UDR - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4: FFO as Adjusted (FFOA) per share was $0.63 (in line with guidance midpoint), while GAAP FFO per share was $0.48 due to a $37.3M non-cash reserve on the 1300 Fairmount loan; AFFO was $0.54. Same-store revenue/expense/NOI growth were +2.5%/+3.4%/+2.1% YoY; occupancy improved to 96.8% sequentially (+50 bps).
• 2025 outlook: FFO/FFOA per share $2.45–$2.55; same-store revenue +1.25–3.25%, expenses +2.75–4.25%, NOI +0.50–3.00%; Q1’25 FFO/FFOA $0.60–$0.62.
• Strategic themes: higher occupancy as the company leaned into an “occupancy-first” strategy exiting 2024; continued innovation (Wi‑Fi monetization, AI-based fraud screening, CRM migration to Funnel) to drive other income and retention; balance sheet positioned with >$1B liquidity and only ~10% of consolidated debt maturing through 2026.
• Potential stock catalysts: signs of Sunbelt supply moderation in H2’25; innovation-led other income growth; reduced DPE risk after moving largest exposure (1300 Fairmount) to nonaccrual and reserving, plus pending tech investment sale converting $43M notes into equity.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • “Fourth quarter and full year FFOA per share results met guidance expectations, while same-store results exceeded our guidance midpoints”.
  • Occupancy strategy executed: occupancy rose each month in Q4; company entered 2025 above 97%, with renewals in the mid‑4% range and underlying market rent growth turning positive sequentially.
  • Innovation/other income: continued rollout of property-wide Wi‑Fi, lockers, and CX program expected to add ~65 bps to 2025 same-store revenue (~$10–15M), with 60% of 2025 growth “already baked” from prior work.

• What Went Wrong

  • Non-cash reserve on 1300 Fairmount ($37.3M; ~$0.10/sh) drove Q4 GAAP FFO to $0.48 (below guidance), though FFOA was in line; the investment is on nonaccrual and expected to reduce 2025 income by ~$8M (~$0.02/sh).
  • Same-store expense growth outpaced revenue (+3.4% vs +2.5% YoY), pressuring NOI to +2.1% YoY; certain coastal and Sunbelt markets saw expense or regulatory drags (e.g., Monterey rent control and reimbursements).
  • Sunbelt pricing pressure persists near-term; blended rent growth expected to be lighter in H1’25 and improve in H2 as supply moderates (Sunbelt still elevated vs coasts).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings, and welcome to UDR's fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference 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 begin.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, and welcome to UDR's quarterly financial results conference call. Our press release, supplemental disclosure package, and related investor presentation 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. The 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 portion, 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.

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Trent, and welcome to UDR's fourth quarter 2024 conference call. Presenting on the call with me today are President, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Investment Officer Joe Fisher, and Chief Operating Officer Mike Lacy. Senior Officer Andrew Cantor will also be available during the Q&A portion of the call. First, I'd like to congratulate Mike on his well-deserved promotion to Chief Operating Officer and Joe for his appointment as Chief Investment Officer. Both Mike and Joe have been exceptional leaders, driven value creation, and have positively influenced UDR's culture. As Joe transitions from his role as CFO, we have commenced an executive search process to fill this critical role. We are early in that process and will update you as progress is made.

Moving on, in conjunction with our earnings release, we published a presentation that highlights our outlook for 2025, complete with what we see as the drivers of potential outcomes. Our prepared remarks align with the presentation, and those on our webcast can see the slides on your screen. We will resume our usual format for the balance of earnings calls in 2025. Next, turning to slide four, key takeaways from our release and 2025 outlook are: one, fourth quarter and full year 2024 FFOA per share results met guidance expectations, while same-store results exceeded our guidance midpoints. Two, based on consensus estimates, we expect economic growth and apartment demand will remain resilient in 2025. This growth profile should be enhanced by supply pressures abating in the back half of the year from the historically high levels experienced in 2024.

Three, ongoing investments in innovation, including advancing our Customer Experience Project, should continue to drive incremental NOI growth in excess of the broader market in 2025. Fourth, despite an elevated cost of capital, we are positioned to take advantage of external growth opportunities when appropriate. We will continue to utilize various sources of capital, including existing joint ventures and operating partnership unit deals, to accretively grow the company while heeding cost of capital signals. Fifth and final, our balance sheet is well positioned to fully fund our capital needs in 2025 and beyond. With that, I'll turn the call over to Joe.

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Thank you, Tom. The topics I will cover today include our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results, including recent transactions, the 2025 macro outlook that drives our full year guidance, and the building blocks of our 2025 guidance. First, beginning with slide five, our fourth quarter and full year FFOA as adjusted per share of $0.63 and $2.48 achieved the midpoints of our previously provided guidance ranges. Additionally, our same-store results beat expectations, with NOI growth that was above the high end of our guidance range. During the quarter, we shifted to an occupancy-focused strategy, similar to the fourth quarter in past years, and built occupancy going into 2025. Occupancy trended sequentially higher for each month during the fourth quarter, resulting in a 50 basis point sequential improvement versus the third quarter.

As anticipated, this occupancy pivot resulted in slightly lower blended lease rate growth versus original fourth quarter expectations, but it was the right decision to maximize NOI in 2024 and place our portfolio in a position of strength as we enter our traditional leasing season. Thus far in 2025, we have maintained occupancy above 97%, which is approximately 30 basis points higher than our fourth quarter average. Underlying market rent growth has turned positive sequentially and is following normal seasonal patterns. New lease rate growth has largely bottomed across our regions, and renewal lease rate growth remains healthy in the mid-4% range. We are encouraged by these results. Turning to slide six in our macro outlook. As in years past, we utilize top-down and bottom-up approaches to set our 2025 macro and fundamental forecast.

Our 2025 rent growth forecast of 2% was informed by third-party forecasts and consensus expectations for a variety of economic factors that drive rent growth and our internal forecasting models. Among the positive factors are favorable GDP, job and wage growth, a continued decline in homeownership rate due to elevated mortgage rates, and lower total housing supply. We combined this top-down forecast with a bottom-up growth estimate built by our regional teams as they best understand local supply and demand dynamics in their markets. Our 2% rent growth forecast for 2025 is slightly conservative when compared to prominent third-party forecasters' estimates in the mid 2% range. In short, our outlook is driven by stable demand set against declining multifamily supply while factoring in macro uncertainties such as immigration reform and regulatory risk.

Turning to slide seven, we remain encouraged by a variety of key supply and demand metrics that are supportive of positive near- to intermediate-term fundamentals for the apartment industry. First, at the top left, our residents' financial health remains resilient with rent-to-income ratios below the long-term average. Second, at the top right, relative affordability versus alternative housing options remains decidedly in our favor at roughly 60% less expensive to rent than owning, a 25% improvement from pre-COVID. This supports a stable to declining homeownership rate, and absent a major correction in home prices or a significantly more accommodative long-term interest rate environment, we do not expect this dynamic to change. Third, at the bottom left, the latest census data indicates that the largest U.S. age cohorts remain in their prime renter years. This should provide continued support for long-term rental demand.

Fourth, at the bottom right, while multifamily deliveries are expected to remain above historical average levels at the beginning of 2025, development start activity has significantly retreated and is down approximately 65% from recent highs and is now well below historical averages. This should benefit rent growth in late 2025 and beyond. Moving on to slide eight, third-party data providers are forecasting full year 2025 multifamily deliveries in the U.S. and in our markets to be similar to the historical averages. Based on development completion data, peak deliveries occurred in the middle of 2024 and should trend downwards below long-term historical averages in the second half of 2025. We are cognizant that there will be supply slippage as we move through the year and that lease-up concessions could remain prevalent for a period of time after the pace of new deliveries abates.

Where concessions move throughout 2025 will be a key driver to our ability to capitalize on our rent growth forecast. On slide nine, we provide more context on which regions and markets are expected to feel the greatest impact from 2025 supply. The Sunbelt is forecast to face new supply deliveries to the tune of approximately 4% of existing inventory, which is twice as much as coastal markets. Positively, Sunbelt supply is down by nearly one-third compared to 2024 completions, while new supply across our coastal markets is on average similar to 2024. Mixing this all together, we arrive at our 2025 guidance, which is summarized on slide 10. Primary expectations include full year FFOA per share guidance of $2.45 - $2.55 and same-store revenue and expense growth expectations that translate to NOI growth of 1.75% at the midpoint, which is 25 basis points better than full year 2024 results.

Slide 11 shows the building blocks for our full year 2025 FFOA per share guidance at the $2.50 midpoint, which represents a 1% year-over-year increase. Drivers include a $0.10 increase from same-store revenue and lease-up income from recently developed communities, offset by a $0.05 decrease from same-store expenses, a $0.01 increase from interest expense due to a lower average debt balance, which mitigates the impact from the mid-year expiration of certain hedges, a $0.01 decrease from G&A and property management expenses reflective of inflationary wage growth, and a $0.03 decrease from joint venture and debt and preferred equity activities due to a combination of the following two items. First, a $0.02 decrease attributable to moving to non-accrual status for our debt and preferred equity investment in 1300 Fairmount located in Philadelphia, which we previously disclosed.

Second, a one-penny decrease attributable to the pending sale of the company affiliated with a one-off technology investment. Should the transaction occur, UDR's $43 million of notes receivable that earn 12% interest would be converted into equity of the acquiring company. We are excited that the company we chose to support and help build is expected to be acquired by an industry leader, and exchanging our notes for equity is the prudent long-term economic decision. We have received various inquiries pertaining to the risk in our debt and preferred equity book, so here are important considerations to help provide transparency. 1300 Fairmount was our largest investment risk, and by moving that investment to non-accrual status and taking a reserve, we believe we have largely de-risked this book of business.

There remain two investments on our watch list, totaling approximately $40 million, which would represent 1 penny or less than 0.5% of FFOA per share in the event of non-accrual. However, for these investments, we have been encouraged by their recent operating trajectories, and the senior loans for each do not mature until mid-2026. Moving on to slide 12, and specific to the first quarter, our FFOA per share guidance range is 60-62 cents, or an approximately 3% sequential decrease at the 61-cent midpoint. This is driven by a 1-penny decrease from same-store NOI, primarily due to higher expenses attributable to normal seasonal trends, and a 1-penny decrease from a lower debt and preferred equity investment balance due to recent paydowns and the aforementioned tech investment. Last, on slide 13, we provide our debt maturity schedule and liquidity.

Only 10% of our total consolidated debt matures through 2026, thereby reducing future refinancing risk. Combined with more than $1 billion of liquidity, the $211 million of proceeds from our recently completed first quarter property dispositions, minimal committed capital, and strong free cash flow, our balance sheet sits in an excellent position. 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 turn the call over to Mike.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Thanks, Joe. Today, I'll cover the following topics: how our 2024 results and other drivers factored into the building blocks of our full year 2025 same-store revenue growth guidance, an update on our various innovation initiatives, expectations for operating trends across our regions, and our 2025 outlook for same-store expense growth. Turning to slide 14, the primary building blocks of our 2025 same-store revenue growth guidance include our embedded earn-in from 2024 lease rate growth, our blended lease rate growth expectations for full year 2025, and contributions from our innovation and other operating initiatives. Starting with our 2025 earn-in of 60 basis points, which is about half of our historical average and in line with our earn-in from a year ago.

The 50 basis points sequential increase in average occupancy we achieved during the fourth quarter of 2024 led to slightly lower blended rate growth and resulted in earn-in towards the lower end of the range that I spoke to on our third quarter earnings call. We believe this was a prudent operating strategy that will position us well as 2025 progresses. Next, portfolio blended lease rate growth is forecast to be approximately 2.5% in 2025. This is 100 basis points higher than what we achieved in 2024, which matches our expectations for year-over-year rent growth improvement. We expect blends will be lighter through the first half of 2025 before improving during the second half of the year as supply pressures lessen.

This dynamic, if accurate, means that blended rate growth should contribute approximately 90 basis points to our full year 2025 same-store revenue growth and have a positive flow-through impact on 2026's earn-in. Underlying our blended rate growth forecast are assumptions of approximately 4% renewal rate growth in 2025 and approximately 1% new lease rate growth on average. Moving on, innovation and other operating initiatives are expected to add approximately 65 basis points to our 2025 same-store revenue growth, which equates to $10-$15 million, or approximately 7% growth for this line item. The bulk of this growth should come from the continued rollout of property-wide Wi-Fi, other property enhancements such as further penetration on package lockers, improved retention, and less fraud. For retention, our guidance assumes that our 2025 resident turnover will be 100 basis points below that of 2024, equating to approximately $3.5 million of higher cash flow.

This improvement should be driven by our proprietary customer experience project, which helps us improve our residents' experience throughout their time with UDR, thereby increasing their probability of renewal. Today, our efforts have resulted in higher resident retention on a year-over-year basis for 21 consecutive months. We continue to enhance how we measure, map, and orchestrate the customer experience, which we believe will drive further year-over-year improvement in turnover and margin expansion in the years ahead. Last, we expect a combination of higher occupancy and reduced bad debt to provide a modest positive contribution to same-store revenue growth in 2025. Regarding fraud, recall that in mid-2024, we implemented a variety of AI-based detection measures, process improvements, and credit threshold reviews to enhance our upfront resident screening. We have seen the benefits of these efforts in recent bad debt trends, resulting in more favorable results in recent quarters.

Rolling all this up, our 2025 same-store revenue guidance ranges from 1.25%-3.25%, with a midpoint of 2.25%. The 3.25% high end of our same-store revenue growth range is achievable through improved year-over-year occupancy, additional accretion from innovation, and blended lease rate growth that occurs more readily throughout the year or at a higher level than our initial forecast. Conversely, the low end of 1.25% reflects the inverse scenario, with full year blended lease rate growth closer to flat, some level of occupancy loss, and delayed income recognition from our innovation initiatives. Turning to slide 15 and our regional revenue growth expectations, we expect the Coast will continue to perform better than the Sunbelt in 2025, led by the East Coast. The East Coast, which comprises approximately 40% of our NOI, is forecast to grow same-store revenue by 2%-4%.

We expect New York and Washington, D.C., to be our leading markets in the region, continuing 2024's trends. We are slightly more cautious on Boston due to peak supply deliveries that are expected to occur mid-year, which could result in some pricing pressure. The West Coast, which comprises approximately 35% of our NOI, is forecast to grow same-store revenue by 1.25%-3.25%. San Francisco, Seattle, and Orange County are expected to produce upper-tier growth, while Monterey Peninsula is forecast to be softer, some of which is due to recently enacted rent control. Last, our Sunbelt markets, which comprise roughly 25% of our NOI, are forecast to have same-store revenue growth of flat to positive 2%. Austin and Nashville will continue to face elevated new supply in 2025, which should limit our pricing power for the third consecutive year.

On a relative basis, we expect Tampa and Orlando to be leaders among our Sunbelt markets. Moving on, as shown on slide 16, we expect 2025 same-store expense growth of 3.5% at the midpoint. This is primarily driven by growth in real estate taxes, personnel, and administrative and marketing costs. While only 5% of total expenses, insurance expense growth of -4.5% to -6.5% reflects the benefit of the pricing we negotiated on our policy renewal in December and our deployment of targeted CapEx. To conclude, as summarized on slide 17, we delivered strong fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. Same-store revenue, expense, and NOI growth were all better than the midpoints of our guidance, and same-store NOI growth exceeded the high end of our range.

The near-term operating environment presents some challenges, but we have successfully navigated through historically high levels of new supply and fundamentals suggest an attractive growth outlook with 2025 same-store NOI growth expected to accelerate compared to our 2024 results. We continue to innovate with the intention of increasing revenue growth, improving resident retention, and further expanding our operating margin over time. I thank our teams for their collaboration, which drives innovation and superior results. We are positioned to take advantage of external growth opportunities when appropriate. We will continue to utilize various sources of capital, including existing joint ventures and operating partnership unit deals, to accretively grow the company while heeding costs of capital signals.

Our unique approach to portfolio strategy, operating excellence, and continued innovation has created a company that is a full-cycle investment and one that we believe maximizes value creation for our stakeholders, regardless of the economic environment. Finally, I give special thanks to our teams in Southern California for their efforts during the recent wildfires that resulted in no damage to our properties, and our teams across the country for their actions during the most recent polar vortex that brought brutally cold weather and even snow to southern states from Texas to Florida. I'm proud of the preparations you took to ensure the safety of our residents and fellow associates and the difference you have made to the cities, communities, and families affected by these events. 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, please press star one from your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. In order to allow as many as possible to ask questions, we ask you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you, and our first question today is from the line of Nick Yulico with Scotiabank. Please proceed with your questions.

Nick Yulico (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. First question is just in terms of the guidance. Helpful, all the details on markets and on same-store revenue. Can you just give us a feel, though, in terms of blended rate growth, how that could trend through the year for the different markets, particularly as you think about sort of Sunbelt versus the rest of the portfolio? Is there more of a kind of convergence on blended rent growth on the regions as you get into the back half of the year?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Hey, Nick, it's Mike. I'll take that. I think first and foremost, maybe starting high level with total company, just as it relates to that 2.5%. I think, first of all, it starts with our strategy. Obviously, you've heard us talk about this over the last six to nine months, really driving our occupancy up during a period of time where expirations are low, and given the fact that we've had historically low turnover, that allowed us to drive occupancy to about 96.8% during the quarter. Happy to report today, it's closer to 97-97.2%. And so that's giving us a lot of tailwinds to be able to drive our rents as we move forward, but as you think about that 2.5%, it's important to think about the cadence of it.

And so in the first half of the year, our expectations, as we continue to deal with elevated supply, it's around 1.4%-1.8% growth. And then when we get into the back half of the year, closer to about 2.8%-3.2%. So again, first half of the year, call it 1.6% at the midpoint, that is right where we landed for 2024 in the first half. In the second half of the year, that 3%, it's still about 70-90 basis points lower than the pre-COVID average. And so we do have seasonality built into that number. We expect 3Q to be higher than 4Q, but again, it is lower than those pre-COVID norms. Specific to the regions, I think it's probably good to start on page 15, where we were able to go through just some of the expectations around the different regions.

For us, what we expect is obviously a higher earn-in for places like the coast, the East Coast being higher than the West Coast. Right now, we think earn-in is 1.3% for the East, about 80 basis points for the West Coast, and then we're negative 1% for the Sunbelt. Specific to the blends, though, coast is looking very similar to what we achieved in 2024. Our expectations are blends will be roughly around 2.5%-3% on the East. It's going to be about a 1%-1.2% contribution to our total revenue in that region. On the West Coast, probably closer to plus or minus 2.5% blends this year. And again, that contribution is pretty close to 1% as it relates to total revenue.

And then as you get into the Sunbelt blends, we're thinking probably closer to 60-90 basis points this year and a relatively small contribution, only around 30 or 40 basis points. The difference is where other income comes in. And so for us, we had about 8% growth in 2024. Expectations are another year where we're expecting around 7%. And I'm seeing a lot more growth in places like the Sunbelt. So similar to 2024, expectations are we could see anywhere from 10%-12% growth in the Sunbelt versus closer to, call it, 5% growth on the coast.

Nick Yulico (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, Mike. Very, very helpful. Second question is just on investments. And Tom, I think you said the balance sheet set up pretty well for you to decide to do more investments. I guess the guidance is for you to be a net seller this year. So how should we think about sort of where the focus is going to be on investments? And is there actually some sort of capital built into the plan that if you were to do acquisitions, you don't necessarily need to raise new capital, and there could be some benefit if acquisitions actually pick up? Thanks.

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Hey, Nick, this is Joe. Maybe two things I'll ask wrong. I'd say number one, just on the net seller component, that's really a byproduct of a couple of sales that we had beat up last year that happened to slip into early January. So those are really related to neutral funding for last year. So I wouldn't read too much into us looking like a net seller. That's more just a 2024 issue and timing issue. As it relates to capital and deployment, I think you're going to see us remain fairly opportunistic on that front.

We've continued to advance discussions with our joint venture partner, LaSalle, and their capital source, which, after being on the sidelines for kind of 12 months as they went through a global mandate review, happy to report we had meetings with them earlier this week, and we are back in action and looking to deploy capital with that partner. On the DPE front, as we've said in the prepared remarks and previously disclosed, we think we've really kind of cleared the deck on that front from a risk perspective, and so now we're back into normal course business, and we had a couple of really good payoffs there in the fourth quarter, as well as some expected payoffs this year, so we're focused on redeploying capital on that front.

When you get into the development side, we don't have much of a pipeline today, but as we continue to get more optimistic on where rent growth goes in 2026 and 2027, we do expect to see maybe two to three starts coming out of the development side this year, including one possible here in the next quarter out of Riverside. And then you got the redevelopment portfolio. The redevelopment team continues to hum and continues to collaborate really well with the operations team, and so continue to invest on the redevelopment side. And then I'd say lastly, while we haven't had anything announced recently, the OP unit transactions that you've seen us do in the past, we do have a number of discussions ongoing on that front.

We'll continue to see what plays out on those, but we are definitely looking to be active and opportunistic here with capital allocation.

Nick Yulico (Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Great. Thanks, Joe.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from the line of Eric Wolfe with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.

Eric Wolfe (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks. You mentioned that where concessions trend in your markets will be a key factor in achieving your outlook. So could you just talk about where concessions are today and sort of where you think they might go as we progress through the year?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Eric, I'd say first, it goes back to kind of finishing up on a strong note. So coming off a very strong 4Q positioned us, obviously, with high occupancy, and our turnover continues to trend down. And so right now, what we're seeing in January, further momentum. Again, occupancy above 97% today. Turnover in January is down another 500 basis points on a year-over-year basis. And our rents and other income are tracking with our expectations for the first half of the year. And so we are getting more active as we try to drive our market rents up, and we're driving our concessions down. We're right around a week in January, and we're starting to push that down to sub one week as we move further into the first quarter. So concessions are coming down a little bit right now.

Again, I think that's part of our strategy to drive occupancy and now put our focus on driving our rents up.

Eric Wolfe (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. And then, I guess, as far as the new CIO role, can you maybe just talk about the rationale for the change there from CFO? And then, Joe, if there's anything that you're expecting to do differently in this role, if the company's capital allocation strategy is going to change at all, if it's more about processes, just anything that's going to be different now versus before?

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Eric, I think I'm always striving, and the room is striving to get better. And so I'd start off with first, as my prepared remarks, congratulations to Mike and Joe for promotions and assuming additional responsibility. That's part of my role and the board, as well as the executive team, is to push ourselves to get better and deeper talented bench. And I think this opens up opportunities for both of them to advance people's careers and their skills and ability to generate shareholder value. And with respect to the CFO, Joe's been an exceptional CFO for the company for eight years. I don't want to say you get stale in the job, but you become a key part of our success. But I'm looking to say, gosh, how can we get better as a team? And it opens up a slot.

I think with Harry retiring and Joe stepping in as the CIO, working with Andrew and the team there, he brings a fresh perspective. I would expect us to continue to have a lot of success in the investment area, and we'll commence a search for a CFO. I think it's a very attractive position in a very stable, capable company and a team member for our future. That's how I've been thinking about it. The group has been always along in this conversation about how do we get better as a group, how do we get better as a company. I think it prepares us that way. Again, growing talent is a critical element of our long-term success.

Eric Wolfe (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question has come from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Mike, I was hoping you could walk through the line of sight on other income, a little bit same-store revenue growth contribution year over year from that bucket in the guidance. We're just trying to figure out if this number slowly goes down as Wi-Fi rollouts move through the system, or if this could stay even or re-accelerate in the out years.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Sure. Appreciate the question, Jamie. I'd say first and foremost, just as it relates to other income, we have a culture and history of driving incremental growth. And in fact, we've been at this for more than 10 years where we're not only increasing our other income every year, but also driving those margins. So as we look at it, we've got about $60 million in max potential NOI to choose from right now through a whole list of different initiatives. We're looking at them. We're prioritizing them. We're trying to assess which ones we can pull the lever on. And I'm happy to report, again, last year we had 8% growth in other income. It's going to be another strong year this year, I think, for us. When I look at it, we've got about 11.5% of our revenue that comes from other income.

It's approximately $180 million on our $1.5 billion in same-store revenue. It looks pretty promising. When I look at the Wi-Fi rollout, the package lockers, the amenity areas, things like that that are really driving a lot of this line item, we look at it at about 60% of that 7% growth in 2025 is already baked. When I say that, we've done a lot of the heavy lifting with the Wi-Fi rollout. We still have about 10,000-12,000 units we're installing throughout this year, but a lot of that income is coming from all the work that we've done over the last 12-18 months. We feel pretty good about our other income line item at this point.

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Hey, Jamie, maybe just to add on to that too, because we do focus a lot on other income as a company and obviously within the investor space. But you've heard us talk somewhat ad nauseam on customer experience in the past. And you're seeing the results of that, of course, with turnover coming down, both absolute and relative. But that initiative is across all line items. So as we continue to do better and better on customer experience, keep driving down that turnover, it's going to enhance pricing power, enhance other income, enhance occupancy, drive down turnover costs, both capitalized and expensed. And so I do think you'll continue to see a benefit there as we really lean into that initiative, which may not show up in other income necessarily, but will show up throughout the enterprise. So just be cognizant of that.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. That's very helpful. But do you think, as we look ahead to the next few years, at some point, does it become a headwind to the growth rate, or there's enough juice still that you can keep it going for a while in terms of your growth rate?

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

This is Toomey. I think, like a lot of things in life, it's a flywheel. And Customer Experience Projects are going to spawn off many more new ideas about other income aspects and our relationship with our customer because they're going to be with us for a longer period of time. And so I think it's premature to kind of highlight some of those. Why? Because they're in early stages of experimenting and finding out what customers respond to and don't. But it is the cornerstone of how we can build out a deeper pipeline of those opportunities in the future to backfill it. Clearly, I'm with you. If you don't keep innovating, you eventually run up against your own success. I think the case here is continue to innovate, use data, use that aspect of it to convert to cash flow, if you will.

We'll find out where that margin keeps growing, if you will. But that's, in essence, the long view of that Customer Experience Project.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. Thanks for that. And then as we're looking at slide nine from the presentation where you talk about supply as a percent of existing stock. I know you've got the red, green, and yellow buckets. We're coming off of historic levels of supply and thinking about that red bucket. But what's the number here where you actually worry about supply weighing on fundamentals going forward? Are some of these yellow markets going to move into the red bucket, or 50-150 basis points and 2025 is just not something to worry about? And we really think you're kind of cleaning things up here in every market as we work through 2025.

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Hey, Jamie, we're definitely cleaning things up, if you will, as we go throughout 2025. When you look from the green bucket to the red bucket, you do have pretty meaningful deltas in blended lease rate growth, meaning plus or minus upwards of 500 basis points depending on which market you compare it to. The yellows are in the middle. I think as you migrate throughout the year, and Mike started to kind of allude to this earlier, which we showed back where we give the regional revenue performance, you're going to see some of these red markets start to compress upwards relative to the East and West Coast markets.

And so as Sunbelt supply comes down pretty meaningfully, while it's still at a high absolute level, it is going to come down pretty meaningfully from where we're at in 2024, which we do think enhances pricing power throughout this year. And then as you go into 2026, part of the reason that the East Coast and West Coast don't see that same decline in supply is really just longer lead times for developments there, more embedded high-rise product being delivered, which has a little bit longer development cycle. As you get into 2026, you're going to see supply overall probably come off another +30%, and that's going to be across the board in all three of those regions. So we'll gradually see fewer and fewer markets sitting on the red and yellow and more and more in the greens in 2026.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. Great. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thanks. Joe, I know you were out at NMHC, and I'm just curious what the discussion was like broadly around development. Everybody's painting this picture of 2025 still a little bit of a transition year, high supply, but 2026, 2027, and beyond looks great. So I'm just curious kind of the discussions around new development, and it even sounds like you guys might want to start some new development. So what's, I guess, the risk that everybody's seeing the same picture and goes to look to put shovels in the ground sooner than later?

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yep. Yeah. Great question. I do think everybody is, generally speaking, seeing that same view of the future. As you get into that 2026, 2027, and you look at some of the slides that we put on here on page eight and prior to that in terms of supply deliveries, you're definitely going to see less supply with the backdrop of very strong relative affordability and hopefully still good demand. And so there is an expectation of outsized growth in those years, which obviously gets developers excited. I think the ability to translate excitement and a thesis on the future into actual shovels in the ground is a little bit more challenging. We have seen construction financing start to come back a little bit from the banks, so they are improving in terms of the availability of that capital.

The spreads are still relatively high in kind of the plus or minus 300 basis point range. The bigger challenge still seems to be the LP equity. And so can you go out there and raise capital to deploy into development to get those starts done today? So if you have the thesis, yes, I think a lot of us believe in it. Do you have the capital? Not so much. So not overly concerned about your point on do we see a big surge in supply. And to the extent that we do, I think it's more of a 2028 issue. We still have a pretty good runway here for a couple of years. In terms of how it relates to ours, I mentioned kind of two or three starts potentially teed up here for this year.

When you look at the yields that we're going to have on those, on a current underwritten basis, we're looking for high fives to 6% on that capital. So, feel comfortable with those projects and moving forward with those.

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Steve, let me add a little bit more color, if I can. You've been through a lot of these cycles, and you know where we're at today. All the developers are trying to keep their shops busy and penciling a lot of deals. The truth is capital is looking over there and saying, "Why am I building if I can buy below replacement cost?" So the acquisition market, sale market is probably going to heat up a little bit more in 2025, 2026 before the development starts to rewind itself up. It will. It had to go where there hasn't been any development where there's rent growth. So we step back and look at it and say, "It's a window where be prudent, but we think there's and it's a very competitive window for acquisitions right now. Still get out there and see what we can find.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for the color. Maybe just quickly on slide 16, maybe for Mike, just as you look at the expectations for expense growth in 2025, and there's some big deltas from where 2024 came in. I'm just looking at personnel costs. It was an elevated number in 2024, coming down much more in 2025, but real estate taxes kind of going the other way. Just where do you see the risks on this slide, and how have you sort of thought about that in the budget?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah. I got it, Steve. I'd say, first of all, thinking about 2024 and 2025 and specific to personnel, just as a reminder, we had the CARES refund that we had to deal with last year. And so our personnel expense was up about 11%, and that's mainly because of the anniversary off of that. Now we're back to kind of a normal run rate, if you will. And so when we look at our expenses, I mean, we would have been around, call it 3.5% this year if we didn't deal with that anniversary. Things feel pretty good. The team's been doing a lot around all the different initiatives. We talk a lot about other income, but they've made a lot of progress in things like efficiencies and how we're utilizing technology to try to drive down some of those costs.

We're also doing things with our vendors trying to consolidate that. That's playing out in some of these numbers that you see here today. So for us, it feels good going into 2025. We ended on a good note in 2024, and we're off and running in 2025.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Maybe just taxes real quick. Anything there to speak about?

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Steve, on the real estate tax side, we did have some wins in terms of appeals activity that took place in 2024, so it's ticking a little bit higher up in the mid-threes. Obviously, we're going to be going after a lot of those same types of appeals, especially Prop 8s out in California, so we'd hope to appeal down that initial number of 3.5%. When you look regionally by markets, to be honest, most of them are plus or minus in that range. I think the only outliers really come in with up in Seattle, we were seeing values come down, and so actually, we're kind of seeing negative real estate tax growth there in Seattle. Outliers to the other side, we're seeing rates come in higher in Boston, a little bit more tax growth there.

And then out in Nashville, also we have the four-year reset that takes place, a little bit more pressure in Nashville. But most of our markets right now we're thinking are within that 2.5%-4.5% range.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. That's it for me.

Operator (participant)

The next question is coming from the line of Jeff Spector with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Jeffrey Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REITs)

Great. Thank you. Joe, at the top of the call, you, in your opening remarks, talked about lower supply benefiting. I think you said late 2025. Please confirm if that's correct or not. My question really is, on the confidence level here, and how does that tie to, let's say, guidance, right? Thank you.

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yep. Yeah. We do expect to see supply continue to trickle down throughout the year in terms of the deliveries, and on page eight, we have it demonstrated for our markets, which you see it does trend down. That really plays into Mike's commentary earlier on blends, and so our first-half blend assumption being roughly in line with what we saw first half of 2024, and then we start to see that blended number lift as we go into the second half, kind of peak out in 3Q, and then see some seasonality going into 4Q with it declining a little bit. Yeah. That's driven across the board, but we did talk about seeing Sunbelt start to accelerate a little bit more as we move throughout the year as they do see a more significant decline in those deliveries.

And so I think a couple of things that give us a little bit of comfort with that in terms of the higher second half versus first half. We mentioned just now the declining delivery activity, which should help. The other pieces are relative affordability continues to be strong, and obviously, demand environment continues to be strong. So lifting that second-half blended lease rate growth assumption up into the threes, which is still well below what we were at pre-COVID, and we're kind of getting into more of a pre-COVID norm when we get into the back half of the year and definitely going into 2026. That gives us the comfort on the guidance piece.

I do think the other thing I just want to mention too, Jeff, as we kind of think about this, if you go to page 14 within the presentation, I'll give Trent just a second there to get it ready for the webcast, but page 14, when you look at these assumptions between earn-in, blended lease rate growth, innovation, and then occupancy and bad debt, in totality, we get to that 2.25% revenue number, which is basically the exact same as what we put up in 2024, and so we got some questions overnight on the 2.5% blended lease rate growth, which we're talking about right now, that because it is more back-half weighted, you can see in there only a 90 basis point contribution coming off of blended lease rate growth.

Typically, if you had a normal seasonality curve, you'd have a mid-year convention, that 2.5 would translate to 1.25. So it really tells you that the revenue contribution is pretty typical with what we saw in 2024. So we haven't assumed a lot of acceleration in that rev contribution. And the blends, if they don't come to fruition in the back half, more of a 2026 earn-in issue instead of a 2025 guidance or revenue growth issue, as most of the assumptions look pretty spot on with what we delivered in 2024.

Jeffrey Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REITs)

Okay. Thank you. And then turning to the tech initiatives, I know you guys are always scouring for new. I'm just curious whether it's AI-driven or just new technology or applications you're seeing. Is there anything exciting on the horizon here that you're looking into?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah. A couple of things. I'd say maybe some people saw that we recently just transitioned. We're going to be implementing Funnel as our CRM this year. So we're really excited about that. And I think it's important to know it's a hit. It's something that's going to help our innovation, definitely not going to drive it. And ultimately, we think it's going to allow us to be more effective, more efficient with our centralized teams as well as our teams. And ultimately, this is going to allow us to focus on new ideas and not necessarily get bogged down on a lot of the back office. So that's going to be happening over the next three to six months. We're very excited about that rollout.

In addition, some of the other AI-based initiatives, things that we're using with technology, it goes back to what we talked about last year, just as it relates to who's coming through the front door, who we're allowing to be a resident with us, and making sure we're identifying bad actors, if you will, before they ever enter the door, so things like ID verification, proof of income, just making sure that we're capturing that. That's playing out, and if you recall, we rolled that out mid-last year. We feel like we've got our hands around it, and it's really starting to pay dividends today.

Just to kind of size in and give you a few stats, some of our more riskier residents, if you will, that come through the door, our average deposits are up almost 20% at this point. Our co-signers are up 1% or 2%, and our credit scores are actually up about 20 points, closer to 730 versus 710. We think that this is going to continue to try to drive our revenue and make sure that we have good residents as we move forward.

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

Jeff, just to add again, if I can add just a little bit more, I think the key here is that we own our data. So the amount of data Mike could tell me how much we're accumulating every day on every customer interaction from prospect all the way to move out builds an enormous warehouse, if you will, of facts to mine, trends to look for, responses that were missed. And so it's not just refining the business model better. It's looking around the corner, owning that data, what are better ways we can run the business to anticipate the customer's position, the market position, and then ultimately how we're pricing our product to those individual customers. So I think it's just the very early stages. I think the focus that Mike and the entire team has on it. It's always amazing.

Every Monday, we sit and go through where we stand and how much facts we know about where we are and where we're going help us run the business better, faster, more efficiently.

Jeffrey Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REITs)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question has come from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Mike, appreciate all the detail you gave across regions, but the question on the same-store revenue guidance, which assumes some acceleration in the Sunbelt markets for a lot of the reasons you cited first half, first back half, but you do have deceleration assumed for the coastal markets despite having a higher earn-in. So I guess what's driving that assumed deceleration in the coastal regions this year? And could you actually see some upside given some of the positive dynamics being discussed on the West Coast in particular?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah. That's a really good question, Austin. I think it's important to point out when you look at the coast, specific to the West Coast, our blends and our earn-ins are very close to what we experienced last year. And so not really seeing a whole lot of deceleration from that standpoint. The difference is going to come in other income in a place like the West Coast. And the main reason is a place like Monterey Peninsula for us. We are now dealing with rent control on that front, as well as we're not able to charge for our reimbursements if we don't have sub-meters at those assets. So that's actually about a $2 million-$3 million drag for us in 2025. And so if we didn't have that dragging down the West Coast, we'd have about 50 basis points more in growth.

And so our coast would actually look very similar to 2024. And then specific to the Sunbelt, it really comes back down to the other income growth again, which again, we had close to 14% growth in 2024. Expectations are that we're going to have around 12% this year. Yeah. And then as far as just to put a ribbon around Salinas, Monterey Peninsula, we do have a plan to try to get back in there, get the sub-meters going, and so we can start to recapture a lot of that income we're going to lose in 2025. And that's probably more of a 2026 and 2027 initiative.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

No, that's really helpful. And then just switching gears kind of high level, maybe Tom or Joe, I'm just kind of interested in your view about a potential privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and just the impact you think it could have on broader housing market, transaction market, and obviously multifamily?

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

This is Toomey. I'm not sure anybody's going to make a very long living predicting what's coming out of Washington these days. And so I will just pass and let the cards fall where they go. They seem to have a lot of other things that they're working on before they get to the GSEs in that aspect. It's a very high-functioning group. It stabilizes the market. I don't think anyone wants to see any of that disappear. And so then in whose hands it's and how it's run, I'll leave it to the people that have a say over that to speculate and deal with.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's fair. Thanks for the time.

Operator (participant)

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

Michael Goldsmith (Analyst and Executive Director)

Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my question. How much occupancy are you willing to sacrifice to push rate in the peak season? And how much rate growth do you need to see during that peak season to hit the guidance range? Thanks.

Mike Lacy (COO)

Sure. I think let's size it. So I think, first of all, the way we think about occupancy and rent trade-offs, 1% of rent for us, approximately $26 per home, it's equal to about $7 million a year on a mid-year convention. When you think about occupancy, 1% of occupancy, it's about 550 homes at $2,600. That's about $17 million in a given year. So the way we think about it is if we lower occupancy by, say, 30, 40 basis points, we would need 100 basis points in rent just to break even in a given year. I don't know if you can capture that in the shoulder quarters where you have low demand. And so you've seen it with our strategy.

As demand starts to pick up, we tend to let our occupancy migrate down, and we're willing to take that bet to see if we can't capture another, call it 1% or more on rent. But again, during the shoulder quarters, we think it's a prudent strategy to try to drive that occupancy up and prepare for that period of time where you can really start to drive your rent.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

I do think it's critical too, Michael, as you think about your comment or question about how much are we willing to sacrifice. Part of that occupancy strategy is occupancy versus rate, but I don't want it to get lost on the group in terms of customer experience and the decreased turnover component. I think Mike referenced earlier the continued decrease in turnover that we've seen in January. That's part of the surge in that occupancy. So it's not necessarily an occupancy rate trade all the time. Sometimes it's good customer service that just results in better occupancy and residents wanting to stay longer. So there's two components to it as you think through it.

Michael Goldsmith (Analyst and Executive Director)

Yeah. That's helpful context. And my second question is we've discussed the trajectory of blended rent trend, but maybe looking at same-store revenue growth, is there any lumpiness in or is there any expected lumpiness of that through the year due to idiosyncratic factors, either positive or negative? Thanks.

Mike Lacy (COO)

No. I mean, for us, when we look at the cadence of growth throughout the year, expectations are the first half of the year is a little bit lower in the back half, maybe call it two to two and a half, and then the back half, we're probably closer to that two and a half, maybe reaching upwards of the three, but not a whole lot of lumpiness. It's pretty consistent.

Michael Goldsmith (Analyst and Executive Director)

Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Next question is from the line of Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Hey, Brad. You might be on mute.

Brad Heffern (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Indeed, I was. You mentioned a number of uncertainties in the slides. All of those are regulatory or political in some way. It seems like you don't want to predict those. I don't blame you for that. But I'm curious if you've risked those items in the guidance at all and how much, specifically with regard to DOGE and immigration.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

We have not. I mean, it's why there is a range around our base case. And I think uncertainties could be both positive and negative in all of these. As you think about regulatory risk, there's the state and local regulatory risk that we talk about a lot with things like rent control or pet fees, deposits, things of that nature. But there's also less regulation that we think we may see at the federal level, both from a legislative and legal perspective, but also just in terms of small business formation, medium-sized business formation, which is really the driver of job growth across this country with over 50% of employment coming from the small business side. So I think if we see what happened in the first administration where you cut some of that red tape, that actually could be a positive uncertainty in all of this.

I think the same thing could be said about DOGE on a federal perspective. The question remains as to where they concentrate potentially some of their Fed cuts or entitlements or pork or anything of that nature. It may impact different markets differently, but at a federal level, it could actually be a positive, including for the interest rate environment. We put a range around this to try to factor that in, but it's hard to say they're all negatives or all positives.

Brad Heffern (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Thanks for that. And then a question on the Customer Experience Project. Obviously, everybody's been seeing record low turnover, so I'm curious how you're separating out the benefits specifically of that program versus just how the broader market is acting? And then what sort of gives us the confidence that you can move turnover even lower from record levels already?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Right. Yeah. We look at this in both an absolute and a relative basis, and so what I would tell you is going back to 1Q of 2023, on an absolute basis, we're down about 3.5%. And on a relative basis, over that same period of time, we've improved by about 200 basis points against the peer average. So we watch it against how we compare to everybody else, not just in the fact that everybody's turnover is down, and I'll tell you why we still believe in it is because we do have a ton of data. Tom talked about it a little bit previously, but it's upwards of 800 million data elements at this point, we're adding 1 million a day, and so we have the team in place.

We have the dashboards built, and we have dedicated resources that are watching it every day, creating touch points with our residents, and we see it playing out, and again, I saw it play out again in January. Expectations are that February is going to be another month that's down on a year-over-year basis, and this isn't even factoring in all the stuff that we have planned for this year. And I'll tell you what I'm most excited about is the fact that we're able to spend a little bit more on NOI-enhancing CapEx to try to drive problems down that we know are an issue at these sites that we do think will be a direct impact with our residents, and then also the rollout of Funnel, I spoke to a little bit with our CRM.

We think that's going to pay a lot of dividend throughout the year too, so there's a lot more to come on this front. We're still continuing to learn.

Brad Heffern (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your questions.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey. I see him still. Good morning out there. Two questions. First, on the other income, you guys have certainly been on the forefront of growing different entities, the different services that you offer for your residents. But at the same time, we still talk about earnings growth and revenue growth based on supply demand in the general apartment sector. So do you feel that these efforts are truly accelerating overall earnings growth, or is it sort of a pie mix where you can either push rent or push these other fees, but the resident still looks at the whole enchilada together? They don't say, "Oh, I can stomach a rent increase, and then I can stomach these incremental fees.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Yeah. That's a constant source of discussion internally as we think about effectively where you're going is the cannibalization concept of if you're going to pay more over in one bucket, are you willing to pay as much in the other bucket? And we have done a bunch of past work and studies on that to ensure we are capturing what we believe is the total amount of other income that we should receive while not cannibalizing the rent component. Now, I think one of the things that we do that's very helpful for the resident and gets us kudos from the resident is all-in pricing upfront on our website where you can go in and select your unit. You can pick what amenities or what other income items you're going to have. You can see what your utility bill will typically be.

And so right upfront, we're being very transparent, which is a rarity within the industry. I think residents appreciate that because they know now the total check they're coming in with. They're not surprised when they get through their first month of residency. And then when you come to renewal, you don't have that feeling of being able to watch that. So I think we've tried to address it by being transparent with the resident and then also doing our own background checks to make sure we don't cannibalize rent.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, and then the.

Mike Lacy (COO)

I'll just add one thing. Alex, just quickly, these are also win-wins for us and our residents. And so when we think about this, Wi-Fi as an example, we are very competitive with our pricing. We're trying to provide a benefit that helps them out. It helps us out. It gives them access to Wi-Fi across the property. And quite frankly, it helps with our self-guided tour process. So there's that. I mean, things like reserve parking. We're trying to identify spots that are actually better for our residents that make it more efficient for them. So a lot of these things, we keep in mind how will it benefit them as well as us.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. The second question is on the debt and preferred equity business. Obviously, you can appreciate Philly probably wasn't fun. But as you guys look at new investments, are there any changes to underwriting or geographies that you would no longer look at? Or was the Philly sort of an isolated one and these other two on the watch list are? I'm just trying to see, were there any learnings from these that going forward you would change, or this is just part of the business and it's why the yields are the way the yields are?

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Yeah. It's a great question. And I think wasn't fun is a very fair terminology to utilize in working through that. But yeah, I think we had made changes. When you look at the structure of the book, look at the components of how much is on developments versus operating assets now. And so we've continued to ramp up the amount that we have within the operating kind of recap side of the portfolio. And I think we're up to +30% of the deals now have a current cash pay component. And so we are pivoting a little bit in terms of the book of business. And then you get into the lessons learned component. I do think there are quite a few that we've had over time.

I mean, from a lower loan-to-cost perspective, I think when we look at development deals going forward, we've definitely committed to ensuring that we're at a lower loan-to-cost than perhaps we were back during the COVID years. I think ensuring time constraints to make sure these don't get as drawn out because when they get drawn out, while we continue to accrue earnings, ultimately, it may put the equity partners up against the wall a little bit. I think more utilization of our market research and analytics team. A number of these debt challenges are really driven by supply to some degree. And so we find high supply concentrations have definitely negatively impacted rent and NOI growth profiles and therefore ability to recap these investments. And then I think just the scenario analysis.

We did not underwrite back during the COVID years of when we were kind of four cap or sub-four cap that you're going to see a run-up in rates and borrowing cost of 100-200 basis points and an increase in cap rates to that degree. So it's more scenario analyses to work through and ensure that in various scenarios, we do receive the paybacks. And so there's a number of lessons learned and approaches to the structure of the book of business as well.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

John Kim (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Just going back to other income, the 65 basis point addition to distinctive revenue actually seems a little bit light because it implies $10 million in revenue. Last year, you were aiming for $10 million in NOI. You're suggesting another $60 million that you're expecting going forward. Can you just comment on that and also remind us what your typical margins are on the other income?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Yeah. The margins vary by initiative. I can tell you for something like the Wi-Fi, we charge around $70 on average, and it costs us around $20 on average. So that's a pretty strong margin. And things like parking, obviously, it doesn't cost us anything to try to drive up more reserve parking. So huge margin there. And then things like short-term furnished rentals, we do have a lower margin on that book of business, and we've been actively bringing that down over the last couple of years, just trying to make sure that we're achieving the highest cash flow we can. So they're all a little bit different. But for us, again, the 8% growth last year was very strong. And basically, to repeat that, we feel pretty good about it.

Obviously, we're always looking to that $60 million in that number I referenced earlier into initiatives that we can pick and choose from and try to drive it higher throughout the year, which last year we had a lower bar, and we ended up exceeding it. I hope you're right. I hope we can do that again in 2025. But based on everything we see today, we feel like that 7% is a pretty good number.

John Kim (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Yep. Okay. And then, Mike, you mentioned rent control in Monterey Peninsula, which is a little disconcerting because rents really haven't gone up that much. But can you comment on whether or not there's a vacancy decontrol component to that new measure? And are you concerned or hearing rumblings of similar rent control measures in other markets?

Yeah. Hey, John. This is Chris. We can look into that a little bit further, but it does have to abide by Costa-Hawkins. So I don't believe that there's a vacancy decontrol measure.

Any commentary on other markets?

Mike Lacy (COO)

The biggest thing we're looking at this year, there's commentary out of Washington State, a couple of bills at the state level. Obviously, we're looking at if there's any emergency legislation in California, especially at the state level as far as rent freezes, etc. Those are kind of the two big focal points, I would say, right now.

John Kim (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of Julian Blumer with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Julian Blumer (Member of the Institutional Client Group)

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I might have missed it, but can you give us a sense of January blends and new lease rate growth by region? And also, one of your Sunbelt peers was noting that pricing trends in January felt better than normal seasonality. I guess, are you seeing that in your own portfolio?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Hey, Julian. You didn't miss it. We didn't give necessarily the exact numbers. But what I would tell you again is occupancy is higher than we expected at the end of the year, turnovers lower than we expected. And we're right on track when we look at our initiatives related to other income as well as our blend. So we feel pretty good about January right now. And quite frankly, we're in February, and that feels pretty good.

Julian Blumer (Member of the Institutional Client Group)

Okay. Got it. Thank you. And then maybe a second one. I mean, when we look at some of the really strong Sunbelt absorption numbers that continue to come through in the fourth quarter, on the face of it, it maybe seems even better than I would expect from current levels of job growth or migration trends in those markets. Do you feel that that speaks to the pent-up demand in those markets from several years of outsized migration and job growth? And at some point, do we have to start worrying about maybe these high levels of absorption starting to deplete that pent-up demand?

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Hey, Julian. I think it's kind of three different factors. The first is we've talked a lot about the relative affordability component. So the total household formation activity this year hasn't been materially different than what we've seen in the past. But given the lack of new housing being built and that new lack of existing homes being sold, you've seen more household formations pivot over towards the rentership side, which we've talked about in the past when you got into the mid-2010s. We kind of saw that rentership society take place given the relative affordability. So that feels like a multi-year trend, mainly because we don't expect home prices to come down, and rates need to come down 100-200 basis points just to get back to a pre-COVID level in terms of affordability. So it's a little bit of that.

You are hearing rumors of individuals coming off the couches and so getting out of their parents' basements. When you look at younger age cohorts, you're seeing a little bit of that, which there's been a pretty high level of younger age cohorts living at home. You're starting to hear a little bit of that as they've built up their savings and got into their income-producing years. Then lastly, as you see more and more return to work and return to office, that does bring people back in and get them off couches at home as well. There's a couple of different trends that are providing a tailwind during the phase of record supply. As we talked about, we're kind of going more normal supply here as we move into 2025 and then decrease in 2026.

And so I think those trends generally probably remain in place. The big one will obviously just be what happens on the demand front from a jobs perspective.

Julian Blumer (Member of the Institutional Client Group)

Got it. That's really helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of Alex Kalmus with Zelman & Associates. Please proceed with your questions.

Alex Kalmus (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Hey, guys. First off, congratulations to Mike and Joe for your new roles at the firm, and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about your strategy for potential acquisitions this year. There's definitely more optimism for unlocked seller supply at NMHC last week, and is there any upside to that acquisition volume from what you're hearing and any particular markets that might be in focus at the moment?

Joe Fisher (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Hey, Alex. It's Joe. There definitely was a lot of optimism at NMHC in terms of not just the go-forward fundamental picture, but a lot of capital out there looking for transactions on the multifamily side. Obviously, it continues to be one of the favorite asset classes out there. I think one of the biggest challenges, however, is that the sellers see that same dynamic. And so unless you're a forced seller due to duration of fund and coming up on the end of a fund, if you have a capital event such as a refinancing that you don't think you're going to be able to effectuate, you're just not seeing many assets come to market. And so the bullishness on the buyer side is kind of met with bullishness on the seller side. And so that is keeping transaction volumes down.

I think where we're focused is obviously with our joint venture partner, LaSalle, and trying to effectuate a couple of deals there with them. We've talked about a couple of different target markets, which we're still aligning on and making sure we work through. So not prepared to talk about that right now. But it's going to be typically that 20 to 30-year-old product at a maximum is going to have a nice value-add component that we can hand off to either our operational team and/or our redevelopment team to try to get a lift in NOI. For on-balance sheet transactions, we will continue to look at those as well as continue to look at disposition activity and see if maybe we can enhance the cash flow growth profile of the company over time.

Alex Kalmus (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Got it. Makes sense. And I know you touched on it earlier, but just on your recent partnership with Funnel, are there any additional details you can provide about the partnership and maybe more specifically its effect on NOI or how it fits into the context of the technology and innovation initiatives you've been rolling out?

Mike Lacy (COO)

I'll take that. I think for us, specific to the rollout of it, it's really going to help allow us to drive the Customer Experience Project even further. And again, it's not the end-all, be-all with how we think about innovation. It's going to allow us to really spend more time on all these other ideas and all the data that we have on the customer experience, how we can leverage that because we're not going to have to deal with a lot of the back-office pieces that we were dealing with because, quite frankly, Funnel wasn't around when we started our own CRM probably three years ago. And so we've had to mess around with that for quite a long time. This is going to allow us to leverage a group that's done a really good job with it.

And I'd say in addition to that, we have big plans around our online leasing process, our move-in process, and something we call Omnichannel, just a more seamless, streamlined approach to how we communicate with prospects and residents. So there's a lot of benefits that are going to come of this, and we're just now scratching the surface. We're going to learn a lot over the next three to six months.

Alex Kalmus (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Understood. Thanks for the commentary.

Operator (participant)

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

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

Hey, guys. [crosstalk]

Hey, guys. Thanks for hanging in there. Two quick ones from me. First, follow-up on development. I guess I'm curious. Yeah.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Haendel, you're breaking up.

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

Okay.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Yep. We can hear you.

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

Our first question is on development. I'm curious how you guys are affected.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Haendel, we lost you again.

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

All right. One last time. All right.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Yeah. I'll go ahead and jump back in the queue and then move along.

Operator (participant)

Yes. Thank you. Our next question is from Linda Tsai with Jefferies.

Linda Tsai (Senior Vice President and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking my question. Just one. You said turnover would be 100 basis points lower this year. Sounds like it's mostly from operational improvements. Are there certain markets where you see larger opportunities to reduce turnover?

Mike Lacy (COO)

Good question. I'd say, again, we put 100 basis points into our plan for the year. And again, just looking at January, February, we're between 400 to 500 basis points better than the prior year. So we're off to a really good start. And I can tell you when I look at our markets, our regions, we're seeing a pretty consistent downward trend across the board. I mean, it was pretty amazing to see just January was sub-30% turnover. I've never seen a number like that. And so it's pretty much broad-based across the country because with the implementation of our CRM, all the efforts that we have on the data, we are attacking it in every market, every property, and quite frankly, every individual resident that we have at the property. So it should be kind of broad-based.

Linda Tsai (Senior Vice President and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Are there more costs associated with reducing that turnover?

Mike Lacy (COO)

A little bit. This year, we're placing a little bit more of a bigger bet in terms of some of our CapEx spend. And so again, we're going in. We've identified some properties where we've had just recurring issues as it relates to HVACs or water heaters or things of that nature. And if we can get in there and try to fix some of these recurring issues, we think that we can also limit how many people are moving out on a given basis. So a little bit more as it relates to the CapEx side of the house, but not necessarily on our OpEx.

Linda Tsai (Senior Vice President and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Tayo Okusanya with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Hey, Tayo. Make sure you're not on mute.

Omotayo Okusanya (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Hello. Can you hear me?

Trent Trujillo (VP of Investor Relations)

Yep. We can hear you now.

Omotayo Okusanya (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Can you hear me? Oh, perfect. Sorry about that. So just a quick question. One of your peers is kind of increasingly doing more in terms of just kind of like townhouse, townhome-type products, kind of looking a little bit more like SFR products. I'm just kind of curious how you guys think about that as an opportunity, especially given you're already in kind of some of the key SFR markets?

Thomas Toomey (Chairman and CEO)

This is Toomey. Yes. It's a product I'm quite familiar with and have done at times in the past. And if you go down to our Vitruvian development in Dallas, you'll find that we've put up 85 homes down there on the townhome product. It only fits where you don't have enough density opportunity. Okay? And so you look at long-term hold periods and you think about a site and where you would get the most cash flow. Density is always something we're striving for, why it just gives us a bigger capital footprint and opportunity to grow. So it fits. It's generally more of a suburban, farther-out fringe product. It can be a lot of good phase two-type development activity. So we're familiar with it. When we find sites that fit that template, certainly have the capability to execute.

Leaning in, I think we look down the whole risk-reward grid of our capital deployment, and Joe's in charge of that now.

Omotayo Okusanya (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

All right. Thank you.