Edited Transcript of CAR.UN.TO earnings conference call or presentation 27-Feb-20 2:00pm GMT

For the year ended December 31, 2019, we earned $56.2 million in NOI from the properties in Europe. ERES’ strong presence in the vibrant Netherlands market further diversifies our business and provides the opportunity for additional growth going forward.

We also continue to be pleased with our performance in Ireland, as you can see on Slide 6. Asset and property management fees for the year ended December 31, 2019 increased more than 10% to $8 million, driven by acquisitions and NAV appreciation. We expect our fee revenue will increase as IRES continues to grow its portfolio.

IRES also completed a successful equity raise in 2019, through which we increased our ownership position in IRES to 18.3%. This retained interest continues to generate a solid stream of dividend income amounting to $7.3 million [sic — see Slide 6] in 2019.

Turning to Slide 7. CAPREIT generated record portfolio growth in 2019, further increasing the size, the scale and diversification of our portfolio through accretive acquisitions. During the year, we acquired 9,241 residential suites and MHC sites in Canada and the Netherlands, totaling approximately $1.4 billion. These acquisitions have strengthened our market presence and are driving further economies of scale and operating synergies through our experienced and proven property management teams. We also sold 2,710 of our Netherlands suites to ERES. As of year-end, all our Netherlands properties were owned by ERES. Looking ahead, we continue to evaluate further accretive growth opportunities both in Canada and in Europe.

Turning to Slide 8. We’ve significantly expanded our presence in the manufactured home community business. We are now Canada’s second-largest owner and operator of MHC properties, with the acquisition of over 5,180 sites across Canada in the first half of 2019. Our MHC portfolio now represents approximately 19% of the total portfolio by suite and site count and 6.2% of our total NOI in 2019.

We really like the MHC business. Revenues are highly stable. With residents owning their homes, capital requirements and maintenance needs are significantly reduced.

MHC properties also provide another level of diversification within our portfolio. From a geographic standpoint, they enable us to have a presence in smaller markets we wouldn’t normally enter. Finally, they allow for greater operational efficiency as we are able to leverage the same platforms and people used across our other properties. We’re also investigating the opportunity to sell manufactured homes to current and new residents in our MHC properties. This will generate further potential growth in our MHC business. Looking ahead, we believe this strong market presence will generate solid, stable and growing returns for our unit holders over the long term.

Moving to Slide 9. We also continue to modernize our asset base by targeting the purchase of more modern, recently built and brand new properties in key growth markets. These new-build properties generate better and higher rents, attract stronger residents, require much less ongoing maintenance and capital spending, and strengthen the overall long-term diversification of our portfolio.

As an example, during the year, we completed the purchase of a 1/3 interest in King’s Club in downtown Toronto. This brand new luxury property is situated in the trendy part of Toronto, containing 3 residential towers, 506 suites in total. The property also contains commercial, retail and office space. Suites range across a number of sizes, with some designed for families. Going forward, we will continue to focus our efforts on purchasing newer, recently constructed properties that further strengthen our asset base and reduce the average age of our portfolio.

Turning to Slide 11. You can see our proven property management programs continue to drive strong operating performance in 2019. Occupancies remain at effectively full levels in both the residential and MHC segments of our business, while net average monthly rents continue to rise, driven by solid increases on turnovers and renewals.

Our track record of organic growth also continues, with same-property NOI up 4.9% for the year, with strong growth in our NOI margins. Looking ahead, we are confident this solid operating performance will continue going forward.

Driving this growth is our continuing ability to increase our average monthly rents in all of our markets. As you can see on Slide 11, we are seeing solid increases in monthly rent on both turnover and renewals in Canada, the Netherlands; and in our investment in IRES REIT in Ireland. Overall, the strong fundamentals and demand in all of our markets resulted in an overall 4.1% increase in our total stabilized net average monthly rents as of December 31, 2019.

Our diversification also allows us to capitalize on the attractive spreads between cap rates and interest rates in our markets, as you can see on Slide 12. The spreads in the Netherlands and IRES are particularly attractive, at roughly 2.4% and 3% respectively. And we don’t believe we will see any major negative change in these spreads for the foreseeable future.

Our fourth quarter results demonstrated the significant growth we are generating in our operating and financial performance, as shown on Slide 13. Revenues were up over 16% over the same quarter last year, driven by the positive contribution from our acquisitions, increased monthly average rents and continuing high occupancies. NOI rose almost 21%, with NFFO up a significant 25%. We also generated another quarter of strong organic growth with same-property NOI up 5.7%.

In addition, our growth continued to be accretive, as NFFO per unit was up 11.2%, despite the 12.4% increase in the weighted average number of units outstanding, resulting from 3 bought deal equity offerings we completed during the year.

Significant accomplishments we achieved in 2019, combined with the continuing strong market fundamentals in the residential rental business, drove record financial performance for the year, as shown on Slide 14. Revenues were up 13%, driven by the contributions from our portfolio, continuing near-full occupancies and increased monthly rents. This revenue increase generated a 15.3% increase in NOI, which in turn drove a 17.2% increase in our NFFO. Again, our growth was accretive, as NFFO per unit rose 5.7%, despite the almost 11% increase in the weighted average number of units outstanding. Looking ahead, we are confident this strong performance will continue.

I’ll now turn things over to Scott for his financial review.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [4]

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Thanks, Mark.

Turning to our balance sheet on Slide 16. We continued to maintain a strong and flexible financial position, with conservative leverage, strong coverage ratios and historically low interest costs on our mortgage portfolio. Debt to GBV strengthened to 35% at year-end, providing the financial resources and flexibility to continue our track record of strong portfolio growth. If we adjusted for the proportionate consolidation of ERES and the $450 million of cash on our balance sheet, our leverage is approaching under 33%.

Our mortgage portfolio remains well balanced, as shown on Slide 17. Looking ahead, our ability to top up renewal mortgages through 2034 will provide significant liquidity to fund our acquisitions and development pipeline. In 2020, we have $308 million in mortgages maturing with an average interest rate of 2.7%. Expected mortgage renewals and re-financings for 2020 are between $480 million to $530 million, excluding finance on acquisitions.

We are looking at additional debt strategies to lower all-in financing costs, increase the weighted average term of the portfolio and maximize top ups. With the recent drop in GoC rates, we have seen 10-year financing costs drop back below the 2.5% range, creating a tailwind for continuing lower interest costs. Our most recent deal was at 2.07% for a 7-year term.

On the liquidity front. Slide 18 demonstrates that we remain well positioned to continue our growth programs. To fund our growth, in 2019 we completed 3 successful bought [deal] offerings, raising a total of $1.1 billion in funds, including the overallotment options. As at December 31, 2019, we had approximately $146 million available borrowing capacity on our credit facility which bear an interest rate of 1.1% after factoring cross-currency swaps. And we have over $440 million of cash in short-term investments generating interest revenue at a rate of 1.5%. In addition, CAPREIT has investment properties with a fair value of over $940 million as at December 31 that are not encumbered by mortgage. Finally, our operating lease buyouts, if successful, could provide significant top-up financing in the coming years.

As you can see on Slide 19, our exposure in Europe, including our investment in IRES and our proportionate share of ERES is well hedged, at 83% by European debt. We are managing European exposure by utilizing a number of different tactics, with favorable impacts, including obtaining local euro third-party mortgages at very favorable interest rates, utilizing our euro acquisition and operating facility and entering in across currency swaps to further hedge our euro exposure. Currently, we have over $1.2 billion of euro denominated debt after factoring in the swaps.

During 2019, due to the use of these swaps, CAPREIT realized interest rate savings by borrowings and swapping into euros at a blended rate of 1.1%, instead of borrowing Canadian dollars at an interest rate of 3.4%; a significant financial benefit.

I’ll now turn things back to Mark to wrap up.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [5]

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Thanks, Scott.

There are also a number of long-term initiatives that we’ve undertaken to continue to add value across the business. On the development front. Our updated pipeline includes over 8,700 rental suites that we are targeting to go into the approval process this year. These units we primarily located in the strong markets of Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec; where demand remains high and monthly rents support profitable investment. Over the next few years, we’ll be focusing on pushing multiple application submissions and seeing through the approval process at the municipal level as required.

The focus on multiple application submissions with associated approval processes is designed to add significant value to these properties. Even if we do not move forward with construction all at once, these properties will be much more valuable with its new zoning provisions.

In 2019, we completed the conversion of an existing unoccupied commercial space at 2525 Cavendish Place, Montreal, into 52 rental suites which are now fully occupied. The total project cost came in at $6.9 million, which is under the estimated budget of $7.5 million.

In addition, we’ve previously shared with you our 2 most active applications in the GTA: 100 Wellesley and 141 Davisville in Toronto. These properties have been in approvals throughout 2019.

For 100 Wellesley, the Toronto City Council, on December 18, endorsed a settlement option. The hearing will take place in the first quarter of March 2020 at the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal. For 141 Davisville, the applications have been submitted, and we expect to receive zoning approval in July of this year. These 2 applications will add over 270 new suites to be constructed on land that we currently own, adjacent or connected to existing rental buildings.

In addition, we understand that investor expectations are constantly evolving. And over the years, we have observed an increasing interest in ESG disclosure within the real estate market. Slide 22 outlines our progress on implementing measureable ESG initiatives. Although CAPREIT has been applying sustainable practices for over a decade, we see value in developing an overall ESG strategy to help deliver programs and services to all of our stakeholders.

It’s with this in mind an internal and dedicated ESG team was established in early 2019 to further align our operations with the corporate strategy of being the best place to live, work and invest. We’re also happy to share that subcommittees were also formed as part of this initiative, and we have formalized an ESG policy effective 2020.

In conjunction with the release of our annual report, our debut 2019 corporate ESG report provides a strong narrative around our performance disclosure. The report is made available on our website, and we welcome you to review.

Looking ahead, our focus for 2020 is to prepare for inaugural submission into the global real estate sustainability benchmark. And we look forward to sharing our results with you at the end of 2020.

With our record operating and financial performance in 2019, we continue to focus on our long-term goal of making CAPREIT the best place to live, work and invest. To become the best place to live, we strive to enhance the lives of our residents by building strong relationships through our hands-on approach to management, a relentless focus on attracting and retaining the best residents and the use of new and innovative technologies to deliver on our resident experience.

To ensure we attract and retain the best people, we continue to use new and updated tools to help each other and our team members stay connected and up to date on CAPREIT and industry information. As one of Canada’s best employers, we continue to cultivate our talent pool and promote innovative leadership development programs to engage and help enhance their careers, while implementing state-of-the-art tools and technologies to become more efficient and promote a more collaborative working environment.

Most importantly, our ultimate goal is to enhance unit holder value. And CAPREIT has been one of the best places to invest for more than 22 years.

Thank you for your time this morning. And we would now be pleased to take any of your questions that you may have.

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Questions and Answers

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Operator [1]

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(Operator Instructions) Our first question is from Jonathan Kelcher from TD Securities.

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Jonathan Kelcher, TD Securities Equity Research – Analyst [2]

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First question, just on — the gains that you guys have been getting on turnover have been pretty consistent the last six or seven quarters. Do you expect any changes in that heading into 2020?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [3]

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No. There’s really no change in overall trend. We’re seeing very strong increases in BC, but they’re moderating slightly. We’re seeing increasing turnover results in places like [London], Ontario, and the suburbs of the GTA. But overall, we would be indicating no change in trend.

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Jonathan Kelcher, TD Securities Equity Research – Analyst [4]

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And then, just secondly, I guess, switching to the development today — I know it’s still early days for you guys there. But assuming you get the approvals for Wellesley and Davisville, would you be looking to go into the ground on either one of those in 2020 or 2021?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [5]

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I think, as you know, we are exercising a great deal of patience with the municipalities on this. As we get close to entitlement, we’ll revise our pro formas and make decisions at that point. I still remain cautious about Toronto with the current price of development fees and hard costs. Our goal right now is to get the zoning in place. We will pro forma with updated construction costs at that point. We’ll be giving better guidance, though, as we get closer to those approval dates.

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Jonathan Kelcher, TD Securities Equity Research – Analyst [6]

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Scott, on the G&A in Q4, I know you called out some costs there. What’s a good run rate going forward?

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [7]

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Yes. I think definitely you need to adjust for ERES. We’re obviously consolidating all their corporate G&A, as well as we did have some one-time costs. So we’ve provided some guidance for ERES within the ERES from G&A, so you can look through there to adjust that.

And I would say, generally, our run rate’s pretty good this year compared to next year, just [regular] inflationary increases. So it’s probably a good basis right now.

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Operator [8]

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Our following question is from Mike Markidis, from Desjardin.

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Michael Markidis, Desjardins Securities Inc., Research Division – Real Estate Analyst [9]

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Just on, I guess this year you guys experienced a fairly significant amount of volatility on the OpEx line. The decline of 2%, or 1.9%, I should say, on your stabilized portfolio this quarter — would that reflect sort of year-end true-up adjustments? Or was that just a normal quarter, so to speak?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [10]

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I’d say it’s a normal quarter linking. Each quarter, you’ll see, has its own seasonal characteristics. And as you’ve seen, the fourth quarter is traditionally quite light, because moving activity stops pre-Christmas. It’s also a matter of when we decide to take on preventative maintenance measures. We would prefer — and I know this is complicated quarter by quarter, just to take the annual run rate approach, which we feel is completely intact.

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Michael Markidis, Desjardins Securities Inc., Research Division – Real Estate Analyst [11]

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Maybe just switching to the focus on the top line, sort of one of the areas we wouldn’t expect to see as much volatility might be topline revenue. And I guess, year-over-year, the fourth quarter showed us 3.2% versus you were trending at about 5% and 4% the last few quarters. I’m just wondering if there was something specific there to explain why that would be slowing on a year-over-year basis.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [12]

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Again, I wouldn’t see seasonal adjustments. Again, we’re seeing no change in trend going into 2020. The rental markets are strong across the country and in Europe. But Canada’s leading the charge here, obviously. And we’re very, very comfortable. And we’re very comfortable with the new markets that we’ve gone into, that that will just help the process of delivering strong increases.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [13]

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The composition of growth is definitely a little different. Mark noticed that BC has — it’s still very strong, in high single-digit, low double-digit growth. But that has come back in from where we would’ve seen quarter-over-quarter. But we’re seeing additional strengthening in Montreal markets, Halifax markets, and some of the other ones that Mark was talking about, outside the greater Toronto area.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [14]

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We also, in BC — it’s noteworthy — that that’s where we had a lot of new construction acquisition activity. And the mark to market on those new construction assets are not the value-add market to markets. That’s why we go in with stronger cap rates. But just growing the modernizing portfolio aspects of our business in BC will naturally moderate increases.

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Michael Markidis, Desjardins Securities Inc., Research Division – Real Estate Analyst [15]

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I can’t remember, if you remind me, though — last quarter, I think you alluded to maybe getting in-place versus market rent estimates for your portfolio. Is that something you guys are progressing closer to now?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [16]

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We will continue to push forward on that, yes. You’ll hopefully see better disclosure from us in 2020 on those gaps. It’s an ongoing question. Obviously now, given the current environment that we’re in, we’ve always been cautious about doing it. But seeing no change in trend, it should be not difficult for us to give you some guidance on that, give the market guidance in general.

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Michael Markidis, Desjardins Securities Inc., Research Division – Real Estate Analyst [17]

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Last question for me before I turn it back. There’s probably no specific question here. But just given the continued emphasis on affordability, I was wondering if, when you guys do your underwriting on new leases — presumably you’ve got better tenants coming in — have you been monitoring sort of income coverage on leases in your portfolio? Or maybe if not, stated alternately, when you underwrite a lease, is there a general rule where you say at a certain level of coverage, we just wouldn’t approve this tenant?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [18]

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I’m really thrilled that you actually asked this question. Because what sets CAPREIT apart from every other REIT out there is the fact that the majority of our apartments now are at 50% of replacement cost. Okay? That’s put our rents, our core market rents, at 50% of new market rent. So when CAPREIT’s buying modernized assets, we target the $2 rent market, $2 to $2.30 market.

So from an affordability point, when you look at the overall CAPREIT portfolio, relative to Canadian census family income, our affordability index is about low 20%. So traditionally in housing, you use a metric of around 35%. In the new construction market, in some of the assets we’re seeing in Toronto, you’re seeing upwards to 60%, 70% in some cases. But the CAPREIT portfolio, because of the nature of what it is, and how we bought the buildings, and the fact that they’re significantly below replacement cost; we have a very affordable MHC segment. It’s highly, highly defensive, from an affordability point of view.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [19]

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Just to add to that. As far as tracking the data, though, due to privacy, we don’t maintain income levels of our tenants. So we’re not able to say specifically what our income levels are by building relative to rent. So in our investor debts, we’ve provided general population examples around our key cities and relative rent affordability. So those are on our investor slides. But we can’t maintain that data, unfortunately.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [20]

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What Scott’s saying is exactly correct. And just to add further clarification to that, we look at Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. And as Scott said, we take the family income for those particular nodes where our buildings are located, and we match that against our actual average rents. And that’s where you’ll see an affordability scale in the 20% range. So that is a very unique characteristic of CAPREIT and something to watch for when there’s new construction assets being built there. Because certainly, the affordability index on $5 rents is very, very different than the CAPREIT portfolio.

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Michael Markidis, Desjardins Securities Inc., Research Division – Real Estate Analyst [21]

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Congrats on a strong year.

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Operator [22]

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Our following question is from Johann Rodrigues from Raymond James.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [23]

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I joined late, so I might’ve missed this. What was the portfolio-wide turnover in 2019?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [24]

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It was 19%, down from 21% last year, and probably down from 35% 10 years ago. So we’ve definitely seen — in the markets with the strongest mark to markets on rents, we’ve seen low double-digit 10% to 15% turnover. We still maintain some markets that are higher turnover, like Alberta, et cetera. But yes, 19%.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [25]

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How far do you expect it to fall for 2020?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [26]

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I would think much of the same. And I would actually also — I think the characteristic we got to point out here is that despite the fact that we’re hitting lowest churn, we’re delivering highest-ever revenue results. And Johann, as you know, what that does, it just drives the mark to market even higher. As churn slows down and the market continues to drift upwards, the mark to market in the portfolio continues to grow. So the incredible benefit of the slowing churn rate is that the runway for deliverable rent increases gets longer.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [27]

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That’s a good bridge for my next question. I know Mike asked a question you guys were planning disclosing in 2020. But if you were to kind of take a stab in the dark as to what that mark to market would be, what’s the range?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [28]

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You know what, I’d rather give you, market by market, what those are. We will undertake to get that out. I think it’s important for the market to understand.

But you can simply look at the rent increases by region. And essentially, that is the mark to market. There’s a little bit more work to that. But if you want a general idea, look at the rent increases in each market. And that will be revealing to you what the mark to market is, when you blend in old leases with new.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [29]

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But definitely, we’re showing 13% on turnover nationally. We think it’s well in excess of 15%, probably approaching more like 20%. But we’ll get some more detail on that.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [30]

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Because it is growing.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [31]

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How many zoning applications are you planning on submitting this year?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [32]

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Well, there’s 8,700 in the pipeline in total. 8,700 units.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [33]

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Do you have a sense to how many you’d be applying for zoning this year?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [34]

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Those are all in progress.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [35]

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Oh, they’re all in progress? Okay.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [36]

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Yes. They were initiated in 2019; they’re going to continue throughout 2020.

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Johann Rodrigues, Raymond James Ltd., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [37]

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And last question, can you just explain what was going on with the greater Vancouver area? There’s like a stabilized NOI decline there?

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [38]

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Yes, I think there was definitely — a little bit of impact from energy cost was a small piece of it. Also, our staffing model changed a little bit there. Really, we were almost understaffed, and we kind of changed our regional model out there. So we saw a little bit of incremental cost as a result of that.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [39]

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And you also have the effect of, when you buy buildings that require lease up, you take vacant possession. And as you go through that lease up cycle, it starts to have an effect. It makes the results a little bit choppy, from a revenue point of view. But the vacancies obviously start at 100% and then grind themselves down. So once buildings are full, you have a more stable model.

But those are the buildings we’re able to buy at higher cap rates. Like we had one in particular that we had modeled vacant possession at 4.5 cap that worked into over a 5 cap, because we ended up getting stronger rents than possible. So there’s a give-and-take when it comes to taking the lease up.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [40]

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I would say where we are today is probably a good representation of next year. We wouldn’t expect to have continued cost pressures like we did year-over-year.

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Operator [41]

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(Operator Instructions) Our following question is from Troy MacLean, from BMO Capital Markets.

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Troy Raymond MacLean, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Analyst [42]

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For the large acquisition you made in Halifax, I was kind of curious, what level of market rent growth did you underwrite? And how would that compare to kind of the previous 3 or 4 years in that market?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [43]

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Well, we always model from a very conservative point of view. So I believe we’ve modeled NOI growth in the neighborhood of about 4%. However, we are extremely optimistic over what we think the rent increases can be there. And we are very confident investing in that marketplace. Because it’s quite, as you know, Troy, landlord-friendly rent increase legislation. We can ultimately determine where we want to go there with that.

Properties are definitely in a value-add state. There’s one brand new construction — well, 2 years old now. The rest are very much what we’d call our traditional value-add. And we think that we will have a strong return on our capital investment in those assets.

We are the dominant landlord now on the Peninsula in Halifax. There isn’t a landlord with more suites in the core, walking distance to the towers, than our portfolio now has.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [44]

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In 2018, we saw Montreal start to take off with mid- to high single-digit turnover growth. And we started to see that same phenomenon in Halifax this year. So [inaudible] —

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [45]

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Halifax has become one of the tightest markets east of Toronto.

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Troy Raymond MacLean, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Analyst [46]

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On the 2020 CapEx budget, you’re forecasting to spend less on suite improvements than you did last year. But tenant turnover is expected to stay the same. What’s driving the decline? Is it just the type of investment you want to make, or are you getting better pricing on some of the improvements?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [47]

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Reduced churn is a big factor. Reduced churn, the suites that turn most frequently tend to be newer leases. So the investments that are going into the real mark to market rents are the larger ones. So it’s very difficult to look at the suite program holistically when you’ve got all these different factors by region going on. I wouldn’t read anything into it, other than the fact that that number is driven by a number of factors.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [48]

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It’s very hard to budget suite improvements, to be completely honest. Because you don’t know what suites are going to turn over. We definitely see trends by region of which types of buildings we’re doing. But you don’t know which units are going to turn over. Sometimes it’s the same units, and sometimes it’s old ones. So it is a bit of a guessing game, unfortunately.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [49]

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There’s nothing to be read by the date, though, Troy.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [50]

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Yes.

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Troy Raymond MacLean, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Analyst [51]

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And then, I know this is probably hard to answer. But in Toronto, for example, what’s the range of value that can get added to a property when you get zoning in place for development?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [52]

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It’s not a bad question. The reference point for that would be land cost, in my mind. And we know that land is trading, on a per-unit basis, $150,000 to $180,000 per unit. So from a condo perspective, you could use that number. From a rental perspective, it’s got to be very close to $150,000 a door.

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Troy Raymond MacLean, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Analyst [53]

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So as you get the approvals in place, do you expect to have a fair value gain?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [54]

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That was the point we were trying to make in the presentation, is regardless of what we do with our development ambitions, once the properties are zoned, we have created the value. The value is there for someone, and will likely be us. But the value will have been created.

And I just want to add that on the two properties — the ones that I never stop talking about, because they’re taking so long — 100 Wellesley and 141 Davisville, there’s the additional value add, Troy, of the underground parking spaces.

So today, in Toronto, it costs north of $70,000 a parking space to build. So in terms of a competitive advantage, we have the land cost, and we have the cost of not building parking, which we believe gives us over $200,000 a unit in value to get started. Makes for very viable rental.

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Troy Raymond MacLean, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Analyst [55]

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And just one more question. I was kind of curious, just on the AGI process, is it taking longer to get through because of an increased level of applications? Or are things pretty much steady versus the last couple years?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [56]

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Well, CAPREIT portfolio is in exceptional shape. So the AGI opportunities are declining as we go each year [by year]. Because the properties are in such good shape, you have a window of time to add up your spend. And so we’re dragging that window as long as we possibly can to make optimal applications. That’s got a little bit to do with it as well.

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Operator [57]

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Our following question is from Mario Saric from Scotiabank.

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Mario Saric, Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division – Analyst [58]

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Just maybe sticking to the operations, specifically the market to market that Scott highlighted — the 15%, maybe closer to 20%, that we’ll get a bit more information over time — what would the estimated spend per door be to capture that, ballpark? Is it $3,000, $4,000 a door, or is that pure —

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [59]

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No, it really — again, this is so complicated. We’ll sit down maybe with the analyst community to help us here. But when we’re getting 30%-plus increases in rent, then you’re talking a $30,000 renovation. When we’re getting 10% increases in rent, it all is specific to the condition of the unit. So because this is not our first year of operation, we’ve got 20 years of rental programs behind us. And those rental programs, we’re doing various stages of work, depending on what the market needed or the unit needed. So sometimes they’re taking on a unit that has a kitchen that needs to be done, and that’s all. Other times, the kitchen’s been done; it’s just cleaning the unit.

So it really — there’s not a binary calculation to say x equals x. Except I will tell you that what we have are market rents in our system and existing rents that get turned over. Our staff has approval, if they can get rent over the established market rent, they do not require a budget if it gives a 3-year payback.

So the way we gear our staff is, the unit is going to, at virtually no renovation cost, deliver the market rent. If they feel renovation can give us a 3-year return, they’re allowed to run that budget however they deem fit. And the programs work very, very effectively that way. And that’s what we’re doing in 2020.

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Mario Saric, Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division – Analyst [60]

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And then, maybe sticking to 2020 — Mark, I appreciate your commentary on kind of looking at things on an annual basis, given timing on a quarterly basis and whatnot. So in 2019, you did almost 5% same-store NOI growth, 64.3% margin. Like when you look at 2020, given the increasing strength that you’re seeing in some of the suburban markets, potentially offsetting a bit of moderation in Vancouver, do you think that 2020 can see similar type growth in terms of same-store? And then, do you think that there’s margin expansion potential if you’re able to [inaudible]?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [61]

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I would do it — margins could move around. If we buy more MHCs, if we buy more new construction assets, that’ll naturally migrate our margins. We’ve got insurance pressures in terms of cost, we have some realty tax pressures in terms of cost.

But all that being said, I would prefer to answer the question, Mario, we’re very confident the portfolio can deliver more than 4% growth.

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Mario Saric, Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division – Analyst [62]

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And then, from a capital deployment standpoint, given the increasing rents, or the stronger rent growth that you’re seeing in the suburbs, is the plan to potentially allocate more capital to the suburban markets given your very kind of downtown core type portfolio? Is that changing over time?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [63]

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I would love to be able to target acquisitions like that. Instead, we target markets, and we underwrite everything that comes to market, which is limited. So CAPREIT has its established markets. We consider ourselves the urbanizing apartment REIT.

So markets that are going through a significant urbanization, those are the ones that we’ve identified. You won’t see us going into any new markets. That’s certainly not in the plan. You never say never. But if it’s not an urbanizing market, a large Canadian urbanizing market, we cover those markets completely. We model with discipline our acquisitions. And if we see accretion and growth, then we will bid to achieve the right results. We won’t overpay, but we’ll cover the markets.

But to answer your question, I would love to find opportunities in those suburban type locations. But we’ll be covering the markets that CAPREIT’s currently in.

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Mario Saric, Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division – Analyst [64]

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And then, just shifting gears to the development pipeline — you’re providing a pretty specific number at 8,790. It’s a bit below kind of the in excess of 10,000 that you were talking about previously, can you maybe reconcile those two numbers for us?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [65]

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I’m really trying to get — as I think you’ve also heard me say, Mario, we’re seeing here at CAPREIT how long this process is. And our portfolio is in many, many different municipalities. And we’re learning as we go here that it’s a very long process. So I’m, in typical CAPREIT fashion, trying to be as conservative as we can possibly be with, A, the number of units that we will get zoned; and the only ones that we deem are market viable.

So I would stick to that. We’ll continue to give guidance. But I’m really trying to message — I want to give more detailed guidance on the projects that we see coming to market in the next 12 months. And looking out, I find it interesting, but it’s so hard to know whether that’s year 2 or year 3. So we will be focusing our disclosures on actual activities within the calendar year in 2020. And as we get closer to 2021, the same there.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [66]

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But just to reconcile, that’s applications going in 2020. It doesn’t mean we don’t have 10,000-plus still of total opportunities. So that number hasn’t changed. It’s more of just here’s what we’re actively working on today, and that we think we can execute on within the next 12 months to get applications in.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [67]

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Scott’s absolutely right, we do see the opportunity being bigger than that. But I’m trying to message down. Because it does take so long.

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Mario Saric, Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division – Analyst [68]

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And then, just on the time line, if we look at the Cavendish disclosure, it took almost 3 years from date of application submission to full lease up. And that was a smaller development. Is that kind of a reasonable time line to think about, in terms of the 8,790?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [69]

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Again, I’d be cautious on that. Every municipality is different. The process is getting more regulated, it’s getting more cumbersome. It’s more demanding. Again, it’s just caution, Mario. And I’m trying to give a bit of a taste of what could happen. But really, caution over the time lines.

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Operator [70]

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Our following question is from Brad Sturges from IA Securities.

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Bradley Sturges, Industrial Alliance Securities Inc., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [71]

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Just to follow up on that — obviously, it’s well known how slower pacing you’ve had in Toronto. Are you expecting the process to be that much different in other markets like BC in terms of time line or process to get the development applications approved?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [72]

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Well, I’ve talked to a lot of people. And I would say, generally speaking, Toronto is the most difficult place. I think CAPREIT has one of the biggest challenges. Because our properties are right dead center in the core of these cities, where zoning is the most difficult.

So even in Toronto — if I was in Scarborough, it would be easier than the Davisville and Wellesley. I’m right absolutely in [centerized] locations, which is the good news. The bad news is our process takes much, much longer because of the prime nature of the sites.

So when you get to places like Montreal, we actually find it much better. Places like Pickering are just unbelievable. They’re knocking down our door saying, let’s get going. So it’s a very, very different proposition for CAPREIT because of our centerized locations. If we were in the outside regions, it would go more quickly. But we have rate payer issues that others don’t have, we have political, municipal politics that others may not have. But the good news is once we get there, it’s going to be incredible.

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Scott Cryer, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CFO [73]

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The type of build also changes the equation. We have a [Memeco] site that’s multiphase development over 2,000 units that obviously going to take much longer to get through and to build out. Because it’ll be done in phases versus single towers that are a little bit more straightforward. So each project comes with its own specific time lines as a result of that.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [74]

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And Brad, we’re not the only apartment REIT with this, but some others that are trying to build apartment buildings. We have the incredible advantage of we’re not sitting on costly land here. Our land is paid for. And time will be our friend. So highest and best use is definitely my objective, not [speed]. Speed is frustrating, but it will deliver ultimate value to CAPREIT shareholders in the long run by being patient here and waiting for highest and best use.

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Bradley Sturges, Industrial Alliance Securities Inc., Research Division – Equity Research Analyst [75]

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Just last question, just maybe back to the turnover rate. Based on the portfolio construction or composition today, how low could turnover rate theoretically go structurally?

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [76]

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Structurally, you can only look at worldwide examples. And we have very, very different dynamics here in North America. But I have not experienced many rental buildings that go below 12%. And the nature of the location of our properties — we’ve got families, we’ve got young professionals. People don’t — as much as they’ve got maybe good rental deals, they want to move on to home ownership. And changes in life are bigger in our Canadian big cities than they are in other places.

So certainly not a European situation here. Canadians still aspire to home ownership, and that will always happen.

I think we’re near the bottom.

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Operator [77]

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Thank you. We have no further questions registered at this time. Back to you, Mr. Kenney.

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Mark Kenney, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust – CEO, President & Director [78]

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Thank you very much. We’re very, very proud of our accomplishments at CAPREIT this year. Thank you for your time, thank you for your attention. And if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time. Have a great day, and take care.

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Operator [79]

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Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. And we thank you for your participation.