NexPoint Residential Trust, Inc. (NYSE:NXRT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And given the interest rate environment, even Class B owners are being more defensive in their operating strategies, prioritizing occupancy over revenues and awaiting the interest rate hikes. We do expect this to abate by the end of the first half of next year as Class C renters use their wage gains to upgrade their housing options and both inflation and deliveries start to moderate. We expect to see pricing power return to Class B assets, sustained by continued net migration into the Sun Belt and the fact that 67.5% of total U.S. households can afford to live in an NXRT community. Perhaps most importantly, on the supply front, in 20 of NXRT’s 39 submarkets, supply growth over the next three years is less than 6%. While deliveries have been notable in 2023, the forecasted full-year 2023 total is down 17% from RealPage’s projection earlier in the year, most likely due to difficult financing environment.

In addition, we’ll be exiting two of the few supply heavy markets — submarkets after the two play and Charlotte dispositions I’ll get to in a minute. As we noted last quarter and as broadly reported by other Sun Belt-focused REITs, skips and evictions remain a problem in a few key markets, most notably for us, Atlanta, Charlotte and Las Vegas. The good news here is that Atlanta has started to work through their core backlogs as has Las Vegas. And as for Charlotte, over 70% of the evictions are attributable to one asset, Timber Creek, which is under contract to sell with $1.5 million of nonrefundable orders money deposit. Given these momentary cross currents, we will continue to focus on prioritizing occupancy, closing the back door on skips and evictions and targeting qualified traffic.

The portfolio registered 94% occupancy as of the close of the quarter, and as of this morning is 96.24% leased with a healthy 60-day trend of 93%, the highest it’s been in a couple of quarters as we enter the winter months. The good news also is our three year same-store effective rent growth is now CAGRing at 9.6%, and same-store NOI growth will end the year in the high single digits. This growth, coupled with our continued focus on deleveraging, informed our view to recommend an eighth consecutive dividend increase to the Board. If we are successful with these maneuvers, and we do believe we will be, we think earnings growth reaccelerates in 2024, pending our core FFO payout ratio of 54% for 2023 and sub-60% on preliminary ’24 estimates. Our confidence in our strategy also stems from our ability to still find liquidity at a time when there’s not a lot of it.

Given our debt is fully pre-payable and our NOIs are growing, these assets are still very liquid. Our job as management and large shareholders is to maintain our focus on increasing NOIs through our targeted value-add campaigns, preserving those gains and maintaining a maximum liquidity profile. So when liquidity does return to the market, we can take advantage of it. For example, during the quarter, we were able to liquidate Silverbrook, one of the company’s first acquisitions, for a 4.6% cap rate. The Silverbrook sale generated $19.5 million of net proceeds, a 34% levered IRR at 6.14x multiple on invested capital. We used $16 million of net sales proceeds to reduce the drawn balance on the credit facility to $41 million. As I alluded to earlier, Timber Creek in Charlotte is also under contract for sale at $49 million with a $1.5 million nonrefundable earnest money deposit.

Estimated net proceeds from this sale are $23.8 million, which would generate a 25% levered IRR and a 4.3x multiple on invested capital. We expect this sale to occur in Q4. Finally, we also expect to sell Old Farm in Houston this year. As you may recall, this asset followed a contract in April. We have found a replacement buyer who is now under contract to purchase the asset for $103 million. The sale is forecasted to generate $47 million of net proceeds at a 22% levered IRR and a 2.9x multiple on invested capital. The Old Farm and Timber Creek dispositions will retire the remaining balance on the credit facility and allow us to further de-lever the balance sheet, positioning us, as Brian mentioned, as fully hedged going into 2024. That’s all I have for prepared remarks.