Lument Finance Trust, Inc. (NYSE:LFT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Christopher Nolan: And then finally, on looking through the deck and looking at the LTVs, which are roughly 75%, 80% or so, what sort of rent haircut are you applying when you evaluate those LTVs?

James Flynn: I don’t think it’s – I mean when we are looking at the assets, it’s – each one is an individual evaluation, meaning basically, it’s going to be a view of what are the in-place rents. Most markets today have either somewhere in plus maybe two or three at the max to minus the same level, but some markets and submarkets are slightly different. But in general, we would be looking at in-place rents, particularly if there are – a lot of these assets are still renovating and are still moving through their business plans, albeit obviously, with whatever changes market conditions have wanted. And so there is real time data on what does it look like for renting new units today.

James Briggs: But we are certainly…

Christopher Nolan: You are using the stated rent, right?

Zachary Halpern: We are often doing rent rolls, right. So, it’s – this is real information. I think that perhaps it’s helpful to make a distinction between evaluating something like that CMBS bond in which you are looking at a type of data provided by the servicer versus looking at multifamily loans the way we are looking at it, which is asset management data, rent rolls, information that’s coming directly from the borrower that’s not necessarily been passed through beta, etcetera. So, it’s a lot more boots on the ground than you might see versus working at CMBS…

Christopher Nolan: And then – and I guess just FYI sort of [ph] in a portfolio for rent stabilized apartment buildings in New York City with 218 rent-stabilized units. And when you talk to bankers in this space, at least in New York City, they give a haircut to their reported rent roll of 25%, simply because what your reported rent is could be different than what the actual rent is, like if you get one month free or something like that. And if you are using what the stated rent roll is, doesn’t that sort of over inflate the value of the property on an LTV basis?

James Flynn: So, let me just address that specifically. So, when we look at rents, we are taking into account the leases, the concessions, right. We are not saying someone is giving two months free and then charging, we are using what the real rent is, right. So, concessions and things like that are not. But just also for context, we have seen or we will see by the end of this month, every asset in our portfolio within the last since June or July, the summer. So, over four months, we have gone out and visited every asset with someone from our team and visiting with the sponsor. So, to Zach’s point, just these are transitional assets, right, that had a business plan. They are not stabilized assets where a servicer pay someone to go out every 2 years to look at the asset, right.

We are in contact with our sponsors on a regular basis, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever is appropriate for the given asset and are physically out there seeing them. So, there is a little bit more engagement there. And real-time access to financial information than receiving a – to the point of is it a large portfolio where you are receiving information secondhand and you are making some assumptions. We don’t have to make those assumptions because we have the real data. There is not a…

Zachary Halpern: Yes. I would layer on top of that. A couple of things, right. One is the LTVs that are reported on the earnings supplemental are LTVs at a time of origination, which is not there. But the underwriting that is done in evaluating these assets is layering on all the nuances. We are not simply taking what the borrower gives us is as our underwriting, any nuance whether it be free rent for a month or two months or issues on stabilization or issues on occupancy. That’s all put into our underwriting and analysis as we are evaluating these loans, both at underwriting and an ongoing basis.

Christopher Nolan: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will close today’s question-and-answer session as well as today’s presentation. We thank everyone for joining today’s conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.

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