BSR Real Estate Investment Trust

Good day, everyone, and welcome. My name is Jim, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the BSR REIT Q4 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise, and after management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Removing yourself from the queue is just as simple. Just repeat the steps of star and one. I would now like to turn our conference over to Mr. Spencer Andrews, Vice President of Investor Relations and Marketing. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Jim. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to BSR Reads Conference Call to discuss our financial results for the fourth quarter and year-ending December 31st, 2025. I'm joined on the call today by our CEO, Dan Oberstein, our Chief Financial Officer, Tom Service, and our Chief Operating Officer, Susie Rosenbaum, who are all available to answer your questions after our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I want to remind listeners that certain statements made on this conference call about future events are forward-looking in nature. Any such information is subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially. In addition, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful supplemental information about our financial performance. For more information, please refer to the cautionary statements on forward-looking information and a description of our non-GAAP financial measures in our news release and MD&A dated March 11, 2026. Dan, over to you.

Thanks, Spencer. Our 25 financial performance reflects a REIT in transition. one that deliberately rotated nearly a billion dollars of property during that year, the transition is now largely complete. We completed a strategic disposition of stabilized assets, redeployed capital into newer lease-up assets with greater growth potential, and streamlined our capital structure with the cancellation of roughly 75% of our Class B units, or 27% of our total units as converted. All of these things make the REIT a far more attractive investment today than it was at this time a year ago. Amid all this change, our team continued to perform at a high level, despite a persistently challenging leasing environment across our core Texas markets. We are generating incremental improvements in performance, supported by lease up of our new properties and other gross initiatives. During the year, same community revenue declined a modest 40 basis points, despite all the challenges I just mentioned. Same community NOI declined by 1.6%, due in part to a strategic decision to retain overhead, positioning the REIT for future growth. Same community weighted average occupancy closed the year at 94.3%. Our retention rate was 59.5% at quarter end, 130 basis point expansion from the end of Q3, and up from 56% a year ago. And we made significant progress at our two primary lease-up assets. Aura 3550 ended 25 at 92% occupied. That compares to 86.6% at the end of Q3 and the low 20s in early 2025. A full year of a physically stabilized Aura 3550 will provide year-over-year upside in 26. And the owns will be closed the year at 70.4% occupied, representing additional upside to the non-same community portfolio in 26. Despite all the good we achieved in 25, our fourth quarter and full year 25 results, as well as our preliminary 26 guidance, reflect a few unavoidable realities. First, new lease rate recovery has somewhat lagged our expectations, but with 24 plus months of minimal new supply ahead, we see a clear path to rate improvement. Second, we are operating in a materially different interest rate environment than existed several years ago. While our interest hedging program certainly helped to shield our investors from interest volatility, which allowed the REIT to distance itself from ZERP reliance, ultimately, we expect little future benefit from zero interest rate policies. And finally, rotating capital into newer, lease-up-focused assets has an immediate positive impact to our portfolio quality, but it takes time to fully flow through our financials. To state the obvious, we earn $0 from vacant apartments. However, the earnings drag from lease-up assets is finite. 435.50 is already at 92%, and the Owensby's ramp-up is underway. Thus, our team is going to keep doing what it does best, focus on what we can control and adeptly manage risk versus return. We will continue to drive occupancy at new assets capitalize on organic growth opportunities embedded in our properties, minimize our cost of capital, and pursue external growth opportunities that provide accretion on a per unit basis. With market fundamentals steadily improving in our core Texas markets, albeit at a slower pace than we would like, and with the best in class portfolio in tow, we like our relative position in the market moving into 2026. I'll now invite Tom to review our financial results in 2026 guidance in more detail. Tom?

Thanks, Dan. Our operational performance in the fourth quarter was essentially in line with management's expectations and consistent with the typical Q4 slowdown in leasing activity we see annually. The seasonal slowdown did have a negative impact on rates, particularly with respect to new leases. As a result, a 2.2% increase in renewal rates was more than outweighed by a 6.3% decline in new lease rates, driving blended rates down 1.3% in the quarter. Though January continues to experience a deceleration in blended rate decreases, we were encouraged to see a modest sequential improvement in blended rates in February of this year relative to January. We are continuing to monitor absorption in our markets relative to remaining vacancy, and expect a bit more near-term monthly rate progression and regression. However, with minimal new product expected to be added over at least the next 24 months, we are confident that the general trajectory of blended rate changes will continue to improve in the coming quarters given the fundamental setup in our markets. More broadly, same community revenue decreased 1.2% year-over-year in Q4 primarily driven by the lower average monthly in-place leases I just spoke to. Average monthly in-place leases declined to $1,436 per month as of December 31, 2025 from $1,447 per month last year. Lower average monthly rent was partially offset by an increase in other property income Other income continues to benefit from internalization initiatives, including expansions of our existing valley trash and bulk internet initiatives. We expect these initiatives to materially enhance our organic growth beginning this year. Same community NOI for Q4 25 was $12.7 million, a 6.1% decrease from last year. The decline was attributable to the lower revenue I just described, The strategic decision to retain overhead, which pushed an additional $0.3 million of expenses to same community properties relative to the comparative period, as well as a $0.2 million increase in real estate taxes and a $0.1 million increase in both repair and maintenance and utility expenses, all of which was partially offset by a decrease in property insurance expense of $0.2 million. Below NOI, G&A expenses increased by $0.6 million due to payroll costs and legal and professional fees, and net finance costs were up $0.1 million due to resets experienced in the interest rate derivative portfolio. In total, FFO in Q4 25 was 14 cents per unit compared to 19 cents per unit in the third quarter and 22 cents per unit in Q4 of 24. Likewise, AFFO per unit finished the quarter at 11 cents per unit versus 17 cents per unit in Q3 and 20 cents per unit last year. The sequential decline in per unit measures between Q3 and Q4 were primarily related to the timing of real estate tax appeal proceeds as well as legal and professional fees associated with those appeals. The declines in FFO and AFFO per unit on a year-over-year basis were driven primarily by three items in order of impact. First, headwinds of higher relative interest rates on the REIT. Second, the inherent lag in earnings that is created when rotating capital, and particularly when rotating capital from stabilized properties into a lower number of newer lease-up properties. And third, the leasing environment in Q4 relative to Q4-24. The same holds true for our full-year financial results. Full year 25 FFO per unit was 79 cents per unit versus 96 cents per unit in 2024. And AFFO per unit was 70 cents versus 88 cents in 2024. To reiterate, there are a lot of moving pieces here, but in summary, the declines in FFO and AFFO per unit on our full year results also primarily relate to higher realized interest rates, timing drags created in rotating the portfolio, and a softer leasing environment in 25 relative to 24. On the balance sheet, the REITs debt to gross book value as of December 31st was 51.2%, essentially consistent with Q3. This amounts to $723.1 million of debt outstanding with a weighted average interest rate of 4%, 99% of which is either fixed or economically hedged to fixed rates. On the liquidity front, Total liquidity was $52.7 million at year end, including cash and cash equivalents of $6.3 million and $46.4 million available under our revolving credit facility. As usual, we have the ability to obtain additional liquidity by adding unencumbered properties to the current borrowing base of the facility. In December, we refinanced our revolving credit facility, extending the maturity to December of 2030, assuming the exercise of the REIT's one-year extension option. The refinancing of the credit facility reduced the interest rate margin for most leverage points in the agreement. We also extended our $160 million term loan an additional year from December of 2026 to December of 27, locking in the highly attractive cost of capital on that tranche of debt for another year. Please note that our subsequent events highlight that the REIT's only previously remaining 26 maturity, a $28 million loan related to our Vale luxury property in Houston, was refinanced onto our credit facility this week and thus the REIT has no remaining 2026 maturities. Finally, and turning the page to 2026, last night we released our preliminary full year FFO per unit guidance of 75 cents to 79 cents per unit or 77 cents per unit at the midpoint and full year AFFO per unit guidance of 68 cents to 74 cents or 71 cents per unit at the midpoint. This guidance assumes 50 to 150 basis points of same community revenue growth, 100 to 200 basis points of same community property operating expense and real estate tax growth, amounting to zero to 100 basis points of same community NOI growth. Importantly, and again appreciating there are a lot of moving pieces here, we have also included an annual bridge from our 2025 FFO per unit actuals to our 2026 FFO per unit guidance at the midpoint for illustrative purposes. The key takeaway is that we expect our core real estate business to remain healthy despite an uncertain macro backdrop, adding $0.03 per unit or 3.5% growth to the business from 2025. Unfortunately, we can currently expect this growth to be more than fully offset by increased net interest impact as we continue building revenue from our lease-up activity, along with marginal additional overhead costs. Note, we only intend to release this bridge once a year in conjunction with our guidance initiation. We will, of course, update this guidance as needed throughout the year. I will now turn it back to Dan for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Tom. To put 25 in plain terms, we absorbed the impact of roughly $1 billion in total rotation. And that cost showed up in our per unit numbers. That chapter is now behind us. I want to reiterate, the practical growth potential we highlighted in December remains ahead of us. Our outlook and strategy has not changed. Here's why we think these numbers reflect an inflection point. Again, ORA 3550 ended the year at 92% occupied from the low 20s at the beginning of the year. The owns me is leasing up in 26. Our two Houston acquisitions, while fairly occupied upon purchase, will stabilize and contribute more fully in the back half of 26. A full year of physical stabilization across all four assets flows directly into cash flow in a way that 2025 simply could not reflect. That alone drives meaningful year-over-year improvement before we get any credit from the market. But we're not waiting on the markets. We can control two growth levers that are independent of where new lease rates land. First, occupancy revenue from lease up and stabilization at our 2025 acquisitions all are on track to reach physical stabilization by year end. Second, the internalization of certain real estate adjacent business functions. For example, as of today, six of our 26 properties are up and running on our bulk internet initiative. We are in active negotiations with vendors on the remaining 20 and expect to begin rollout in the relative near term. This is a revenue line item that did not exist in our portfolio 18 months ago. And as we communicated in December, we expect up to $0.08 per unit of incremental earnings stabilizing in early 28. These initiatives alone will accelerate growth above and beyond whatever the market ultimately dictates is possible with market rents. And speaking of market rents, The 24-month macro setup in our Texas market is working in our favor relative to the past 24 months. The supply wave that pressured new lease rates since mid-23 is being absorbed, and the forward pipeline is minimal. There has been a lot of focus on the supply situation over the last couple of years, and rightfully so, but it can't obscure the continued population and economic growth that greatly exceeds the national average and the robust absorption that continues. The demand side of this equation has never been in question. It was always a supply story. And that story is turning. So to summarize, our portfolio is by far the highest quality it has ever been. The trough is behind us. The lease-up ramp is underway. And we have incremental forward growth initiatives firing that are entirely within our control. We like where we stand. Before we open the line, I want to acknowledge two board transitions. Daniel Hughes retired from the board at the start of January. Daniel founded BSR's predecessor company and was an integral part of the BSR team for nearly three decades. He's a personal mentor of mine, and I can't overstate his contributions to our business. And yesterday, we announced that Brian Held will be stepping down at the upcoming annual meeting. Brian has been a trustee since the formation of the REIT in 2018, notable for his high ethical standards and instrumental and leading our audit committee, and most recently, our governance committee. Brian has been an invaluable member of our team, and we are grateful to both Brian and Daniel for their contributions. In their places, we welcome Mark Decker, who joined the board in January to replace Daniel. Mark is the president, CEO, and director of Chiron Real Estate, and previously led CenterSpace, a fellow U.S. multifamily REIT. And at the annual meeting, The board at the recommendation of the CGNC has resolved to nominate Corrine McIndoo to replace Brian. Corrine has 30 years of experience primarily in real estate and capital markets, including multiple REIT trusteeships. Both Mark and Corrine bring skills and experience that will be a tremendous benefit to our team. That concludes our prepared remarks this morning. Tom, Susie, and I would now be pleased to answer your questions. Jim, please open the line for questions.

Certainly, thank you. And to our phone audience joining today at this time, we are ready to take your questions. A reminder, please press star and 1 on your telephone keypad to signal for a question, and I will open your lines one at a time. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that is star and 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll hear first today from the line of Brad Sturgis at Raymond James.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just maybe just starting with the guidance for 2026 and really do appreciate the buildup provided to get to the midpoint. Just curious, in terms of the underlying assumptions, I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit more in terms of what you're expecting maybe from a broader range on leasing spreads and occupancy as part of your revenue guidance there.

Yeah, Brad, it's Tom. At the top line, as we've always said on the occupancy side, we think healthy occupancy is somewhere between 94 and 96%. Our guidance assumes, let's just call it the midpoint of that from an occupancy perspective. From a rate perspective, I'd say we think rates are going to be flat to up a percent. So again, let's call that the midpoint in the 50 basis point range, generally speaking.

And are you able to comment, I guess, from a leasing concession point of view, what that would represent within the guidance, maybe on a percentage of revenue terms or any other way you want to frame it?

Yeah, Brad, as a reminder, our revenue is net effective or net of all concessions. So when we think through guidance, we kind of almost don't even have to take a view on concessions. Our guidance is net effective. And whether we get that through a six-week concession or a zero-week concession, we're managing towards a revenue number. So I don't have a fantastic answer for you there, but that's how we genuinely think about the business.

Yeah, understood. I guess my other question would be just, you know, part of not only the the go forward plan for 26, but for the next three years is the ancillary revenue opportunity. Just how much of that would be baked into 26 and how should we think about the ramp up there?

Yeah, sure, Brad. So for 2026, it's got about $400,000 vacant for the five properties that went live with bulk internet at the end of this year or at the end of 2025. But you've got to remember that's part of the buildup. And when it's stabilized, when you get to 2028, those five should be contributing about $1.1 million. Now we have 20 properties to go that we will start the implementation of in 2026. They're not going to contribute to NOI in 2026, but the ramp-ups will be in place by 2027. So those should contribute another $2.5 million in 2027. And then complete the ramp up at $2.8 million in 2028.

And just for clarification, as you're bringing properties online through that program, would there be a little bit of a near-term margin impact? Because the expense could be kind of in front of the revenue stream, so to speak. Would you see a bit more upfront cost first and then the revenue comes online? Or how do we think about that?

Yeah, you're thinking about it the right way, Brad. Today, the way we do internet, as we explained in December, we collect kind of participation fees with the internet service provider. And when we become in control of that, obviously those participation fees go away. So there's a temporary lease up within the bulk internet initiative as well as they come online and as we bring and the rent roll turns and we bring more tenants on the program. There's a temporary drag to margin as it leases up, but it will be more than offset in the future. That makes it a very warranted investment decision, particularly from a margin perspective, once the program is even marginally, if you will, occupied by tenants, let alone fully stabilized.

It's about $150,000 for this year for base five.

Okay. I appreciate it. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

Our next question today will come from Saram Srinivas at ATB, Cormark Capital Markets.

Thank you, Abheda. Good morning, everybody. Dan, you mentioned lagging expectations in terms of the new lease rates. When you see Q4-25, and if you compare it to a prior winter quarter, so Q4-24 maybe, how are the expectations turned? Was it like worse than the normal seasonality or worse? Is it normally in line with expectations for a slower winter quarter?

Yeah, I'll try to take the general answer, and then I'll ask Susie to speak to specifics. Yeah, there's always been some seasonality, Sai, in Q4 numbers, and from a very high level, I just expect us to lease half as many units in Q4 than any other quarter, and so And we also have half as many move outs. It's just people aren't moving in December, if that makes sense, Cy. And so you really focus as an operator on the lease up season and I'll say the bookends between the beginning and end of summer. And that's where we've historically seen performance. Susie, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Yeah, absolutely. So Dan is absolutely right. You know, we sign less leases when it's cold and that always picks up in the spring and Normally, the second and third quarters are our best, but I'd also like to point out the fact, too, that fourth quarter, year over year, is getting better. Just blended last year on the same tour basis, Q4, we had negative blends of about 3.4%, and that's moved to negative 1.3% for Q4 2025. Renewals in 2024 were positive by 1.6%, and they are positive by 2.2% in Q4 of 2025. And new leases were negative 8.4% in Q4 of 2024, and now they are negative by 6.3%. So you can see right now that we're closing in on the Gulf.

That's actually a really good point, Susie. Maybe then going back to the volumes, have the volumes stayed consistent as well, quarter over quarter, or has the volumes looked better in terms of the number of move-outs and move-ins?

The volumes of leases we're signing are about the same quarter over quarter. It's about 1,000 in Q4, which is similar to last year. And again, that starts to double up in the spring and summer.

Okay, that makes sense. And maybe just kind of picking off that, as you're seeing, you know, as you saw in January and February, like how has the leasing momentum been so far in Q1? And how is it kind of shaping up to be towards as we head into spring?

Okay, so yeah, you know, February improved, and we expect it to continue improving. In our minds, things, our guidance points to things turning more positive at the end of March and early April.

That's great, Carlos. Maybe, Dan, last question for you. You know, you mentioned one of the goals is to reduce the cost of capital looking into the year ahead. What are the gears of ability to actually action that, and how do you think of that relative to the REIT swap termination coming up?

Sai, I'm sorry. You were cutting out.

Are you asking if the guidance reflects any near-term swap resets?

Uh, yes, that, and also like, you know, going back to your comment on reducing costs of capital, um, how do you marry that with the swaps coming up for a termination order?

Yeah. So, um, on the swap book side, the, uh, You saw us in the subsequent events do a couple of trades early this year. There was two trades done, one extended a term and one placed a new trade in to address some of our floating rate maturities that we incurred in the beginning of the year. Those were done at 3.13% and 3.19%. We now have a potential slate of maturities mid-year in July and And we're actively marketing or managing that every day and looking at our alternatives to lock in our rate there beyond July, assuming we get placed into the trade. Regardless, the market today is right in between the goalposts of what we did earlier this year, somewhere between 3.1 and 3.25, so right in the middle there. That's our assumption that's baked into the guidance from a cost of capital perspective. I don't think there's any other material fluctuations in our cost of capital that we're considering in our guidance at this point.

That is great, Colton. Thank you. I'll turn it back. Next, we'll hear from Kyle Stanley at Desjardins.

Thanks. Morning, everyone. Maybe just looking at some of the more one-time in nature realty tax items from the fourth quarter, can you just walk through a little bit of what that was and maybe how that flows through 2026? Do you see any potential opportunities that that might offer for your numbers in 2026?

Sure, Kyle. So we got hit in the fourth quarter in a few different ways on real estate taxes. And let me provide some color there. First, we got zero tax refunds in the fourth quarter. By way of example, in the third quarter, we got about $730,000 worth of tax refunds. For the full year, we got $2.1 million of tax refunds. And again, zero in the fourth quarter. So you can Q1, 2, and 3 saw the benefit of tax refunds, and Q4 was just taking the hit of not getting any refunds. At the same time, on the opposite side, the real estate tax expense, as everyone knows, we accrue for our tax expense throughout the year, and we true it up when more perfect information comes our way. In the fourth quarter, that true up related primarily to assets we acquired during the year, where there's the most gray zone on what is an appraiser originally going to tell us versus, or what's their original stance going to be versus what we think reality is for the comps in the marketplace. And so that was an adverse, when those initial appraisals came in in the fourth quarter, they were a bit higher than what we would have said. Based on our experience, we feel great about getting appeal proceeds in 2026. But since we don't have a leg to stand on from a technical accounting perspective, we drew those up in the fourth quarter. And that also hampered us in the fourth quarter from a real estate tax perspective. And then finally, it's worth noting, we got a bunch of refunds towards the end of the third quarter last year. And we use a legal expert to do that. So some of the legal fees that went up in the fourth quarter as well. That was just the bill received to those. So it's a bit of a timing nuance. This happens every once in a while where the, if you will, refund is not matched with the expense related to achieving that refund. So that's a bit transitory in nature. Looking forward to 26, we mentioned in the guidance that property operating expense and real estate taxes will be up between 100 and 200 basis points And, um, a portion of that is certainly real estate taxes. I think real estate tax expense, we expect to be, let's call it flat, maybe down a percent actually, um, as mill rates really haven't changed. And we have confidence in our ability to find the right appraisal levels. Um, but given all of the success we've had in refunds, we expect the refunds for probably to be about half of it or so of what we've gotten historic or what we got in 2025, that will drive, um, uh, in the same circle, that will drive those real estate taxes 5% higher. So that's the primary driver of why our same store operating expense guidance is moving higher is really on account of taxes.

Okay. No, I think that checks out. Your comments that you made there just about feeling pretty confident about success on the appeal front, especially for the assets acquired in 25, but just not having a leg to stand on yet. Would that be, you know, the success on the appeal front, would that be baked into your guidance already at this point?

So, yes and no, right? We make our best estimates on what we assume our refunds will be and what we can realistically underwrite to in conjunction with our third-party experts and in consultation based on our experience. So some portion of that is certainly included in the guidance today, but maybe not 100% of it. TBD on that, it's kind of at the whim of appraisals and courts, so hard to say. So we try to be appropriate there. Okay, fair enough.

Maybe... Just moving over to your lease up assets in the past, you've kind of mentioned, obviously, as you approach stabilization, likely seeing an improvement in the NOI margin. I'm wondering if you'd be able to disclose or talk about maybe where the NOI margin at Aurora 3650, given it is quite near, if not at stabilization already, where that might sit today versus where maybe the owns be is, just to give us a sense of how that maybe progresses over time.

Kyle, I don't have it in front of me. So I don't want to misquote you. So let me, let me circle back to you on that one. I just don't have it in front of me.

Okay. Fair enough. And just the last one for me, obviously the three-year guidance that was provided through 2028 at the investor day, you know, just, I guess high level thoughts on that still remains intact. How do you see, you know, over three years, how do you see that maybe flowing through your results? Obviously, I think with the guidance at 77 cents for 2026, we see a little bit of a step down versus 25, but then, you know, how do you see that kind of ramping in 27, 28, if you can talk through that?

Yeah, Kyle, this is Dan. I think, and Susie may have touched on this a little bit. You know, when you take the bulk internet, right, I think there's a penny sitting in 26 in bulk internet, right? I think there's six sitting in 27, and I think there's an extra penny in the first quarter of 28, right? That's the way I look at it if I was going to compare and contrast the bulk internet and valley trash initiatives that we discussed in December. And if I think over at the occupancy side, I think as of December, we had 250, or as of that LQA, we had 250 apartments to lease. I think as of year-end, we had 188 apartments to lease, year-end, 25. And then our expectation, naturally, is that we're going to lease all 188 throughout the course of this year, right? And you've got to think about it, and we're still not ready to talk about the margin on that, because the first of that 188 is going to have a much lower margin than the last of that 188, right? And therein lies the problem on getting into the lagging impact of lease up financials. So while the properties are going to be occupied this year, I think that's a first step. But I think you see the full benefit flow through all the way into 27. You're going to see that acceleration quarter over quarter sequential driven by occupancy improvement. And then the team's going to get another bite at the apple in 27 where you're fully occupied, but we call this stabilization. you're fully occupied and those residents may have been concessed to come into the market by 4% or 8%, that's two weeks or one month. And in 27, you're renewing those leases at higher rates. You may not get the full concession, right? But you're going to get some benefit of that renewal as markets ramp up and reset. Now, as far as I'm concerned, that the December 27 investment presentation, we're right on track to earning that money. I think the frustrating thing for our investors, and I empathize with them, is that the nature of these investments, buying lease-up assets, making initial investments in bulk internet, they don't show up tomorrow. They show up over the course of year one, and we see them showing up, and then... As a public company, you start to see that lagging impact as lease-ups really materialize, as that last unit gets leased up at 100 margin, right? And then you've got another bot at the Apple in 27 where you see accelerated growth from compression of concessions on renewal.

Okay.

Kyle, all in. Kyle, all in. That turns into a choppy 15, right? But I'd rather, what's the saying, I'd rather take a choppy 15 than a smooth 10?

Sounds about right. Okay, thank you very much. I will turn it back.

Dean Wilkinson at CIBC, you have our next question.

Well, thank you. Dan, this is less of a modeling question, more of a big picture question. Some of the commentary from some of the larger acquirers down in Texas have said they're basically pens down on acquisitions of a meaningful size. I guess, one, do you think this is counterintuitive because in this environment, on valuations such that they are, that that's an opportune time to buy? And do you think once you've turned the corner on the rent growth going forward, you're going to get a wave of capital that just starts chasing assets, and that's going to push prices up.

Yes, Dean.

I'm just kidding. No, yeah, I think it's really what we're looking at is cap rates versus cost of capital. And there's still some irrational movement between what someone can afford to finance an acquisition for and what a kind of a concerned developer-seller situation is willing to sell an asset for. And there's a ton of money sitting on both ends of that stadium. And they're inching closer to meeting and agreeing. And I think patience is important right now. But just as we've seen many times in the past, once those parties start agreeing, then you see a significant amount of transaction volume. We think that the market has improved and I guess just deployment of capital a little bit in the last few months and we expect continued improvement. Again, we're looking at what is our relative cost of capital, what is our available capital alternatives, what would be the impact on our leverage, what would be any potential dilution to our or accretion to our FFO earnings plus our per unit NAV of our investors. Okay, that's number one. And number two, what return can we make if we acquire some assets at an opportune time? It's getting closer and closer, but we're going to remain pretty disciplined with any deployment of external capital at this time.

I hear you. So in essence, if the defensive end could pass the physical, you would have taken them. You know where I'm going with that one. Thanks, guys. I'll hand it back.

There you go. There you go. If Crosby would have passed the physical, we would have taken him.

That's it, right? All right. Thanks, guys.

Next, we'll hear from Jonathan Kelcher at TD Cowan.

Thanks. Good morning. Just going back to Kyle's question on the lease-up properties, can you guys quantify maybe how much NOI is missing from when they're eventually going to be stabilized?

Um, Jonathan, uh, Dan mentioned the one 88, uh, at market rents in, in revenue, that's three to three to three quarters million dollars of gross revenue. Um, like Dan said, I don't think we're necessarily quite ready to tell you exactly what the margin on that is going to be. When we did it in December, we had a bit of a range on it. I'd encourage you to keep using that. Um, I don't, I don't think we have a great answer on NOI. But that's the top line point we're at sitting as of December 31st.

Yeah, and Tom, if I may, this is Dan. Not to pile on, but we wanted to quote revenue numbers and provide our investors with margin underwriting if they'd like to choose it. It's my view, Jonathan, that that shows up. It shows up, but it's in disguise, I would say, in the back half of the year. and then it starts to accelerate and you really see it Q1, Q2, Q3, and then culminated in Q4 of 27. That's when the real impact of all of that revenue shows up on FFO per unit and is not otherwise distorted by any other leasing costs or things like that.

Okay, so still better part of two-year build and then 28 will be like just fully stabilized and kind of disappeared into the same property. Right?

Yeah, that's fair to say. I mean, 27 will look very, I mean, 27 will reflect a lot of this money, but it'll come in quarter over quarter sequential, continue to come in. So we got eight quarters of quarter over quarter sequential. And then you sit there in Q4 27, and you can underwrite almost an annualized runway with some organic improvement in 28.

And Jonathan, just one other thing on that, just as a reminder, Our guidance includes a bridge from 25 to 26. The non-same community pool, which would include the lease-ups on an FFO per unit perspective at the midpoint is about 19 cents in 2026. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. And then second question on the guidance. And I guess you gave a little bit of color on the leasing trends in January and February. I think, would it be fair to say that you're more back-end weighted as kind of lease-ups start to stabilize more? How should we think about the cadence of growth this year?

I think that's right, Jonathan. I think by definition with lease-up assets in tow and being a material mover throughout the year, We expect it to ramp in the back half of the year. Once that asset is 100% stabilized in December, it'd be greater than the 70 it is today, right? So I think by definition, it would be a back-end ramp, and we expect that to play out. Of course, there's a lot of moving pieces in any given quarter, so it may not be quite linear, as we've explained in real estate taxes earlier today. But directionally, yes, it should be back-end loaded.

Yeah, and should we think about that the same sort of way on the same community revenue growth profile?

Right, yes. Yes. Okay, thanks. I'll turn it back.

Star one, ladies and gentlemen, for a question or follow-up. We'll hear next from Himanshu Gupta at Scotiabank.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. So just on the, you know, the acquisitions done last year, say around $300 million or so, what is the stabilized cap rate and how big is the spread between this going in versus the stabilized cap rate?

Homanshu, as we've said every quarter for the last 32 quarters, we don't report cap rates And we've explained that the reason we don't is because, um, there's, you know, there's 13 analysts on the room. If I quote a cap rate, everybody thinks of a different way to get there. Just kind of like, if I say everybody think of a dog, everybody's thinking of a different dog. So BSR quoting cap rates is a lot different than open market cap rates. It's a lot different than the way other companies are. And given the translation gap between our two countries, we fear that that creates a whole lot of distortion. Um, so again, From now and in the immediate future, the BSR will not quote going in cap rates. Now, to your question on cap rate velocity spread on a look back, we have discussed that in the past. And generally, as we said, in new development transactions, we like to see two to 250 basis points spread relative to our cost of capital to develop an asset. In lease up transactions, we like to see 125 to 150 basis points spread on a look back cap rate like a year two or a year three versus our going in. And then on a stabilized asset, we like to see between 100 and 125 basis points of look back cap rate expansion between the acquisition date and year two or year three look back. In the case of the transactions that we made last year, as I said in my remarks, All of those transactions are leasing up. They're right on schedule. And we see no reason at this time to deviate from the methodology that we've explained in quarters past. We like what we see.

Okay. No, thanks, Dan. I appreciate your comment. I mean, the guidance came in lower than, you know, some of us were expecting. So I was, you know, kind of wondering, maybe we were always overestimated the NOI contribution from the new acquisitions, but appreciate your comment there. Okay, and then the next question is, what is the effective interest rate in 2026? I mean, based on all the swaps you do versus the last year, just trying to see that how much of interest rate is a headwind in 2026 FFO versus the last year?

Si, the midpoint guidance would point to a 4 cent headwind related to interest rates in 2026.

Okay. So 4 cents in 2026 versus 2025 on the interest expense side. Okay. Correct. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. And maybe the last question I would say, Yes, the last question is, has your 2026 FFO, you know, internal expectations changed since December? I mean, in the last two months, or you were always expecting this run rate and then the ramp up happening in the next two years?

Yeah, that's a great question, Himanshu, and I can speak for myself. I think that my expectations have changed for December and that I expected, you know, as I mentioned in my comments, I expected rate improvement in our markets to occur a little bit earlier than we're seeing. I think that impact, in my view, in January or in December when we spoke with our investors, all in is about a 1% number on rate for 26. I think what's interesting is what's happening in the market projections for 27 in the back half of 26. So it looks like market expected rent growth is a little bit higher than our initial expectations in December in 20, in 2027. So, you know, the market's playing a little hide the ball with us. I think 26 is about a percent lighter in revenue than I would have hoped, but I'm seeing about a percent more in organic expectations in the back of 26 and in the, and really all the way through 27. And again, in my, in my prepared remarks, I'd say, that it's always been a supply story, and I think that rate expectation by all of our economists, CoStar, everyone else, that movement, directly attributes to lower deliveries, lower expected deliveries, and continued domestic migration, particularly in our markets.

Okay. Thank you so much, and I'll turn it back. Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Jimmy Sean at RBC Capital Markets.

Thanks. Just a couple of quick ones for me. So first, on the renewal rates, how would the renewal rates compare with the market rent across the different markets? And then the second one would be on the retention rate. You know, it is quite high. Is your expectation they'll continue at this level?

Yeah, Jimmy. So the renewal rates, yes. They pretty much drive across the markets the same way I gave you for the whole portfolio earlier. They're looking better in Q4 of 25 than they did in Q4 of 24. Same goes as well, I guess, if you're looking at the average effective rate. For 2025, it was... $1,436 a month, right? 2026, we're looking at $1,446. So that's a 70 basis point increase in average effective rates over time.

And the market follows some more suit. Okay. And what about the retention rate?

Yeah, so the retention rate is about as high as it's ever been. And we'll continue to press renewals right now, given that they're more profitable than new leases, so yes.

Okay, so you expect it to be kind of at this level still? I'm sorry, I didn't hear your last question.

I'm sorry, I guess you're expecting the retention rate to be, to continue to remain at this high level.

For right now, yes. Okay. Thank you. And Matt Kornack at National Bank Financial.

Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, guys. Just if you could give us a sense on the demand side. I know this has always been present as a supply issue, but how demand is holding up and what metrics you kind of look at. And then also maybe as a tangent to that, we'll see a long current geopolitical situation last, but energy prices are up. And obviously, Texas, there's some exposure to oil and gas. So if you give a sense, if you think that would be a net positive from a demand standpoint as well.

Yeah, I'll answer the questions backwards to forwards, Matt. So as far as the war and the political situation, are you speaking to the war or are you speaking to tariffs or, uh, or I'm going to wear up.

Okay.

So for now, with respect to the war, you know, I don't think that, that, that we discussed that internally. There's no impact to our guidance or our estimate as a result of the war on, on interest rates or, or on, uh, um, on our revenue estimate. Um, I don't think we see any current impact on population growth and migration patterns resulting from the war. We have no direct exposure to military bases. We're not concerned regarding an exodus of our residents following deployment, as would likely be the cases in San Diego, San Antonio, parts of North Carolina. The war, really, we're not seeing any impact, and we don't anticipate seeing any impact. right now in the near term to our occupancy and our FFO per unit. As it relates to demand drivers, I mean, I hope that our investors, and Matt, I know you are looking at the same info we are, the CoStar, the CBRE, JLL, Witten. I think domestic migration remains intact. International migration remains intact. Our markets are not necessarily driven by international migration or haven't been as much as domestic. That remains intact. If I look forward on population change projections, you know, Austin's in 26 is sitting at 1.5, 1.53%. DFW is at about 1%. Houston's at about 1.15%. And what's changed versus the past five years is the gap between these three markets and the national average. So I just quoted 1.5, 1, and 1.15, right? And the national average population growth for 26 is 0.22%. So now I can say our markets are expected to grow by six times the pace of the US average, not just above the national average. I think the four-year population growth projections for our markets are even better. Austin at 1.65%, DFW at 1.19%, Houston at 1.27 versus the U.S. at 0.23. So that multiple just expands on the four-year. It kind of emboldens us in investing in this triangle. It's driven by domestic migration. It's driven by job growth, which continues to outpace any job impact to the market. And it's because I think of our discipline, Matt, of finding fast-growing markets with multiple pillars of GDP growth. You speak to the Houston energy market. I want to say Houston might be the second largest health sciences market in the country, right? And if we look into these payroll numbers for the last couple of months, there's a couple of interesting facts. Number one, January national payroll was somewhat distorted by 34,000 jobs related to a nursing strike that should be added back in in March or April. But secondly, I want to say two areas of the country that see payroll growth are health sciences. And we're invested in a market that has, sure, it's got an energy concentration, but it also has a massive health care and health sciences concentration. So those disciplines plus, as I've said in the past, population growth, you know, outstripping national averages, you buy apartments where people are moving to, and eventually they get filled up, and eventually there's no more apartments built, and eventually rates go up. Tried and true.

Awesome. Thanks. No, I appreciate the update on those figures. Maybe a very quick last one on the accounting side for G&A. Was there anything one time in nature in Q4, or is that just a seasonality type difference? I know it's been up and down over the course of the year, so I'm just trying to get a sense as to what a good run rate figure is there, or what would be in the guidance.

Yeah, I think in the guidance, GNA is expected to be flat-ish, I think slightly up, but basically flat. And Uh, there, there's some one-time noise, certainly in, in GNA, uh, in the fourth quarter, it's probably not the best runway, um, to, to look at. I would look at the year as a whole. Um, it's a better, it's a better depiction of GNA and where we stand today. Um, I can bore you on all the nuances, but I'll spare you from that. So I'd look at the year as a whole, and I think year over year, it's going to be generally flat. Okay. No, that's enough for us.

Okay. Thank you. Take care guys.

Thanks, Matt. And we'd like to thank all of our audience members who shared their questions. At this point, I'm happy to turn the call back to our management team and to Dan for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks, Jim. You know, 2025 was an ugly win, but it was a win. And I'll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day of the week. I want to remind everybody that we're a real estate company, not a bond alternative. Real estate companies make strategic moves designed to create value for our investors. We don't prioritize making those moves over a concern towards choppy Q4 earnings quality. We do empathize with the potential volatility that ensues, but embedded in our DNA is a deadly focus on buying low and selling high. We have proven that time and time again, year over year over year. We've proven it in 2021. We've proven it in 22. We've proven it in 19. To us, this is business as usual, though we do empathize with the frustration of some or many of you on our Q4 FFO per unit, sequential impact to Q3 FFO per unit. We certainly do. That concludes our call today. Thank you all for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you again following the release of our Q1 results in May.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's session, and we thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines. Enjoy the rest of your day.