UDR - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Results were solid with modest growth and improved outlook: GAAP diluted EPS $0.11 (+38% YoY), FFO/share $0.61 (+2% YoY), and FFO as Adjusted (FFOA)/share $0.64 (+3% YoY); total revenue was $425.4M (+2.4% YoY).
• Versus S&P Global consensus, revenue modestly beat ($425.4M vs $422.2M*), while GAAP EPS modestly missed ($0.11 vs $0.122*); management highlighted a three-cent sequential FFOA/share increase driven by better same‑store NOI and interest collections.
• Guidance raised for FY25 FFOA/share to $2.49–$2.55 (midpoint +$0.02) and for same‑store revenue/NOI (higher) and expenses (lower); FY25 GAAP EPS and FFO/share ranges were trimmed (midpoints −$0.05) to reflect updated assumptions.
• Operating KPIs were favorable: same‑store occupancy ~96.9%, blended lease rate growth 2.8% (renewals +5.0%; new +0.3%), and annualized turnover down to 41.2% (from 45.4%).
• Potential stock catalysts: raised FY FFOA and same‑store growth guidance, continued West/East Coast momentum (notably San Francisco/DC), and disciplined balance sheet (5.5x net debt/EBITDAre, ~ $1.1B liquidity).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Same-store outperformance: Q2 same-store revenue +2.5%, expenses +1.7%, NOI +2.9%, all better than initial expectations; occupancy near 97% and resident turnover down ~350 bps YoY supported results.
• Regional strength: West and East Coasts led performance; San Francisco and Seattle cited as top performers; West Coast blended lease rate growth 4.2% with low supply (1%–1.5% of stock) supporting favorable dynamics.
• Guidance raised on key measures: FY25 FFOA/share midpoint up $0.02 (to $2.52) and same‑store revenue/NOI raised; COO: “Same‑Store revenue, expense, and NOI growth…was stronger than expected…”.

What Went Wrong

• Sunbelt lag: Year-to-date same-store revenue slightly negative in Sunbelt due to elevated supply; blended lease spreads only around flat in Q2 (improving sequentially but still behind coasts).
• GAAP EPS vs Street: GAAP diluted EPS of $0.11 was modestly below S&P Primary EPS consensus of ~$0.122*, despite better revenue; management emphasizes FFO/FFOA as core REIT metrics.
• Expense mix pressures within controllables: Personnel and R&M saw pressure from Wi‑Fi rollout costs and remediation items; management expects some controllables to moderate, while non‑controllables (taxes/insurance) could be less favorable in 2H.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings and welcome to UDR's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Vice President of Investor Relations, Trent Trujillo. Thank you, Mr. Trujillo. You may now begin.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you and welcome to UDR's quarterly financial results conference call. Our press release and supplemental disclosure package were distributed yesterday afternoon and posted to the Investor Relations section of our website, ir.udr.com. In the supplement, we have reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure in accordance with Reg G requirements. Statements made during this call, which are not historical, may constitute forward-looking statements. Although we believe the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be met. A discussion of risks and risk factors are detailed in our press release and included in our filings with the SEC. We do not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements.

When we get to the question and answer period, we ask that you be respectful of everyone's time and limit your questions to one plus a follow-up. Management will be available after the call for your questions that did not get answered during the Q&A session today. I will now turn the call over to UDR's Chairman and CEO, Tom Toomey.

Tom Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Trent, and welcome to UDR's second quarter 2025 conference call. Presenting on the call with me today are President and Chief Investment Officer Joe Fisher and Chief Operating Officer Mike Lacy. Chief Financial Officer Dave Bragg and Senior Officers Andrew Cantor and Chris Van Ens will also be available during the Q&A portion of the call. The wind has been at our back in 2025, with employment and income growth exceeding consensus expectations, relative affordability squarely in the favor of apartments, and new supply pressures waning. This led to a healthy demand for apartments and record-high absorption through the first six months of the year. This fundamental backdrop and our core operating strategies drove accelerating pricing power: higher resident retention, lower concessions, and strong expense control.

As a result, our second quarter and first half same-store revenue, expense, and NOI growth all exceeded our initial guidance provided back in February. The factors that are in our control have been working in our favor, and these positive trends led us to raise our full-year FFOA per share guidance while also increasing our same-store growth expectations in yesterday's release. Mike will provide additional details in his remarks. Moving on, we feel good about year-to-date results and the opportunities ahead of us in the second half of the year. Our strategy and operating tactics will continue to be influenced by our customers and items that are in our control as we drive total revenue growth. This includes, first, creating value from our customer experience project. Listening and responding to our associates and residents shapes our long-term strategy, capital allocation decisions, and enhances the UDR living experience.

We continue to uncover actionable insight through the millions of daily touchpoints with existing and prospective residents, which we utilize to improve retention, expand operating margin, and drive cash flow. Second, executing on our innovation. The initiatives that we've implemented continue to drive high single-digit growth from rentable items, which increases our same-store revenue and NOI results. With a robust pipeline of current and future initiatives, we expect to produce attractive growth for many years to come. Third, we continue to deploy capital to drive earnings accretion, including development, redevelopment, and debt and preferred equity investments. This activity is supported by our investment-grade balance sheet with substantial liquidity to fully fund our capital needs. This strength affords us the ability to pivot capital to the most attractive investment option among our wide range of value creation capabilities.

Continuing on, I'm happy to report that UDR has recently been named top workplace winner in the real estate industry for the second consecutive year. This achievement reflects the culture we have built, solidifies our stature as an employer of choice, and deepens our rich history as a leader of corporate stewardship. Finally, I'm excited to welcome Dave Bragg to UDR as our new Chief Financial Officer. Dave started with us last week and brings a wealth of industry experience and executive leadership to the team. We look forward to his ability to advance our strategic initiatives as well as grow the company. For a moment, stepping back and thinking about the big picture, housing is a needs-based business with favorable supply and demand dynamics that are tilted even more in our favor.

I remain optimistic about the long-term prospects for the apartment industry and UDR's unique competitive advantages that should enhance our growth. We will continue to leverage factors in our control to improve the UDR living experience and the value proposition we offer to our associates and residents. This, in turn, will drive cash flow growth today, tomorrow, and in the future to the benefit of our investors. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Thanks, Tom. Today, I'll cover the following topics: our second-quarter same-store results, our improved full-year 2025 same-store growth guidance, including underlying assumptions, and expectations for operating trends across our regions. To begin, second-quarter year-over-year same-store revenue and NOI growth of 2.5% and 2.9%, respectively, were better than expected and were driven by, first, 2.8% blended lease rate growth, which was a result of renewal rate growth of 5% and new lease rate growth of positive 30 basis points. Our blends accelerated 190 basis points compared to the first quarter, which is 70 basis points higher than our historical sequential acceleration between the first quarter and second quarter. As a result, our first-half blended lease rate growth of 2% was 20 basis points above the high end of our guidance range.

Second, annualized resident turnover was 420 basis points below the prior year period and more than 1,100 basis points better than our second-quarter average over the last 10 years. This enabled us to accelerate renewal rate growth, which led to more favorable blended lease rate growth. Third, occupancy averaged 96.9%, which was 30 basis points higher than our historical second-quarter average. Our strategic decision to build occupancy during the seasonally slower leasing period of the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 put us in a position of strength to drive revenue and NOI outperformance to start the year. Fourth, income growth from rentable items was 10%, driven by continued innovation along with the delivery of value-added services to our residents. Shifting to expenses, year-over-year same-store expense growth of only 1.7% in the second quarter came in much better than expectations.

These positive results were primarily driven by favorable real estate taxes and insurance savings, which collectively account for nearly 45% of total expenses. Based on our year-to-date results, we raised our full-year 2025 same-store growth guidance in conjunction with yesterday's release. Starting with same-store revenue growth, we raised our midpoint by 25 basis points, resulting in a new range of 1.75%-3.25%. The primary building blocks to achieve the 2.5% midpoint include the following. First, our 2025 earn-in of 60 basis points. Second, a 90 basis point contribution from blended lease rate growth, which is unchanged versus our prior guidance. Our expectations for blended lease rate growth in the second half of the year have come down versus prior guidance, but outperformance in the first half of the year enables us to maintain the contribution to 2025 same-store revenue growth.

For the full year, we now forecast blended lease rate growth to be approximately 2%. This implies blends in the second half of the year are comparable to the first half, and we assume typical seasonality with third-quarter blends that are higher than the fourth quarter. Our outperformance in the first half of the year mitigates potential variability in blends through the end of the year. To illustrate this, every 50 basis point deviation to our second-half blended lease rate growth equates to approximately 10 basis points of same-store revenue growth. Third, a 20 basis point contribution from the combination of occupancy and bad debt, which is an increase of 10 basis points versus our prior guidance. Fourth, an 80 basis point contribution from other operating initiatives and rentable items, which is an increase of 15 basis points versus our prior guidance.

Moving on to same-store expense growth, we lowered our midpoint by 50 basis points to 3%. The improvement was primarily driven by the year-to-date outperformance across insurance and real estate taxes. Our expectations for expense growth in the second half of 2025 are slightly lower versus our prior guidance. Turning to regional results, our coastal markets have exceeded our expectations, while our Sunbelt markets have performed largely in line. More specifically, the East Coast, which comprises approximately 40% of our NOI, continued to exhibit strength with second-quarter weighted average occupancy of 97.2% and blended lease rate growth of 4%. Year-to-date same-store revenue growth of approximately 4.1% is slightly above the high end of our initial full-year expectations for the region. Healthy demand and relatively low approximate new supply completions support a favorable operating environment going forward.

The West Coast, which comprises approximately 35% of our NOI, has demonstrated the strongest positive momentum and performed better than expected year-to-date. Second-quarter weighted average occupancy for the West Coast was 96.9%, and blended lease rate growth led all regions at 4.2%. Year-to-date same-store revenue growth of 3% is close to the high end of our initial full-year expectation for the region. We continue to see particularly strong momentum in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, which are now two of our top-performing markets in terms of year-to-date NOI growth. Annual new supply completions are low at 1% to 1.5% of existing stock on average across our West Coast markets, which we expect will lead to a supply-demand dynamic remaining favorable in the coming quarters.

Lastly, our Sunbelt markets, which comprise roughly 25% of our NOI, still lag our coastal markets on an absolute basis due to the lingering effects of elevated levels of new supply. Positively, this supply continues to be met with demand and strong absorption. With supply pressures expected to decrease and forecasts for job growth remaining higher than our other regions, it is only a matter of time until pricing power returns. Second-quarter weighted average occupancy for our Sunbelt markets was 96.7%. Blended lease rate growth improved by approximately 200 basis points sequentially versus the first quarter. Year-to-date same-store revenue growth is slightly negative, which approximates the low end of our initial full-year expectations for the region. Among our Sunbelt markets, Tampa continues to perform the best. To conclude, we delivered strong second-quarter and first-half 2025 results.

Same-store revenue, expense, and NOI growth were all better than expectations and near the high end of the respective full-year guidance ranges. We are encouraged by the resiliency of various demand indicators, such as year-to-date job and wage growth, which have outpaced consensus estimates at the onset of the year. In turn, this has supported strong demand and record-high absorption of newly delivered apartment communities. Demand for apartments is outpacing supply across many markets, and the elevated cost of homeownership, coupled with a material undersupply of housing in the U.S., should bode well for occupancy and pricing going forward. To close, our diversified portfolio and continued innovation enable us to tactically adjust our operating strategy for each market to maximize revenue and NOI growth, thereby leveraging the positive fundamentals we see across our industry.

My thanks go out to our teams across the country for your dedication to operating excellence and ability to drive strong results. I'll now turn over the call to Joe.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Thank you, Mike. The topics I will cover today include our second-quarter results and our updated full-year guidance, a summary of recent transactions and capital markets activity, and a balance sheet and liquidity update. Our second-quarter FFOA per share is $0.64, exceeding the high end of our previously provided guidance. The three-penny, or 5% sequential FFOA per share increase was driven by a two-penny increase from same-store NOI, with contributions from both higher-than-expected revenue growth and lower-than-expected expense growth, and a one-penny contribution from the collection of previously unaccrued interest related to one of our former debt and preferred equity investments. Year-to-date results have exceeded our initial expectations, which led us to raise our FFOA per share guidance range. Our new full-year 2025 FFOA per share guidance range is $2.49 to $2.55. The $2.52 midpoint represents a two-penny per share, or approximately 1% improvement compared to our prior guidance.

Looking ahead, our third-quarter FFOA per share guidance range is $0.62-$0.64. The $0.63 midpoint reflects our expectation of stable sequential core results, with the one-penny sequential decrease attributable to a difficult comparison from outsized debt and preferred equity income recognized during the second quarter. Next, a transactions and capital markets update. First, during the quarter, we acquired the developer's equity interest and consolidated the apartment community in Philadelphia, formerly known as 1300 Fairmount. Our investment in the community, now known as Broadridge, was previously reflected as a $183 million loan in our debt and preferred equity portfolio, which was on non-accrual status. Upon acquisition, the developer paid a portion of previously unaccrued interest, which resulted in UDR recognizing approximately $4 million of income above and beyond the NOI generated from the apartment community during the quarter.

Second, we received nearly $55 million in proceeds from the payoff of our preferred equity investment in a stabilized apartment community located in New York. Since UDR's $40 million commitment in July 2020, the company has received more than $72 million in investment proceeds. Third, as part of recapitalizations, we fully funded a total of approximately $39 million. At an 11.5% weighted average contractual rate of return across preferred equity investments in two stabilized apartment communities, one each in San Francisco and Orlando. Positive property-level cash flow allows for approximately two-thirds of our contractual return to be paid current in cash. Finally, our investment-grade balance sheet remains highly liquid and fully capable of funding our capital needs. Some highlights include: first, we have more than $1.1 billion of liquidity as of June 30th.

Second, we have only $532 million, or 10% of total consolidated debt and approximately 2.5% of enterprise value scheduled to mature through 2026, thereby reducing refinancing risk. Third, our leverage metrics remain strong. Debt to enterprise value was just 28% at quarter end, while net debt to EBITDA RE was 5.5 times. In all, our balance sheet and liquidity remain in excellent shape. We remain opportunistic in our capital deployment, and we continue to utilize a variety of capital allocation competitive advantages to drive long-term accretion. With that, I will open it up for Q&A. Operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press Star 1 from your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. So that we may address questions from as many participants as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have additional questions, you may raise a queue, and time permitting, those questions will be addressed. One moment, please, for our first question. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Eric Wolfe with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.

Nick Joseph (Head of US Real Estate and Lodging Research Team)

Thanks. It's Nick Joseph here with Eric. I was hoping you could touch more on the blended lease assumption for the back half of the year. It sounds like, from some of your peers, that the peak leasing season was a bit weaker than expected. What gives you the confidence that you'll be able to achieve that rent growth that is embedded in guidance, just given the typically weaker fourth quarter?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Hey, Nick. It's Mike. Maybe a couple of things here, since you touched a little bit about seasonality, blends, and guidance. I'd say, first and foremost, just considering the leasing season expectations for the second half. I'd tell you, first, the guidance raise has everything to do with the execution of everything we've done up until this point of the year. As a reminder, we started the year with 97.2% occupancy, with the intention of always driving our blends through the heart of the season. We exceeded the top end of our first half blended rent growth with 2% growth compared to that 1.4% to 1.8% guide that we originally had. At the same time, we've been successful in driving a lot of our initiatives. You can see it in our other income growth growing around 10%.

I think another thing just to point to is our revenue growth at this point in the year is about 80% bait. Again, that's just over 80% through July. Everything we've done up to this point is really leading to our 2025 number. How I think about the back half of the year, I'll tell you, first of all, what we were experiencing really starting in May was the industry started driving occupancy up. You can see that in a lot of the third-party reports. Occupancies moved up. With that, blends started to come down, which I mentioned during our NAREIT conference. We started seeing, actually, the peak in May at that point. What this leads to and where we've really seen it is market rents being a little bit more muted over the last 30, 60 days. Typically, what follows suit is renewal growth coming down.

When I think about kind of the back half, based on what we're sending out through September, my expectation is renewal growth will be in that 4% to 4.5% range, which is about 100 basis points lower than what we have achieved over the last three or four months. We have visibility on what we're sending out. We typically achieve within 10 or 20 bps of what we send out. That leads me to believe that our blends are going to be slightly lower than what we originally said a few months ago.

Nick Joseph (Head of US Real Estate and Lodging Research Team)

That's very helpful. Thank you. You touched on, obviously, the impact of supply starting to abate in the Sunbelt a bit. As you think about that blend for the back half of the year, are you expecting the range between different markets or regions to start to narrow as we head into 2026 and the back half of this year?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah, Nick, we're seeing it today. Just to kind of size it a little bit, during the first quarter, the spread between the coastal markets and what we were experiencing in the Sunbelt was right around 450 basis points. I want to say our coast was plus or minus 2.5%, and our Sunbelt was negative 2%. During the second quarter, our coastal blends were right around 4%, and the Sunbelt was starting to go relatively flat, so right around 0%. Moving forward, my expectation is back half coast could come down a little bit, and the Sunbelt is still showing some signs of some positive momentum. That could be up a little bit from the first half of the year. My expectation is that's going to continue to get better as we move throughout the year.

Nick Joseph (Head of US Real Estate and Lodging Research Team)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.

Jamie Feldman (Head of REIT Research)

Great. Thanks for taking the question. I guess, sticking with the outlook for the back half of the year, which market specifically would you say your expectation has changed the most? Can you talk about urban versus suburban in those markets?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah, Jamie. For us right now, the West Coast has done better than we would have expected year to date. Based on what I'm seeing out of places like San Francisco, Seattle, even Orange County for us, starting to see some positive trends throughout July. That's probably on the positive side. On the negative side, the Sunbelt just hasn't taken off like we would have expected, given supply coming down right now. You still have to work through that. Expectations now are it's going to continue to improve on a quarter-over-quarter basis, but maybe not to the level we would have expected at the beginning of the year.

Jamie Feldman (Head of REIT Research)

Okay. Los Angeles and Southern California have been a hot topic this quarter in earnings. Can you talk more about what you're seeing on the ground in your portfolio and how it might be differentiated from some of the other stats we're seeing or portfolios we're hearing about?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Sure. It's always important to remind everybody that LA is a very small piece of our portfolio. We have about 3% of our NOI, and it is located in the Marina Del Rey area. We have a couple of assets that are joint ventures, 50/50 ownership down in downtown, kind of mid-Wilshire area. Our wholly owned assets are specific to Marina Del Rey. We've seen maybe a little bit of a different picture than some of the peers and maybe some of the third-party data that people are looking at. For us, during the quarter, we averaged 96% occupancy. Concessions were right around one week, and blends were between 1% to 1.5% growth. I think over the last 30 to 45 days, I've seen occupancy actually increase a little bit in LA to about 97%. We are seeing a little bit more weakness on our rents.

Concessions are closer to one to one and a half weeks, and blends are relatively flat. There is a little bit of pressure just in terms of supply and demand there. For us, we have a much different backdrop than some others.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your questions.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)

Hi there. This is Sanketh on for Steve. We were just curious about what's the opportunity side you guys are seeing on the external growth front? Is it more on the acquisition front, or is it more on the preferred equity program activity?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Hey, Sanketh. It's Joe. I'll probably step back a little bit and just talk, first off, transaction market, secondarily, what we're seeing on the DPE side, and then thirdly, on the development side, and then what it means for us. On the transaction market, we do see a relatively healthy transaction market right now, with plus or minus $30 billion trading each and every quarter. The transaction market's pretty healthy. We've seen good stability in terms of cap rates overall. We're kind of in a plus or minus five cap world right now. If you have newer vintage, better positive trends from a trade-off perspective, less go forward supply, you can go into the mid-4s. If you're kind of the inverse of that, and typically a little bit more B and susceptible to the levered buyer, maybe you're in the mid-5s.

Overall, pretty healthy transaction market as it relates to DPE and what we're seeing on that front. Not a lot on the traditional developer capital side, just given the lack of starts activity that we're seeing in the market. Not much activity on that in the pipeline within our recap space. We're seeing some activity, and we're being pretty selective in terms of what we're trying to find there as we pivot that book of business to be a little bit more of the recap and a little bit more safety in terms of that business, but still pretty quiet on that front. On the development side, the land market, very slow right now.

Developers typically looking for kind of 6.25%, 6.5% current yields, which are tough to attain with rents not having moved up as much as we would have liked to see in the last year, while construction costs still typically moving up plus or minus at kind of +3%. It's a little bit of a synopsis on the market. In terms of what it means for us, we're still in that capital-balanced approach where we're trying to be opportunistic when we can find opportunities. For us, that's going to be the joint venture acquisition market with our partner, LaSalle. We're showing them a couple of things right now, and hopefully, we'll have more to talk about in the future. Trying to grow with that partnership.

On the DPE front, we have maybe one or two more successful paybacks that we're looking at in the back half of this year in addition to what we announced on paybacks here in the second quarter. We're working on backfilling some of that activity with some of those recaps that I talked about, as well as the two that we already got done here in the first part of the year. We're trying to activate some of our development pipeline. We've got a land pipeline that supports a number of developments on a go-forward basis. In the next probably 9-12 months, we'll have a couple of additional starts as we get those teed up and ready to go.

Beyond that, I'd say you're spending more time on portfolio recycling, trying to think about how to utilize the team that we have in place, the resources that we have available, the operations team, and the upside they typically see on acquisitions, and then our predictive analytics platform too. Rotate out of a little bit lower growth assets into something that could produce a little bit better cash flow going forward.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)

As a follow-up to that, on the funding side, how are you guys? I think you guys have $175 million worth of that coming due in the second half, and then I think $220 million borrowed on the commercial paper program. How do you look to fund that in addition to whatever you do on the external growth front?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah. From a debt perspective, we're very comfortable with the balance sheet today in terms of our liquidity, investment-grade balance sheet, etc. We do not want to lever up in this environment. Any debt that's coming due, you should assume we basically go out there and refi that. The $175 million of secured debt, that's either going to be refi'd on balance sheet or through joint venture utilization of secured debt and pulling proceeds out of the joint venture as we lever up maybe some of those assets. On the CP that you referenced, we'll continue to roll that CP as we have done for years. We do have the line of credit as a backdrop, which expires out in August of 2028. We'll continue to keep the CP outstanding at plus or minus that $250 to $300 million range through the rest of the year.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director)

Makes sense. Thanks. That's it.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next questions are from the line of Jane Gillon with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.

Thank you. Congrats all on a great quarter. Question for Joe on the Philadelphia property, the Fairmount Broadridge loan. Can you remind us, was there a $0.02 drag if you acquired the developer's interest in the initial guidance? I'm just curious if there was, is that being offset by the developer repaying some of that interest?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Hey, Yana. Maybe just a little history there because we did get some questions on that overnight as well. Just a reminder to the group, back in the fourth quarter was when we took the reserve of roughly $37 million on that. At that point in time, we went to non-accrual on the mezzanine loan. That started kind of the initial drag from a non-accrual perspective. In the first quarter, when the equity partner went into default, we exercised our rights to buy the senior loan during the first quarter. At that time, the par value was roughly $112 million, but we had to pay $114.5 million or so, which included minimum interest guarantees as well as an exit fee. We have put that senior loan on nonaccrual in the first quarter, so you had a cost of funding, but a non-accrual or non-earning asset in that senior loan.

In the second quarter, as we talked about a little bit maybe last quarter, the intent was to consolidate that once we got control of the entity. When we acquired the senior loan, we began to exercise our rights as the lender against the then borrower. We were able to recapture roughly $7 million of cash from them to pay either those acquisition costs for the senior loan and/or recognize prior non-accruals. We did factor in in the initial guidance that initial non-accrual during the first quarter and the first part of the second quarter. We had not factored in the recapture because we didn't know if we'd be able to get those proceeds and in what timely manner we would be able to receive those. That was the total economics. We had about one penny to the positive in 2Q.

On a go-forward basis, we'll just be recognizing NOI, which Mike can give you a sense for what he's done from a takeover perspective in the last 30, 60 days.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah. I got to tell you, I'm incredibly proud of the team. Center City, obviously, in Philadelphia, we're dealing with quite a bit of supply. Our team has jumped in there, and they've already made a difference. I can tell you, upon takeover, we were right around 83% occupancy. I'm happy to say today we are actually 97% leased with a 30-day trend of about 93%. Just in about 30-45 days, the team has gotten in there. They've gotten the leases we need, especially as it relates to just the student population at that property. We are in a much better place today than we were 45, 60 days ago.

Thank you. Mike, maybe just on the blended lease spreads, can you provide some detail on how much of the portfolio these leases capture and how you're comparing like-for-like term there?

Sure. We actually were looking at that last night after some questions came in. Just to let everybody know, we do capture all of our leases. If we had to do something like a like-for-like, it would be about 88% of the leases. We're basically within 10 or 20 bps, whether you look at like-for-like or all-in. We like to capture everything because that's what builds our rent roll. That's just a piece of the equation when you think about revenue, but that's how we do it.

Great, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is coming from the line of Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Amy Gillis (SVP of Wealth Management)

Hi. Thanks. This is Amy. I'm with Michael. I was hoping to dig in a little bit on the trends in DC. It looked like renewals held in pretty well, but new lease was a bit softer than the portfolio. I was hoping that you could provide some commentary on what you're seeing on the ground.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Sure. At first, I'd say DC's the highest growth when you think about our revenue, and everybody can see it out there, right around 4.9% during the quarter. It's just a reminder, this is one of our larger markets, 15% of our NOI. We do have a diversified portfolio. We are 40% urban, 60% suburban. During the quarter, we did average around 97% occupancy. Our blends were still in that 3.5%, 3.6% range, which is consistent with the first quarter. Concessions right now across that MSA are right around one and a half weeks. As I think about it and look at July trends, we're still hovering around 97% occupancy. Blends are still plus or minus 3%. We've seen a little bit of weakness on market rents, but we continue to put about 5% to 6% growth on renewals. This is just a piece of the equation.

We also have about 10% to 11% growth on our other income. DC for us has still been a very strong market, but it's also one that we continue to watch all those leading indicators just to make sure that we're pivoting our strategy as necessary.

Amy Gillis (SVP of Wealth Management)

Got it. Thanks. Kind of a bigger picture one, we've seen two years of market rent growth peaking early and pretty soft pricing power in the fourth quarter. Do you think that this could maybe represent a shift in seasonality that will be ongoing, or do you remain pretty confident that the fourth quarter can recover relative to some of the prior quarters and that we can keep seeing peak seasonality in July as we normally would?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Sure. I'll take it. I think, first of all, the way I look at it is maybe two ways. When you think about just what's happening across the industry, you definitely see people grabbing occupancy a little bit earlier than normal. I think that's part of the equation. You also had last year supply getting much more difficult in the back half of the year compared to this year. It's significantly better as we kind of move forward. That's more just broadly speaking what's happening out there. Specific to UDR, though, one thing I would point to is as we were sitting on this call last year, my 30-day trend was right around 95%. Today, it's closer to 96%, 96.1%.

For us, we are in a better position as a whole as we maneuver through kind of the rest of the leasing season as well as when we move into the slower leasing period of time during the fourth quarter.

Tom Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Amy, this is Tom Toomey. I might add some color from a longer lens. I think you have to realize the last couple of years have been a heavy supply picture, and different economic backdrops in every quarter, if you will, coupled with interest rates and the rise and then the steady and then everybody waiting for a cut, if you will. I think that's influenced a lot of people's attitude about how to take occupancy and rate. What's probably played out this year is everybody was sitting on the sideline looking at their supply picture and saying, "We expect a rate cut. Let's fill it up." That rate cut didn't happen, and hence, they just grabbed occupancy. I'm not sure it's a permanent trend. I think it's more of the dynamics across a broader spectrum of inputs, and we'll see how it plays out.

What I'd close with is Mike and team managed a total revenue, and not just a leasing season per se. I think he's done a fabulous job as the team, and our numbers demonstrate. That should continue. Whatever the backdrop, we're going to maximize revenue.

Amy Gillis (SVP of Wealth Management)

Great, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Hello out there. Mike, I think you referenced some change in the asking rate on renewals into the third quarter, yet retention has been really strong. Can you just add some more detail as to why you decided to dial back renewals and whether this strategy is to kind of build back the occupancy heading into next year, or just a change in what you've seen for retention in either June or July?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Right. Awesome. That's a good point. I'll tell you, when we were moving into 2Q, we were coming off of pretty strong trends through January, February, March timeframe where market rents were actually moving up faster than we would have expected. We were also seeing the success of our customer experience project with the fact that turnover was down, so we got more aggressive on our renewals. Typically, the way I think about it is we're sending out plus or minus $100 over market rent. We were doing a little bit more than that during the second quarter because we wanted to see if we could capture more of the positive trends we're seeing on retention. It played out just like we thought it would.

As we go into that back half of the third quarter into the fourth quarter, with the simple fact that market rents just haven't moved up as much as we would have liked through at least that July timeframe, we aren't as comfortable pushing our renewal growth as much as we were, so we're just scaling back a little bit. We expect we're going to achieve what we sent out, but that's where it lays today.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Can you just talk a little bit about the comps that you have in the back half of the year and whether those start to ease in any meaningful amount versus the first half? Also, does the back half guidance assume any change in retention just based on what you saw play out in the first half of the year? Thanks.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah. A couple of things. I think for us, as I think about what happened last year, we were in a much different place with our occupancy trends. I think we averaged right around 96.3% occupancy in the third quarter of last year. Expectations are we're hovering closer to the high 96%s as we maneuver through the rest of the third quarter this year. Our occupancy is in a much better place. What happened with rents last year, market rents trailed off about 2 to 3X what we would have historically thought they would trail off. Yes, the back half of the year, we should have easier comps, but we don't want to bank on that.

We thought it was prudent to go in there and take a look at what we originally said of 3% blends in the back half, bring it down closer to what we've experienced through the first half of this year. You're going to have some puts and takes there. My expectation right now is the coast is maybe a little bit lower than it was in the first half of the year. We're still seeing some positive momentum on the Sunbelt. Expectations that could be a little bit better. As it relates to retention, for us, when we went into the year, we came off of 43% turnover last year. In the business plan, we had a reduction of 100 basis points. We have been consistently running between, call it, 3 to 350 basis points better this year.

My expectation is that's probably going to stay very similar to that through the back half of the year. We have a lot of things working in our favor. I think the team's done a really good job going from that transactional approach to the lifetime value of our resident approach. We have a lot more data that's telling us who's likely to stay, who's not. We're changing that trajectory every day by having interactions with our residents. We're going to continue to lean into that, try to drive our retention up, and ideally capture some of that on the rent growth too.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Hey, Austin, just one thing to add there too. A lot of focus on the inputs here on the back half of the year. Just in terms of the output, when you look at our guidance, we are expecting to be in mid-2% from a revenue perspective, which is very consistent with where we're at the first half of the year. Really leveling out at kind of that mid-2% as we move through the back half of the year, which we think is a pretty good spot when you consider the fact that supply next year should probably be off about 30% across all of our regions. A good place to start to launch future performance from going from mid-2% to wherever we go to next year.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for all the thoughts.

Operator (participant)

The next questions are from the line of Rich Hightower with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions.

Rich Hightower (Managing Director)

Hi, good morning out there, guys. A big congrats to our good buddy Dave Bragg. Looking forward to working with you again. Just on expenses, it looks like on the controllable side, so looking at personnel and R&M, you had kind of an uptick around 7% for the quarter. On the non-controllable side, you were down significantly. Help us understand some of the moving parts. Were there comp issues year on year, and what does that mean for next year as well on the comp? Thanks.

Dave Bragg (CFO)

Yeah, absolutely, Rich. There's a few things here on the controllable expense front. I'll tell you, first of all, Wi-Fi costs, which we put into our original plan for the year, that's been a big driver of that plus or minus 10% A&M growth. Without that, $700,000 that hit us during the quarter, we would have been closer to 2% to 3% on our A&M. That's one piece of the equation. The second piece, as it relates to R&M, we did have about $400,000 that came through on things like water remediation across, call it, 15 properties. We've had to go in there and do some work on things that were kind of outside of what we expected to happen. As it relates to just turnover, that's closer to flat on a year-over-year basis.

The third thing I'd point to is personnel has been a little bit higher this year just because our first quarter performance was so strong as we sit back and we look at how we did against our peers within the markets. We had a little bit more incentive comp that we had to pay over the last three months or so. When you factor all those three things in there, that's been the driver of our controllable expenses. As we move forward, I think we've got a lot of things in place that are going to allow us to continue to drive our R&M costs down. That's things like the customer experience project, the fact that we do believe turnover is going to continue to come down.

Back half of the year, expectations right now are the non-controllables, things like real estate taxes, insurance, probably not going to be as good as what we experienced in the first half. I do expect the controllable to come down a little bit compared to where they were in the first half.

Rich Hightower (Managing Director)

Okay, great. That's a good explanation. I guess my second question, just a little bit bigger picture, on perhaps any lessons learned from the 1,300 Fairmount investment, whether it's related to underwriting or counterparty risk, just help us understand maybe what changes going forward as far as the DPE investments in general.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah. Hey, Rich, I think first off, just stepping back and thinking about whether it's the Broadridge asset there in Philadelphia or a couple of the others that we had trouble with, there were some common themes both from a macro perspective and also from an individual deal perspective. From a macro perspective, you really had a couple of different things going on. One was obviously rates and cap rates going up materially during that period of time from the, call it, 2021, 2022 vintage to where we're at today. That put a lot of stress from an asset value and equity perspective. A lesson learned there is clearly more scenario analysis and thinking through the residual and the exit to a greater degree.

The timeline aspect, a lot of these markets where we had challenges, be it downtown Philadelphia, downtown LA, or Northern California, were kind of at the far end of the spectrum in terms of shutdowns. You had material delays in those markets, which were really out of ours and the developer's control. That really allowed the senior loan and our preferred most position to continue to accrue and eat the developer's equity and take away their economics. The timeline aspect was challenged on all of those. The other piece was those same markets had a lot of commonalities in terms of shutting down, in terms of quality of life, bringing people back to the office. We kind of had on a macro side of those vintages a number of challenges that were somewhat out of our control.

In terms of what's in our control, there were extension options on a number of those that allowed the equity partner to exercise and continue to kick down the road a little bit. I think what we've learned there is provide that initial five-year term, but with no extension options. The recaps that you've seen year to date that we've done and that we did last year, making sure that they are definitely finite in time so that if things do go wrong, we have the ability to get access to the asset sooner, which, as Mike just talked about with Broadridge, the time we get our hands on it, that's when we really start to see the upside relative to what a third-party operator can do or what our equity partners could do.

I think the other things, we've talked about the analytics business in the past and the area that Chris Van Ens runs in terms of really diving in, understanding not just which markets perform, but also which micro markets and which assets should perform on a go-forward basis. Leaning into that more heavily, leaning into supply outlooks and permanent activity a little bit more. We talked earlier in the call about just the recap focus, shifting the book from a little bit more of the high-risk, high-return developer equity program to more of the recap program, which gets us more current pay, lower LTVs, better underwriting on the rents, and knowledge of the cash flow base. We are pivoting that book to be a little bit more safe and ensure we put up the performance that we expect.

Rich Hightower (Managing Director)

That's great. Thank you, Joe.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

Adam Kramer (VP of Equity Research)

Hey, guys. Just wanted to ask about the seasonality or expected seasonality in 3Q and 4Q. I know it was touched on a little bit earlier in Amy's question, but what do you expect here for the second half relative to a normal year? What is the difference between 3Q and 4Q performance in terms of lease rate?

Mike Lacy (COO)

I would start with kind of historically, we would expect between 3.5%-4% blends. Going out there with that 2%, at this point, we do believe 3Q could be a little bit better, say plus or minus the 2%. As you get into the fourth quarter, we do have some seasonality built in there. We do expect that to come down a little bit. That's how we're looking at it today. Again, it's pretty different from historical norms.

Adam Kramer (VP of Equity Research)

Great. That's helpful. I think you guys have been really sort of clear and upfront and helpful in how you think about the Sunbelt. I think you were pretty early in sort of calling out some of the supply risk there a number of years back. As you think about your Sunbelt markets, and not asking for 2026 guidance here by any stretch, but just high-level sort of sketching out, how do you think these markets will sort of recover, right? Obviously, delivery is going to be way down here by year-end. How do you sort of think about the pace of recovery, the pace of sort of return of lease growth, return of pricing power in these markets as we go through 2026, or maybe it's even beyond?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah, it's a little early to get into 2026 right now. We actually will start our process here over the next 30 to 60 days as we think about next year. What I would tell you is not every Sunbelt market is created the same. I've been talking a lot about Tampa as an example. We continue to see positive momentum in a place like Tampa. I see positive blends over the last few months. I'm still seeing today. Expectations are that's recovering a little bit quicker than, say, Orlando when you think about the Florida market. Specific to a place like Texas, we've seen a greater rate of change in Austin. Just as a reminder, it's a small market for us, 2%-3% of our NOI, mainly in the Cedar Park area where we have faced a lot of supply over the last couple of years.

That's starting to abate. That rate of change over the last couple of quarters is significant, call it 400 to 500 bps, but it's still negative. Expectations are Austin's still going to feel the pressure from supply for the foreseeable future. Dallas is getting a little bit better than I'd say Austin is, but we still have a little ways to go before we probably see new lease growth turn positive there.

Adam Kramer (VP of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks, Mike.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Good morning and welcome, Dave Bragg. On acquisitions, Joe, you mentioned focusing a bit more on the LaSalle JV. I was wondering if you anticipate more opportunities from developers, just given it seems like developments have been slower to lease up.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah. Hey, John, it's Joe. On the joint venture side, where we're focused there is probably a little bit more yield-focused. From a vintage perspective, more your 1990s and early 2000s product, something with a little bit more value-added nature. We're really trying to find a little bit more of the workforce housing with yield potential and upside over time from that component. I wouldn't expect it for that portfolio. What we are evaluating with them is actually even contributing a couple more assets into that venture off of our balance sheet. Finding things that both of us like for the long term that could work for both sides. We're looking at growing the joint venture on that side. We have not been spending on the developer side much time on that front. You are seeing lender willingness to extend.

We haven't seen, call it that wave of maturities that was expecting to create some potential distress, really create any distress at all. We're not seeing developers have to come to market and transact. Not a big part of the market that we're seeing in terms of activity, nor that we're focused on that materially at this time.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Okay. That's helpful. Going back to DC, if you look at the Coast Guard data, and I don't know if you do, but if you look at the Coast Guard data, it shows for DC for UDR, it's showing a deeper deceleration in asking rents versus the market overall versus some of your peers. I'm wondering if you see the same thing in your portfolio, or if you can comment on how you look at yours versus Coast Guard. Also, just going back to that new lease growth rate, it was pretty low versus other markets. I was wondering if that was part of the DC demand overall.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah, John, that is definitely part of the equation. When we think about third-party data or market rents, new lease growth, that is a component of it. For us, we have had a lot of success within the DC market, just increasing our renewal growth. I think year to date, we've been around plus or minus 5.5%-6% renewals. I think that's part of it. We've probably gone a little bit more aggressive on renewals. We've seen a little bit more weakness on new lease. Our blend is still hovering around 3% today, and they've been around 3.5% for six months of the year. While that's a piece of it, I think the team has done a really good job as it relates to increasing our retention, driving our turnover down, holding occupancy still in that 97% plus range, and driving our initiatives to show other income plus 10%.

There are a lot of other factors that bleed into that. When you look at our total revenue growth and you just compare against some of our peers and others, you'll see that we are performing at a pretty high level as it relates to the total revenue growth.

John Kim (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of John Pawlowski with Green Street. Please proceed with your questions.

John Pawlowski (Managing Director)

Thanks. Joe, for the few development starts you alluded to as potential starts, could you share the yields you'd be underwriting on current market rents?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yep. Hey, John. The couple we're looking at right now, there'd probably be a first-half start next year. One would be the phase two deal that we've talked about out in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as a continuation of the Vitruvian product down there in Addison, Texas. They'd probably be in the mid-5% on a current basis. We continue to go through VE and design and focus on optionality up until we start those. Those are probably mid-5%. That's really just a byproduct of legacy land that we have that was put in place in a prior market. I wouldn't say that's commensurate with where yields are in the marketplace today. Generally, you're going to be looking at 6+% if you're looking at new land today.

John Pawlowski (Managing Director)

Okay. Maybe just round that out to mid-5% yield on current rents. You trade an applied cap rate decently north of that. In terms of the marginal dollar going out the door, is development really the highest and best use of funds right now?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah. I wouldn't say it's our highest and best. I think we got prioritization on DPE reload, joint venture acquisitions, and potential recycling. When you do look at that development that's on, it includes the land basis. If you look on just incremental yields, so incremental dollars deployed, you're going to be well above that mid-5% number. If you're developing on an incremental basis of additional funds funded, you're going to be 6%, 6% plus. That ends up being accretive in terms of future dollars deployed. In addition, I think there's a portfolio composition aspect when you look at new assets, no CapEx or minimal CapEx relative to the assets that will source to fund that, which if we can do it accretive or neutral on FFOA, but accretive on cash flow, I think we net-net win and we continue to activate the land pipeline.

John Pawlowski (Managing Director)

Okay. Last one for me. Love to hear your thought process, Joe, on the add-backs to FFOA this year. About a little over $20 million of add-backs year to date from legal costs, technology, software transition costs, casualty charges. I know these are episodic and lumpy, but they're definitely recurring in nature over time. How do you get comfortable adding back these pretty significant costs here to FFOA?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yep. I'd say number one, our Disclosure Team and our Policy Committee look at this each and every year to look at what our add-back policies are and our disclosure policies. In addition, we do look at this relative to both peers and broader REITs. Understanding what others' policies are and the magnitude of add-backs that they have, what the categories are. We have been pretty consistent historically with what the peers and broader REITs have been. That said, this year is a little bit of an anomaly for a couple of reasons. If you look at the big ones, you have legal and other costs there for $7 million year to date. That is related primarily to RealPage and the ongoing costs there. We do view that as an episodic event, even if it does occur over a couple of years.

That is related to that one, which is larger than typical. Software transition cost, I think we talked earlier this year, we are transitioning from our CRM that we had effectively internally developed in partnership with another company to Funnel, which is going to be our CRM on a go-forward basis, as well as support a number of other activities on the ops initiative side. As part of that, we needed to write off and accelerate depreciation for what we had previously built. That's taking place over a three-quarter period, which is why you see that elevated number there of roughly $3 million per quarter or $6 million year to date. The last piece is just casualty. That's our large claim activity related to episodic events around weather or floods or pipe bursts at properties.

Some of that's a little bit of this year's, but it's actually a little bit more related to prior year storms and just reclassification from what we had previously viewed as a capitalized number to an expense number as we reviewed prior capitalized versus expense numbers.

John Pawlowski (Managing Director)

Okay, thanks for taking the questions.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your questions.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning out there. I did not prompt that prior question, but I definitely agree with it. Along those lines, Joe, you guys have certainly been a standout over the years in tech spending, tech initiatives, etc. We're all used to tech just getting more expensive. As you look at the cost over time, is your sense that tech is just sort of a percent, a set % of the business, meaning as revenue grows, the tech spending every year is X % of the business? Or do you see it getting more expensive or less expensive? Just trying to understand it because certainly tech is with us and continues to, new software, as you noted, continues to roll out.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah. I think there's probably three levels to that question in terms of there's an operational component at the property level. There's an investment perspective in terms of the proptech funds that we have. Then there's the tech that we invest in within our properties and the physical assets. At the physical assets, clearly we were a leader when it came to smart rent, when it came to community-wide Wi-Fi, and really trying to find win-wins for the residents as well as ourselves in terms of giving them a better experience, plus ourselves and our investors more NOI. I think that's going to be a recurring part of the business. It becomes episodic, right? As you roll out Wi-Fi right now over a couple-year period, it has a useful life.

You'll go through a lull for a period of time, but there are refresh aspects or useful life components on those physical assets. When it comes to proptech, we have a commitment now of over $150 million to our various proptech funds or proptech investments. I think that's going to be part of our go-forward business. We make money on these investments, and when you look at those that we've closed out over time, we've got a 20+% IRR on the investments we've closed out over time. We're definitely making money for investors on those investments. I think more importantly, they've lifted margin, lifted other income, constrained expenses, overall just driven cash flow. That's really why we're in those, to find partners and new ideas and new innovative aspects to the business. I think we'll remain committed to the proptech world.

Then you just get into the operational component of tech, which has definitely increased, be it what we look at to drive things like online leasing, look at what we're doing from a CRM perspective. You get over into the cybersecurity world, which has definitely increased over the last three to five years. It definitely feels like that will continue to increase. We're trying to find ways to partner with the right firms and make sure, again, that we drive efficiency both at a corporate and operating level, but also drive upside to NOI over time.

Tom Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Okay, Alex, it's next to me.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah, Tom.

Tom Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Alex, just to add to that. Joe gave a very thorough answer, and I'm grateful for that. I think you have to step back a couple of ways and look at this. You look at our business, we think about our customer and how to, one, service them better. Second, you think about technology in this lens. We're all seeing the early innings of AI and the influence of it. What we all know is it starts with data. We put a lot of infrastructure in place to build up that mechanism of collecting the data and then learning from it. I think businesses that haven't properly calibrated owning that data or the ability to translate it to cash flow are going to fall behind. We see it not just as an element of offense, but an element of defense in terms if you aren't investing in your technology.

have a real challenge coming forward. Other people will. I think you see it from our operating platform. You've seen enough of our demonstrations about how that integrates into our lower turnover, our CapEx spend. You have Joe, who's moving it into our investment arena and where we allocate our capital. With the help of the team that he's building there, you're going to see a more dynamic capability of an organization to use data to ultimately just get to better cash flow and returns. I think people think about the technology spend. I see it as an offensive capability of an organization. If you aren't playing offense, you won't be around a lot.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah, makes sense, Tom. Before I forget, Dave, welcome back to Reitland. Good to have you back. Second question is, Joe, on the debt for equity going forward, just two things on that. One, are you only looking—can you remind us—are you only looking at deals that you would actually potentially own, meaning that you have some sort of last licks, if you will? Second, is there some sort of % of FFO that you're targeting for the DPE contribution to earnings?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah, Alex. Generally speaking, we do try to target investments that we would own. It doesn't always end up being the case. You do have some outlier events there. The reality is that a number of these, especially when we get into the recap space, the ultimate goal of these owners is to own a lot of these assets long term. I think as we do more and more recap versus traditional development, you may see a little bit of a pivot in terms of we may have access to a few fewer assets than we've had historically. As long as we get the right underwrite done, get the right cash flow, and get the ultimate outcome of a good, strong return, we're comfortable with that.

As it relates to size of enterprise or size of FFOA, when you look at net contribution right now, it's about 2% to 2.5% of FFOA, which is pretty consistent with where we've been for a number of years now. I think we're very comfortable in that range. We don't want DPE to be a big piece of the story. We don't want to take that up to, let's say, $1 billion or 5% of enterprise or 5% of FFOA. That's not the goal. We do think in moderation, it's additive to total return for the enterprise, gives us access to assets potentially over time, and allows us to pivot to different uses as return profiles change.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Thanks, Alex.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed with your questions.

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Hey, Haendel, check your mute button.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, two quick ones from me here. I don't think you gave it, but could you provide the July stats?

Mike Lacy (COO)

We have not provided July stats. What I would say is.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

I'm here.

Mike Lacy (COO)

We just gave guidance for the back half of the year. I can tell you we're right on track. We feel pretty good about where we're at right now.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Fair enough, Mike. One more. Maybe you could talk a little bit about Boston, your second largest market. Looks like it's doing pretty well. It was the second best same-store revenue market year to date after D.C., but there's been some noise, some concern about the market in light of some life sciences market weakness, some political noise. I guess I'm curious what you see on the ground real time and what's your expectation into the back half of the year.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Sure. You're right. Boston's second largest, 11.5% of our NOI. Pretty diversified portfolio for us, Handel. We're 30% urban, 70% suburban. It's playing out kind of as we expected. When we started the year, the North Shore was leading the way, and the South Shore was a close second. Right now, it's flipped. The South Shore is actually doing a little bit better because we don't have a lot of supply that we're facing with those assets. The North Shore, though, is where that is elevated. We're seeing about 4,000 units being delivered this year. It is impacting us to some degree. Not necessarily seeing it as much on the demand side today. It's more of an impact from supply and where you're located. For us, we've been running right around 97% occupancy for the last few months. Concessions are basically zero.

Our blends have been plus or minus 4% through to Q. As I sit here and look at it today, occupancy is probably closer to 96.5%. It is a seasonal market. I'm starting to see blends come down a little bit, but we're still hovering around 3.5%. Boston's still been a really strong performer for us and, to your point, one of the top two or three markets as it relates to total revenue growth this year.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alex Kim with Zelman Associates. Please proceed with your questions.

Alex Kim (Senior Associate)

Hey, guys. Thanks for staying after the bell here, and congrats to Dave. Looking forward to working together. Just a quick one from me. It looks like in the West region, new move-in rent growth actually outpaced renewals in the second quarter. Could you talk about some of the drivers of that dynamic?

Joe Fisher (President and CIO)

Yeah. There's nothing better when you start to see your new lease growth exceed your renewal growth that you sent out. I will tell you, San Francisco is probably the one that's leading the pack for us. This is a fairly large market, 9% of our NOI. Another market that's very diversified. We're 50% urban, 50% suburban. We are located downtown SOMA area all the way down along the peninsula. The second quarter, we had 97.5% occupancy, and our blends were actually 5.5%. This was leading the way in terms of blends through the second quarter. Concessions have actually come down to about a half a week, which is the best I've seen in years in San Francisco. A lot of it has to do with just the return to office as well as the migration patterns within the MSA.

I've spoken to this a little bit over the past few months, but we are seeing people go from, say, the East Side or down along the peninsula. They're migrating back up towards SOMA and downtown, just to get back to the office. You're definitely seeing restaurants come back, retail's coming back. It still has a little ways to go. It can get better, but it has improved tremendously over the last six to nine months. As I think about a place like San Francisco going forward, we're still seeing some strong momentum. I'm still seeing blends above 6% at this point. That goes back to the point of market rents have been moving faster than we would have expected. It's actually exceeded what we sent out for renewals 75 days ago.

We're going to continue to push on that market, but that is the one that's definitely leading the way for us. Specific to the West Coast.

Tom Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Alex, maybe just one thing to add there too, because you all can't see the underlying drivers of the West region. There's also a constraint as it relates to Monterey Peninsula. That city council that existed prior to last year's elections had put in some pretty restraining renewal growth in terms of 75% of CPI. We're capped on Monterey Peninsula right now at about 1.8%. The new city council is evaluating whether or not to rescind that and/or adjust it. There is potentially a special vote that may happen. We're keeping an eye on that, but that does constrain that. Overall, if you take out Monterey Peninsula, that 4% renewal number that you see for the West region is actually quite a bit better than that.

Alex Kim (Senior Associate)

Got it. Okay, no, that's super helpful context. Thanks for the time.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from the line of Linda Tsai with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Linda Tsai (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. A quick one. How did turnover improve? How did turnover improvements vary between the East Coast, West Coast, and the Sunbelt? What does that trajectory look like in 3Q and 4Q?

Mike Lacy (COO)

We're seeing pretty strong benefit across our portfolio today when we look at turnover. I think for us, you can see it in the attachment here, 8G. We did see a little bit more of an improvement in places like the Southwest region as well as the West Coast region. I think some of that goes along with what we're seeing in a place like San Francisco today. You just have a lot more strength. You have rents moving at a much faster pace. Individuals that are getting renewals that we sent out 75 days ago are seeing that there's a lot of value there. I would tell you, in addition to that, everything the team has done with the customer experience project to identify ways that they can change that trajectory, they've leaned into it.

It's pretty interesting to see that this is playing out in even areas where supply has been elevated. Probably the best example I can give there is a place like Austin, as an example. You would think with a high supply, concession activity being as high as it is, you'd have more people jumping. We have a lot of people that are opting to stay with us. A lot of this can be attributed to everything that the team's been doing on the ground.

Linda Tsai (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

What does 3Q and 4Q look like?

Mike Lacy (COO)

It's early to tell right now, but my expectation is that it's going to continue to be in that, call it, 2 to 300 basis points better on a year-over-year basis, just based on what we're seeing today when we're sending out renewals. We watch things like TBDs and who's going on notice, how much negotiating we're having to do. Right now, I can just speak to kind of what's been sent out through September. It feels like we have a good trajectory in front of us. I think we're on pace to continue to clip that 2 to 300 basis points better.

Linda Tsai (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'll turn the call over to Tom Toomey for closing remarks.

Tom Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you all for your time, interest, and support of UDR. We look forward to seeing many of you in the upcoming conference season. With that, we'll close by saying take care.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. We will disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.