3Q24 Investor Package
Our Fellow Shareholders:
The first rate cut in four years has finally landed and the
Below are highlights since last quarter:
We closed on the sale of
capital recycling transactions representing an average 4.8% capitalization rate.
Our multifamily portfolio continued to perform well. Coming out of the strong summer leasing season, our In- Service portfolio occupancy increased by 140 basis points to 95.7% and was 97.0% leased. In our Same Store multifamily portfolio, we increased effective rents by 4.5% for new leases and 6.1% upon renewal while achieving a 60.0% renewal rate. Multifamily Same Store NOI for the quarter increased 3.5%.
Our two newly constructed towers in
We received Nareit's Impact at Scale Award and maintained a 5-star ranking from GRESB for both our operating portfolio and development pipeline, ranking first within our peer groups. Additionally, GRESB named us the Global Listed Sector Leader and
1
Capital Allocation
As we move into a more positive macroeconomic landscape, we expect development opportunities will become more economically viable. While trends are moving in the right direction, we expect this recovery to be gradual. We continue to work through the entitlement and design of our 9.3 million square foot Development Pipeline, substantially all of which we expect will be entitled by the end of 2025. When construction costs and interest rates normalize, we will be prepared with an attractive portfolio of shovel-ready growth opportunities to monetize through land sales, ground leases, and joint ventures.
While acquisition opportunities remain scarce and pricing only marginally more attractive, the office market seems to have bottomed, and we expect the volume of office trades to increase, in particular for assets with conversion or redevelopment opportunity.
We continue to execute our plan to dispose of non-core assets. During the third quarter, we sold
We anticipate that new investments, including developments, acquisitions, and share buybacks, will primarily be financed through asset recycling, either in advance or retrospectively. We have allocated a significant amount of our capital to share repurchases, given the significant discount of our share price relative to net asset value. Our robust balance sheet and substantial liquidity enable us to take advantage of this disparity. So far this year, we have repurchased 10.8 million shares at an average price of
Financial and Operating Metrics
For the three months ended
As of
2
Our floating rate exposure remains low, with 91.4% of our debt fixed or hedged as of the end of the third quarter, after accounting for in-place interest rate swaps and caps. The remaining floating rate exposure is tied to our revolving credit facility and assets where the business plan warrants preserving flexibility. We continue to be well- positioned with respect to our near-term debt maturities with a weighted average debt maturity of 3.1 years, after adjusting for by-right extension options. During the quarter, we repaid the loan collateralized by 200 and 201 12th Street S., and 251 18th Street S., and executed a one-year extension of our Tranche A-1 Term Loan. We have
Operating Portfolio
Multifamily Trends
Our In-Service multifamily portfolio ended the quarter at 97.0% leased, up 0.1% quarter-over-quarter, and 95.7% occupied, up 1.4% quarter-over-quarter. In our Same Store multifamily portfolio, we increased effective rents by 4.5% for new leases, largely driven by our assets in
We are making excellent progress leasing The Grace and Reva (808 units), which we delivered last quarter. Move- ins began in
Market-Wide (DC Metro) Multifamily Trends (based on CoStar and Apartment List data)
New starts remain essentially stalled in our submarkets, with only 3,103 units under construction across all submarkets in which we operate. That lack of new product has helped push market-wide occupancy to 94.1% and allowed rents to grow at 3.5%. The even more constrained go-forward development environment should help accelerate that growth over the next 24 to 36 months. Although the environment for new starts is perhaps becoming more favorable in light of the
We continue to believe that the DC metro region is poised for a renaissance given its strong relative performance. While our region's 94.1% occupancy is equal to other
3
region's relatively expensive single family and townhome stock of for-sale housing. The election, while pivotal at a national level, should have little bearing on multifamily demand based on historical precedent.
Office Trends
Our office portfolio ended the quarter at 80.7% leased and 79.1% occupied, both down approximately 1.5% quarter- over-quarter. In the third quarter, we executed 150,000 square feet of leases with a weighted average lease term of
6.3 years. While leasing volume this quarter was softer than the quarter prior, much of the decrease can be attributed to seasonality, where, in most years, the first and third quarters tend to be slower than the second and fourth. For second generation leases, the rental rate mark-to-market increased 1.2%.
As evidenced by recent tenant survey results, we're seeing a higher degree of engagement from our office tenants and an expectation of a higher level of service; based on the survey results, we've been rising to that level. These results also indicated that the number of tenants expressing an intent to renew increased by 25% year-over-year.
While renewals don't increase occupancy, they are a relatively low-cost way to maintain occupancy; year-to-date, our renewals in
Our efforts to re-lease certain spaces will focus on buildings with long-term potential, concentrating occupancy in areas of
We anticipate tenants will vacate approximately 475,000 square feet (approximately
Market-Wide (DC Metro) Office Trends (based on JLL and CBRE data)
The office market, long lost at sea, finally seemed to sight the shoreline during the third quarter, although where, when, and how, it finally makes landfall, is still to be determined. By now, everyone reading this letter will have heard of Amazon CEO
4
shift as well, with
While these trends all lean favorable, the backward-looking market statistics are still a mixed bag. JLL reports that year-to-date absorption in NortheVirginia is just -1.05 million square feet, or -0.7% of inventory. While on its face that signals flat demand, what we and the brokerage community have seen is a significant uptick in leasing activity
- albeit with some caveats. The first is that the recent spate of transaction activity trends to renewals, with reported figures for the quarter suggesting that between approximately 60% to 80% of transactions in the market represent renewals versus a roughly 50% historical average. This is reflective of high costs around buildouts in particular, with many "zombie" buildings not able to perform on TI allowances or capital improvements, and many tenants weighing the cost of new buildouts. The other trend is that "rightsizing" remains a part of many transactions - both renewals and new - although JLL reports that this is beginning to slow. CBRE also noted that "85% of transactions above 10,000 square feet had a positive or neutral impact on occupancy" but that was "not enough to offset large contractions." What essentially seems to be happening is that, while most tenants are flat or growing, a few big ones have given space back - a positive sign as sentiment among the majority of companies seems to be trending in-office for the future. Much of the leasing activity that is being recorded is also in the defense, engineering, and technology space (55% of quarterly leasing) which bodes well as those industries are stalwart users of office space. Another positive indicator for the market is the discipline on new starts enforced by high costs and rates. After 951,000 square feet of deliveries this year, just 210,000 square feet remain under construction in the 158 million square foot NortheVirginia market according to JLL. If return-to-work mandates continue to spread and the cycle of givebacks indeed slows, this limited supply environment should help position the market well to start eating away at the 23.5% vacancy rate - particularly as many functionally obsolete office buildings in the market begin to be aggressively repurposed for other uses. JLL estimates over 10 million square feet of NortheVirginia office buildings are slated to be transformed into residential development sites - a figure that is likely to grow. If all of that development took place, office vacancy could fall to approximately 17%, representing a significant boost to the health of the market even without any of the uptick in demand we expect.
We continue to believe that markets with the best amenities and transit access will be the "winners" in this process, but we also believe that, as we have demonstrated in
* * *
We are encouraged by the recent
5
Finally, our Chief Development Officer,
Thank you for your continued trust and confidence.
Sincerely,
Chief Executive Officer
6
Attachments
Disclaimer
Additional Proxy Soliciting Materials – Form DEFA14A
Third Quarter 2024 Q3 2024 Statistical Supplement and Notes
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News