Healthcare Realty Trust Incorporated (NYSE:HR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Rich Anderson: A lot of it is occupancy gains but are you also kind of conditioning tenants for higher rent growth as well because I just wonder about the sustainability of 5% same-store NOI growth in the back on the other side of this effort through 2024, once you achieved…

Todd Meredith : I mean, obviously – right, right. Occupancy can’t go up forever to your point. So we understand that. But we think we’ve set the bar at 90% for our multi-tenant portfolio. So we’re at 85-ish today. So getting to 90% gives us quite a runway if we’re generating 100 to 200 between now and the end of next year that gives us multiple years to be sustaining high levels of growth through occupancy gains. But you’re right that rent growth is the other equation to that rental rate growth. And as you saw our cash leasing spreads were 4.8%. You’re seeing some pretty strong numbers across other MOB companies as well. So we really do think there is a tailwind there. And frankly that’s probably the second piece to our story.

We’ll focus on occupancy primarily here. But where we can we will be really pushing a dynamic pricing model where we see that opportunity. You know us — you’ve known us for a long time we’ve been pushing that for a while, but really see that as another sort of leg or phase to this effort. So I do think it can carry us further. But practically speaking the next two or three years is really more focused around the opportunity for occupancy gain.

Rich Anderson: Okay. Last for me. Rob, you mentioned mid-20s move-out percentage as a percentage of expirations. Just definitionally so I understand does that not mean sub-80% retention?

Rob Hull : Yes. The way we’re looking at it is move out as a percentage of expirations and the historical numbers put you in that mid to high 20% levels. It is sub-80%, but I think it’s the retention levels that we’ve been reporting they do include our holdover bucket whereas this analysis that we’re running does not include that holdover bucket. So there is a difference…

Rich Anderson: So we shouldn’t interpret mid or mid-20s move-outs in your bridge as tenant retention running below 80% it’s apples to oranges?

Todd Meredith: That’s correct. There’s just a definitional difference. So the way that tenant retention is calculated does get the benefit of month-to-month or holdover as well. And so that tends to add 5-plus percent to your retention rate.

Rich Anderson: Okay. Fair enough. Thanks. Thanks, everyone.

Todd Meredith: Thanks, Rich.

Operator: Our next question today is from the line of Mike Mueller of JPMorgan. Mike, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Mike Mueller: Yes. Hi. Curious where in the portfolio are you expecting most lease-up to occur? I know it’s going to be tied to HTA, but is there anything notable in terms of geographies or tenant categories where you’re seeing a bit more of outsized demand?

Todd Meredith: Sure. Mike, we touched a little bit on this at Investor Day, but to sort of reiterate that I would say certainly we see it disproportionately in our top markets, which is obviously great because that’s where we certainly see the most upside the most resources, the best teams in place to capture that. So that’s certainly a place like Houston. We see a lot of opportunity. We’ve talked about that a bit. But other mark great markets like Denver and Nashville and plenty of other attractive markets. So definitely focused on the larger markets where we have scale. And as you pointed out, obviously, it’s much larger in the HTA portfolio for sure. But again in those higher markets or those larger markets. And probably the last piece would be to characterize it would be our redevelopment group of properties.