Tricon Residential Inc. (NYSE:TCN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Gary Berman: Yes. I think you’re going to see us do more of that, Eric. That’s what we’re going to do. I mean we can’t do that in perpetuity, right? You can’t do that forever because we only really have that kind of 4% cap home in certain markets. It’s not in all markets. So you have to keep that in mind. But yes, it absolutely makes sense to sell homes at 4 caps and take that capital and either pay down debt, or by the way, even potentially buy back our stock. So I think we’ve got a kind of a good cap — I didn’t talk about it, and answering kind of Mario’s question. I think there’s also a good capital allocation opportunity next year, where we can continue to sell homes at relatively high prices certainly compared to where our stock is trading and buy back stock or pay on debt.

Eric Wolfe: Got it. And I guess you mentioned that it’s only available for some percentage of homes. Can you put that in context, sort of which markets are you able to sell at 4%? What’s the difference between — in the other markets, more like in the 5s or I guess, even the 6. Just trying to understand like what percent would sell at 4%?

Gary Berman: Yes, it’s more the coastal markets, right? So I mean, obviously, in California, we’ve got low cap rates there. We’ve got probably some low cap rate opportunities in Nevada, certainly in Southeast Florida, although we’ve worked through a lot of that. So it might be, I don’t know, maybe another kind of 1,000 or maybe a couple of thousand homes, but that’s probably the extent of the opportunity.

Jonathan Ellenzweig: And I would just — sorry, this is Jon. I would just also add, the nature of the dispositions we’re making are really, in a lot of cases, homes we bought in 2012, ‘13, ‘14. And we might have been buying homes at $100,000 or $150,000 and now they’ve appreciated to $500,000 plus. So in many cases, the homes that we’re selling are not exactly consistent with the type of homes we’re buying today, which are more $300,000, $350,000 homes. And so there’s been a bit of a shift, I would say, the type of homes we’re selling versus what we’re buying today, so.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Adam Kramer.

Adam Kramer: Just wondering, if you don’t mind giving kind of the new lease kind of monthly figures for each month in the quarter. It’d be interesting to see how that trends over the course of the quarter.

Gary Berman: In the Q4?

Adam Kramer: Q3. I know you disclosed October, obviously, in the full quarter, but just a monthly for Q3.

Gary Berman: Kevin, do you have that available?

Kevin Baldridge: For each month, I don’t have it right now for each. If I can get back to…

Gary Berman: Adam…

Kevin Baldridge: Back to…

Gary Berman: We can get it after the call. Yes. Yes.

Wojtek Nowak: We’ll get that after the call for you.

Adam Kramer: Yes. Maybe on the guidance. Obviously, you kept the FFO range intact, but there’s been a modest lowering in the same-store NOI. I’m wondering if there’s something you can kind of comment on that that’s kind of the offset below the NOI line that keeps FFO €“ keeps the FFO range intact, just kind of the color on that.

Gary Berman: Yes, absolutely. I mean we are going to get some contribution from obviously, SFR into Q4 over Q3. So that’s part of it. But I think the big factor is we’re continuing to see real strength in our legacy for sale housing business, and we expect that to continue from Q3 into Q4. And one thing I’ll say is that in our master plans, many of them are very advanced. We’re seeing higher home prices, higher assessed values, and that results in more bonding capacity. You might remember, Adam, that we use infrastructure bonds. In Texas they’re called muds, to really finance and recover the infrastructure costs of these master planned communities. And when the assess value goes up, you get more bonding capacity and that additional bonding capacity essentially drops to the bottom line, it’s just cash.

So that means more cash coming back. You’ve seen that in Q3. You’re going to see that again in Q4. And that also translates into higher performance fees, which you’ll also see in Q4. So that should offset €“ now, if you’re looking at your model, that’s where the offset is going to come.

Kevin Baldridge: I have the numbers that you asked for. So do you want them €“ you want the — so the blended rent growth numbers for July were 72% in July, 68% in August and 65% in September, blended to a 6.8% for the quarter.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Kelcher.

Jonathan Kelcher: Just on the JV-3, do you have a targeted size for that fund? And how much — you said you’re going to be committing less to that one, but how much your total targeted commitment that you’re thinking about?

Gary Berman: Yes. I can’t — I wish I could tell you that, John. I just can’t. I can’t share that right now. But obviously, we have an idea of how much we’re going to raise. We’re just not going to share it at this point. But I’ll say this. The fund is going to be likely smaller than what we’ve done in the past because it’s going to be size of the current opportunity, which is also smaller. There will probably be more than one close — we’re certainly going to use less leverage. We’ve been targeting the past leverage of 65% plus. That could be 50% or lower. So that’s going to be a big change. And I would say our co-investment, instead of being in the kind of 1/3, might be closer to 20%, right, or 25%. So that’s all I can tell you at this point. And hopefully, we’ll be in a position to release details of that at the end of the year or early next year.

Jonathan Kelcher: Okay. And then secondly, just on the ERP system that you guys are implementing and had some costs in the quarter. What’s the total cost of the project? And maybe give us some color on the benefits that you expect from it?