Centerspace
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 23 Feb 2021

[Operator:]

Good day, and welcome to the Centerspace Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Decker, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

[Mark Decker:]

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. As you may know, we are now doing business as Centerspace and trading on the New York Stock Exchange as CSR. The Form 10-K for the full year 2020 was filed with the SEC yesterday after the market closed. Additionally, our earnings release and supplemental disclosure package have been posted on our website at centerspacehomes.com and filed yesterday on Form 8-K.

[Anne Olson:]

Thank you, Mark, and good morning. Like most people, our team was happy to put 2020 behind us and is cautiously looking forward to the opportunities 2021 will bring. 2020 was a year that was disrupted by working from home, quarantines, regulations, closures, cautious reopenings, cleaning and more cleaning, and a myriad of operational changes from virtual leasing to facilitating rental assistance for our residents financially impacted by the pandemic. In spite of that, we were able to perform well by focusing on the basics of the business, holding occupancy steady to optimize our revenue, closely monitoring our expenses and focusing on collections. In the fourth quarter, our weighted average occupancy increased 60 basis points over the third quarter of 2020, and 1% over fourth quarter of 2019. Our weighted average occupancy in 2020 of 98% was a driver of our 2.1% revenue increase for 2020 over 2019, and together with particularly strong revenue performance in our billings in Rapid City markets, as well as in Omaha and across North Dakota. As we saw developing over the course of the year, the headline of our portfolio performance was our smaller markets. We saw significant year-over-year NOI gains in these markets while our larger markets like Minneapolis and Denver, which faced more regulations, longer eviction moratoriums, and were impacted by higher unemployment rates. We're able to maintain strong occupancy, but saw rental rates decline. In the fourth quarter, we realized a blended decrease of 70 basis points on new and renewal leases. Just 16% of our leases expired in the fourth quarter, which highlights the large opportunity we have for the 2021 leasing season.

[John Kirchmann:]

Thank you, Anne. Last night, we reported core FFO for the 12-month period ending December 31, 2020 of $3.78 per diluted share, an increase of $0.06 or 1.6% from the prior year. For the quarter ended, December 31, 2020, core FFO was $1.02 per diluted share, an increase of $0.06 or 6.3% from the prior year. The increase in full year core FFO is primarily due to lower interest, G&A and property management expenses, partially offset by lower NOI due to dispositions as well as the impact of COVID-19 financial recession, reducing same-store NOI growth. Looking at general and administrative expenses, total G&A was $13.4 million for the year, a 7% decrease from the prior year. The decrease is primarily from the $720,000 of lower compensation costs driven by open positions left unfilled, $280,000 from legal costs related to our successful pursuit of a construction defect claim in the prior year and a $620,000 reduction in travel, consulting and other costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Offsetting these decreases was an increase of $400,000 from non-recurring costs related to our December 2020 rebranding net Centerspace. Property management expense was $5.8 million for the full year, a decrease of 6.2%, primarily driven by lower compensation costs due to unfilled positions and the reduction in travel and advertising. Moving to capital expenditures as presented on Page S15 of our supplemental. Full-year same-store CapEx was $10.7 million, an increase of $2.2 million from the year ended December 31, 2019. Full-year same-store CapEx was $1,008 per unit. The increase in CapEx was primarily due to $750,000 for replacement of a roof damaged by hail and the acceleration of capital costs related to assets undergoing value-add renovation. Looking at value-add capital, which has also presented on Page S-15 of the supplemental. We increased value-add capital spend $8.9 million to $13.9 million for 2020, reflecting our continued expansion of the value-add program since its 2018 reboot. Turning to our balance sheet. As of December 31, 2020, we had $97.5 million of total liquidity, including $97.1 million available on our line of credit. During 2020, we disposed of four apartment communities in Grand Forks, North Dakota, one commercial property, and one parcel of unimproved land for total sales price of $44 million. Proceeds from these sales were used to fund the acquisition of Parkhouse Apartment.

[Operator:]

Thank you. And our first question today will come from Guarav Mehta with National Securities. Please go ahead.

[Guarav Mehta:]

Thanks. Good morning. First question on the expenses. I was hoping if you could provide some more color on the technology investments we plan to make this year?

[Mark Decker:]

Good morning, Guarav. I’ll let Anne take that please.

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. Good morning. So, the technology investments really range from infrastructure investments into our core operating platforms, like our accounting system to moving our platforms onto what we call modern digital workplace with MS 365 and use of teams. So, it’s a phased approach and the investments will happen over three years. We do expect to gain some good efficiencies and better reporting, and data that we can use to make more data-driven decisions. And so we are expecting a good return on that investment over time. And this year is just the first stepping stone. we have started the implementation and our first implementation, which is our modern digital workplace and we’re moving into our second implementation, which is the deployment of the Yardi’s stack of products.

[Guarav Mehta:]

Okay. Second question on the investment guidance for 2021, I think, in your prepared remarks, you talked about aggressive pricing in Nashville and Denver and Minneapolis as well. So maybe, talk about, what kind of acquisition opportunities you’re seeing in the market. And I guess in terms of market, are you expecting to deploy more capital in Denver given that Nashville remains aggressive?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. Great question. I mean, the real honest answer is we’re not sure. We’ll have to see what comes our way. But what we’re seeing is that generally speaking older assets with lots of capitals are being priced pretty close to newer assets that have less capital needs. So, our – that tilts us towards wanting to buy newer assets with more modern systems and just less capital right in front of us. So in general, we’re looking at newer products, wherever we can find it. The Union Pointe is a great example that asset was delivered about now, probably 15 months or 16 months ago, and essentially stabilized during COVID. So, in our mind and opportunity to do better when things get better just in the overall economy. But listen, if everything is equal, we’ll be putting capital in Nashville; if things aren’t equal if ever – if the Nashville is off the table and everything’s equal between the Twin Cities and Denver, we’re probably putting capital in Denver, but we’re looking in the Twin Cities as well. So, I wouldn’t say that we’re way wide of market. We’re just – when you, it’s easy to get behind how these help our portfolio overall. it’s harder to figure how they add value in the very near-term. So, when someone wins one of these assets, we don’t think they’re crazy; they just don’t have to report quarterly numbers. And so I think we’re – they’re making a good bet. We think the bed still makes sense on the actual market. And hopefully, we’ll find a way to connect on some things that make sense for us kind of on both fronts. Good for the portfolio. Good for the shareholders in the measurable medium term.

[Guarav Mehta:]

Okay. Thank you. That’s all I had.

[Mark Decker:]

Thanks, Guarav.

[Operator:]

And our next question will come from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[John Kim:]

Thank you. So, it looks like you lost some momentum on the blended lease rates in the last couple of months of the quarter. Can you just share what the new and renewal rates were on that 70 basis points decline in the quarter and also what the blended lease growth rate was in January?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. Good morning, John. Anne, please go ahead.

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. Hi, John. So, our new leases in the fourth quarter were down 3.6%. Our renewals have held strong. They were up 2.3%. So that is the blended 70 basis point decline. And again, that was about 16% of our leases expire in the fourth quarter. So, a fairly small sample set, even smaller sample is our January leasing, which is only about 3% of our portfolio. We had really strong renewals at 3.6%. Our new leasing remained about steady at negative 3.5% blended for a negative 1.5% in January.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. So just to tack onto that, John, I mean, I think when we look at this year, I hope this was evident in our prepared remarks, but we’re not forecasting a lot of momentum in this. And what is the spring leasing season, where we do a lot of our work. So, we’re hoping we’re conservative about that. And if that – if the trends we just went through held, which year-over-year felt pretty good, both in the fourth quarter and January, we might be in better shape and more planning, but that’s the big question.

[John Kim:]

On that new lease rate, how much of that is concessions versus the phase rate change?

[Anne Olson:]

Yes, not much at all. So, we really tried to avoid concessions and look at the effective rents in our systems. Those concessions can kind of skew how you look at comps. And so there’s very little concessions in those numbers.

[John Kim:]

Okay. Mark, you just mentioned on that answer that you’re not projecting a lot of momentum and in your prepared remarks; you also discussed being prepared for the downside scenario in revenue. Can you just elaborate on why you’re being cautious? Is this supply risk or the eviction moratorium, some of your markets, or are there other factors?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. Anne, do you want to start?

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. so, we use data from CoStar and Axiometrics, and other advisors to kind of help us watch what the trends are and project into the future. And most of those resources, particularly through the fall and even into the winter months, when we were doing our budgeting and forecasting for next year, we’re projecting flat or declining revenue until the third quarter. So, we follow those trends, not exactly. We took it and extrapolated onto our experience with our portfolio and how we’ve outperformed those projections in the past. But that really led us to our conclusion that we were going to be conservative on revenue and start ramping up that revenue once we hit the third quarter. As we’ve discussed by the time we get to the third quarter are the majority of our leasing season, our leases have ruled. So, that’s really, what’s impacting it is our exposure to those, the second quarter and the beginning of third quarter is really pretty strong from an expiration profile standpoint. So, if we don’t get a pickup in the market, early in the season, then we’re going to be lacking in those leases for a year at fairly flat revenues.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. that’s what she said.

[John Kim:]

And Anne, what are you expecting as far as occupancy at 94.8%last year? Do you expect occupancy to check up or are you just trying to maintain?

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. I think, we’re really focused on maintaining the occupancy, really in a tight range this year. We think that we might see it go down 70 basis points or so. during that time that it goes down, we would expect that that’s our opportunity to be pushing rents up. But we’d really like to manage, given our conservative view of where revenue might be. We’re looking to manage our occupancy in a pretty tight bandwidth this year.

[John Kim:]

Okay. And my final question is on the insurance premiums increasing 15%. I think that's pretty consistent with what your peers have been saying. You're not in a lot of locations which have a lot of natural disaster risks or so it seems, can you just elaborate on that the big increase you’re expecting and also you expect it to moderate in 2022?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. So John, I think there's a couple of things going on. Number one is that the insurance market just generally speaking is not excited about habitational insurance right now because people live there 24 hours, and they smoke cigarettes and have parties and leak water and do all sorts of things that they don't do in office building. So we have seen a step away from that. We've also seen it, generally tough several years of real cat losses, across the world. And I mean, it's like a balloon, there's only so much money in the world for insurance. And then our particular issue, you're right. We don't really have a lot of hurricanes or things like that. We have hail. Hail is probably our biggest natural thing. And hail went from being an all other peril, meaning it was included in our sort of general policy to having its own rider, which was a pretty big hit. But we do expect it to moderate in 2022 based on what we're hearing from that market.

[John Kim:]

Great, thank you.

[Mark Decker:]

Thanks, John.

[Operator:]

And our next question will come from Amanda Sweitzer with Baird. Please go ahead.

[Amanda Sweitzer:]

Thanks. Good morning. Calling up on your fundamentals, you had a nice uptick in sequential occupancy in Denver this quarter. Have you seen pricing power improve at all in the urban areas of that market?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes, go ahead, Anne.

[Anne Olson:]

Yes, we haven't – we've – I think we're kind of holding at the bottom. There are some price points. Our renewals are starting to get some pricing power there, but the new leasing is still pretty effective, particularly in the urban area. We do have some non-same-store assets in the suburbs that are looking stronger, but those urban assets are still feeling pressure of supply and social unrest.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes, so that's RiNo in Weston, Amanda, or Dylan RiNo, excuse me, in Weston.

[Amanda Sweitzer:]

That's helpful. And then kind of higher level on capital allocation, as you think about portfolio construction, where are you comfortable expanding your exposure to Minneapolis and then Denver, you don't find those attractive opportunities in Nashville. And is there a point where you expand your target market list?

[Mark Decker:]

The answer is we're reasonably comfortable with a lot of exposure to these markets, a lot is defined by, I mean, I don't know. I could imagine we could go higher from here in each of these markets and if we find good opportunities, we will, that might push us to expand the list sooner or push us into Nashville, I’d say with greater energy. But I think on the one hand, as we've talked about having three markets was a big lift for us in terms of opportunity set. Because we went from two to three but at this time, we're holding there. I mean, I think we're always watchful for opportunities that are in other markets that are somewhat transformational, but we're not – those are hard to connect on and we – and they'd have to be in markets we really liked. So we've done a lot of market work. We have a top 10 market list. But for now, we're really focused in Nashville. And if we continue to miss, then we'll reevaluate, but it's only been less than a year.

[Amanda Sweitzer:]

Fair enough. Thanks for the time.

[Mark Decker:]

Thanks, Amanda.

[Operator:]

And our next question will come from Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please go ahead.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Good morning, guys. John, did you say how much you were expecting property taxes to be up?

[John Kirchmann:]

Excuse me. I don't think I gave that on there. But they are going to be up nearly 4%.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay.

[John Kirchmann:]

Less than what they went up for 2020 but still a big increase.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay. And is that certain markets or is that across the board for you guys?

[John Kirchmann:]

Yes, it’s really across the board. I mean, it definitely hits, for example, we got a couple of properties going from non-same-store to same-store in Denver that shift from timing wise are just now getting hit with the adjustment or the purchase price we paid for them. So, we do have some of those kinds of Denver will be hit hard this year, but really it's getting to where we underwrote it. So it'll just look, but generally speaking outside of that no, it's pretty much across all markets.

[Mark Decker:]

And you'll recall last year, we had a really big hit in Rochester and this year is much more kind of uneven.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay. And John, you were just addressing my next question. I mean, how substantial is the additions to the same-store portfolio as you roll forward here? And is that primarily concentrated in Denver?

[John Kirchmann:]

Yes. We have two assets coming on from Denver and one in Minneapolis. So a total of three assets and they are larger assets, so they'll make a bigger impact, but really you'll see it in Denver.

[Rob Stevenson:]

And is that one of the reasons – is that one of the drivers of the low end of the same-store revenue range as the addition of those assets into the same-store portfolio?

[John Kirchmann:]

The driver of the low end revenue range, I guess…

[Rob Stevenson:]

So you're at negative 50 basis points for same-store revenue growth in 2021. If those three assets were still excluded from the same-store portfolio, would the low end of the same-store revenue growth range be flat or plus 50 basis points instead of negative 50 basis points without those? I would assume that those under more pressure than your upper Midwest assets.

[Mark Decker:]

To say it in another way, are those new assets bringing down our revenue growth? Is that what you're asking?

[Rob Stevenson:]

Yes.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes, I don't think so.

[John Kirchmann:]

I don't have that in front of me, but I don't think so. In Denver, it's a suburban market. And then we also have a suburban, we actually have two assets coming in from Minneapolis. One is a smaller urban asset, which to your point might bring it down, but one is a suburban asset that should lift it up. So I think all, it's going to be – and the other thing, we have 2020, the baseline of those assets. So to the extent they were urban asset we met at the same-store in 2021, I mean, their comp for 2020 is not going to be a hard comp to compete against from a revenue growth perspective.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. And actually just to clarify, it’s two assets from Minne, not one.

[John Kirchmann:]

Yes, yes.

[Mark Decker:]

So the three assets that are coming in are FreightYard, which is a small asset that is in the urban core of Minneapolis; SouthFork, which is a good suburban-be that we've been undergoing some value add-on; and Lugano, which is a suburban in Denver.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay. And then, other than the same-store revenue growth, John, I mean, when you did the – put together the guidance, what's the major places where you were – you had the least amount of confidence in whether or not stuff was going to come in at the low end or the high end of your expectations here?

[John Kirchmann:]

Yes, I think revenue's always especially coming out of a year like 2020, so I think revenue is an area that we were getting a lot of data as Anne mentioned, same – there would be a recovery in 2021, but it would be in the later part of the year. If that happened sooner, I think that will be very positive for our portfolio for us to get after it. I think on the expense side, so there are some uncertainties there because we had a lot of lockdowns and our ops team really responded well there. They – as there weren't things for them to do it to property, they were stepping in to do the work that contractors would normally do. So trying to thread the needle on how do we bounce back in 2021, assuming properties are open the entire year, which of those savings will we be able to capture and make permanent and which will be returning to the norm.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. I mean, Rob, as you know, it was a humbling year in the prediction business. And as we've talked about, we're conservative on revenues and we're forecasting our guiding expense. I mean, we feel comfortable with our expense guidance and we're nervously watching on the revenue side. Now, again, our portfolio performed very well in 2020. But to John's point, everything's open again and so we're going to have it staffed and we're going to pay for those things. Things that didn't get done last year, your dryer vents, or whatever, are going to get done this year, we can do them twice, but we're going to do them and we didn't do them last year. And then on the human capital side, I mean, we have forecasts some reasonable inflation and lots of utilization of healthcare, where again, a lot of people didn't go to the doctor for six months and they might this year. And again, they're not going to go twice, but they're going to go. So we sort of have all those things underwritten to happen and we'll see.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay. And then last one for me. Anne, on the sequential same-store sheet, the average monthly rental rate for the fourth quarter was down 10 basis points from the third quarter levels, but revenue per occupied home was up 90 basis points. I assume the GAAP like many of your peers is mostly fees, but is there anything else in there, driving the diversion? And can you also talk about what you're seeing fee wise here to cause a sequential jump in that number of that magnitude?

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. I think in the fourth quarter we had a unique, the one-time revenue jump of $450,000 related to pulling forward and shortening the billing cycle on our RUBs as we converted to a new provider. So that's really the driver of that revenue in the fourth quarter.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay.

[Anne Olson:]

So it was one time. I do think – we are constantly assessing all the fees, this RUBs initiative as part of our rise by five, we think will allow us to collect more of the RUBs and increased revenue over time, but that $450,000 is a one-time driver in the fourth quarter.

[Rob Stevenson:]

And what percentage of the portfolio is on RUBs rather than individual billing for utilities?

[Anne Olson:]

I mean, almost all of it.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Even in the door stuff?

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. Yes.

[Rob Stevenson:]

Okay. Thanks, guys.

[Operator:]

And our next question will come from Buck Horne with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Buck Horne:]

Thank you, good morning. I'm just going to ask one of Amanda's questions just for a slightly different market. But if you've seen any difference in pricing or performance recently in Minneapolis/St. Paul, in terms of urban core performance relative to the suburban? Or just any characterization on how the different property locations are performing in the Minneapolis area.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. Good morning, Buck. Thanks for that. There's no question that urban core is a much tougher sledding from a pricing power and operational perspective. So we really have three assets that are affected kind of head on one is called Oxbow, which is right in the urban core in St. Paul. It's a bought from the Xcel Center, which normally is a very vibrant place. I mean, it's – we're getting close to the state hockey finals normally that place would be booked solid for 2.5 weeks and all the bars and restaurants would be going. And Ecolab is right there, there's 8,500 hospital jobs right there. I mean, there's just a whole bunch of things that are, make that submarket really awesome. And most of them are not operational right now. So if you're the executive from Ecolab who lives in our apartment and has been – and weekends at your cabin, which we have several of those they don't need an apartment this year and they didn't need it. They didn't need it when their rental came up. The two bars that are in our space there one is closed. One is doing their best, but really struggling, because when it's not hockey weekend, it's the wild or it's music or whatever. So a similar dynamic in Minneapolis, we have two assets Red 20 and FreightYard, which are both also in the urban core and just benefit from what is great about cities, which is food, music, people, sports, et cetera, adjacencies to the office. All those things are just kind of on hold right now. So we're seeing, I think last quarter we talked about this and I don't have the specific and may be able to add, but we were seeing lease-on-lease down 15% there. We are holding occupancy. And I would say, if you look at where we are in those three assets versus the submarkets, we’re more occupied, kind of three to five or six points, more occupied than market, but look until it's fun to be back in the city again, I think those assets are going to continue to suffer. In the suburbs, it is really a totally different story. Our product there, that's more that I would call, a product is, somewhat supply tested. But again, we're staying full. We’re seeing flat to modest, positive, or modest negative rents. And then in a suburban B, we're really seeing some pricing power and we've continued to execute on value-add. So I guess hopefully that answers the question, if not, please keep at it.

[Buck Horne:]

Yes. No, thank you. That's great transparency. Thank you for all that color. Thank you very much. Let's switch over to the – just the thoughts on the ATM issuance, the equity issuance throughout the year. Just, how are you thinking about potential timing of that? Do you anticipate a more ratable kind of just issuance over the course of the year? Is it going to be structured to coincide with transactions as they come up? How should we process or you're thinking about the ATM part of the capital raise this year?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. I mean, listen, we're price sensitive. So that – I guess we'd lead with that. But we're going to be fundamentally kind of thinking about it on a ratable basis. I mean we have – we enjoy right now access to that private placement market and that's something we really want to keep. So we have to watch. Our leverage ratio is there and with the union point, you might see us either raise ATM equity or dispose about that to kind of put ourselves back in line there and from a leverage perspective. But listen, we have lots of opportunities. We usually have a lot more opportunities than capital. And so that's the other governor. So it's price, it's opportunity, and it's kind of managing our overall balance sheet exposure. If I were – if you're asking a modeling question, John jump in, and if you think I've got this wrong, I would just model it ratably over four quarters. They don't let me answer on spot question. So John, do you want to confirm that?

[John Kirchmann:]

I will confirm that.

[Buck Horne:]

Great. Thanks, guys. That's great.

[Operator:]

And our next question will come from Daniel Santos with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Daniel Santos:]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question was on, I was wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about cash flow and dividend payout, just given the lower than expected guidance. It seems like the payout might be a little tighter than we would have anticipated?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. I suppose everyone, we don't report an AFFO number and as we've noticed the Street looks at it differently. We – based on how we count AAFO, which I think is reasonably conservative, we covered the dividend in 2020 and we’d expect to cover it in 2021 in both cases healthily, when you look at it on a 12-month basis. So, I don’t think we’re at risk of raising the dividend and I – as one trustee, I wouldn’t be in favor of cutting it.

[Daniel Santos:]

Got it. That’s helpful. And then just I was wondering if you could give us some color on naming some of those smaller markets that have performed really well, like the North Dakota to South Dakota is like, what’s your sort of outlook on those markets given their strength in 2020?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. I guess, I’ll start by saying, a lot of what we’ve done on the pruning assets. There are – what we call pruning assets has helped where we’ve left ourselves with a portfolio that is generally speaking younger, generally speaking higher rent and more efficient from kind of a human capital basis. So, it’s kind of started there, but then, Anne maybe, you could talk specifically about the operations.

[Anne Olson:]

Yes. I think on the – in the smaller markets, we have the advantage of not having the supply that we have – that we see in some of our larger markets and some of those smaller markets, particularly, Rapid City and Billings have benefited from in-migration. So, accelerated population growth that wasn’t expected in 2020 and that may continue into 2021. We have been somewhat conservative in forecasting out what we think will happen across North Dakota and in Billings and Rapid City given the historical slower growth of those markets. So, I think we did see a good increase this last year that we saw more people moving around. We’re able to push lease rents in those markets and those have been kind of bright spots in the portfolio, even in the fourth quarter and in January. But I don’t know that we think they’re going to outperform, the suburban market – particularly, the suburban markets as Minneapolis and Denver we think are going to perform just as strong and stronger than those smaller markets.

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. And it’s interesting. I mean, there’s a very strong broker we work with who’s based out of Bismarck, and she would say, hey, listen, we’re open. I mean, which setting judgment aside, I mean, it’s just easier to live and do business in a place, where you can do things. And I think that has been a powerful catalyst as well.

[Daniel Santos:]

Got it. That all makes sense. I appreciate the detail and congrats on a strong quarter.

[Mark Decker:]

Thank you.

[John Kirchmann:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

And our next question will come from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[John Kim:]

Hey, thanks. Just to follow up questions on your guidance. You guys mentioned that you expect bad debt to improve during the year. Is that contemplating your same-store revenue guidance for the year?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. I think for the year, our year-over-year, it’s almost flat, because if you remember, we didn’t – we had our normal around a bad debt in Q1, and I think Anne’s comments are talking about where we’re going to be by the end of the year. but yes, it’s that improvement is contemplated, but on a year-over-year basis, it really works out to be flat.

[John Kim:]

Okay. And your disposition guidance of $65 million at the midpoint, how realistic is this figure? Just given potential repositioning efforts.

[Mark Decker:]

I’d say it’s pretty realistic. I mean, I think this is our first year giving acquisition and disposition guidance. So yes, I mean, we’re serious about it. I mean, as was just pointed out kind of at the beginning of the last question, I mean, we do like the portfolios that we have in the Dakota’s now, a lot better than what we had before, because they’re more efficient, because they’re generally speaking higher rent and sometimes younger and so have less capitals. And so applying that lens is something that we think really does make a difference. We were very pleased to get off the sales that we got last fall, the $44 million in Grand Forks. And when we were out on the road and we talked to the teams and we said – when you talk to the teams before that happens, they’re all nervous and upset, because you’re going to sell the thing that they work at and they don’t like that. Then you do it. And we have the ability often to keep a lot of our – or all of our best people. And they’re like, ah, this is great. We were spending; it’s the 80/20 rule. We were spending all this time on these little things that have more problems. So, I mean, we believe in that, it’s certainly we have a track record for trying to make the portfolio more efficient and we’re going to continue to do that. So, really long-winded way to say we mean it.

[John Kim:]

So, your other markets are 10% of your same-store NOI, if you sell $65 million, where does that other market exposure go to?

[Mark Decker:]

Well, we’re not going to comment on which market we’re selling from. We have opportunities to improve the portfolio probably in every market, John. and I’m not trying to be flipped with you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s coming out of that other market.

[John Kim:]

Okay. And then you had rebranding cost of $400,000. Is that all you’re going to have, or is there more in 2021 and is all of our – all those costs going to be out of the back to core FFO?

[Mark Decker:]

Yes. That’s it for the expenses. I mean, now it’s just – we’ll sort of slowly be uniforms will be uniform, so everything else is just kind of in the budget.

[John Kirchmann:]

Yes. there won’t be future add backs, that was the total.

[John Kim:]

Were some of those costs in G&A or in the NOI, in the fourth quarter?

[John Kirchmann:]

They were all in G&A.

[John Kim:]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Mark Decker:]

Thanks, John.

[Operator:]

And this will conclude our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.

[Mark Decker:]

Thanks very much. And everybody, we appreciate your time and interest in Centerspace. And we’ll talk to you in a couple of months. Thanks very much.

[Operator:]

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.