BRT Apartments Corp

NYSE:BRT

Earnings Call Analysis

Challenging Growth Outlook Amid Share Buybacks

The company has simplified its operations since 2021, improving its balance sheet and adopting a disciplined capital allocation strategy. They face no significant mortgage debt maturities until 2026 and have repurchased $16.7 million in shares. In 2024, the firm is navigating operational difficulties, like the inability to raise rents due to new supplies, occupancy pressures, and inflation affecting operating margins. The firm is focused on stabilizing occupancy with the expectation of improved transaction activity later in the year. While the current market is subdued due to cap rate and interest rate mismatches, share repurchases have been made, reflecting confidence in the value and future of the company. They anticipate 2024 to be challenging, with better prospects emerging from the second quarter of 2025 as the market gradually absorbs new units.

End of the Quarter Summary and Forecasts

As the Q4 earnings cycle concludes, there has been significant focus on rental rates, transaction activity, expenses, and the effects of new supply in the Sunbelt region. 2023 marked a year of simplification for the company, initiated in 2021 through taking full ownership of most properties. With a stronger balance sheet and no mortgage debt maturing until early 2026, the company strategically pulled back on acquisitions and focused on share repurchases, investing $16.7 million in buybacks in 2023 and into 2024. Although 2024 earnings targets weren't specified, the health of portfolio operations and other financial mechanics were outlined, predicting a challenging year mirroring other operators: anticipated difficulties in raising rents due to new supply, occupancy pressure, and inflation impacting operating margins. Despite these challenges, there's a commitment to stabilize occupancy, with prospects of improved transaction activity as the year progresses.

Investment and Transaction Climate Amid Market Realities

The current transactional environment is notably quiet, with cap rates around the mid-5s and interest rates exceeding that, leading to negative leverage which deters investment excitement. Transactional volume is low, and sellers are hopeful for a future dip in interest rates to attract buyers. Despite a decline in the stock value post repurchases, the company stands by its decision, suggesting confidence in the value of these investments over others and a strong belief in the company's long-term prospects.

Share Repurchase Considerations and Liquidity

Share repurchase decisions are made after evaluating cash balances and borrowing bases, with an emphasis on timing, price, and cost of capital. Although repurchasing shares might not enhance stock liquidity greatly due to significant insider ownership, management believes that buybacks represent the best investment relative to other options and support the company's valuation and future outlook.

Silvana Oaks Property Progress

Silvana Oaks' development has largely stayed on schedule despite an isolated arson incident delaying a single building's completion by a few months. With units now online and leasing having commenced, the project is expected to perform well despite a slight supply growth in the market. This positions Silvana Oaks as a strong long-term asset, aligned with original expectations for the project.

Acquisition Strategy and Market Conditions

Navigating the acquisition landscape, the company remains cautious with cap rates at 5.5% and interest rates higher, fostering patience in deal-making. This strategic patience reflects a prudent approach in light of absent significant rent growth that many investors previously projected for the period. The company anticipates interest when cap rates align more closely with neutral leverage. Acquisitions could be considered more favorably once the market stabilizes and interest rate fluctuations settle.

Partnership Dynamics and Supply-Demand Balance

With most current partners taken care of, the discussion and potential outcomes with remaining partners is anticipated around future maturity events between 2027 and 2029. In certain markets, such as Huntsville and Pensacola, supply has unexpectedly outpaced demand. However, the company is optimistic about the influx of new residents and believes that net absorption will fill the units, predicting an improvement in the market early into 2025.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to BRT Apartments Corp.'s Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].

At this time, I would like to turn the floor over to Tripp Sullivan of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Tripp Sullivan, executive]

Thank you for joining us today. On the call are Jeffrey Gould, President and Chief Executive Officer; George Zweier, Chief Financial Officer; Ryan Baltimore, Chief Operating Officer; as well as David Kalish, Senior Vice President.

I would like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on management's current expectations assumptions and beliefs. Listeners should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review the company's SEC filings, including its Form 10-K for a more complete discussion of risks and other factors that could affect these forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, BRT does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

This call also includes a discussion of non-GAAP measures, including FFO, AFFO, NOI, combined portfolio NOI and information regarding our pro rata share revenues, expenses, NOI, assets and liabilities of BRT's unconsolidated subsidiaries. All the non-GAAP information discussed today has certain limitations and should be used with caution and in conjunction with the GAAP data presented in our supplemental earnings release and in our reports filed with the SEC. Please see these reports and filings for the definitions of each non-GAAP measure. As a reminder, the company's supplemental information and earnings release have been posted on the Investor Relations section of BRT's website at www.brtapartments.com.

I'd now like to turn the call over to President and CEO, Jeffrey Gould. Please go ahead, Jeff.

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Good morning. We're approaching the end of the Q4 earnings cycle and the commentary we've all heard this quarter is focused on rental rates, transaction activity, expenses and the impact of new supply in the Sunbelt. We'll be very brief with our commentary today, so we can drill down into those topics in Q&A.

To quickly summarize 2023, I want to highlight the ongoing simplification of the business that we started in 2021 by taking full ownership of a majority of our properties, the improvement in our balance sheet and the disciplined approach to our capital allocation. We do not have any significant mortgage debt maturities until early 2026 and pulling back on acquisitions in the past year and investing disposition proceeds to repurchase $16.7 million of shares during the year and to date in 2024 were the right decisions.

We made it our priority to focus on property operations and look to maximize portfolio performance where possible. It made for a relatively quiet year, but an important one, nonetheless. While we're not providing specific earnings targets, the 2024 outlook we provided in our earnings release last night outlines our views on portfolio operations, transactions and other moving parts of the P&L.

The big takeaways are that operational environment we're anticipating this year is much like other operators. New supply is expected to impact the ability to grow rents. There will be continued pressure on occupancy and the ongoing inflationary headwinds are expected to impact operating margins. We intend to prioritize stabilizing occupancy this year with a view to being more constructive on potential transaction activity later in the year. Long term, we're in the right region in the Sunbelt. We will be aggressive in how we manage the portfolio to earn what we anticipate will be a challenging 2024, but we will remain very patient on asset growth. We believe this strikes the right balance to position us for better growth in 2025 and '26.

Operator, will you please open the call to questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Michael Gorman with BTIG.

[Michael Gorman, analyst]

Jeff, I was wondering if you could just drill down a little bit in terms of -- obviously, you spoke about the operating environment in these markets, and we certainly have heard a lot about that. Can you talk about what that's leading to on the investment side, on the transaction side, what you're seeing there? And specifically, kind of how you're thinking about balancing additional share repurchases versus the kind of opportunities that may or may not be in the market today?

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Yes, sure. So as far as the transactional environment, things are -- I've said this before, but things are very, very quiet. The reality is that continually with cap rates being somewhere in the mid-5s, call it, and interest rates higher than that and the negative leverage, it is very difficult for people to get too excited about purchases. The -- even transactional volumes of deals that we're seeing are extremely slow. It's really just basically a whole market right now. I think sellers are looking to hopefully have interest rates drop. So cap rates will drop and they can sell at a better time. There's not a lot of pressure and a lot of issues with defaults right now in multifamily as in other sectors. So volume-wise, it's pretty quiet.

On the share repurchase side, we were pretty active. We always have to check our cash balances and see where we are in our borrowing base and see if it makes sense at the right time based on the right price and our cost of capital to see if we want to buy shares back but we were pleased that we did and we were able to do that even though the stock dropped a little bit since then, we're very comfortable with those purchases.

But generally, what's happening in the market is it's very simple. There's some overbuilding in some of our markets, fortunately, not in many of our markets but for some of our markets, leading to fight for occupancy and push on rents. So the conversations that we've seen about 2024 being kind of a rough year on growth, I think, is accurate. I think once these units get absorbed, I think, '25, '26 are much brighter days because it's very little in the permitting process. And it's going to be a sticky '24 and a difficult '24, but we have our heads down, and we're working hard to keep occupancy and keep our rents both through new leases and renewals.

[Michael Gorman, analyst]

That's helpful. And just on the share repurchases, as you think about it, obviously, you touched on a couple of issues there. Do you give any consideration to the liquidity in the stock? And how do you think about that in terms of the shareholder base when you think about share repurchases and the scale of share repurchases over time?

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Yes, it's a fair question. I mean we're already so -- we have a significant percentage owned by call it, insiders and all. So the reality is the float, whether we buy or not is pretty minimal. So most investors are in this for the longer haul with us. And obviously, management has their money where their mouth is, and we have quite a large interest in the stock. So we don't think it makes a tremendous difference on liquidity one way or the other. I mean, we're not talking about a huge amount of share repurchase. But at the same time, we understand it doesn't help it, but we still think the investment is probably the best investment we can make as compared to other alternatives. And long term, we think it's something that's going to be smart for us. Just based on our valuations and where we see the future of the company.

[Michael Gorman, analyst]

That's great. And then just last one for me on Silvana Oaks. Can you maybe just give us a little bit of color there on the lease up and how you see that trending? And maybe -- how that maybe varies from where you initially underwrote it? Obviously, long term, probably still a great asset. But just a little bit more color on how that kind of plays out over '24 and '25.

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Yes, working -- going well as a general answer, a partner that we've done many development transactions with before. We had a slight hiccup that one of the buildings was actually -- there was an arson of one of the buildings. But basically, that was resolved and has slowed us down on one building for about 3 or 4 months. But property units are online now, renting has already started. It's on time, on budget as we expected, and it's a great market still. So there is some supply there, but not a huge oversupply. And I think we'll be -- we'll do well with the rent up and the lease-up and I think it'll be a good long-term project for us.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Barry Oxford with Colliers.

[Barry Oxford, analyst]

Great. Just to kind of build on the acquisition question. Jeff, given your cost of capital, where would cap rates sort of need to kind of level out to kind of get you interested to come back into the market. Obviously, at 5.5%, you could arguably say sellers probably are a little unrealistic at that level. But at what level would you say, okay, Barry, at this level, I feel good about coming back into the market where cap rates.

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Well, Barry, it's sort of twofold. It's the cap rates, but it's also the interest rates. So where we're seeing neutral -- let's call it, neutral leverage, I think that's about where we play the game. So if you're talking about an interest rate market of 5.5% and cap rates at 5.5%, that might be something more interesting to us. We've been very patient in the last couple of years, it's been frustrating and we think it's been prudent and smart to be patient and looking back on what we didn't buy anything over the last year or 2. A lot of investors were targeting and projecting some pretty substantial rent growth and it's not there at all.

As a matter of fact, it's not even close to what they anticipated. But I think realistically, I think when it gets to about a neutral and when things calm down in the -- the 10 year is not jumping all over the place as it is week to week now, I think we'll be in a much better place to consider acquisitions for value-add properties as well as even more stabilized situations.

[Barry Oxford, analyst]

No, that makes sense. And then on the unconsolidated partners, are there any partners that are looking to monetize their position and could buy them out? Or no, not right now. Nobody's really throwing their hand up.

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Yes, things have been pretty quiet. As we said to you guys have maybe to everyone about a year or 2 ago, we took care of the ones that were sort of the lower-hanging fruit, if you will. And the partners that we have now, I think there'll be an event when the maturities take place and the maturities on those partnership deals is typically happening between like '27 and '29 somewhere in that range. It may happen sooner, but I think the maturity event will cause a discussion and an outcome, whether it's we buy them, we sell, they buy us, I'm not sure what the outcome will be, but it's probably more targeted towards the maturities, and you have that information. So I expect it'll be quiet for the next year or 2 and then things will ramp up on the -- most of the rest of the partnership deals. So there will be an event that will take place at that time.

[Barry Oxford, analyst]

Great. And then last question. You indicated there's definitely some supply coming on. Is there demand for that supply? What I'm driving at is, is there brisk net absorption to say, "Hey, look, as we get towards the end of '24, most of the supply should be leased up or Jeff, you have the mind let, Barry, this could be more kind of more longer process and lease-up that could bleed into '25".

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Combination answer. We went into some markets that in your wildest dreams, you probably won't imagine to oversupply. And now we're seeing in Huntsville, Alabama example, Pensacola, Florida. I mean, the typical market is Nashville, Dallas, you might have expected it. We're comfortable in all these markets. And again, fortunately, a larger our portfolio does not have oversupply issues. But where we do, we're comfortable with the in-migration and the absorption will be good. I do think it may go on past '24, and I think it may take longer than just the calendar '25 -- into '25. But I do think there's net absorption and these will get filled up. And I think we'll see much better days early in '25, not sure right away, but early towards the first -- second quarter of '25.

[Operator]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jeff Gould for any closing remarks.

[Jeffrey Gould, executive]

Well, thank you all for your continued confidence in BRT and have a good day. If you have any questions that you need to talk with this about, please feel free to call Ryan Baltimore and myself. Thank you.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.