Camden Property Trust (CPT) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool. Camden Property Trust (CPT 1.24%)Q4 2024 Earnings CallFeb 07, 2025, 11:00 a.m. ETContents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Kimberly A. Callahan -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations Good morning, and welcome to Camden Property Trust fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I'm Kim Callahan, senior vice president of investor relations. Joining me today are Ric Campo, Camden's chairman and chief executive officer; Keith Oden, executive vice chairman; and Alex Jessett, president and chief financial officer. Today's event is being webcast through the Investors section of our website at camdenliving.com, and a replay will be available shortly after the call ends. And please note, this event is being recorded. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to advise everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and beliefs. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Further information about these risks can be found in our filings with the SEC, and we encourage you to review them.Any forward-looking statements made on today's call represent management's current opinions, and the company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements because of subsequent events. As a reminder, Camden's complete fourth quarter 2024 earnings release is available in the Investors section of our website at camdenliving.com, and it includes reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures, which will be discussed on this call. We would like to respect everyone's time and complete our call within one hour. So, please limit your initial question to one then rejoin the queue if you have a follow-up question or additional items to discuss. If we are unable to speak with everyone in the queue today, we'd be happy to respond to additional questions by phone or email after the call concludes. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Ric Campo. Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Kim. Good morning. The theme of our on-hold music this quarter is It's Time to Move On. The late great Tom Petty captured the current sentiment of Team Camden in this verse: It's time to move on. It's time to get going. What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing. But under my feet, baby, grass is growing. It's time to move on. It's time to get going. After a few years waiting somewhat impatiently for better investment opportunities in our markets, we believe 2025 is the year for Camden to move on. In 2024, we saw multifamily deliveries reach a peak level not seen in over 40 years. We expect new supply pressure to lessen throughout 2025, setting the stage for a return to improved revenue and net operating income growth. As the headwinds in recent years turn into tailwinds in 2025 and beyond, there are attractive opportunities for us to continue development starts and to pursue acquisitions. The positive market backdrop positions Camden to be executing our 2025 strategic plan. The plan follows a similar playbook that we executed after the great financial crisis, where we acquired 2.7 billion in apartments with an average age of four years, developed 4.2 billion of apartments and sold 3.8 billion of apartments with an average age of 24 years. Recycling capital in this way keeps our portfolio competitive, lower its capital expenses, and accelerates our return on invested capital, driving long-term core FFO growth. It's time to move on. It's time to get going. I want to give a big shout-out to team Camden for their outstanding performance in 2024, exceeding our operating budgets by a wide margin despite record supply. Team Camden works smart, implementing new technologies that continue to improve customer experiences and reduce costs. Occupancy and rents in most Sunbelt markets have likely bottomed. Resident retention and customer sentiment remains high. The premium to own versus rent continues to be at historic levels, making apartment homes a more affordable and attractive option for consumers. Wage growth has outpaced rent growth for the past couple of years, strengthening our resident's financial prospects and improving rent-to-income ratios. Population growth to our Sunbelt markets continues to outpace the nation. Texas and Florida added over a million new residents in 2024, which was nearly one-third of the nation's population growth. Each new family needed a place to call home. Texas and Florida are projected again to lead the nation's population growth over the next five years. The state in which Camden operates captured 58.3% of the U.S. population growth. This long-term megatrend continues to produce outsized housing demand in our markets. We know it's time to get going, but we'll not move on from Camden's why, which as many of you know, is to improve the lives of our teammates, our customers, and our stakeholders one experience at a time. Keith Oden is up next.D. Keith Oden -- Executive Vice Chairman Thanks, Ric. Camden's same-property revenue growth was 1.3% in 2024 with most of our markets achieving results within 100 basis points of their original budgets. San Diego, Inland Empire, and Washington, D.C. Metro, both outperformed our expectations, while Austin and Nashville came in slightly below budget. For 2025, we anticipate same property revenue growth of 1% within the majority of our markets falling between zero and 2%. Our top five markets should see revenue growth in the range of 2% to 2.5%, and these markets account for over 40% of our budgeted revenue. Several of these markets were top performers last year, including Southern California, Washington, D.C. Metro, and Houston, and we expect Tampa to join them as one of our top markets this year. Our next eight markets are budgeted for revenue growth between zero and 1%, and they comprise over half of our 2025 budgeted revenue. These markets include Denver, Atlanta, Phoenix, Raleigh, Orlando, Southeast Florida, Dallas, and Charlotte. In our last two markets, Nashville and Austin, which represent 6% of Camden's revenues, these markets were down roughly 3% on revenues last year and are expected to remain challenged this year given the continued levels of new supply coming online. We expect them to decline another 0% to 3% this year, but we're cautiously optimistic that they will end 2025 in a better position than where they started. As many of you know, we have a tradition of assigning letter grades to forecast conditions in our markets at the beginning of each year and ranking our markets in order of their expected performance during 2025. We currently grade our overall portfolio as a B with a stable outlook, slightly better than our B rating with a moderating outlook last year. Our full report card is included as part of our earnings call slide deck, which is incorporated into this webcast and available on our website. The overall economy remains healthy, and we expect our Sunbelt-focused market footprint will allow us to outperform the U.S. outlook. We expect to see continued in-migration into our markets and strong demand for apartment homes given the relative unaffordability of buying a single-family home. We reviewed supply forecasts from several third-party data providers, and their projections range from 160,000 to 230,000 completions across our 15 markets over the course of 2025, compared with 230 to 280 apartments delivered in 2024. Despite the wide range of estimates, the unanimous conclusion from each firm was that supply in our markets peaked during 2024 and will be declining as we move through 2025, setting up 2026 to be a below-average year for new supply. As a reminder, these supply estimates are totals for each of the MSAs, and not all of this new product will be competitive with our existing portfolio given various submarket locations and price points. As I mentioned earlier, we expect revenue growth in the range of 2% to 2.5% for our top five markets. Four of Camden's markets received a grade of A- with varying outlooks of improving, stable, or moderating. Tampa earns an A- with an improving outlook, and it should be one of our best performers this year given strong occupancy levels, manageable supply, and a boost in demand that we saw during the fourth quarter of '24. Our Southern California markets would be next with both L.A., Orange County and San Diego Inland Empire are expected to finish in the top three again as they did in 2024. Their growth rates are expected to slow a bit during 2025, given slightly higher levels of supply, and less of a tailwind from bad debt declining, thus they received stable to moderating outlooks. Washington, D.C. Metro would also rank as an A- with a moderating outlook. Supply remains in check, particularly in our submarkets in Northern Virginia and Maryland, and we expect revenue growth to be slightly below the 3.7% achieved last year. Houston rounds out the top five with a B+ rating and a stable outlook. Houston ranked No. 5 for revenue growth in 2024, and this year should see more with limited supply and healthy demand. Most of our eight markets received a B grade with one B+ and two B- ratings, and we're budgeting revenue growth of zero to 1% in all eight. We rate Denver as a B+ with a moderating outlook and expect the revenue growth to be closer to 1% this year versus 1.6% last year, given moderating supply coupled with moderating job growth. Atlanta ranks as a B performer with an improving outlook mainly due to the progress we've made in reducing bad debt and fraudulent activity. Phoenix and Raleigh are next, integrated B with stable outlooks. Followed by Orlando in Southeast Florida with Bs, but moderating outlooks. Phoenix, Raleigh, and Orlando should all see slight declines in supply over the course of 2025, but pricing power in those markets will likely be limited for most of this year. Southeast Florida was one of our top performers in 2024, and we expect to see moderation from the above-average occupancy levels we achieved there last year. Dallas earns a B- with a stable outlook again this year, with minimal revenue growth expected in 2025. While Dallas still ranks as one of the nation's top metros for job growth and migration and quality of life. The market is still working through much of the new supply that was delivered over the past year. And Charlotte is rated B- with a moderating outlook. The aggregate level of new supply coming online in the Charlotte MSA is still elevated this year, and we expect our main competition will continue to fall in the uptown South End submarket. And finally, Nashville and Austin received the same grades as last year with C and C-, respectively. Both markets posted negative revenue growth in 2024 and will likely repeat that in 2025 as new supply continues to pose a challenge. Our outlook for Nashville is improving, particularly outside of the downtown CBD area, while Austin's outlook is stable. Now, a few details on our fourth quarter 2024 operating results. Rental rates for the fourth quarter had signed new leases down 4.7% and renewals up 3.2% for a blended rate of negative 1.2%. Renewal offers for February through April were sent out at an average increase of 4%. And as expected, move-outs to purchase homes remained very low at 9.6% for both the fourth quarter '24 and the full year of 2024. I'll now turn the call over to Alex Jessett, Camden's president and chief financial officer.Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Thanks, Keith. Before I move on to our financial results and guidance, a brief update on our recent real estate activities. During the fourth quarter of 2024, we completed construction on Camden Durham, a 420-unit $145 million community located in the Raleigh-Durham market of North Carolina, which is now almost 80% leased. In Camden Long Meadow Farms, a 188-unit $72 million single-family rental community located in suburban Houston, which is now almost 55% leased. Additionally, we continued leasing at Camden Wood Mill Creek, a 189-unit $72 million single-family rental community also located in suburban Houston. Subsequent to quarter-end, we acquired for approximately $68 million Camden Leander, a newly constructed 352-unit suburban Austin community, which is currently 85% occupied. This community was purchased at a stabilized yield of 5%. Turning to financial results. Last night, we reported core funds from operations for the fourth quarter of 2024 of $190.4 million or $1.73 per share, $0.03 ahead of the midpoint of our prior quarterly guidance. This outperformance resulted from $0.005 in higher other income and $0.025 in lower operating expenses, driven entirely by lower-than-anticipated core property insurance claims and lower final tax valuations. For 2024, we delivered same-store revenue growth of 1.3%, expense growth of 1.8%, and NOI growth of 1.1%. Our 1.8% full-year expense growth was driven primarily by declines of 0.2% and 16.9% on property taxes and insurance, respectively. You can refer to Page 24 of our fourth-quarter supplemental package for details on the key assumptions driving our 2025 financial outlook. One of the key drivers of this year's guidance is an uptick in acquisition and dispositions with a midpoint of $750 million anticipated for each. Operating a geographically diversified portfolio helps ensure consistent cash flow for our investors. Over the next few years, consistent with past messaging, we will seek greater market balance by reducing our exposure to our two largest markets, D.C. Metro and Houston, through a combination of select dispositions and growth in our other existing markets, with a target of no one market representing more than 10% of our net operating income and no market representing less than 4% of our net operating income by the end of 2027. Additionally, we will dispose of older, more capital-intensive assets and redeploy the proceeds into newer, faster-growing communities. As we execute this plan, depending upon the location and age of the disposed communities, there may be zero to 100 basis points negative FFO yield differential for these matching transactions, while we expect AFFO yields to be relatively flat. The end result will be a more geographically diverse, newer, and faster-growing portfolio. We expect our 2025 core FFO per share to be in the range of $6.60 to $6.90, with the midpoint of $6.75, representing a $0.10 per share decrease from our 2024 results. This decrease is anticipated to result primarily from an approximate $0.06 per share increase in core FFO related to the growth in operating income from our development non-same-store and retail communities, resulting primarily from the incremental contribution from our five development communities in lease-up during 2024 and/or 2025. A $0.01 per share net increase from the timing of our assumed $750 million of offsetting acquisitions and dispositions. For tax efficiency purposes and to facilitate reverse 1031 exchanges, we are anticipating completing the acquisitions on average two months before they're matching disposition. This $0.07 cumulative increase in anticipated core FFO per share is offset by a $0.10 per share increase interest expense attributable to $250 million of higher average anticipated debt balances outstanding in 2025 as compared to 2024, and lower levels of capitalized interest as we complete certain development communities. The higher debt balances resulted in part from the timing of our position and disposition activity. For 2025, we are anticipating $485 million on average outstanding under our line of credit with an average rate of approximately 4.9%, a $0.04 per share decrease in interest and other income due to minimal cash balances in 2025, and an approximate $0.03 per share decrease in core FFO, resulting primarily from the combination of higher general and administrative and property management expenses. At the midpoint, we are expecting flat same-store net operating income with revenue growth of 1% expense growth of 3%. Each 1% increase in same-store NOI is approximately $0.09 per share in core FFO. Our 2025 same-store revenue growth midpoint of 1% is based upon a flat earning at the end of 2024 and an effectively flat loss to lease. We expect a 1.4% increase in market rental rates from December 31st, 2024, to December 31st, 2025. Recognizing half of this annual market rental rate increase results in a budgeted 70-basis-point increase in 2025 net market rents. We are assuming occupancy averages 95.4% in 2025, a 20-basis-point annual improvement, and that bad debt average 70 basis points in 2025, a 10-basis-point annual improvement. When combining our 70-basis-point increase in net market rents, with our 20-basis-point increase in occupancy and our 10-basis-point decline in bad debt, we are budgeting 2025 rental income growth of 1%. Rental income encompasses approximately 90% of our total rental revenues. The remaining 10% of our property revenues is primarily comprised of utility rebilling and other fees and is anticipated to grow at a similar level as our rental income. Our 2025 same-store expense growth midpoint of 3% does not contain any significant category outliers. Page 24 of our supplemental package also details other guidance assumptions, including the plan for up to $675 million of development starts spread throughout the year and approximately $285 million of total 2025 development spend. Noncore FFO adjustments for the year are anticipated to be approximately $0.10 per share and are primarily legal expenses and expense transaction pursuit costs. We expect core FFO per share for the first quarter of 2025 to be within the range of $1.66 to $1.70. The midpoint of $1.68 represents a $0.05 per share decrease from the fourth quarter of 2024, which is primarily the result of an approximate $0.04 per share sequential decline in same-store NOI, driven by an increase in sequential same-store expenses resulting from the timing of quarterly tax reforms, the reset of our annual property tax accrual on January 1st of each year, and other expense increases, primarily attributable to typical seasonal trends, including the timing of on-site salary increases; and an approximate $0.015 per share increase in interest expense from our higher debt balances resulting in part from our actual and anticipated first-quarter acquisitions. This $0.055 per share cumulative decrease in quarterly sequential core FFO is partially offset by an approximate $0.005 per share increase in core FFO related to our first- quarter acquisition activity. We are anticipating blended lease trade-outs for the first quarter to be relatively flat. At year-end, approximately 80% of our debt was fixed rate. We had less than $200 million outstanding on our $1.2 billion credit facility, no maturities over the next 12 months, and less than $250 million left to fund under our existing development pipeline. Our balance sheet remains strong with net debt-to-EBITDA at 3.8 times. At this time, we'll open the call up to questions. Questions & Answers: OperatorWe will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] And your first question today will come from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.James Feldman -- Analyst Great. Thanks for taking my question. So, I was just hoping you could provide some more color on your blend assumption. Can you talk about what you're thinking in a new and renewal lease growth throughout the year? And how do you think it trends first quarter through fourth quarter?Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Sure, absolutely. So, the way I would look at it for the full year is we're anticipating somewhere between 1% to 2% on a blend. And if you look at new leases, new leases will be slightly negative for the full year, and renewals will probably be in the high 3% range. If I look at how that progresses throughout the year, obviously, we are very optimistic about the way 2025 is going to unfold, in particular, with the absorption of the new supply now. And so, we're anticipating that by the time we get to the third quarter, this is where we'll start to see positive new leases. And then it will continue from that point on.James Feldman -- Analyst OK, thank you.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.Brad Heffern -- Analyst Yeah, hi. Good morning, everyone. Are you seeing signs right now of the impact of supply trading on the ground? And if so, what are those lines?Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer We absolutely are.Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Go ahead, Alex.Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer We absolutely are. And the largest indicator that we're looking at is the new signed new lease improvement throughout the fourth quarter. And although we are not going to give quarterly -- excuse me -- monthly new lease and renewal data, I will tell you that we're very encouraged by what we're seeing so far in January in terms of signed new lease improvements.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.Sanket Agrawal -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst Hi, thanks. This is Sanket on for Steve. I had a question around transaction guidance. So, after a muted couple of years from transaction market standpoint, it seems like things are opening up and you're guiding to 10 million, 15 million of acquisitions and exposures. Can you help us provide more color on in terms of timing, cap rate, what are the type of buyers and seller pools you're seeing in the market today?Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sure. So, when you think about the last couple of years, it's been a very muted sales transaction markets. And what's happened primarily is that buyers and sellers have been sort of at odds, right? Sellers want high prices, and buyers don't want to pay high prices. And so, that's created a standoff between buyers and sellers. So, transaction volume has been significantly lower in the last couple of years. But I think what's happened now is that with rates continuing to be higher for longer, it sort of put pressure on the sellers. And then also on the buyer side, you have a pretty constructive view of the future. Most notably, supply has peaked for sure and that 2025 is going to be a better year than 2024 from an accelerating growth perspective. And then in '26, '27, you're going to have some pretty outsized rental increases. So, what that's allowed buyers to do is to increase their pro forma rent growth and feel pretty confident about that so that they can actually pay maybe a higher price than they've thought before because the inflection point of positive second derivatives on rental rates is going to happen sometime during in 2025. So, what that's led to then is sort of a closing of the gap, if you want to call it that, between the buyers and the sellers. And from our perspective, since we're going to be recycling capital, we're going to be buying. And then as Alex pointed out earlier, we're going to be selling to fund those acquisitions. And as we did in our last big acquisition/development disposition cycle, we thought -- we think that this next couple of years is going to be pretty much like it was, sort of after the great financial crisis and where you have a lot of transactions that have to move and you're going to have a lot of activity. And I think that that -- it sets up really well for us to recycle capital into get more aggressive on the acquisition side and the development side going forward.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Jeff Spector with Bank of America. Please go ahead.Jeffrey Spector -- Analyst Great. Thank you. Ric, I'll ask a follow-up to that point. I mean, post-world financial crisis, there was a lot of distress. And as of today, I'd say we're hearing mixed things are not really hearing to stress. What are you -- I guess, what are you seeing and hearing that gives you confidence that there will be similar distress that Camden can take advantage of? Thank you. Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sure. Well, when you go back to the financial crisis, there was a moderate distress, but it was primarily in '08, maybe '09 and '10. After that, there's really no distress. I mean, if you think about what happened, the Fed took interest rate to zero, and the FDIC and the Federal Reserve propped up the banks by saying they didn't have to mark-to-market construction loans. And so, that eliminated a lot of the distress that people thought was going to happen after the great financial crisis. And today, the difference today during the GSE was that -- as a result of the GSE, leverage is over leveraging, which is not part of the equation today. And banks have significantly decreased their commercial real estate exposure, and they've also diversified in their commercial real estate exposure. So, banks are stronger. Borrowers are stronger. And you're in a situation where there's no real pressure on borrowers or the banks to force people to sell. And that, of course, is what creates distress. Now, there's clearly distress in the sort of C an D part of the market, where you had syndicators raising money online and through GoFundMe pages or buying pretty low-quality properties and leveraging them up. And there's been some significant stories about that kind of distress, but not in the institutional investor quality space. I mean, today, investors are -- the borrower -- the sellers today are not financially stressed. So, I don't think we're going to get "distress" out there. What we're going to get is just better pricing that we had during the peak, right, when cap rates were in the threes. Now cap rates are going to be four and a half to five and with a better growth prospect in your pro formas going forward so that you can get your IRRs up into the sevens on a leverage basis. So, it's a little different today. So, I don't think that we're going to have distress in the market and buy all these great deals. On the other hand, when deals are good. When you look at our Camden Leander transaction, it's a project in lease-up in Austin, a very complicated market, obviously, Austin has more supply than most. The -- we're buying the property at 15% below replacement cost. Rents are depressed. And once the supply gets worked out in Austin over the next year or so, you're going to see outsized growth in Austin. It's -- when you look at Austin in terms of its population growth, it's like No. 1 in America on a percentage basis for population growth. So, Austin's not -- Austin is going to be great in 2026, 2027, and 2028. So, we're able to buy below replacement costs to build there, but why build when I can buy it below replacement cost and then be positioned in the marketplace to, you know, have outside outsized growth to drive that cap rate up into a really good number.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho. Please go ahead.Haendel St. Juste -- Analyst Hey, guys. Good morning. So, hoping you can walk us through the quarter a bit and give us some color on how the portfolio performed in terms of new lease rate expectations. They seem to be a bit more resilient in the fourth quarter versus your peers. And with the stability of new lease rates and improvement you noted in January in occupancy, I think about 95%, seems like you can push rate a bit sooner this year than we might have previously expected. So, maybe give us some color on how you think -- what new lease rates are embedded in the first-quarter guide you provided, but broadly, the sense of how much perhaps the improvement or stability you're seeing here can result in perhaps you -- perhaps being a bit more aggressive on that front. Thanks.D. Keith Oden -- Executive Vice Chairman Yeah. So, Haendel, we did have a -- you know, our fourth quarter was actually a little bit better than we thought it would be, and it was pretty broad across all of our markets. And it's not -- you know, in terms of expectations for next year, I think Alex walked through those in his commentary regarding the what the full-year guidance is etc. I think that the improvement that we're seeing is just stickiness around occupancy rates across our entire portfolio, which allows us to do, you know -- and our pricing model to do what it does best, which is find strength and then price accordingly. So, I think it's really good operating fundamentals, had a good fourth quarter. And as Alex mentioned, it's carried over -- it looks like it's carried over into January. So, last year, we had a -- we started out really strong in January. We had a good month that led into some optimism around here and maybe other places for what that -- what that foretold for maybe the first quarter and the full year. It turned out that wasn't really the case. And we had a kind of an air pocket in February of last year. And we don't think we're going to see that this year. I don't anticipate that. But so far so good. Good month in January for sure, and we expect that it's going to continue to improve throughout the year because we're -- every month that goes by, we're making -- taking another big chunk out of the supply bubble that we've been fighting and continue to have in front of us. But I think things on the horizon, back half of 2025, looks to be pretty constructive for us. But I think more importantly, when you get past the -- '25 is kind of a transition year between getting back to normal -- more normal supply/demand dynamics. But when you look out to 2026, and what's happening -- what's been happening on starts and what's likely to happen on completions in '26 and '27, I think we're set up for one of those two- or three-year runs that they're going to be pretty impressive for the entire multifamily sector. I think where Camden is located in our markets, we're going to benefit more than most from that.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Eric Wolfe with Citi. Please go ahead.Eric Wolfe -- Analyst Hey, thanks. It seems like based on your interest expense guidance, you're front-loading the acquisitions. Can you just talk about the rationale around the strategy? And also, you mentioned, I think, zero to 100 bps of potential GAAP dilution from this activity and that this transaction activity could last through 2027. So, should we be building in our models, like, say, 50 bps of GAAP dilution on 750 million of transit actions for the next couple of years? Or is that sort of not what you meant by the sort of this continuing through 2027?Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So, we'll hit both parts of it. Absolutely. The first thing is, is that we anticipate that we're going to buy before we sell. And we're doing that for tax efficiency purposes. We'll do these in reverse 1031 exchanges. The second part that you have to look at is what we're looking at for 2025 is the dispositions that we will first complete will be our older or more capital-intensive assets. And so, because of that, you're probably going to see a larger spread between FFO on the assets we're buying and FFO on the assets we're selling. I think it's important to note that on an AFFO basis, that spread will be very tight. But on an FFO basis, it's going to be a little bit wider, call it, around the 100-basis-point range for what we're going to look at for 2035. If you think about what happens as we go throughout '26 and '27, completing our plan, we're going to get to a point in time where we're going to be trading very comparable assets but just not in the geography where we want them. So, for instance, we've talked quite a bit about how we'll lower our exposure in D.C., we'll lower our exposure in Houston. If we're going to sell a community in D.C. in '26 and in '27, I think likely that it will be a particular community that will probably trade at a pretty good cap rate, and we'll be trading that for a community in call it, Nashville or call it Austin, they will also be trading at a comparable cap rate. So, I don't think it's fair to take the dilution that you're seeing in '25 and extrapolate that into '26 and '27.Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yes. The other thing I would add to this is that if you look at the last time we did this, where we did 2.7 billion of acquisitions and 3.8 million of dispositions. At that time, we were budgeting over 100 basis point negative spread turned out to be flat. And so, once the market starts getting a tuned to higher revenue growth and higher NOI growth, those cap rates are going to compress, and older property cap rates are going to converge to newer property cap rates. And then part of the challenge is -- is that if you look at the -- or part of the dilution issue is not that it's permanent dilution because of the spread. But when you look at the Camden Leander transaction, it was 84% occupied. It's not finished, right? It's not finished leasing or stabilized. So, you're going to have more dilution when we're buying properties that are not necessarily fully leased up yet. And so, that's part of that equation. But I expect that the transaction market through the middle of the year will start gaining steam, which means that you'll have the $300 billion, $400 billion of capital that's still waiting in the wings entering the market. So, cap rates, I think, are going to be tighter, and the spreads will be tighter toward the back half of the year. But we're going to -- we have budgeted this 100 basis points, but I'm sure we'll do better.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.Austin Wurschmidt -- Analyst Great, thanks. And good morning, everyone. So, keeping the conversation going on your portfolio management objectives. And, Alex, you hit on this with your comments about selling down some D.C. and Houston, which you guys have talked about. I guess what's kind of the right exposure for those top markets? Are there any new markets that you could enter with this strategic plan? And then I guess just given the constructive outlook for fundamentals in the next few years, what would it take for you to lean into your balance sheet capacity instead of kind of the tax-efficient pair trade strategy? Thanks.Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So, what I said on the call is that by the end of '27, we do not want to have any one market that's over 10% of NOI. And so, if you think about it, there's only two markets that we have today that are over that, which is D.C. Metro and Houston. So, that's where we'll be bringing that down. Additionally, it just doesn't make a ton of sense to us to have a market that has less than 4% of NOI. The only market that falls into that category today is Nashville. So, we'll be bringing that up, and that will obviously be one of our main target markets. When you think about leaning into our balance sheet, absolutely. The reason why we have a 3.8 times debt to EBITDA, which is No. 1 in the multifamily sector, is because it gives us capacity and ability to take advantage of opportunities. If there are opportunities there where we can create some real value for our shareholders and increase a little bit of leverage but still stay below the five times level and we can take advantage of the opportunities, we're going to absolutely do that. So, that's something that we're absolutely looking at. I think you're not going to see that right now because, right now, what we're looking for is some more stability in the transaction market. And right now, there's just not a tremendous amount of opportunity. So, the opportunities that are there, we will match-fund with dispositions in the near term. But as we go forward and execute the plan, you should see us buying and building more than we are selling.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.John Kim -- Analyst Thanks so much. I want to ask about revenue enhancing and repositioning capex, which you're looking to increase this year versus last year. Can you remind or update us on the typical return or rental uplift you get? And what was the contribution to either blended rents or same-store revenue of $86 million last year has?Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, this is the first question we've had on reposition for about three years. So, thank you, John, for bringing those back in. Our reposition program has been an absolute tremendous success. We are generally getting somewhere around an 8% to 10% return on invested capital for what we're doing. And the way you should think about that is that generally equates to about 150 plus or minus dollars per door in additional rent.When I look at the impact in 2024 from repositions, on an NOI basis, it was, call it, 10 to 15 basis points, which is certainly not nothing. I mean, it's certainly something that makes a ton of sense to us. But you have to really remember that the real reason why we do repositions is it refreshes our portfolio. If you think about the type of real estate that we build on the exterior, it is absolutely timeless. But like everything else, kitchens and bathrooms are what really shows the age of a development. It shows the age of your house. And so, if we can go in and we can refresh a kitchen and a bathroom and make it look brand-new and on the exterior looks brand-new, it really does create a natural defense against the new supply that we see in the market. If you think about a brand-new asset has a much higher basis and of course, whoever owns that must charge much higher rents just to get the adequate return, when we can have an asset directly next door or directly adjacent that looks brand-new, has branded kitchens and bathrooms, and because we have a lower basis, we can charge a lower rental rate. And it positions us incredibly well. So, the reposition program is something that makes a ton of sense to us. It's something that you're going to see us do quite a bit. The other thing that I'd point out is that we are also looking at repurposing some of our real estate. And what that means is looking at space that we have at a community, call it, a basketball court -- an indoor basketball court that nobody uses, etc. and turning that into additional units. And that makes a lot of sense to us as well.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Rich Hightower with Barclays. Please go ahead.Richard Hightower -- Analyst Hey, good morning, everybody. I just want to get a sense about -- I mean, I think it's been a pretty consistent theme this earnings season that there is a pretty progressive step-up in blended rents and ultimately rent growth in Sunbelt markets over the course of the year. But I'm trying to get a sense of the risk that all of us are wrong about the pace of supply dropping off over time? And how much of that cushion is baked into the current same-store guidance?Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Well, I think when you look at the anyone's numbers, whether it be Witten or RealPage or --the supply is baked, I mean, for the next two years right now. You're not starting a bunch of units. I mean, most supply is down and markets are down or starts are down 50%, 60%. In a couple of markets, it's up a little like Phoenix, but it's all on the west side of Phoenix, and we happen to be on the east side of Phoenix, which is a big difference. And so, I think -- I don't think there's a lot of risk on the supply being ratcheted up. I mean, when you look at the pressure on the development -- developers today when the tenure is pushing four and a half and short rates haven't dropped as much as people thought they would drop. Construction costs, while they're not up dramatically, or also not down dramatically. There's still a lot of pressure on construction costs just to keep them. We've done -- we think they're up maybe 1% or 2% from last year, but that doesn't include tariff issues. We did an analysis on tariffs. On tariffs, will add another 2% to 3% in cost. Most of the products are bought -- lumber comes out of Canada, a lot of products from Mexico, electrical boxes and things like that. So, there's -- I would say that with the current cost structure, you have to really pro forma significant rent increases in '26, '27, '28 in order to make a pro forma work. So, I don't think that there's a big risk in a big upturn in development starts unless you have rates fall dramatically, construction costs fall dramatically, and that's just not happening. So, I think there's pretty low risk from a supply perspective. I think the bigger risk probably is in what happens to the overall economy. I mean, if we have a recession in 2025, then I think all bets are off on how well things progress. And that's -- I don't think that's on people's radar screen, but I do think that's probably the bigger risk when you think about how '25 could play out versus -- but it's not going to be on the supply side. I mean, the supply is coming, we know it's coming, then it stops. And it's going to take -- even if you had a 50% increase in starts this year, it wouldn't come into play until 2027 or 2028. It just takes that long to deliver. So, I think we've got clear sailing on supply at least through the end of '27 and into '28.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Ami Probandt with UBS. Please go ahead.Ami Probandt -- UBS -- Analyst Hi, thanks. So, you discussed Tampa, L.A., San Diego, Washington, D.C., and Houston as the top markets. Do you think that Camden's performance in these markets is representative of the overall market? Or are there some Camden-specific attributes that are leading to stronger performance? And then specifically on Tampa, you mentioned a boost in demand in the fourth quarter. So, I'm wondering if that's hurricane-related and sustainable. Thanks.D. Keith Oden -- Executive Vice Chairman So, yeah. On Tampa, it is hurricane-related for sure. And eventually, that will moderate over time. I mean, we've seen that happen in Houston with Harvey, etc. So, that was definitely a hurricane-related thing. On the performance in those other markets, I think you look at the peer group and in those other markets, the biggest overlap that we have with public market peer group is in Washington, D.C. Metro. And I think everybody had pretty constructive commentary around what's happening in Washington, D.C. Metro. Houston is the differentiator for us because we're the only public company that has any meaningful presence. And as Alex pointed out, it's 13%. It's our largest NOI concentration market that we have. Now, we're committed to bringing that down to single digits over some period of time. But the reality is, is that Houston has just been a great performer for the last year and a half, and again, looks like it will be in 2025 as well. And that's a combination of relatively low supply. You just didn't have the waves of when all of that -- the current pipeline was being put in play couple of years ago, Houston sort of got missed because of a lot of other issues. But the energy sector is performing incredibly well. I think all indications are that that's going to continue to be supported and maybe even much more supported than it has been in the last four years. So, those two markets for sure, I think anybody that has assets in those markets have done pretty well. On California, Southern California story has been pretty good as well. And a lot of that is driven by the cessation and the working through all of the COVID-related initiatives to include coming down on bad debts, etc. So, I think that's also a pretty good story for anybody that owns assets in Southern California. So, we tend to operate better in our markets on metrics, on occupancy and NOI growth across the board. So, there's probably some Camden-ism just the way and the efficiency with which we operate our portfolio and our time in these markets and understanding how that helps. But all five of those markets -- if you've got assets in those markets, you're probably really happy right now and looking forward to -- let's bring on 2025.Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer I would break a little bit more on Camden's execution ability. You're not -- you don't become one of the 100 best companies to work for on Fortune 100, Fortune's list for 17 years straight if you don't have a great team. And we all know Super Bowl is coming up on Sunday, and we know that it's not just one player, it's a team, it's philosophy, it's energy, it's that synergy that brings the best out of the players. And in our case, our players, they are working every day and believing that they really want to take care of their customers, and that just adds value and customers feel it. And so, you have really a very great team. It's going to have incrementally -- it's going to benefit customers and lower turnover. And when you ask somebody to raise their rent, they're going to say, yes, OK, I like this place, and you guys are fun and great people. And so sure, I'll pay more. But that's -- I think that's a big part of Camden. There's no question.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please go ahead.Rob Stevenson -- Analyst Hi, good morning, guys. Regarding the $175 million to $675 million development start guidance, can you talk about where expected yields on any of these new starts are penciling today given construction costs and expected rents, if you need to wait for anything to start those projects? And also, where is the expected yield there versus the expected yield on the three North Carolina assets you currently have under construction?Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sure. The -- our projected yields given the current backdrop of cost and rental rate growth and what have you is around 6%. And that's kind of where our starts -- our development numbers have been, including the ones that were currently under construction. But I will tell you, it's not easy to find a lot of developments that pencil to those numbers. And so, that's why we haven't been able to lean in as much as we'd like to. But I think given the markets that we're in and where our developments are located, we should have excess outsized rent growth that could get us to those numbers or better.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.Adam Kramer -- Analyst Great, thanks for the time. I wanted to ask about Washington, D.C. a little bit and maybe a few questions in here. I think just first, just maybe the latest on demand there. Obviously, a lot of headlines around what's happening with kind of federal workers and maybe a smaller federal government. So, maybe just what's happening from the demand side in the last couple of weeks there and maybe what your outlook is as maybe the composition of the government changes? And then just as a second part there, again, still in D.C., what are you guys seeing in terms of cap rates or even on a per square foot basis in terms of the transaction market in D.C.?Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Let me hit the transaction market first. D.C. is a great transaction market. Cap rates are in the -- depending on the property in the mid-fours to high fours plus or minus. So, there's still a decent demand there. And when you look at the fact that D.C. has not -- has been an outperformer from the revenue growth the last couple of years and will continue, we think, be in that kind of A category range, I think that transaction volume will be good. When you think about government changes, it's really interesting. If you look at some of the single-family markets there, I mean, there's been a spike in prices for sale property there because of the transition because of the new administration. There's always tends to be more demand during transitions than if you just had an incumbent win. I'll let Keith talk more about the current demand. Go ahead, Keith.D. Keith Oden -- Executive Vice Chairman Yeah. I mean it's -- trying to figure out the crosscurrents right now between kind of what's being talked about versus kind of thinking about what do you think is actually going to happen is -- man, It's a crapshoot, I think. And for every time you hear government -- potential of government downsizing of people, I think the latest number I heard was they offered everybody in the entire federal government a buyout package. And at the last count, I think it was up to 20,000 or 25,000 people who said they're going to sign up for that, which is a rounding error of the total federal workforce. So, I think the -- at the same time, that conversation is going on. You're having another broader conversation about if you're a federal employee, you're going to have to come back to the office. And so, I think that there's probably a knock-on effect there of D.C. proper, which frankly, for us has been the weak link in our D.C. Metro portfolio over the last two years. And it could very well be that as people have to return to work in an actual office, preponderance and a big portion of the Witten and D.C. proper, that it's going to make more sense for them to potentially move back closer to -- or into D.C. proper. So, I think there's a lot of crosscurrents. I think there's a lot of talk. And I think you're probably never going to go broke betting on the under on how many federal employees are actually going to go do something else regardless of who asked them to do so.Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer And I'll tell you, year to date, D.C. Metro has our highest increase in signed new lease rates.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Julien Blouin with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.Julien Blouin -- Analyst Yeah. Thank you. I just wanted to ask on the spread between the low end and the high end of development starts in 2025. Sort of what drives you to sort of trend closer to the low end versus the high end this year?Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer It's just a matter of making sure that we hit what we believe would be reasonable spreads and reasonable return. I mean, if we -- one of the things that we've seen, just take Nashville as an example, I mean, Nashville is so busy from a development perspective, costs went up so dramatically, you couldn't get anybody to bid your jobs. Now, we have seven deep of subcontractors bidding on our Nashville Nations properties. So, what's happened then is that, A, you've had construction costs flatten, maybe go down a little. And then, B, on the other hand, you have a broader sub base, which means that tells me that once we execute contracts, we can probably get buy out anywhere from 2% to 3% or 4% less when we buy out -- when we actually buy the contracts rather than just asking them to tell us what they would go for. So, it's going to be -- so, toward the middle of the year, we will have a better view of when that second derivatives turns positive in a lot of these markets on rental rates, and that will just give us more confidence to lean in. So, it's really a decision about we need to get paid for development risk. So, we need 100 to 150 basis points of positive spread between what we can buy for and what we can build for. And then we have to have the confidence that the revenue growth is going to be there in '26 and '27 and '28. We'll get more confidence of that midyear. So, that will determine sort of whether we get to the high end of that range. One of the other, I think, opportunities that we could see basically is merchant builders who can't get their deals done and we can then step into those deals and get those done. We have historically done that a lot over the years, especially during transition times like we have now. And so, we might be able to pick up some of those that can't get done either. So, that could push us toward the high end of that range as well.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Connor Mitchell with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.Connor Mitchell -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst Hey, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just going back to the broader transaction markets. I appreciate all the color so far. And it just seems like there's still a ton of money bidding on apartments inside financing costs and the expectations for rent growth to eventually overcome that obstacle. But you guys have talked about the -- maybe the increased pickup in the back half of the year. So, I guess my question is just how much longer do you think the negative leverage will last, especially thinking about how much more there is to come in transactions in the back half? And I guess just a quick follow-up on that. Do you think that the market might be too aggressive on the rate of growth being underwritten for '26 and '27? Or is it really that high of an expectation that justifies the negative leverage? Thanks.Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Well, that's what people are betting on for sure, is that '26 and '27 are going to be outsized growth years. And if history is any indication of what might be the future, that's exactly what's happened over the years. You have a downturn, you have excess supply, you have a recession or what have you. And then what happens is you have a snapback. And usually, supply continues to be robust, but we know that supply is not going to be robust. And if the job market just holds up and the economy holds up, we'll get 2% GDP growth or 1.5% to 2%, you can -- or buyers are going to be underwriting significant rent growth in '26 and '27, '28. Otherwise, they wouldn't never -- they can't make their numbers, right? And especially when you look at where the prices are today. So, I think what's going to happen that will drive buyers and sellers closer together is the NOIs are going to go up in some markets in 2025. And when you think about our top markets, our NOIs are growing. And so, even if the cap rate stays the same, the cash flows are growing, and you have a trajectory that you can count on. And then hopefully, I think people are betting on even though rates are going to be higher for longer. Over a longer period, they believe that they're going to come down some. So, I think the combination of supply, the ability to drive your revenue growth and your NOI growth is going to keep people in the -- they'll be able -- they will continue to buy even with negative leverage today. I think long term, if the NOI growth isn't there and if rates don't come down some, then cap rates have to go up or you're going to have a stalemate between the buyers and the sellers. And so, we'll see what happens. But right now, the market is pretty robust. And what happens is really interesting. I mean, there was a transaction, for example, that we're bidding on in Nashville recently. And if you're trying to buy at a specific cap rate like we are, the seller basically just said, look, we hear your number, and we're going to pull. And their view is that they're going to get a higher price in the future. The cap rate will be the same perhaps, but their cash flow growth will be higher. And so, there -- I think there will be an interesting -- it will be very interesting to see what happens between now and midyear to the end of the year in 2025. But I think it's going to be a more robust transaction market. And I think all the signs are that we'll get that positive second derivative on new rent growth, and that's going to create a lot of opportunity for sellers to come into the market and for buyers to buy.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Michael Lewis with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.Mike Lewis -- Analyst Thank you. I wanted to come back to this decision to have no more than 10% of your portfolio in any market. So, there's been this trend toward diversification in apartment REITs lately. As you know, a lot of that is coastal investors diversifying into more of your markets. Aren't there any markets that you just think are better, right? They're just flat out better apartment markets for the next 10 or 15 years or whatever it might be? Or is that not really the case? There's nothing structural or secular there? I'm just thinking about -- does this decision say more about Houston and D.C.? Or does it say more about a wide opportunity set across your markets and it being a little bit difficult to distinguish?D. Keith Oden -- Executive Vice Chairman So, I would say it's more about the opportunity set across all our markets. And when you say some markets are better. Well, it depends on when. For example, three years ago, Houston would have been at -- Houston and Washington, D.C. were the problem children in Camden's portfolio. It's all anybody wanted to talk about, and it's a lot of what we talked about internally because those are our two largest markets, and they were underperforming and had been for about two or three years straight. So, fast forward, here we are today, Washington, D.C. Metro and Houston are our top two performer -- or in the top five and probably slated to be in the top two or three for this year and probably next year as well. So, if you ask that question, some markets just better, yes, I mean, four years ago, all of them would have been better than Houston and D.C. Metro. And today, it's reversed. It's more about just having a balance among 15 markets that we absolutely love. Every market that's in our portfolio is -- has the characteristics that exemplify what we want to see in migration, job growth, consistently performing on the ability to move rents over time and to operate the assets at -- from an expense standpoint at a level that allows us to grow cash flow. So, it's not a statement anyway about D.C. and Houston. It's just a statement about we got great opportunities in other markets, growth opportunities in markets like Austin and Nashville, where we're underweight, and it's just balancing those opportunities.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Nick Yulico with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.Daniel Tricarico -- Analyst Hey, good morning. It's Daniel Tricarico on for Nick. Alex, I wanted to clarify your answer to Jamie's question at the beginning. You said new lease rates turning positive in Q3 and continuing from there. Does that mean it's going to continue to improve on an absolute basis? Like are you assuming like a normal seasonal pattern into the fourth quarter? Or is there a comp benefit with supply being absorbed that would cause Q4 to look seasonally?Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Right. So, we're going to return to seasonality, and at least that's what's in our budget. And so, what that means is that you see the positive new lease rates in the third quarter. And then in the fourth quarter, that's always our softest quarter. It's just -- there's just not a lot of people who want to move around the holiday season, etc. And that's usually when we have the least amount of pricing power. And so, you should see it start to return to a more normal seasonal pattern at that point in time.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from David Segall with Green Street. Please go ahead.David Segall -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst Hey, thank you. I just wanted to drill down a bit more on to the proposed development starts. Can you ballpark the rents or rent per unit you would need to achieve in Nashville and Denver who would have achieved 6% yield?Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Do you have those, Alex?Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer I don't. We'll have to get back to you with that.David Segall -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst OK, great. Thank you.OperatorAnd your next question today will come from Alex Kim with Zelman & Associates. Please go ahead.Alexander Kim -- Analyst Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I always appreciate the song choices leading up the call as well. I was wondering if you could talk about your leasing trends so far for the three communities in lease-up and how that flows just into the lease-up revenue line for the quarter and then more broadly for your 2025 view? Thanks.Alexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah, absolutely. So, if you look at the communities that we have in lease-up, two of them are the single-family rental communities. And we've been very upfront that our single-family rental communities are -- they're slow leasing. They just are. It's the particular demographic that looks for that product type has a tendency to show up once then they show up again, then they show up and when they measure a bedroom and make sure that their furniture can fit, etc. And so, it is a slower leasing. Now, the good news is that we think they're going to be really sticky. And we think once they're in the turnover, if it takes them that long to make a decision to move in, we think it will take them equally as long as to make a decision to move out. But that's what we've been seeing. When I look at Camden Durham, which is our last -- the third one that's in lease-up. During the fourth quarter, we had the type of leasing that we would expect, which is slower. As I said to one of the previous calls, the fourth quarter is always the slowest quarter, and that's no different whether or not it's a new lease-up or an existing asset. That being said, if you look where they are, so Wood Mill Creek is 89% occupied. Durham is 78% occupied. So, both of those are getting very close to stabilization. And so obviously, we should get some uptick in 2025 from those two as they stabilize. And then Long Meadow Farms is a little bit behind. The other two just because it started after them at 53% leased.OperatorThis concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ric Campo for any closing remarks.Richard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Well, we appreciate your time today, and we're glad to close out the earnings season for the large cap multifamily. So, we'll see you at the next conference or next road show. Thanks.Operator[Operator signoff] Duration: 0 minutesCall participants:Kimberly A. Callahan -- Senior Vice President, Investor RelationsRichard J. Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive OfficerD. Keith Oden -- Executive Vice ChairmanAlexander J. K. Jessett -- President and Chief Financial OfficerJames Feldman -- AnalystAlex Jessett -- President and Chief Financial OfficerJamie Feldman -- AnalystBrad Heffern -- AnalystRic Campo -- Chairman and Chief Executive OfficerSanket Agrawal -- Evercore ISI -- AnalystJeffrey Spector -- AnalystHaendel St. Juste -- AnalystKeith Oden -- Executive Vice ChairmanEric Wolfe -- AnalystAustin Wurschmidt -- AnalystJohn Kim -- AnalystRichard Hightower -- AnalystAmi Probandt -- UBS -- AnalystRob Stevenson -- AnalystAdam Kramer -- AnalystJulien Blouin -- AnalystConnor Mitchell -- Piper Sandler -- AnalystMike Lewis -- AnalystDaniel Tricarico -- AnalystDavid Segall -- Green Street Advisors -- AnalystAlexander Kim -- Analyst More CPT analysis All earnings call transcripts