Hello and welcome to the full year 2023 results presentation. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards there will be a Q&A session. Please note this call is being recorded. Today I'm pleased to present Vanessa Da Cruz. Please begin your meeting.
Thank you, Anika, and good morning to everyone from Zurich. Welcome to our Peach Property Group's Full year 2023 results call. Thank you for joining us. Our Executive Chairman Klaus Schmitz and CFO Thorsten Arsan are on the call. I hope that you have already had the opportunity to download our presentation. Otherwise, you can find it as well as our annual report in the Publications section of our website. Klaus Schmitz will start with an overview of our operational performance in 2023. Thorsten Arsan will go through our financial figures and the guidance for 2024. At the end, we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Now I would like to hand over to you, Klaus.
Thank you, Vanessa. I'm happy to welcome you to our results call for 2023, and thank you for your interest in Peach Property. Before I dive into the numbers, I wanted to highlight some themes that you will hear throughout the presentation. The first theme is that the company is performing strongly on the operational side.
We had the best FFO in the history of the company this year. The second theme you will hear is that the capital markets have been very difficult in the last two years. This will not be news to you, and all you need to do is look at the current share prices in the sector or the valuation results. This market backdrop also meant that we needed to adapt and, for example, reduce the CapEx we spent. However, we're becoming more optimistic in terms of the market.
Lastly, you will hear from us that there are challenges but also opportunities ahead. In terms of challenges, there are higher interest costs that the company has to digest, and there's also the refinancing of the 2025 maturities. Most important is that we are addressing these challenges in a proactive, prudent, and timely manner with the interests of all stakeholders in mind. In terms of opportunities, we have put together some data which shows how strong the occupational market is, how well we are positioned, and how we can further create value for our shareholders.
Now, after this introduction, let's turn to page three for a snapshot overview. I think there are a few things that stand out here. The most noteworthy development relates to our funds from operations. At almost CHF 23 million, FFO reached the highest level in our company's history.
That is an increase of 18.1% compared to the previous year. This is a very solid achievement, especially set against the backdrop of a slightly higher vacancy rate and higher interest costs. At the same time, we managed to increase our Adjusted EBITDA margin to almost 55%, which represents a year-on-year growth of 3.8%. Both of those are the result of our increased operational profitability, which is a combination of our reduced cost structure and increased income. Our rental income also grew strongly, reaching EUR 121 million, which represents an increase of 3.8% on a year-on-year basis. What hurts our operational results is that the vacancy rate increased. The number of vacant apartments increased from 6.9%-7.4%. This was driven by our decision to postpone some larger renovation projects in 2023.
I said before that the capital market backdrop was challenging over the last two years, and you can see that in our portfolio valuation number, our valuation results, as well as our result after taxes. The market value of our real estate portfolio was EUR 2.4 billion as of December 2023, compared to EUR 2.6 billion at the end of 2022. As a result, we had to record a non-cash valuation loss of around EUR 209 million in 2023, and the result after taxes was at negative EUR 194 million, compared to negative EUR 15 million in the previous year.
These devaluations increased our LTV to 57.5%. As you may have seen, Peach Property announced a subscription for 1.93 million new shares by existing shareholders on March 13. This measure will reduce the pro forma loan-to-value to 56.8% upon completion in April 2024.
In the 2023 financial year, we also continued our ESG activities despite budget constraints and focused on cost-effective measures that promise significant energy savings. Our initiatives were recognized in our most recent ESG rating. Morningstar Sustainalytics improved our ESG rating from 11.5 in the previous year to 10.3 in 2023. Our operations are therefore classified as low-risk with respect to ESG benchmarks. In addition, the European Public Real Estate Association evaluated our 2022 sustainability report and awarded us with the Gold Award.
Our efforts not only help the environment but also support our tenants in the current energy price environment while adding value to the portfolio. Despite the difficult times in the German real estate market, we are very pleased that we continue to get positive feedback from our tenants. In the 2023 financial year, 76% of our tenants were satisfied with how Peach was handling their requests.
This is right on target, but we are obviously working on further outperforming this number in keeping our tenants happy. Let's take a closer look at the German real estate environment in 2023. Looking at the last two years, it is fair to say that they were challenging for the German residential market. The sector is often seen as a bond proxy, and top-line growth is restricted by regulation.
There is also the fact that tenants stay in their apartments an average of 10 years, so that rent reversion takes time. You can see on the graphs how inflation and government yields spiked up but have then started to come down. The strong increase in inflation and in bond yields has led to a lot of uncertainty in the market, which has then manifested itself in a very anemic transaction market.
You can see how transaction activity was down 40% in Q1 2023. Again, as the overall macroeconomic environment has become more benign in the last few months, sentiment seems to have picked up and prices seem to stabilize. We feel that this stabilization is driven to a very large extent by the growing rents and an incredibly strong occupational market. Sticking with the theme of the occupational market, let's move on to slide six. On the left-hand side, you will see our top 10 locations.
These top 10 locations make up 55% of our overall portfolio. Based on the ImmoScout data he presented, you can see how strongly rents are increasing. Kaiserslautern, for example, saw an 8.1% year-on-year rent increase. Peach has around 2,300 units in Kaiserslautern, which is our biggest city concentration. In Marl, our second-largest city, we have 2,150 units, and rents increased by 4.4% year-on-year.
The picture for Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia, our core region, is very similar. We see strong rent increases across the board, and I think that our operational results show that we can capture a large part of those rent dynamics. The top right-hand chart shows the index of residential rents published by the German mortgage banks.
This data also shows a positive trend, showing an increase of 5.8% on a year-over-year basis for the fourth quarter. It is clear that a growing top line is positively impacting valuations and thereby counteracting the impact of rising cap rates. Now, with the central bank hiking cycle hopefully behind us, the strong occupational market gives us cause for optimism. Moving from the short term to the long term, the chart on the bottom right shows how strongly the German House Price Index is correlated with construction costs.
This only makes sense as existing housing stock should increase in value as replacement costs go up. To give you some reference, and this depends on a lot of factors, but replacement cost is more than three times the capital value of Peach Asset. What is special about the German residential sector, though, is that it's very regulated. That means that it takes some time for asset values to increase in line with inflation, especially if inflation has increased so drastically over such a short period of time. Next to page seven. This slide talks about the fundamental conviction that underpins our optimism. There exists a massive demand and supply imbalance, and I think it is fair to say that the chronic undersupply in the German housing market has long been recognized.
On the demand side, we see increasing household formation as well as immigration and urbanization that is driving demand. In response to that, the German government has set a development target for 400,000 new homes per year. As the graph shows, this target has been missed, and currently there exists a housing deficit of over 800,000 units. This leads to declining vacancy rates across the board, but certainly in urban areas like North Rhine-Westphalia, where the majority of the Peach portfolio is located.
Looking at the development pipeline shows that supply is likely to come down even further in the future. Due to soaring financing and construction costs, the number of building permits declined by 29% year-over-year. Experts expect the housing deficit to rise even further in the next few years and reach 1,000,000 units by 2025, as per the top graph.
Given these dynamics, we are optimistic that there are substantial tailwinds for the German residential market. Based on these, one would expect vacancy across Germany to decrease further and rents to continue to grow. As mentioned before, there's a time lag on this feedback mechanism due to regulation. This brings us to our overview of the business performance in the financial year 2023. As you can see on page nine, our portfolio remained virtually unchanged in terms of residential units and floor space compared to the end of 2022.
At the same time, our rental income increased to EUR 120.9 million, a year-on-year increase of approximately 4%. The annual target rent for our portfolio increased from EUR 134 million to over EUR 140 million, an increase of 4.2%, which is due to the strong occupational markets just described. We will take a closer look at these results in the upcoming slides.
Zooming in on the rent growth, there are a few points to take away. You can see in the dark blue that we managed to increase the in-place rent across the portfolio. This increase is from EUR 5.9-EUR 6.2 per square meter per month. You can also see that market rents are increasing from EUR 7.0-EUR 7.3 per square meter, which is driven by the strong occupational market.
Most importantly, you can see that we managed to capture the rent potential. We managed to increase rents to EUR 7.1 per square meter per month, while the average market rent was slightly below that. Lastly, and also very importantly, there is close to 20% rental upside. Comparing the market rent with the current in-place rent shows that there is 18% reversionary potential. This reversion can be captured over time. Now, focusing on vacancy.
In 2023, we concluded approximately 3,000 new rental contracts. Now, despite this, our vacancy rate increased to 7.4% by the end of 2023. That means that a total of 144 more apartments were vacant at the end of 2022 than at the end of 2023. Against the backdrop of higher interest rates, a high inflation rate, significant surges in building materials, and the shortage of skilled workers, we have postponed some renovation projects in 2023.
This has led to a slight uptick in vacancy. In 2024, we aim to reduce the vacancy rate through targeted investments and efficiency improvements in the renovation and reletting process. This will then also allow us to capture more of the rental growth that we are currently seeing in the market. Breaking down our vacancy further, you can see that our effective vacancy was at only 2.1% on this 31st December 2023.
Effective vacancy is a vacancy which only includes units where new tenants will move in shortly and where units are in the letting process. The remaining 5.3% are either in renovation or currently being evaluated with respect to renovation and refurbishments. In the medium term, we continue to target a vacancy rate of around 4%, and hence moving closer to the average market vacancy rate in our core markets. Slide 12.
As mentioned in 2023, we decided to cut our investment budget on the back of cost inflation and in order to preserve liquidity. Our total capital expenditures amounted to roughly EUR 19 million, which is around EUR 11 per square meter. This allowed us to renovate approximately 1,700 units. The majority of the CapEx budget was spent on tenant incentives, so the money one needs to spend in order to relet an apartment again.
Looking at the past three years, CapEx per square meter was between EUR 25 and EUR 30 per square meter. Going forward, we're looking to spend again an amount that is closer to our long-term average in terms of CapEx per square meter, which will then positively impact the vacancy rate as well as the overall quality of the portfolio. Let's move on to slide 13. Due to the negative property market development in 2023, we also had to adjust the valuation of our portfolio, recording a devaluation of approximately EUR 210 million.
This negative revaluation is a consequence of the changed macroeconomic environment and, in particular, the sharp increase of the interest rate. Based on the latest valuation, our capital value per square meter decreased to EUR 1,342, which equates to an in-place rental multiple of 17.9x or a gross rental yield of 5.6%.
Now I'd like to hand over to Thorsten Arsan to comment on our financial performance and update on ESG.
Thank you, Klaus, and also a warm welcome from my side. I will start with an overview of our financial performance in 2023. As Klaus mentioned, the highlight of the previous year is our improved profitability.
Our rental income increased by approximately 4% to around EUR 121 million. Furthermore, we have achieved a year-on-year increase in our Funds from Operations of almost 19%, resulting in an FFO1 of EUR 22.8 million by the year-end. Our Adjusted EBITDA grew about 11%. The increase of FFO1 and Adjusted EBITDA show that the 2023 implemented cost efficiency measurements as well as process optimizations, combined with the setting up of more internal expertise, were successful. However, the sharp rise in interest rates since then has also left its mark in our portfolio.
Driven by the negative valuation result, we had to report a loss after tax of EUR 194 million. The NTA per share decreased by 27% compared to year-end 2022 to 47.4 EUR per share. The increase is mainly driven by the negative valuation result. Also, as a result of the devaluation of around 8%, the loan-to-value increased from 54.7%-57.5%. The capital increase issued in March 2024 reduced the pro forma LTV down to 56.8%.
The issuance of 1.9 million shares has been subscribed by existing Inga shareholders and again demonstrated their ongoing commitment in our business model. Let's turn to our debt structure on page 16. In January 2023, we issued a mandatory convertible bond with a nominal value of around CHF 110 million. The proceeds from the mandatory convertible bond enabled us to repay the remaining amount of our first E urobond ahead of its maturity.
As a result, we do not have any significant maturities until 2025. In addition, we issued a CHF 50 million convertible with a term of three years and a coupon of 3% in May 2023. On top of that, we have closed the secured financing of EUR 33 million with a maturity of five years. This shows that the secured financing market in Germany is still active and we are in negotiations to roll over the secured debt maturing in 2024 as well as in 2025.
The primary focus for this year will be on refinancing the debt maturities due in 2025, including the EUR 300 million Eurobond due in November 2025. As of December 2023, we had approximately EUR 370 million of unencumbered assets, which gives us some further potential for additional secured financings. We are currently exploring these opportunities with various financing partners.
As mentioned, due to the recorded property value devaluations, our LTV rose from 54.7% to 57.5%. Funds received from the prospective capital increase announced in March this year will reduce the pro forma LTV down to 56.8%. At year-end 2023, our interest coverage ratio improved from 1.55% to 1.62%, and our weighted average cost of debt was 2.86% at year-end 2023. The weighted average maturity was 2.9 years. Let's move on from financing to OPEX development on slide 17.
The maintenance cost per sq m rose to EUR 9.60. The increase amounted to almost 15% on an annual basis and is driven by higher labor and material costs from our external service providers. On the other hand, we were able to reduce our administration cost per sq m by over 30% on an annualized basis. This is mainly the result of the insourcing of janitorial and property management services.
Further, we have increased our EBITDA margin from 50.9% to 54.7%, thereby fulfilling part of the margin increase forecast for 2025. Increasing the adjusted EBITDA margin was one of our main goals in 2023 and shows that we were able to adjust our cost structure and increase the profitability. Now let me round up my part with a few words on our ESG initiatives. Slide 19. ESG and sustainability remain key topics.
We are committed to conduct our business with integrity, accountability, and the intent to promote a positive impact on our surroundings. In the 2023 financial year, we continued our ESG activities despite a tighter budget and focused on cost-effective measurements that promised significant energy savings. Let's move to Slide 20. An important part of our ESG efforts is our decarbonization pathway, which we presented for the first time last year.
On the basis of consumption data for the year 2021, a CO2 intensity of 34 kilos per square meter has been confirmed as the starting point of our decarbonization path. For the following year, we have achieved a reduction of GHG intensity of 9%. In 2023, we focused on planning and evaluating specific renovation measures in various parts of our portfolio before starting the actual implementation in the coming years. Moreover, we continue to move forward with the installation of the smart meter infrastructure and have now equipped over 50% of our properties accordingly. Smart meters allow tenants to see and manage their real-time water, electricity, or heating consumption and provide the opportunity to reduce energy consumption and save costs.
We are furthermore installing digital valves in the heating distribution system of our buildings to achieve dynamic hydraulic balancing as well as receive control of volume flows and system temperature in many of our buildings through the installation of digital valves in the heating distribution system. This intelligent system learns and analyzes the building's operation, gradually driving savings to double-digit percentage levels. On top of that, we are continuously working on improving data quality. Since 2023, in addition to the energy certificates, the heat and general electricity consumption data from the ESG data management are incorporated in the evaluation for the first time. This has significantly improved the databases for the calculation of decarbonization measures. Our clearly defined ESG growth strategy to achieve a climate-neutral real estate portfolio by 2050 remains unchanged.
Our targets remain unchanged with the aim to reduce the CO2 intensity to less than 30 kilos per square meter by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality of the portfolio by 2050 as set. Overall, our estimate of the total cost of our decarbonization journey to 2050 is currently between EUR 300 million and EUR 350 million. Tenant satisfaction is and has always been another integral part of our corporate DNA.
An overview of our KPIs related to tenant satisfaction can be found on the next slide. In 2023, our Peach Points resolved approximately 134,000 tickets. 91.3% of those tickets were solved within the first interaction. Despite the high number of tickets, we have achieved short processing times. When an issue could be resolved directly through one of our 15 Peach Points, it took us roughly 19 hours to resolve the issue.
Where our external partners were involved, it took less than four days to resolve. With this, the satisfaction ratio of all tenant feedback received in our digital property management system amounted to 76%, which is above our target satisfaction rate of 75%. Let's move to slide 22. During the year, we once again underwent the Morningstar Sustainalytics ESG risk rating process. We obtained an ESG risk assessment of 10.3, which Sustainalytics classifies as a low risk of material financial impact from ESG factors. This signifies progress from the previous year rating of 11.5 and reflects our ongoing commitment to sustainable practices and our continual efforts. Also, we got an ESG rating upgrade from MSCI to A. As mentioned at the beginning, the European Public Real Estate Association evaluated our 2022 sustainability report and awarded us with the Gold Award.
Furthermore, the shares of Peach Property Group AG are included in the SPI ESG Index of the SIX Swiss Exchange. At last, I will conclude my part of the presentation with an outlook for 2024. Let's move to page 24. For the 2024 financial year, we continue to expect a challenging market environment despite signs of stabilization. However, as inflation has recently fallen significantly and market transactions for residential properties are gaining momentum again, we expect macroeconomic conditions to normalize over the course of the year. At the same time, consistently high demand for affordable housing and positive leading economic indicators are likely to have a stabilizing effect on business. For the 2024 financial year, we are therefore optimistic about further rental growth and are expecting rental income to further increase on a like-for-like basis of around 4%.
This will result in an expected rental income of between EUR 124 million-EUR 126 million. On the FFO 1 side, however, we are expecting a decrease resulting in an FFO 1 of EUR 70 million-EUR 19 million. This decrease of the FFO 1 is mainly driven by higher interest rates and inflation-related cost increases here, mainly personal expenses and increased maintenance costs. Both forecasts are subject to the assumption that no parts of the portfolio are sold or that extraordinary effects occur as a result of early refinancing measures from the refinancing instruments due in 2025.
In the medium term, we further continue to target an increase of the adjusted EBITDA margin of 500 basis points compared to our full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA margin of around 51%, and an LTV ratio of around 50%. With that, back to Klaus for the final remarks and key takeaways.
Great. Thank you, Thorsten. So I'd like to come back to the themes that I outlined in the beginning. I hope that you have heard that the company is performing strongly on the operational side: best FFO in the company's history, an EBITDA margin which has improved to almost 55%, and rents that are growing by around 4%. We are also improving the ESG scores and keeping our tenants happy. As you know, Peach has almost 230 dedicated employees who are working day in and day out, keeping this machine running smoothly and becoming more efficient year by year. The second theme was about the market backdrop. Undoubtedly, the change in interest rates and further geopolitical issues created a difficult environment. The company adapted to this backdrop by focusing on efficiency and prudent capital management.
However, we are also becoming more optimistic in terms of the market, and you can see from the data we presented that there is indeed cause for optimism. It feels as though it is no longer a question of whether interest rates are coming down, but more a question of when they will come down. There's also less overall uncertainty, which should improve liquidity in the transaction market.
Lastly, you have heard from us that there are challenges but also opportunities ahead. These challenges are clear: higher interest costs and the need to address the maturities in 2025. As stated before, we are addressing these challenges in a proactive, prudent, and timely manner with the interests of all stakeholders in mind. Now, the opportunities are clear as well. Peach Property operates in a highly attractive segment of the real estate market.
The occupational story is incredibly strong as supply is dwindling, demand is increasing, and vacancy is coming down. The rent potential for our portfolio is very strong, with close to 20% upside, and our capital value per square meter is nowhere near replacement cost. In addition, the vacancy rate and further improving the efficiency of our portfolio and operations offer real value-add potential, which we stand ready to capture in the coming months or years. Now, before we go into Q&A, let me address three topics, namely the new CEO, the capital increase, and disposals. Starting with disposals, we've always said that disposing of parts of the portfolio is one way to address the maturities in 2025.
The other two ways that we have spoken about include a financing of the unencumbered asset portfolio, which Thorsten stated stands at CHF 370 million book value right now, as well as optimizing the secured debt profile. We are now in various constructive discussions and find overall that the market sentiment has improved. We will not comment, however, on press or price speculation and will update the market in good time. Secondly, the capital increase. Here, the Anchor shareholders subscribed to 1.93 million of new shares. This was the maximum amount of shares that the company could issue without subscription rights. We were fully subscribed, and we see this as a strong sign of support from the Anchor shareholders with respect to the strategy of the company and also as a sign of support for the new incoming CEO.
Now, in terms of the CEO, we are very excited that Gerald Klinck is joining us in less than a month. Gerald has more than 25 years of professional experience in the real estate industry and has served as a member of the executive board of Deutsche Wohnen. He was member of the executive board of Vonovia, CFO and co-CEO of TLG Immobilien, and CEO and CFO of Cureus. At Peach, in addition to his role as CEO, he will also take over the role of CFO. Running the company in such a way is highly efficient, and it's possible because he is supported by a very capable team on the ground. We are very excited for Gerald to join on the 15th of April. Now, with that, let's open up for questions.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask an audio question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing star two again to cancel. Once again, please press star one to register for a question. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question comes from the line of Ferran Tort from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. I would have actually two questions. The first one would be on CapEx. What do you plan to spend for 2024, and if you could give a little bit more detail on the Swiss residential project and if it requires any more CapEx or what's the status there? Then the second one would be on the guidance. Could you give more or less a broad indication on what you expect on a per-share basis, please? Thank you very much.
Yeah. Hi, Ferran. Thank you for your questions. I mean, in CapEx, as mentioned before, we were, let's say, a bit more shy last year to spend due to the rise in interest rates and the lack of liquidity. For this year, we basically plan with a more sustainable basis, so we expect roughly EUR 30-35 million of CapEx and TI to be spent on an annualized basis for 2024. And in terms of the Swiss development, I mean, we had an impairment of EUR 13 million in 2023, which we took into the books. Besides that, I mean, we are on track. Completion is expected to be in 2025. We are running well in terms of sales, so nothing material to report there.
The second question, the guidance per share, I mean, that's something I don't have a calculator in front of me, so if we assume it's between CHF 17 million and CHF 19 million, we have 20 million shares. We have now then 22 million shares outstanding. So let me do I will come back to that. Let me do a quick calculation, but it should be around roughly CHF 0.80 per share.
Thank you. May I have a follow-up on the construction costs remaining for the Swiss project? Could you give an indication there? And then also on ICR, could you remind us the covenant for the ICR, please?
Y ou mean in terms of Swiss development? I mean, there are costs to come which are covered by an existing secured loan and also cash we expect to come from sales that we will contact in the coming 12 months.
And if there is something that we need to support, it will come from the cash flow of the company, but we don't expect any material injections to be provided. And in terms of ICR, I mean, we improved the ICR from 1.55 to 1.62. We don't see any issues with the ICR covenant right now, so we are comfortable on that one. I mean, of course, we are subject to various covenants in terms of existing smaller mortgage loans, which are more ICR and LTV covenants for the respective collateral portfolio. And let's say for the corporate bond, there are covenants, but they are in currency-based. And even in addition, there's a basket regime so that we don't see any issues with an ICR covenant.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask an audio question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of Alban Lhonneur from Columbia Threadneedle Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question, and thanks for the update. I just wanted to ask about your expenses. In particular, you have vacancy expenses, and I note you have 27,000 units. You have a vacancy rate of 7.4%. It implies about 2,000 units. On average, it looks like you're being charged per vacant unit about EUR 2,700 per year. And I look at your occupied units, they're generating about EUR 4,500 per year. Can you maybe give us some detail on how a vacant unit costs so much?
In general, on the CapEx you've just guided, could you give us some insight in terms of the split between development versus maintenance CapEx? Thank you. Yeah. For the split in terms of CapEx, I mean, we basically divide CapEx into CapEx, which is the outside of the building, and tenant improvement, which is the inside. So if a tenant moves out, we need to refurbish it depending on how long he was occupying the unit. This is sometimes zero, and sometimes it's EUR 25,000 if he, for example, was occupying the unit for 20 years.
So basically, at the beginning of the year, we always forecast a split between CapEx and TI, which is roughly 50/50. Then at the end of the year, depending on how high the fluctuation was, maybe it's 60/40, but basically, we think about, yeah, a 50/50 split between CapEx and TI.
And in terms of coming back to the first part of your question, in terms of costs for vacant units, I mean, we have roughly in our balance sheet EUR 6 million of costs of the vacant units that we can't escalate to tenants because there are no tenants since the unit is vacant. And so your estimate of roughly EUR 2,500 per unit is somehow correct.
Okay. That's very helpful. And just to come back, and I have one additional follow-up, but to come back on my estimate, which you said is correct, why would that be so high given there's no tenant in place? It's a standing asset. Surely the expenses in terms of electricity and stuff wouldn't be 50% of what you would actually get when you've an occupied tenant.
Yeah. I mean, you have to pay heating. There are other costs like insurance, maintenance, and other things that you can't escalate to the tenant. So we have to basically bear as the landlord or the owner of the unit, which basically shows the potential that we have. So if we are able to reduce vacancy rate, we can first of all increase the rental income but also reduce the cost that we have to cover.
Okay. Clear. And last one for me, if I can. In terms of the guidance, very helpful in what you've said. Just when I think of the like-for-like rental growth guidance, you've seen quite a high number, 4.6%. You've talked about the market dynamics and the vacancy reduction, albeit I note the vacancies ticked up a bit year-on-year, not gone down. But in terms of the guidance you've given, you've given 4%, which would imply a deceleration, not an acceleration, despite the market backdrop. Can you maybe give us some more color on why you expect like-for-like rental growth to decelerate by 60% year-on-year despite the market accelerating, to your earlier comments?
I mean, this has two effects. I mean, first of all, we try to guide something that we can achieve, so somehow ambitious but also conservative in a way that it's achievable. If we outperform, that's always a target, and then it's okay and positive. I mean, you have to consider the parts of the like-for-like growth coming from now reducing vacancy. It will take time. So we now start activating or, let's say, accelerating the refurbishment program and refurbish units that we, as said before, last year stopped on purpose.
This is something where we now start refurbishing. So this takes two or three months until it comes to letting, which means that the impact on like-for-like is not for 12 months. It's more than nine months. And let's say the bigger effect will come then in 2025. So it's.
Yeah. And perhaps just to add to this, perhaps just to add to this, joint residential, because it's so highly regulated, it takes some time to feed through strong rent dynamics in the market, right? So it's quite different from other markets. And that means as tenants are churning, right, you are actually only then capturing the reversion that you get in terms of those rents. So it's a slower-moving process, and there is a time lag, but it definitely has the catch-up potential given the dynamics we described.
Very helpful. Thanks very much. Cheers.
The next question comes from the line of Philipp Kaiser from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, everyone. And thanks for taking my questions after a couple of follow-ups. So you already mentioned the impairment charge on the development properties. Are there or can we expect more on that for this year? Any information on that?
Hi, Philipp. Yeah. Thank you for your question. I mean, no, we don't expect anything more to come for this year. I mean, we've booked the impairment of EUR 30 million, as said before. We've basically engaged a third-party construction advisor to double-check our cost forecast, which has been confirmed. So for the time being, we don't expect anything more to come.
Okay. Perfect. And on valuation in general, what's your assumption for the current year? Any negative valuation in sight, or kind of can we pass the draft on this?
Hi. So as you know, valuation is done by a third-party valuer. So at the moment, it is too early to comment on sort of the valuation dynamics here or any precise indication. However, I think it's fair to say that in terms of sentiment, this has improved and stabilized.
Okay. Perfect. You already mentioned your unencumbered assets, but I think you're on an ongoing process to might level up those, but you don't get any additional information on how much liquidity you might generate from those EUR 370 million, aren't you?
Well, we are in constructive discussions on all the measures that we have outlined in order to deal with the challenges, the refinancing of 2025. And at the moment, it is too early to give an update, but we will update the market in good time.
Perfect. Thanks a lot. And then, one on your financial results is also quite hit hard by the foreign exchange losses. Could you shed some light on your assumption for this year for foreign exchanges?
I mean, it's difficult to give a forecast here. And I mean, we only guide on FFO1 and rental income. But since the result after tax, I mean, if you check the results over the last five to six years, they have always been mainly driven by the valuation results, as positive as well as negative. And since we don't have any visibility right now on the valuation results, as Klaus just said, it's simply too early to quantify something. We are also not able to give an outlook on the result after tax.
Okay. Perfect. And then on your reduced CapEx for last year, will that kind of slow down the reduction in vacancy to any extent? Also your guidance for this year, any implication on the vacancy reduction speed?
Well, what it has done, it has led to a slight uptick in the vacancy rate in 2023, right? That's the 144 apartments that we spoke about. We have now been changing the investment policy in that respect. We are investing, as I said before. We are actively reducing the vacancy. There's a lot of apartments which are currently in renovation and about to hit the market as well. So long story short, what it has done is, it has slowed us down in the year 2023, but we're now taking measures in 2024 to address the higher vacancy and bring it back down.
Okay. Perfect. Last one from my side. You mentioned you're in various discussions on ongoing financing, but I think also a big part would be asset disposals. Could you shed some light? I mean, you know what you are kind of handing out, your mark for disposals. And I'm quite sure it's not all of this is non-core high vacancy assets. Could you give us an idea of the portfolio after you successfully dispose, let's say, EUR 200 million, EUR 300 million of your assets? So actually, I think it should also increase vacancy, at least in short term.
Well, as mentioned before, so we will not really comment at this moment on press or price speculations and also not on any portfolio composition, both in terms of disposals as well as how it would look afterwards, right? But we've always said disposals is part of the way to address the 2025 maturities. And I think that makes sense in the context of where the market is.
In addition, as I said, we are in constructive discussions also on the financing side, so shifting unsecured debt into secured debt, and will update the market in due time. But at the moment, it is too early.
Okay. Thanks a lot for the information and what's offered from my side.
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