process from time entry to payroll. We are also implementing Oracle Workforce Scheduling, which will automate schedule generation and allow us to easily adapt to changes and to fill shifts. The outcome of this automation is to lower the risk of incorrect payments reduce time spent by our payroll team and the office managers in our homes, and improve accuracy and agility in managing our largest cost centre. The operations team hosted a number of continuing education and strategic planning sessions in Q2, including sales training for our retirement living consultants and communities of practice for each discipline within our management team. We used these sessions to roll out new programs, share best practices, and enhance the skill set of our valuable management team members. Finally, I wanted to share another example of our ongoing efforts to develop individual property-specific strategies to better meet the needs in our local communities. At our recently acquired property on Vancouver Island, Chartwell Victoria Harbour, the team has increased occupancy by 11 percentage points from 29% to 40%. This was accomplished not only by enhancing marketing efforts, which have increased online visibility and inquiry volume, but also by making changes to service offerings to appeal to a broader range of residents. These results are significant, considering the home had not surpassed 29% since its opening in 2021. I'll now turn it over to Jeff to take you through our financial results.

speaker
Jeffrey Brown
Chief Financial Officer

Great. Thank you, Karen. As shown on slide 6, in Q2 2025, net loss was 5.7 million compared to net loss of 2.8 million in Q2 2024. FFO grew to 67.6 million in Q2 2025, an increase of 51.1% compared to Q2 2024. Our reported FFO does not include 1.9 million or 0.6 cents per unit of income guarantees related to recently acquired properties. Q2 2025 FFO growth benefited from higher adjusted NOI of $31.4 million and higher adjusted interest income of $0.5 million, partially offset by higher adjusted finance costs of $5.7 million, lower management fees of $2.2 million, and higher G&A expenses of $1.2 million. In Q2 2025, our same property occupancy increased 490 basis points to 91.9%. and our same property adjusted NOI increased 12.3 million or 20%. Slide seven summarizes our same property operating results for each platform. All of our platforms posted occupancy gains in Q2 2025 compared to Q2 2024, which positively impacted our results. Our Western Canada platform same property adjusted NOI increased 3.2 million for 15.9%, our Ontario platform same property adjusted NOI increased 7.3 million for 21.2%, and our Quebec platform same property adjusted NOI increased 1.8 million for 25.2%. Turning to slide eight, at August 7th, 2025, liquidity amounted to approximately $503 million, which included 108 million of cash and cash equivalents and 395 million of borrowing capacity on our credit facilities. During the quarter, we raised 137.2 million of equity through our ATM program, which helps support our transaction activity. And we continue to improve our leverage metrics with interest coverage ratio growing to 3.0 times and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio declining to 7.8 times. For the remainder of 2025, Our debt maturities include 182.6 million of mortgages with a weighted average interest rate of 3.19%. As of August 7th, 2025, we estimate the 10-year CMHC insured mortgage rate to be approximately 4.17% and the five-year unsecured debenture rate to be approximately 4.25%. I will now turn the call to Jonathan to discuss our recent acquisitions and portfolio optimization activities.

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Thank you, Jeff. Turning to slide nine, we continue to execute on our portfolio strategy of enhancing our asset base to generate increased quality NOI. This quarter, we acquired an additional 5% ownership interest in the SUMAC by Chartwell, residents of Toronto, for a purchase price of $6.7 million. We now have a 50% ownership in the property with Welltower owning the other 50%. We acquired a 50% ownership interest in a 247 suite planned addition to the existing Chartwell Le Prescott Residence, Chartwell Le Prescott II, to be comprised of 223 independent living suites and 24 assisted living suites for a purchase price of $7.8 million. Construction has commenced and we expect to open the property in Q4, 2026. Total development costs are expected to be approximately $94.2 million. We also acquired a 50% ownership interest in the development of a 187-suite seniors' apartment building adjacent to Chartwell-le-Prescott, tailored to active, independent 55-plus adults for a purchase price of $6.3 million. Total development costs are expected to be approximately $75.7 million. Last month, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% ownership interest in Les Tours-en-Grignon, comprised of 449 suites in Montreal, Quebec for $88.5 million. The three tower complex offers a mix of independent and assisted living accommodations. We expect to close this acquisition on October 1st. And finally, two weeks ago, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a portfolio of six seniors housing communities comprising 1,024 suites located in London, Waterloo and Mississauga, Ontario. for a total purchase price of $432 million, including a forward purchase agreement to acquire on completion 29 yet to be constructed townhomes at one of the communities expected in Q4, 2026. The transaction is expected to close in Q4, 2025. This acquisition strengthens our position in the strong market of Southwestern Ontario. Year to date, we've completed over $700 million of acquisitions with further committed investments of $600 million for completion in 2025 on the heels of approximately $1 billion of acquisitions in 2024. We're also actively engaged in discussions with local and national developers across the country to restart our development program and create a meaningful pipeline of state-of-the-art assets to bring in our portfolio. We will pursue such developments in a prudent manner. with a preference for off-balance sheet development similar to our arrangement in Quebec. Finally, we continue to pursue a portfolio optimization strategy to high-grade our portfolio into newer, larger, and operationally efficient seniors communities across Canada's top retirement markets to best position Chartwell for long-term sustainable NOI growth. As I have noted, we have invested significant financial and management capital pursuing acquisitions in line with this strategy and have initiated new development projects to support strong pipeline of future property growth. We have also identified properties within our portfolio that no longer fit this core strategic focus due to the location, size, age, and or service offering. These non-core properties represent approximately 3,500 suites and less than 10% of our NOI in the aggregate and are geographically diverse, primarily in Ontario and Quebec. We intend to pursue dispositions of some or all of these properties as market conditions allow, with proceeds expected to be used to support future development and acquisitions activity that is in line with Chartwell's current strategy. I'll turn the call back to Vlad to wrap this up.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jonathan. Slide 10 highlights the strong fundamentals driving our industry. We believe that we are the front end of what is going to be a multi-year period of growth in retirement living in Canada. Demand for our services should continue to grow for decades, driven by the senior population growth and lack of long-term care accommodation. Forecasts show that to maintain supply-demand balance, the sector would need to build 200,000 suites in the next 10 years, which is almost three times the number of suites built in the previous 10 years. With persistent high construction costs and aging inventory, supply shortages are likely to persist, supporting higher occupancies, rental and services rates, and profitability of the existing operators. As one of the largest participants in the senior living sector, Charles stands to benefit from them. Turning to slide 11. This year marks the last year of our strategy period that started in 2018. Back then, we set ambitious goals for ourselves. To grow our employee engagement score from 49% highly engaged to 55%, to grow resident satisfaction score for 58%, very satisfied, to 67, and to grow same property portfolio occupancy from then 90.5% to 95%. The two and a half years of hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic made the achievement of these targets much harder. Pandemic-related restrictions and negative media had a negative impact on our residents. There undoubtedly was post-pandemic exhaustion and fatigue of our employees and our occupancies declined to below 77% in 2021. Yet, our teams persevered, and while we cannot celebrate the success just yet, we feel we're firmly on our way to achieving these targets. In fact, we can report that one of the targets has been achieved. We just received the results of our 2025 Employee Engagement Survey, and in our residences, 56% of employees reported their high level of engagement. This is one percentage point above our strategy target of 55% highly engaged employees. We now know that we can successfully execute multiple large-scale initiatives in parallel. The agility of our teams in implementing locally tailored strategies, deploying new technologies, and integrating acquisitions has been exceptional. These efforts have strengthened our operations and accelerated our growth. I want to sincerely thank everyone involved for their dedication and outstanding contributions. As we continue to grow and improve this great company of ours, all of us at Charwell are optimistic about the future and united in our drive to continue delivering strong results for all our key stakeholders for many years to come. I will now close our prepared remarks with a story from one of our residences as pictured on slide 12. At Charleau Crescent Garden in Surrey, B.C., the dining experience is central to community life. So when one of the residents, Stephen, raised concerns about the food, food services manager, Hanoush Dibash, took the time to listen. What followed wasn't just a resolution, but a connection. Hanoush learned that Stephen, who had grown up on a farm, was genuinely curious about the inner workings of the kitchen. Instead of just offering an explanation and solution, Anosh invited Stephen on a behind-the-scenes tour. Starting in the basement, Stephen explored the receiving docks, stepped into walk-in freezers, and saw firsthand how meals are prepared at scale, like whipping up 25 pounds of mashed potatoes at once. He asked about sourcing, storage, and preparation, and gained a whole new appreciation for the complexity and care behind each meal, and for the people who prepared. Now one of the kitchen's biggest champions, Stephen's enthusiasm has inspired other residents to take their own tours, turning curiosity into connection, and building greater respect for the staff who create the dining experience for Charleville Crescent Gardens residents every day. Thank you for your attention this morning. We would now be pleased to answer your questions.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question, please press star 1. You may cancel your question at any time by pressing star two. So please press star one at this time if you have a question, and there will be a brief pause while participants register, and we thank you for your patience. Our first question is from Jonathan Kelscher from . Please, we'll have your lighters opened.

speaker
Jonathan Kelscher
Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. First question, just on these new metrics that, that you put in the MD&A, which look like they're going to be quite helpful. Just want to understand them a little bit. The NOI per occupied suite, is that just another way, is that basically excluding any impact of occupancy changes? Yes.

speaker
Jeffrey Brown
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, that's correct, Jonathan.

speaker
Jonathan Kelscher
Analyst

Good morning. Okay, so assuming, I think it's fair to say that you're going to hit the 95%, hopefully by the end of this year, if not very early next year, and get a little bit beyond that. So that's kind of a fair way to think about your same property NOI growth going forward once you kind of hit your stabilized occupancy target?

speaker
Jeffrey Brown
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I think it's a fair way to think about it. we are getting some leverage on the expense side as we're able to still, but I do think that's an appropriate way to look at it going forward to get up to the stabilized occupancy level.

speaker
Jonathan Kelscher
Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. And then just on the development side, and John talked about this a little bit, and you guys are starting to do mostly, I guess, infills and expansions right now, but at In your discussions, how close are you to starting to see more greenfield development opportunities?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Yeah, so we are getting closer to that. Construction costs seem to have leveled out and rates have increased over the past couple of years to make some developments pencil out. So, like you noted, most developments to date that are working are adjacent to our existing properties and take advantage of synergies. But we are looking at BATIMO style arrangements, our Quebec style arrangements to pursue off balance sheet developments that would be the more greenfield type developments both on sites that we control and other sites that local developers would contribute.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

And in terms of math penciling out, Jonathan, it's still very location specific and majority of them do not pencil out. Some are getting closer.

speaker
Jonathan Kelscher
Analyst

Okay. Are you starting to see other developers start developments?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

We're starting to see more groundwork being done to prepare for those developments as those conditions continue to improve and allow for those developments.

speaker
Jonathan Kelscher
Analyst

Okay, so do you think it'd be fair to say that 2025 will likely be the bottom or close to the bottom for new starts for seniors and then starts to pick up next year?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that we're going to see some pick up in 2026.

speaker
Jonathan Kelscher
Analyst

Okay, thanks. I'll turn it back.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Himanshu Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Thank you and good morning. So first on the recent Ontario acquisitions announced, so what is the occupancy on this, and how should we look at NOI upside in the near term on this portfolio?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

So occupancy on these properties, they are all stabilized with the exception of one that's in lease-up. And so we would expect growth in the portfolio as a whole largely because of that lease up property. But they are by and large stabilized, the balance of them.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Okay. And Johnson, what is the going in cap rate or where do you see the stabilized cap rate on this acquisition?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

We see it in the low sixes.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

That's the stabilized, you're saying?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Yeah.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Okay, turning attention to occupancy in that 95% target for same property looks very achievable here. What could be the stabilized occupancy on growth portfolio? Should it be even higher than your same property portfolio given that it's newer properties here?

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, potentially. I mean, at this point, we view 95% as kind of stabilized occupancy. That's not to say that there is no possibility for it to go higher, both for the same property portfolio basis and certainly for the growth portfolio. You're correct pointing out that in our growth portfolio, Jonathan and his team were so successful sourcing high-quality, newer assets in great locations that we expect to achieve higher occupancy rates and certainly higher rental rates gross over time in that portfolio than in our same property portfolio.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Okay, thank you. And then on the same vein, you know, growth portfolio margins is like already in low 40 here at like 90% occupancy. So again, you know, like stabilized margins on the growth could be like mid 40s or even higher.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Yes, for sure. Again, these are, by and large, larger properties that are more efficient in terms of their operations, so the margins should be higher. And again, as we grow rates at a pace that hopefully is a little higher than the same property portfolio, the growth in the margins should grow correspondingly there.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Okay, okay. And maybe, you know, I mean, given the margin expansion this quarter, last quarter as well, I mean, just looking at these same property expenses, like which expense item do you think is most variable to occupancy here and which items are like mostly fixed in nature once you reach like low 90% occupancy? I mean, I look at, you know, Q2, like same property expenses grew only like I think 2 to 3% despite like a sizable occupancy uptake and other things.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

In our, at least our budgets, we would assume kind of three to four normalized percent of expense growth. Generally, what you would see as the occupancy gets to 90%, most of the incremental revenue is bottom line because, you know, there is really no incremental additional expenses on staffing. Most of the hours are already baked in. Maybe there's a few hours here and there. And labor, as you know, our largest cost category. And in terms of other costs, there's a lot of them are fixed at that point in time or already incurred. So from that perspective, once properties get over 90% occupancy, there is a significant improvement to the NOI.

speaker
Jeffrey Brown
Chief Financial Officer

And, Himanshu, we are seeing still some benefit this year in agency reduction spend, which is helping offset some of the labor increases. So that should, by next year, we think that we'll be in a steady state and we'll see the benefit of further reductions.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Okay, thank you, and I'll go back in the line. Thank you so much.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Tom Callahan from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Tom Callahan
BMO Capital Markets Analyst

Nice morning, guys. Maybe just start on the acquisition side of things. Like, obviously, it's been quite an active year to date. Can you just talk a bit about the pipeline and where that sits today and perhaps the, you know, what could be in store on the back half of the year?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Yeah, so it has been a busy first half. We are still seeing great opportunities across the country and are at various stages of negotiation and process on a number of properties. So we do expect more activity for the tail end of the year.

speaker
Tom Callahan
BMO Capital Markets Analyst

Got it. And I know it's not a completely fair question, just kind of given the dynamics of the market. But is there a way you guys think about, you know, let's call it a perfect world and kind of pricing and quality of the assets line up in terms of what you think you should be able to do dollar-wise on the acquisition front?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Well, in terms of what we should be able to do dollar-wise, I'm not sure. how to answer that, but the perfect acquisition that the acquisitions we're looking for, if that's the question, are for new or newer, larger properties that are in the markets that we already operate in so that we can take advantage of Synergy. So those are the perfect acquisitions for us, and we have had success over the last year and a half in acquiring these new properties below their replacement cost. and in great locations that would have their own barriers to entry. So those, to us, seem pretty perfect for acquisitions.

speaker
Tom Callahan
BMO Capital Markets Analyst

Right, okay.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

So when we think about acquisitions, there's another component of it, obviously. We also think very hard about integrating these acquisitions into our portfolio successfully, and there's certainly a limit of how much we can do at any given point in time, even though we've proven to ourselves first and foremost that we can do a lot. At the same time, there is definitely a limit, and we do not want to test that limit, because what's important for us is to make sure that there's very little disruption to the residents and employees of the properties when they come to us, and that we can deliver to the underwriting that we put out there. And so, in terms of the volume of the deals that we're doing at any given point in time, we also always think about that part. That makes sense. That's helpful.

speaker
Tom Callahan
BMO Capital Markets Analyst

Maybe just going back to the development side and building on Jonathan's questions there earlier, just with respect to the projects you announced with the TMO, you did take a 50% stake on the development side this go-round. So can you just talk about or give a little color on why you went with that type of structure this go-round?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Well, this 50% stake in these two projects, both of which are kind of adjacent or on the existing site that we already own. So it would make sense for us to participate in the development because in the case of one of the sites, it's actually going to be connected to our existing property and the second site is adjacent to it. So a 50-50 partnership on this development, we felt, creates the greatest alignment between us and our partner.

speaker
Tom Callahan
BMO Capital Markets Analyst

Got it. Thanks, guys. That's helpful. I'll turn it back.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Giviano Thornhill from National Bank Financials. Please go ahead.

speaker
Giviano Thornhill
National Bank Financial Analyst

Hey, guys. Good morning. I just want to start on the same property pool. How would you describe the kind of occupancy there? Is it more of a normal distribution or does it have like a skew towards it?

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

It's very location specific. We still have about 20% of the properties in that pool that are below 85% occupancy, so there's still quite a bit of growth that we expect from those properties. And then the rest are sort of above 85%. Most of them are above 90% at the present time. In terms of the geographical, I mean, you see in our MD&As the breakdown between different provinces. Obviously, Western Canada is at 96%. Quebec is getting up there. Ontario has the most potential.

speaker
Giviano Thornhill
National Bank Financial Analyst

And then in the higher occupied areas, so Western Canada or maybe notes in Quebec, have you noticed an increase in pricing power yet in those regions?

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Again, it's very location-specific. We are looking at the market rates. Karen just talked about the pricing meetings that happened at Dole Home, so that's more about strategy meetings that teams are undertaking. And for sure, where we see high occupancy, high demand, and potentially our rates may be a bit lower than the competitors because of the occupancy increases that we were trying to achieve over the period of time, those are being corrected more than others.

speaker
Giviano Thornhill
National Bank Financial Analyst

Okay. And just going on capital deployment, how are you guys selecting which developers you want to partner with? What are you focusing on? And, yeah.

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Well, in some cases, a local developer will have a great site, and so that is attractive to us. In other cases, there will be larger real estate companies that have – vision for seniors as part of a master plan community. It really depends on the site and on the potential partner. But of course, we are always looking for a developer that has experience and track record of success in constructing quality assets.

speaker
Giviano Thornhill
National Bank Financial Analyst

Yeah, and so just like a similar partnership to Batimo, how many partners do you think you would want to support in that, like an agreement like that, I guess, was more my question.

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Oh, we haven't set a target for the number of partners we would want, but we are looking to replicate that type of partnership in Ontario and in the West where our partner would build assets generally to our specifications, but not on our balance sheet. And we would have the right to acquire those assets on stabilization or on construction completion. So these kinds of arrangements are really beneficial to both parties and we'd be looking to replicate that kind of VATIMO relationship that we've seen great success building a dozen properties in Quebec.

speaker
Giviano Thornhill
National Bank Financial Analyst

And then I guess just my last question is more on the disposition side. Is there any kind of update you could provide on Valley Cliff, the LTC property? and then in addition, what's kind of the margin profile of that non-core bucket that you described and how would you select or choose which assets you want to dispose of?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

So on Ballycliff, construction is complete and we're working on moving in the residents from the older facility into the newer facility. and it would not be core to our business to retain this long-term care facility. So our plan is to market that property in the near term.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

And the second part of your question about the non-core properties, those generally would be smaller properties, potentially in the markets where we do not have large presence or secondary markets, sometimes older assets, and they would, by virtue of the fact that they're smaller, they would run at a little lower margins than the core portfolio would be running. Thanks, guys.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. Please press star 1 at this time if you have a question. Our next question is from Tammy Burr from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Tammy Burr
RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. Just coming back to one of the earlier questions, when you look at the repositioning assets and the growth properties combined, what's your sense of the NOI upside from stabilizing those assets? And then maybe the second part of that is over sort of how many years do you see that sort of playing out?

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by stabilize. We can stabilize occupancy. We expect occupancy to achieve 95% in the same property portfolio by the end of this year. The repositioning portfolio, there's just a different composition of the properties in that portfolio. So it's probably going to take a little longer if we were to retain all these properties for the period of time, but not too much longer. in the environment that we operate now. I believe that almost every property can be running at 95% occupancy just because of the demand-supply dynamics. And so those properties will take a little longer. But then both of these portfolios, I think, have a potential for market rate growth as well that should be pretty strong over the next couple of years. for sure with the absence of new construction starts or new properties being put in the market to compete with them.

speaker
Tammy Burr
RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Okay. I guess I was really maybe more so looking at the growth portfolio because the occupancy there is sitting at, I guess, 90%, and some of that, of course, is some of the recent acquisitions. So that's sort of the question more so on timing of getting those to, you know, that 95% level.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, that's We expect that portfolio to get to 95% level within probably the next 12 months. The reality is a lot of properties that are in this portfolio already at 95% or higher occupancy. We have a few homes that we bought, as you know, in British Columbia that were, Karen spoke about one of them that went from 29% to 40% occupancy. You know, it's part of that portfolio. So it's really almost like bifurcated between many properties at 95 plus occupancy and a few that are still in lease up.

speaker
Tammy Burr
RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Okay, and then just when you look at your rent growth, you know, we've seen some disclosure from some of the U.S. peers, but when you look at, I guess, when you're trying to get pricing power pushed through a higher rent growth, at what point or what occupancy level do you start to push a little harder? Is it, you know, 90 to 95, it's a certain percentage, and then once you're up to 95, you can, you know, push even harder, or is it just really market-specific?

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

It is very market-specific, and I want us just to be very clear. We're talking about market rents here, not the increases to the existing residents. What we're doing with existing residents are inflation, inflation-plus type increases, depending on where our costs are. What we're talking in terms of potential is the increases to the market rates in the markets that are strong, that do not face a lot of competition, where our occupancies are getting to that 90%, 95%. level. In some cases, we have markets where there is competition, and we might be already at the top of the market. And if we run at 95% occupancy, we might not see as much market rate growth opportunity. So it is very circumstances-specific.

speaker
Tammy Burr
RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Okay. That's helpful, Vlad. Last one for me. Just on the transaction markets, Are you starting to see more capital being formed to target this space than, let's say, maybe six months, maybe even a year ago? And any signs of perhaps some downward pressure on cap rates?

speaker
Jonathan Blakia
Chief Investment Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Yeah, there are some signs of downward pressure on cap rates. The acquisitions that we completed or that we're competing on are generally competitive processes. and we are seeing renewed interest in our sector. Okay, great. I'll turn it back.

speaker
Tammy Burr
RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Thank you.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Himanshu Gupta, Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

Thank you. I have a quick balance sheet questions here, just a couple of them. So on debt, how much CMHC debt are you expecting to raise in the near term? and what rates are you seeing on that?

speaker
Jeffrey Brown
Chief Financial Officer

We have about 240 million currently planned, I'm answering for the balance of the year, or we have other unencumbered properties we may look at as well to put into CMHC. And 10-year rates are close to 4.15, 4.2% right now. Okay, so you're looking for 10-year, okay.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

And then the second one was, what's your target leverage here? And as you roll out your acquisition program further, is there a range you're looking at to achieve?

speaker
Jeffrey Brown
Chief Financial Officer

Our target continues to be seven and a half times. We think we should be able to achieve that by next year. So that may come up or down. quarter by quarter, but we still do expect to deliver down to seven and a half times over the next 12 months or so.

speaker
Himanshu Gupta
Scotiabank Analyst

That's helpful, and that's it. Thank you, guys.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time, so Mr. Wolodarski, I'll return the meeting back over to you.

speaker
Vlad Volodarsky
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Louise, and thank you to everybody for joining us. As always, if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to give any one of us a call. Goodbye.

speaker
Louise
Conference Operator

Thank you. Your conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.

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