All participants, please stand by. Your meeting is now ready to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Chartwell Retirement Residences Q3 2019 financial results conference call. Following the formal comments, we will hold a question and answer session. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Brent Binions, President and Chief Executive Officer of Chartwell Retirement Residences. Please go ahead, Mr. Binions.
Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. There's a slide presentation to accompany this conference call available on our website at chartwell.com under the Investor Relations tab. Joining me are Vlad Volodarski, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer, and Karen Sullivan, Chief Operating Officer. Let me remind everyone that during this call, we may make statements containing forward-looking information and non-GAAP measures. I direct you to our MD&A and other securities filings for information about the assumptions, risks, and uncertainties inherent in such forward-looking information and details of such non-GAAP measures. These documents can be found on our website or at sedar.com. Our results in the third quarter of 2019 have been impacted by new competition, particularly in certain Ontario and Quebec markets.
We expect this impact to be moderated in 2020 and future years by the expected growth and demand for senior living accommodation resulting from the accelerating growth in population of people over the age of 75 years. We are well on our way to executing on our five-year strategy with the rollout of our newly developed customer experience training programs to our 1,200 leaders and to our frontline staff in late 2019 and early 2020. Continuing our successful development program in Q3 2019, operations commenced at Kingsbridge Retirement Community in Kingston, Ontario, which is comprised of 165 IL and AL suites and is currently 41% leased. In 2019 to date, we completed sales of two non-core retirement residences and entered into a definitive agreement to sell four non-core long-term care in Ontario. Closing of that sale is expected in early 2020, subject to the receipt of regulatory approvals.
Our financial position remains strong, as you can see on slide four. At September 30, 2019, our liquidity amounted to CAD 384.5 million, which included CAD 17.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and CAD 367.2 million of available borrowing capacity on our credit facilities. In addition, at September 30, 2019, our share of cash and cash equivalents held in our equity account of JVs was CAD 7.1 million. The interest coverage ratio on a rolling 12-month basis remains strong at 3.2 at December 30, 2019, consistent with At September 30, 2019, consistent with December 31, 2018. Our indebtedness percentage calculated using historical costs of our assets was 50% at September 30, 2019, and our debt to capitalization ratio was 42.4%. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio increased to 8.1 times compared to 7.8 times at December 31, 2018.
We continue to build value in our real estate portfolio through portfolio and asset management programs, development of new properties, and opportunistic acquisitions, as shown on slide five. These value-add activities are supported by extensive industry and market research and by rigorous risk management practices. Work continues on our development pipeline of 1,005 suites with four projects, 359 suites in construction and four projects, 646 suites in pre-development. These projects are expected to generate meaningful development returns and allow us to grow our property portfolio with new, efficient, state-of-the-art residences. We continue to add future projects to our development pipeline. In addition, we have options to acquire close to 2,800 additional suites in Quebec through our partnership with Batimo. I'll now turn it over to Karen Sullivan, our Chief Operating Officer, to talk about some operational initiatives she and her team are working on. Karen?
Thanks, Brent. Turning to slide six, despite the competitive landscape in several markets, we are starting to see some positive signs that our sales and marketing strategies are effectively positioning our homes for future occupancy gains. This includes improvements to important leading indicators such as initial contacts, which increased 9% quarter-over-quarter. We also saw improvement in our personal visits this quarter compared to our last two quarters. Our September 22nd open house generated almost 1,000 new initial contacts, an increase over our last two fall open houses and stronger than our 2019 spring open house, which is traditionally the higher attended of our two events each year. Our contact center forwarded 6,319 leads to our homes, an increase of 33% from Q3 last year.
They also successfully scheduled 3,623 personal visits, an increase of 73% from Q3 2018, due in part to the addition of a new feature where prospects can utilize an online form on our website to schedule their own time to visit their chosen home. In an effort to ensure that our sales process is effective and being adhered to, we utilized a third-party company that completed 30 mystery shops in Chartwell homes and 23 in competitor homes in Q3. Based on these findings, on average, Chartwell outperformed its competition in most categories. In order to finish the year with a strong initial contact pipeline that can be utilized now as well as into 2020, we continue with a multimedia marketing strategy at the national and provincial level.
This included the launch of our new campaign, Let's Live, Together, in September across media platforms such as TV, newspaper, radio, digital, and magazines, along with supporting waves of direct mail for homes and areas of the country with higher levels of competition. Turning to slide seven. In Q3, we received the results of our employee and resident satisfaction survey results. I am pleased to report that we met our employee engagement target for 2019, increasing our score from 47% very satisfied employees to 48%, as we continue on our goal to get to 55% very satisfied by 2023. In addition, we are well on our way to our 2023 goal of 67% very satisfied residents, having moved an impressive five percentage points from 58% to 63% in one year. We remind everyone that we only look at the top box score for both employee engagement and customer satisfaction.
We are not satisfied with a rating of satisfied, only very satisfied. I believe this tremendous year-over-year increase is a result of our focus on the customer experience as our unique value proposition over the past several years. This has ramped up with our recent investment in the development of a Chartwell specific training program that was rolled out to our corporate office this summer, and to all 1,300 general managers and their management teams over the past six weeks. The next step is to use our newly hired directors of customer experience, who will be taking this training directly to our frontline employees on a regular basis in our retirement homes. We have no doubt, based on the feedback, that this will increase our referral base and help us with both occupancy and recruitment. I will now turn it over to Vlad to discuss our Q3 2019 financial performance.
Thanks, Karen. As shown on slide eight, in Q3 2019, net loss was CAD 0.8 million, compared to net income of CAD 9.1 million in Q3 2018, primarily due to a write-down in the carrying value of two of our properties, higher direct property operating expenses and finance costs, partially offset by higher resident revenues, deferred tax recoveries, and gains on disposal of assets. For Q3 2019, FFO was CAD 53.6 million, or CAD 0.25 per unit, compared to CAD 53.3 million or CAD 0.25 per unit in Q3 2018. The following items impacted the change in FFO. Higher adjusted NOI of CAD 1.1 million, consisting of a CAD 1.2 million increase in same property adjusted NOI, partially offset by CAD 0.1 million decrease in contributions from acquisitions and developments. Lower G&A expenses of CAD 0.8 million and other items combined, CAD 0.1 million, offset by higher finance costs of CAD 1.6 million.
Same property occupancy was 89.6% in Q3 2019, compared to 91% in Q3 2018. Turning to operating platform results. As shown on slide nine, in Q3 2019, our Ontario platform same property adjusted NOI increased CAD 0.5 million, or 1.4%, as rental rate increases in line with competitive market conditions and higher ancillary revenues were partially offset by lower occupancies and higher staffing costs and office and general expenses. In Q3 2019, same property occupancy was 83.9%, compared to 85.9% in Q3 2018. In Q3 2019, our Western Canada same property adjusted NOI increased CAD 0.6 million or 4.6%, primarily due to rental rate increases in line with competitive market conditions, partially offset by lower occupancies and higher staffing costs, as shown on slide 10. Occupancy in Q3 2019 was 95.2%, compared to 96.2% in Q3 2018 .
On slide 11, you will see our Quebec platform same property adjusted NOI decreased CAD 0.1 million or 0.6% in Q3, primarily due to higher staffing costs, office and general expenses, and lower occupancies, partially offset by rental rate increases in line with competitive market conditions and lower property tax expenses as a result of the successful appeal of certain prior years' assessments. In Q3 2019, same property occupancy was 90.7%, compared to 92.3% in Q3 2018. As shown on slide 12, our Ontario long-term care platform same property adjusted NOI increased CAD 0.2 million or 2.5% in Q3 2019, primarily due to higher preferred accommodation revenue and lower repairs and maintenance expenses. Weighted average occupancy in the same property portfolio was 98.8% in Q3 2019, compared to 98.4% in Q3 2018. I will now turn the call back to Brent to wrap up.
Thanks, Vlad. We believe that by focusing on enhancing our resident experience in our homes, and by delivering exceptional services and care to our residents, we will generate strong financial results and long-term sustainable value creation for our unitholders. We recognize that only highly engaged employees can deliver exceptional services and quality care to our residents, and we continue to make significant investments in recruitment, training, and development of our team members.
We continue to improve corporate support delivered to our operating teams, including the implementation of new technology solutions to better understand our customers, communicate with our employees, and reduce administrative time commitment in the field. We have put the infrastructure in place to successfully execute on the significant development program we set for ourselves for 2019 and beyond, as we are confident that these new state-of-the-art properties will meaningfully contribute to enhancing the quality of our real estate portfolio and provide strong value creation for our unit holders over time. Thank you for your time and attention this morning, and we will now be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Binions. We will now be taking questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question and you're using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before making the selection. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any time you wish to cancel your question, please press the pound sign. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. The first question is from Brendon Abrams from Canaccord Genuity. You may go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Brent, in your opening remarks, you speak about the expectation for kind of a balancing in the market or kind of competition moderating in 2020 based on growing demand. I'm wondering if you could just maybe speak to the other side of the ledger in terms of supply and maybe your expectations for the supply side heading into maybe 2020 or 2021.
Certainly. We, as you know, are active in many markets across the country on development, and we monitor all the markets that we're in. We do see a slowdown in expected starts or expected openings, more accurately, really by the back half of 2020. Construction costs and land costs keep rising, making it more difficult to do development in some markets. We ourselves have begun to look at some of our projects and slow some of the stuff down. We see this happening kind of on a somewhat broader basis across the market. Our view is that supply will begin to moderate by the back half of 2020 as demand continues to grow.
Right. Okay. Vlad, I know you disclosed in your MD&A there's about CAD 13 million of NOI opportunity on the stabilization of, I guess, five recently completed developments. Just wondering if you could remind us again on perhaps maybe a timeline or expectations to achieve stabilized occupancy?
Sure. It's actually a bit more than 13 million. These five properties contributed negative CAD 2 million of NOI year to date in 2019. Our expectation that upon achievement of stabilized occupancy of 95%, these five properties will generate about CAD 13.4 million of NOI at our share. The net impact is probably a bit higher than CAD 13.4. These properties should stabilize over the next two years. Different time frames for different properties, but over the next two years, all of these should be stabilized.
Okay. Maybe just a last question from me. I know Ottawa has kind of been a softer market for all industry operators there. Can you just remind us your exposure in that market specifically?
Yes, we have 13 properties in the Ottawa market, and certainly been impacted by the oversupply in that particular market.
How much of NOI or percentage of suites would that represent?
13 properties, about just under 10% of our overall retirement portfolio.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks very much. I'll turn it over.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jonathan Kelcher from TD Securities. You may go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning.
Morning.
Just sticking with the supply or the impact of supply. It sounds like you expect it to sort of even out near the back half of next year. How should we think about Ontario occupancy over the next couple of quarters?
New supply has had more of an impact than we expected in Q3. That said, we are seeing a real turnaround in our leading indicators, which is a good sign. We saw an uptick in initial contacts and personal visits. Our sales calls are definitely up. Our online traffic is up. We really do feel that the sales strategies that I've been talking to you about the last few quarters are starting to have an impact. Everything from those cluster sales strategies that we're using in the competitive markets, the advertising campaign that we just launched this fall. We had a really successful open house.
Our C2C, our contact center that we now have agents in Montreal as well as here in Mississauga, and we're going to have agents in Vancouver very soon. Those business B2C strategies where we're interacting with realtors and financial people, as well as the more traditional kind of healthcare influencers are all kind of coming to bear, are all starting to come together, and that's why our leading indicators are up. We're certainly feeling better about our future occupancy.
Hopefully Q3 2019 is a bottom for it?
Yes.
Okay. Just switching gears a little bit. On the five new properties, and I guess this is more of a general question, and hopefully you can answer it, but at what occupancy is a home generally FFO breakeven?
It really depends on the size of the home. Rule of thumb used to be 55%. It's now a bit lower than that because the homes are bigger, so let's say 50%.
Okay. I guess you gave occupancies for four of the developments that opened this year. How have they trended since the end of the quarter?
They're leasing up, there's always increases in the occupancy. I cannot tell you exactly how many units they're up, they're up as a group for sure.
Okay. Just lastly on the Batimo acquisitions that looks like you're going to do in Q1 next year. Would that be the typical 85% that you would look to buy?
Welltower has a right to participate in one of those acquisitions. If they do participate, they will take half of our 85% of that one home. The other home, we will be buying 85% in.
Okay. Would it be fair to say the cap rate would be somewhere in the low 6% range?
Yes.
Okay, thanks. I'll turn it back.
Thank you. The next question is from Chris Couprie from CIBC. You may go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi there. Just following up on the Batimo questions. Does Welltower have the opportunity to participate in any of the other future Batimo projects?
Yes. There are two other projects where they have an opportunity to participate.
Okay. The value that you thought was the value for those two that you'll be likely purchasing next quarter, it increased sequentially. Is that kind of a final number now?
We're still in negotiations with respect to the purchase price. As soon as we are done these, then we have a firm deal, we'll announce that number.
Okay, got it. Just I have a question on your leasing. In terms of the different types of lead sources, open house, online, and so on, can you maybe give us an idea of the type of conversion rates for the various sources of leads?
Somebody who walks in, that's the highest conversion ratio. After that, referrals. Depends on how you're categorizing, direct calls would be next. People who come with a referral, that is by far the highest, and that's our biggest number of move-ins are people with referrals of some sort. Walk-ins, calls. Calls include C2C, direct calls to the homes. What's after that?
So open houses and-
Online.
Oh.
Online.
Online's next by far. Open houses are a smaller number. They're valuable, but they're a smaller number.
I was going to add, it's why we're so focused on the customer experience is because the referrals are such a high conversion.
Just on average, just so you understand, half of the people who contact us usually come visit us, and of those people, a quarter usually move in. That's the rule of thumb, but different sources have different closing ratios.
Overall, have closing ratios been falling?
No.
No.
They've been actually increasing.
Fractionally up.
Yeah.
Okay. Thanks. Just kind of maybe getting back to the whole narrative around supply. In your pre-construction pipeline, few of your projects, you've pushed out the expected completion date. Is that a function of you're aware of your impact that those properties could have on the market, or is there something else?
No. The projects in construction, if the date is pushed out, it's because of the site-specific issues that caused the delay in construction completion. The projects that are in pre-construction, that would be the right observation, where we're reevaluating the time of the entry and financial metrics of these projects. It really depends on where the project is in the development cycle.
Okay, thanks. I'll get back in line.
Thank you. Once again, press star one on your telephone keypad if you have any questions or comments. The next question comes from Himanshu Gupta from Scotiabank. You may go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning. Just going back to the occupancy question, Ontario occupancy at around 84%. From your historical experience, at what level does the occupancy bottom out? This is not the first time you have seen a wave of new supply in the market.
No. I would guess based on our experience and on where our leading indicators now sit in the marketplace and the traffic flow as it's moved back up, we believe that this is probably at the bottom of the trough and that it should start back up now.
Sure. Mid-80s or low 80s, that's really where we can see it stopping out and seeing some kind of recovery?
Yes.
Okay. You mentioned in the MD&A annual remarks as well that you were kind of surprised by the impact of new supply. My question is, were you surprised by the service level and the product quality of the new product, or is it just the sheer number of units being delivered is much more than what you had thought of?
We were not surprised by the number of units that were delivered. What was more than what expected is the impact that it had on the properties that we operate. It's a combination of the service offering that the new properties offer, the quality of the new construction, and how much impact it had on the existing property operations. Not just ours, but everybody else who are in those markets.
Sure. Will you consider giving more incentives than before, given the competition there?
No, we do not, actually. That's because we're by far the largest player in the retirement marketplace in the country. Our experience tells us that any time you engage in giving away part of your rate, other people have to match, and it just becomes a race to the bottom. We find it rare when we'll do that now. It might be on a very localized, one-off occasion in a site, one site, but it is not something we do on any broad-based basis at all.
Got it. Just on the Toronto property, the Sumach. It's leasing up. Is it as per your expectations? In general, how is the product being received by the market?
The lease-up is a little slower than what we originally expected. We're close to 50% occupied right now. It is a new product in the marketplace, so there's some education that needs to happen. We see quite a bit of traffic and interest in this product, and we're confident that we're going to meet our underwriting expectations and catch up to our lease-up projections.
Got it. Maybe just switching gears on the forward purchase regarding the Edmonton property. I think the stabilized cap rate is around 6.5%. What's your stabilized occupancy? Will you have it underwritten in how many years? Probably, the cap rate of around 6.5%, has the market moved since you got into this contract? The bond yields have come down, but the new supply has gone up. Any color on the cap rates there?
Let's start with stabilized occupancy that we expect to achieve in this home is 95%-96%. The purchase price being negotiated at the time that we enter in this forward purchase agreement, the changes in cap rates don't have any impact on the price that we're paying. Overall, cap rates have compressed across the country in the last six months or so, according to CBRE reports, particularly in the markets like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal to a lesser degree.
Sure. Maybe just a last one from me on the operating expenses. They were up, I think, around 2.7%, partly or mainly due to higher staffing costs. How should we see that next year in terms of property expenses expectations?
As always, our targets, and we think we can achieve it, is to deliver 3%-4% same property NOI growth on a portfolio basis. With respect to expenses, the expectation is that they'll probably continue to be in the same kind of range of 2%-3% a year. We do see some higher staffing costs in some of the markets where there's a tight labor market and attracting people is hard, so we incur some overtime and, in some cases, agency costs, particularly in places like Quebec City. Generally, for the portfolio overall, being as diverse as it is at Chartwell, our expectation is to have about 2%-3% expense growth in a year.
Yeah. 3%-4% same property NOI growth, right? Did you mention that, 3%-4%?
That's our expectation, yes.
For next year. Okay. Thank you. I will turn it back. Very helpful.
Thank you. The next question is from Troy MacLean from BMO Capital Markets. You may go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you. Just given the cost inflation over the last couple of years, you mentioned that having an impact on new supply in the next couple of years, would you say there's a gap between where market rents are at right now and the cost needed to bring on newer projects to start, like basically put a shovel on the ground today?
Yes. Given the acceleration in construction costs and the fact that people always have been building to the top of the market, nobody's really building to the bottom end of the market in terms of the pricing. I think there is gap in some markets with respect to how much it costs to build and how much people can achieve on rents.
How wide would it be? Would it be equal to a couple of years' worth of rent growth, or has it opened up where it's much wider than it has been in the past?
If you look at the acceleration of construction costs over the last couple of years, they're probably in 30% range. Rents have not grown by 30% in most of the markets. It's probably wider than just one or two years of normal rent increases.
That's good color. Thank you. Then just with the supply overhang, I know you mentioned that you guys are not getting more aggressive on rents because it's kind of a zero-sum game, but are you finding competitors with a lot of product to lease up, getting more aggressive on either rents or marketing versus prior quarters?
For the most part, no. What is actually beneficial is most of the development being done now is by experienced operators, as opposed to what we saw six, seven years ago, when a lot of it was done by developers. This is experienced operators, all of whom understand the severely negative impact on long-term value caused by underpricing your property just to lease it up. It creates a significant gap in value. Because most of this development is being done by experienced operators, we're seeing very little of it.
Most of the people doing building they're not merchant builders looking to sell. They're more building for their own accounts. Is that a fair comment?
Absolutely. At this time, in this cycle, that's the case.
Brent, you mentioned, the quality of new supply having an impact, and I was just kind of curious, is that just a newer product, or are there any differences between what's getting delivered today versus more of the existing product, either like, layout or services that is having an impact?
No, it's mostly the shiniest, newest building is the one that attracts most-
Initial interest
the initial interest from the daughter of the resident who's doing the searching. That's just the way it is. The newer is always better in the eyes of people that are first looking at it. It's why we view referrals as so critical. Great service actually is the differentiator in the quality of life of a resident. It's a matter of continuing down the path we're on. It's no question it's the new look that attracts the attention initially.
Okay. That's really good color. I'll turn it back now. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, please press star one if you have a question or comment. The next question comes from Brendon Abrams from Canaccord Genuity. You may go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, just a follow-up question. Just curious whether you guys track the percentage of new residents that own or previously owned their home versus rented. I'm just curious, as we've seen a tight kind of rental market here in Canada.
We do not have that information. We can't tell you the precise number of residents that come from rental versus owning. We do know that our anecdotal evidence is the vast majority come from owning. We don't track that.
Okay. The second would be, I'm wondering if, are you guys able to quantify kind of the brand value of Chartwell? You're the largest operator in the country and one of the few, probably with brand recognition. I'm wondering, whether you are able to quantify in terms of benchmarking, like if you had a property next to an independent operator, for the same asset and service levels, is there a premium you are able to charge, or is the competitive advantage really in probably just increasing the occupancy a little higher than the independent?
That is very hard to quantify. Sorry. We do track brand awareness across the country. We would be significantly higher than our competitors. That means people know our name before other names. We do know that under most research, people will only visit three properties. Having your brand out there is pretty important. We know if you show up at our door, 12% of people are going to move in. We know it is of some advantage, but we cannot quantify that.
Okay. That's helpful. Then just last question from me. I know, we speak a lot about supply in some of the oversupplied markets. What would be maybe two or three of your kind of strongest markets that you're seeing right now?
All of B.C.
Yeah. Southwestern Ontario.
Yeah
has had a strong year, for sure. Windsor.
Yeah. Southwestern Ontario, for sure. Pretty much everywhere in British Columbia-
Yeah
would be some of the strongest markets.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Pammi Bir from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, and good morning. Just maybe coming back to the same property NOI discussion for 2020. Sounds like BC should be quite strong. Can you provide some color just in terms of the three overall regions, how that might look for next year?
Our expectation that all three regions will show some growth. That's the beauty of having diversified portfolio like we do, where somebody underperforming, there's always an opportunity for somebody else to outperform. At this point, we are not prepared to give you the geographical breakdown, but our expectation is that we should deliver 3%-4% same property NOI growth on a portfolio-wide basis.
Got it. Maybe just lastly, on the two properties where you took the write-down in Ottawa, how do they compare to the rest of the Ottawa portfolio? What maybe made those unique in terms of taking the charge there?
These properties we felt were overpriced in this particular market. In order to lease them up, we decided that these need to be repriced. They're somewhat different than the rest of the properties in that market.
The occupancy, I take it, was considerably lower than the rest?
Yes, the occupancy is considerably lower than the rest of our portfolio in Ottawa. Our expectation is that we will be leasing up these properties with the new rates. Because of the competitive nature of the Ottawa market, it will take a little time to get there.
Are these newer or older properties in the portfolio?
They're kind of middle-age properties.
Middle age, okay. Putting additional CapEx or maybe some upgrades wasn't going to be enough to, I guess, get them to a stabilized level a bit sooner.
No, they're well-maintained. They don't need additional capital. They were just overpriced in the market.
Right. Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Tal Woolley from National Bank Financial. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning.
Hi.
Just wanted to ask, how have you refined your response to new product, say, over the last five years? There was an earlier discussion sort of about incentives and sort of refusing to participate in that game in the past. That sounds like one thing you learned. Is there anything else that you sort of learned in terms of negotiating a response to new products?
Sure. We try and get out in front of, on the CapEx side a little earlier, when we see new competition coming. Suite turns, suite upgrades. We have a much more refined suite upgrade plan for our properties than we ever have before, where we focus our dollars, accretive upgrades to properties. All of these, we do a pretty significant review of every single property, every single year, and where are we going to allocate our accretive dollars into the properties, and we try and put a little more focus on properties that have new competition coming in close by.
Is there anything on the marketing side, too, that you'd say you've learned as well?
That's more local in terms of marketing dollars. It depends, really. In certain markets, we will do cluster advertising. We've started that. If we've got four or five homes in an area and a new one's coming in, we'll pool the dollars, put actually a few extra dollars in from our broader marketing program, and spend a little bit more money in those markets to compete with the new build.
Okay. Of your total marketing budget, how much are you spending right now on the sort of corporate branding projects, and then how much is sort of spent locally?
Most of the marketing budget is controlled centrally. Now, this is a new age. A lot of stuff is being done online. The advertising, though benefiting individual properties, we control it centrally. That's where most of the allocations are going. We're doing online, we're doing advertising, as you could see on TV and newspapers. Some of it is done with regionally for specific properties in particular regions. Most of the marketing spend is controlled corporately.
Okay. Just from an accounting purpose, that's mostly captured in the corporate G&A line?
No. It'll be allocated to the properties as part of direct operating expenses.
Okay, got it. Finally, just G&A, I think you had talked earlier this year about expecting it to kind of ramp down in the back half of the year. Does that still feel consistent for Q4? What sort of envelope should we be thinking about going forward?
What we said in the beginning of the year that our expectation that G&A will grow in line with inflation this year. We continue to believe that will be the case, maybe a little bit lower because we adjusted the incentive-based compensation for our corporate people. That should be the expectation going forward, inflationary increases.
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you have a question or a comment, please press star one. The next question comes from Chris Couprie from CIBC. Your line is now open.
Hi there. Just a follow-up from me. Most of your properties are predominantly IL, ISL. I'm just wondering if you've noticed any occupancy trends in the properties that have a greater mix of AL memory care. On the kind of new supply, is there anything that you can tell us about what the suite mix is for the new supply?
No, we haven't noticed any particular trends. Trends are consistent from our perspective across all property types. The new supply, it varies market by market, so it's kind of hard to make general statements like this.
Okay. In the managed communities, I noticed you've been adding a kind of property here, property there for the last couple of quarters. Is there anything that's kind of happening in terms of the property management side?
No, the only managed properties that we would be adding are Batimo properties that are opening. We do not add properties to our managed portfolio. We like to own and operate our own, or we manage properties which we have options to acquire interest.
Understood. Okay, thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Brent Binions.
All right. That wraps up today's conference call. Thanks again to everybody for joining us. As always, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to give us a call. Thank you and goodbye.
Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation. This conference is no longer being recorded. [Foreign language] Please note that this conference call has ended. Please disconnect your line at this time. Thank you. [Foreign language]