Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Philip Burns. Please go ahead, Mr. Burns.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, And we remind everybody that during our conference call this morning, we may include forward looking statements about our future financial and operating results. I direct your attention to Slide 2 and our other regulatory filings. Joining me today is our CFO, Stephen Koh. After I provide an update on our operational progress during the quarter, Stephen will provide an overview of our financial results and position.
We are very pleased to present to you today another quarter of strong operating performance, which we concluded with 2 acquisitions of multi residential properties in the Netherlands that kick In combination with our acquisitions completed during the 3rd Q4 of 2020, We have grown our residential suite count by 552 units across 10 properties, representing an increase of 10% compared to the Q2 of 2020. The fair value of our total investment property portfolio at the same time period increased by an even greater 15% to €1,562,000,000 at June 30, 2021, magnifying the high quality of our properties as well as the ongoing strong and favorable market with Dynamics in the Dutch Residential Sector. This resulted in a significant fair value gain of €34,900,000 which we recognized during the 3 months ended June 20. Our market capitalization and public flow also continues to trend upward, both increasing by 6% compared to the same period of last year. However, there continues to be a disconnect between the unit price and intrinsic value despite the strong fundamentals in our portfolio.
Slide 5 contains an overview of our Business development during the Q2 of 2021, starting with the fair value of our investment properties increasing to Just over €1,500,000,000 at June 30, as I just mentioned, which is comprised of €1,450,000,000 in the multi residential properties and €11,000,000,000 in commercial properties located in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. This also includes our 2 newest acquisitions of multi residential properties in the Netherlands, which both closed on June 30, 2021, comprising an aggregate 137 residential suites as well as ancillary commercial and parking space Required for combined purchase price of €47,000,000 excluding costs and fees. In terms of financing activity and liquidity, the acquisitions were funded using existing source liquidity being incremental drawdown of our credit facilities to be replaced with long term mortgage financing that will be secured during the upcoming Q3 of 2021. With the remaining unused capacity on our credit facilities at June 30, combined with the cash on hand and the €165,000,000 available to use via the pipeline agreement, €5,000,000 available to use via the pipeline agreement, Erez still has over €200,000,000 in immediately available liquidity. Strong operating results this quarter translated through to our key metrics with FFO per unit and AFFO per unit of €0.038 and €0.033 respectively, recognized for the quarter ended June 20, 2021.
Slide 6 contains a high level overview of key characteristics of our latest two acquisitions, which closed at the end of the most recent quarter. The Philip property located at Belperweg, east of the city center of Arnhem in the eastern region of the Netherlands It's comprised of 104 residential units, each with a corresponding parking space as well as ancillary commercial space. The property was fully rented in 2019 and is 100% owned by ERES. As of 30th June, it was 99% Most of the units are leased in the mid market sector providing good potential for organic rental growth. In addition, almost all remaining regulated units are eligible for liberalization upon turnover, providing further potential for incremental uplifts of rent upon conversion.
The Deep Horizon property located in the Ustenberg District of Amsterdam is a newly built multi residential property comprised of 33 residential units. The property is similarly 100 percent owned by Erez and 100 percent of the units are liberalized. As a new development, the property was entire The effect upon acquisition and leasing initiatives are underway with good momentum. We expect to have the building fully leased by the end of October. Both properties are strategically well located near a significant portion of U.
S. Existing portfolio, allowing for operational efficiencies and synergies with the properties being managed by Erez M, our existing asset and property manager established in the Netherlands. Slide 7 provides some statistics on our current residential portfolio. Average occupied monthly rents were €865 as of June 30, representing an increase of 12% versus Q2 2020. Residential occupancy The decrease to 98% at June 30th compared to 98.8% at June 30th, 2020.
However, 26% of vacancies attributable to our recently acquired newly built property that was entirely vacant upon acquisition. As mentioned earlier, we plan to have it fully leased by the end of October. The majority of the remaining residential vacancy in the current period is due to renovation. As of June 30, 2021, 67 residential units were under renovation, representing 53% of the total vacancy. Upon completion of this renovation, a Significant portion of these suites will be converted from regulated to liberalized, demonstrating the execution of our value add capital investment program.
Turnover was 3.6% for the Q2 of 2021 compared to 3.4% in the prior year period. Rental uplift on that turnover continues to improve, however, at 16.9% compared to the 11.5% uplift achieved in the same period The Eros portfolio is well diversified by a number of bedrooms, ensuring we meet the demand for smaller units as well as for families. You can also see that approximately half of our current portfolio was constructed since 1980, providing an average age of under 40 years, Resulting in lower ongoing repairs and maintenance and driving higher asset values. To elaborate further on the balanced mixture of properties that constitute to our total portfolio. On Slide 8, you can see that over 40% of our current properties are located in the high growth urban conservation of the Randstad With approximately 25% directly located in the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
The rest of the portfolio is situated in smaller urban areas throughout the country. Furthermore, approximately 35% of our portfolio is comprised of single family homes, also known as Dutch Row Houses, a segment which represents an additional diversifying and unique contributor to our portfolio mix. Importantly, our suites continue to be nearly evenly divided between regulated and the member lives with a modest weighting toward the liberalized, providing balanced growth in rents on turnover and the mixation as well as the opportunity to liberalize more suites. On that note, for rental increases due To indexation beginning on July 1, 2021, during the quarter, U. S.
Served tenant notices to 94% of its Live Suites, Across which the weighted average rental increase due to indexation was 2.3%. This was in line with the recently enacted Government legislative maximum annual indexation for liver life suites of CPI plus 1% that is affected for initial period of 3 years from May 1, 2021, up to and including April 30, 2024, combined with the Dutch government's inflation of 1.4%. The rents of tenants of regulated suites were not indexed in compliance with Dutch government's maximum indexation for all regulated Suites at 0% effective for the 1 year period from July 1, 2021, up to and including June 30, 2022. Inclusive of these regulated suites, which were not indexed, our weighted average rental increase due to the indexation was 1.5% based on tenant notices Not only revolves around increased rents on annual indexation, but is rather trifold and based also upon turnover and the conversion of regulated suites to liberalized suites. Importantly, these recent
set
of regulations do not apply to rent uplifts on turnover or CapEx driven increases. Accordingly, when these uplifts on indexation are combined with our strong trend growth and turnover, especially in the regulated to liberalized category, We still expect to continue to achieve rental growth in our target range of 3% to 4%. Further, since inception, ERIDS has been successfully operating within a complex regulatory regime, which constitutes one of our key competitive advantages, The confidence that is now becoming increasingly more valuable. Considering the uniquely diverse composition of our balanced Between urban and suburban, regulated and liberalized and across single family and multifamily properties, we are well This brings us to Slide 9, where I can provide a further update on the Dutch government's response to the COVID-nineteen pandemic. The substantial government assistance programs enacted since the beginning of the crisis have once again been extended to remain in place as Netherlands continues to prioritize the sustenance and well-being of its people and the recovery of its economy, all while simultaneously Still confronting an array of spreading variants of the virus.
Various social restrictions also remain in place. And with these proactive and unwavering measures and Careful reopening of the country in a stage 5 step process, the Dutch government has been able to mitigate as much as possible the adverse impact of the outbreak. Combined with its strong market fundamentals and an underlying economic stability inherent in the Netherlands, unemployment has remained low And the Dutch economy continues to outperform its Eurozone counterparts, evidencing the effectiveness of these support packages alongside the resiliency of its economy and the robustness And with that, I will now turn the call over to Stephen.
Operator, we're getting feedback that the line is not open or the call is silent.
I can hear you very clearly.
Okay. That's fine. Okay. All right. Thank you, Philip.
As you can see on Slide 11, our operating metrics indeed continued to steadily improve. Our operating revenues increased by 9 percent to €18,700,000 in the 3 months ended June 30, 2021, from $17,200,000 in the quarter ended June 30, 2020, primarily due to the accretive acquisition since the prior year period And an increase in average monthly rent on the stabilized portfolio. Our NOI increased by even more, up 1% to the 19%.
I hate to interrupt, but Paul, I also am continuing to receive messages that there's no audio for the investors, the participants. Is there a way we can confirm that?
On my side, I can hear you very clearly. What I'm hearing, the participants are supposed to be hearing as well because we're all in the same virtual room.
They hear us now, given the feedback from my team.
Okay. Very good. Sorry, Stephen, continue. Sorry for the convenience.
No worries. So our NOI increased And even more by 11% to $14,700,000 for the 3 months ended June 30, 2021 compared to €13,100,000 during the Q2 of 2020, likewise driven by contribution from acquisitions since the prior year period as well as higher monthly rents on stabilized properties. This was further complemented by a decrease in property operating costs as a percentage of operating revenues, predominantly due to the recognition of a non recurring rebate from the government for landlord levies. The rebate is a result of an acquisition of a Shell entity completed last year, which contained right to a rebate from the government for landlord letter rebates payable, for which we paid €0.51 for every euro of rebate totaling to a credit The net reduction to landlord levy expense of 308,000 Recognized this quarter represents 50% of the rebate utilized for the 1st 6 months of fiscal 2021, with the remainder to be recognized in the second half of the year. In aggregate, this drove total portfolio NOI margin to increase to 78.2% for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 compared to 76.2% in the comparative prior year period.
Excluding the impact of the landlord levy rebate, NOI margin for the total portfolio still increased 76.5 percent for the 3 months ended June 30, 2021. FFO and AFFO Increased by 13% and 11%, respectively, compared to the Q2 of 2020, while FFO per unit and AFFO per unit Increased by 15% 10%, respectively, compared to Q2 2020. The increases were driven by the positive impact of the increased stabilized NOI and accretive acquisitions since the comparative prior year period, In addition to the partial recognition of the landlord levy rebate, net of taxes of 246,000 It is expected that the remaining landlord letter rebate net of taxes of approximately 246,000 to positively impact FFO and AFFO in the second half of the year. The resilient trend line established by our consistently improving operating results continues on to Slide 12. As Philip mentioned, Our residential suite count I'm getting messages again that our audio is coming in and out.
Operator, would you be able to check what's happening?
Okay. Because again, I can hear you clearly all through, but let me see if would you like me to open up the lines and maybe They can express themselves directly on the conference.
I don't think that's a good idea.
No. It's Cutting in and out. It's cutting in and out. So they heard a lot of mine. They missed some and they were hearing Steven and now they're not hearing Steven.
There are those that are hearing it perfectly throughout. So maybe it's
Right, because I can hear you clearly. It sounds very clear. So I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
We'll continue then. Okay. As Philip mentioned, our residential suite count increased by 10% since the same time last year, evidencing our ability to acquisitively grow and ultimately execute on our growth oriented strategic objectives even during these unprecedented times. Our residential occupancy did decrease to 98% as of June 30, 2021, compared to 98.8% as at June 30, 2020. However, this is largely due to the recent acquisition of our newly built Horizon property that was fully vacant as of period end.
On a stabilized basis, residential occupancy was 98.5% On the current period end, down only slightly from the 98.8% in the comparative prior year period. Majority of the vacancy in the current period is due to units under renovation pursuant to our execution of our value enhancing capital expenditure program. Stabilized occupied average monthly rent increased by 4%, demonstrating the top line rental growth that we continue to achieve, supporting an even higher 5.3% growth in net operating income on our stabilized portfolio. Similar to the total portfolio, the latter was magnified by the lower property operating costs as a percentage of operating revenues, predominantly due to the recognition of the landlord levy rebate. Together, this drove stabilized NOI margin to increase to 78.1% For the 3 months ended June 30, 2021 compared to 76.3% for the same period last year.
Excluding the landlord levy rebate, which I mentioned, NOI margin on the stabilized portfolio still increased to 76.4% Our liquidity position continues to support our business endeavors And remains conservative and strong as of June 30, 2021, as you can see on Slide 13. Amid the unpredictability of the capital markets, U. S. Has been able to maintain a debt to growth of value within its target range of 45% to 50%, Lower its weighted average mortgage effective interest rate, reflecting the persistently low financing rates throughout the European Union and maintain the conservative term to maturity on its mortgage portfolio. Even with the temporary incremental draw on our credit facilities to fund our recent acquisitions.
We still have immediate available liquidity of over €200,000,000 as of June 30, 2021, which includes the €165,000,000 pipeline agreement from CAPREIT that provides us with the acquisition capacity in excess of €400,000,000 Our credit facility draws will be replaced with long term mortgage financing during the Q3 of 2021, which will free up our lines and therefore further improve our liquidity position. And that brings me to Slide 14, which provides more detail on our staggered mortgage portfolio with the nearest debt maturity not occurring until December 2022. In addition, we expect to close on our new mortgage financing in Q3 of 2021, which will also be combined with a profitable Refinancing of an existing mortgage on the initial portfolio, originally expiring in 2023 that will further improve our mortgage renewal profile. In addition, the majority of our mortgages are non amortizing. As we continue to grow, we will ensure that we maintain the smooth maturity Thank you for your time this morning.
I would now turn things back over to Philip Tuatha.
Thanks, Stephen. In summary, I would like to reemphasize The robustness of Erez's operating model and strategy, economic and real estate fundamentals of the European multi residential market and the expertise of management are together continuing to drive consistently strong operating results quarter after quarter as we continually see work towards spreading the U. S. Story. This most recent quarter represents the beginning of only our 3rd year of operations that has once again reinforced a growing reputation for reliable, robust growth, both internally and externally.
The long term positive metrics that characterize the Dutch multi residential market and the abundance of growth opportunity in that market supports each of these endeavors in the short term and long run achievement of our strategic objectives. In this regard, we believe that Erez offers a compelling investment opportunity. The REIT provides a unique opportunity to invest in the vast growing and attractive European multi residential real estate market. Our partnership with CAPREIT brings significant benefits to our unitholders. We are growing our portfolio at very attractive yield spreads with strong and highly accretive organic and external growth opportunities.
We've established a strong foothold in the Netherlands multi res market, and we are building size and scale to drive value going forward. Our conservative balance sheet and financial position provides the flexibility and resources to drive further growth, and we have in place an experienced management team and the seasoned Board of Directors. Thank you for your time this morning, and we would now be pleased to take any questions you may have.
Thank you. Yes, we will now take questions from the telephone lines. Please lift your hands up before making your selection. There will be a brief pause while the participants register. We thank you for your patience.
First question is from Jonathan Kelter from TD Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hey, Jonathan.
Good morning, Jonathan.
First question, just on the Verizon property, Yes. Being fully leased by October, is that faster or slower than it might have otherwise been if there was no changes To the rules on liberalized rents.
I don't think the rules on liberalized rents has an impact. That only reflects the indexation. It doesn't reflect turnover. So this is basically as if all suites were turned over, if you will, because they were stuck at 0 occupancy, so we can bring everything.
Well, I guess I'm kind of asking if you're going a little bit slower just to Make sure you maximize the first rent to get because you are going to be limited on renewals.
I think our pace is we want to get it fully occupied as soon as we can, This is pragmatic and we think the market particularly in the estrogen market at this price point is incredibly strong and robust. So we're not slowing down to try and push rents a little bit harder. We're going to ensure that we maximize rents with the initial letting.
Okay. And what is the price point? What sort of rents are you looking for?
It's going to be in sort of the 1600 range.
Okay. And then the, I guess, developer you bought this from, are there going forward, are there opportunities to do more deals?
It could be. This was actually a unique situation where the developer is a housing association. So as you will know from our chats previously, Housing associations are generally in the business of and mandated to provide affordable or regulated housing. And when they started developing this I said they would have anticipated it being significantly in the affordable space, but just as the market has continued to move on, rents have continued to go up, values have continued to go up. As they were approaching completion, they realized that it was going to be a liberalized asset and that's really not part of their mandate.
So they are just rotating capital And they are continuing to redeploy that capital and they're actually developing other assets very close to the Horizon asset now. Whether or not those ultimately end up being regulated or affordable or they might have the same dynamic happen to them, It's to be seen, but it was also a broken deal, which was very positive for us. So we were able to step in and demonstrate to a housing association that we're a good Counterparty. So to the extent that they have something that would be appropriate that they would be keen to sell, I think that puts us in very good standing. As an international investor, not necessarily Dutch, I think our reputation for being a good counterparty is further enhanced now that we can Successfully transact with the housing authority.
Okay.
And then just My last question would be, it's been
a couple of months now since
the regulation changes have Come in. Have you guys seen a difference in the acquisition market, either more properties for sale or maybe some buyers pulling back?
Yes. I mean, sorry, Jonathan, I missed some of that question, but I think I got it. I mean, and I apologize to everybody on the line that there's been some audio problems Today, I don't know why, but we apologize. But if the question was due to the regulatory changes, have we changed? The pipeline was expected to be slow in 2020 1 as we discussed just given the high volume that came on in Q4.
As I mentioned, the GE Horizon asset was a broken situation that we stepped into. The bill of 'nineteen was an off market Opportunity that wasn't marketed, so we continue to work on that to ensure that we can try and get some deal flow outside the normal processes. But Even within the normal processes, the deal flow is picking up. I think it's part of the natural cycle. Those people that have traditionally been sellers are still looking to rotate capital.
And Because the asset class has performed so well over the last 18 months, I don't think it's affecting the deal pipeline such that people are going to be Selling more assets because they're worried about future regulations. I mean, regulations, they come and go, as you know. Our results are demonstrating that even with the new constraints There are the new parameters. We're still delivering very attractive rental growth. So that makes it and continues to reaffirm that it's a great place If you can get 3% to 4% top line rental growth and you can buy a good yield spreads even in a regulatory environment, that's very attractive.
People are going to rotate their assets and I think the second half of the year we'll see more of that. But again, I don't see any dynamics Coming from those regulatory changes that are making people sell when they otherwise wouldn't have.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. I'll turn it back.
Thank you. The next question is from Matt Logan from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you, and good morning. Wondering if you can talk about your leasing velocity and how pricing is tracking Canadian Markets.
Yes. I mean, I think you just have to sort of look at our Q2 turnover and turnover uplifts, and you can look at our 6 months year to date, and everything is trending up from the prior Prior periods, whether you look at it on a quarter over quarter basis or a 6 month on a 6 month basis. The housing market in the Netherlands continues to be very, very robust, if you will. I mean, house price inflation For the past 12 months to June, it was up very, very substantially, the highest it has been, I think, in 10 years. Having said that, Over the past 10 years, house price inflation has been doubling rental inflation.
So from a rental perspective, it's probably becoming more and more of a stronger market because house price is going up so fast, people don't necessarily have an opportunity to do something other than rent. And I think you're seeing that in our turnover numbers and well, not so much in the turnover rate. It's been pretty consistent, but you're seeing it in our turnover uplifts. Again, not being insensitive to what that means to our customers and to our tenants, but right now, we're seeing the ability to get sustainable uplift on our turnover.
And when you look ahead to perhaps a bit of a more normalized economy, Do you expect demand or pricing would increase as the Dutch economy opens up similar to other jurisdictions across the world? Or has perhaps the economy in the Netherlands performed better over the past 12 months and we wouldn't necessarily see that same Reacceleration.
Honestly, I don't anticipate a reacceleration because it's accelerating anyway, Right, as I just explained, and that's driven by the housing shortage more than anything else. It still continues to be the case There is an enormous housing shortage, which isn't being addressed. And that's really one of the core fundamentals of why it makes it such a good landlord market. COVID has been very difficult for the Netherlands. I don't want to suggest otherwise, but on a relative basis, the Netherlands has done okay during the COVID I mean, unemployment rates are about where they were pre COVID.
So, yes, I think that that's your economy is going to recover, of course. There is going to be accelerated economic connectivity, but does that translate into turbocharging what we're seeing in our market from our perspective, I don't think so because we're already seeing very, very positive year on year trends in terms of our ability to uplift our rents on turnover in particular.
And so maybe just rolling it up, would you say big picture your outlook for top line growth of 3% to 4% And NOI margins of, call it, 76% to 77% would be unchanged from last quarter.
No, I think that's right. I mean, we remain absolutely confident in our ability to stay in that 3% to 4% top line growth. And as we say, NOI margins between 75% and 77% are really where we think people should be doing and we're sort of at the top end of that range on a normalized basis even if you exclude on some of the tax stuff that we did this past quarter.
And in terms of your recent acquisitions, So you have the conversion of regulated liberalized suites at your Villa property and the lease up of Horizon. How should we think about the organic growth potential from those assets over the next 3 years? Or maybe sit down mainly, Where do you think the yield could rise to on a 3 year look back?
Yes. I mean, on those properties, I mean, you have one that's 100% liberalized already, and then Which is Horizon and then you have Bill-nineteen which it's 100 and change units and there's only a couple of units anyways that are regulated. So We would expect those 2 or there's a good chance that those will be un liberalized at turnover with little incremental CapEx The building was completely refurbished in 2019. So these two assets really are in a regulated to liberalized story. These assets are more a typical already liberalized play.
Again, where you're seeing our uplifts being in the 10% to 12% range on turnover. These are very good markets. Some people may never have heard of Arnhem, but we have existing assets there and it's a very strong market in the east of the Netherlands. I think that these two assets should perform consistent with what we're sort of seeing generally across our liberalized suites. And The Horizon asset is in Central Amsterdam.
We were very pleased to be able to buy this asset. It's very close to the central train station. Again, it's sort of a new market, developing market near the docks. So we think the long term prospects for Organic or market rental growth there are very positive as well. So again, not a regulated to liberalized conversion play, but we think the Fundamentals of their submarkets are very strong, and we would expect that market rents to go up meaningfully over time.
And maybe one last housekeeping item for me. Can you just tell us where you're seeing indicative rates for long term debt?
Yes.
We're seeing very consistent rates compared to our last Financing that we did in December. So we're we can get 6 year debt at just 1% now and there's long term financing you can still probably get For 7 year like 1.1. So they're very good financing rates at this point. Steve and Philip, appreciate the commentary. I will turn the call back.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Kyle Stanley from Desjardins. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, guys. Could you elaborate just a little bit more on the landlord levy rebate? And just wondering, are there other opportunities to realize rebates in a similar fashion. Yes, sure.
So the landlord levy rebate is the government actually provides subsidies To businesses that develop affordable housing. And what we So the rebates are actually tied to the shell companies. They don't tie to the actual properties. So what we end up doing is there's actually it's very common practice in the Netherlands, and there's a lot of opportunities out there, but we can actually buy These rebates for $0.50 for every euro. So I would say that we are looking at this.
It is beneficial and I would say not in the when we do have it, we will probably mention it in our MD and A. Yes, we are looking at this as a good opportunity, good financial management for us.
It's a product of developers not holding the assets The developers then sell on the entire building or the units 1 at a time, so they end up with the shell company, as Stephen mentioned. They're not in the long term rental business, so you can buy those shelves and then apply those credits.
Okay, great. And then so in this situation, this would be in addition to any potential rebate offered by the government in relation to the enhanced That's correct. Okay. Are there any updates with regards to that? Any, I guess, anything come out since we last spoke?
No further done. I mean, the government I mean, the new parliamentarians have taken their seats, but as is often the case, and it continues to be in this case, there still hasn't been a government formed, I think the coalition parties have yet to agree to government. So there's really not a lot of initiatives on any legislative fronts that are moving forward, absent imperative things, including dealing with COVID to the extent required.
Okay, great. And then just turning over to the lift on turnover, you talked about it
a little bit so far, but I
was just looking at the significant lift On your suite conversions, I think closer to 50% this quarter. Was this primarily just a suite mix phenomenon or Is rent growth for these new assets just really that strong?
It's more of a suite situation, right? And it just depends upon where that regulated suite or that regulated unit is geographically, it depends upon How long that tenant has been in and there, etcetera. So I don't think you can say extrapolate that across the board, it's running 50 Higher or 20% higher. But again, we continue to optimize everything that we can, and we optimize it for the maximum month So I think it's probably more a product of sweet mix that we liberalized at that particular time given the prior periods. But again, we're always in the 30%, 35%, 40%, and now we're getting close to 50%.
So there's always that really high juice that we can get from that liberalization program as we work through our portfolio of existing assets or as we buy more assets in the future that may have regulated suites that are a candidate for liberalization.
Okay, great. And just one last one for me. Just on the €35,000,000 fair value gain, would you be able to just discuss some of the key drivers to that gain? Yes. So the key drivers are, I mean, we see the strong rental uplift.
So it's really driven Off of the NOI or stabilized NOI in the models. So as you see in the market and it's reflected in our operating results,
Thank you. The next question is from Devanshu Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you, and good morning. So just On the supply side, I mean, you mentioned the Horizon you bought from Housing Association. So who is contributing more supply in the market today? I mean is it housing associations or private developers? And then in the light of recent announcements, would private developers slow down?
Any indication there?
Yes. No, I mean, I think that's a bit similar to Jonathan's question. So again, it was quite quiet in the first half of the year, But we're starting to see portfolios come back into the market. And it's again, it's the traditional players, right? It's Of course, there's always new development opportunities where you can forward fund or forward purchase, which again, there are people doing that and it doesn't really work for you as a But if we talk about the volume of the supply of existing product that's available for sale, what we've bought historically have been the pension funds and the Insurance companies rotating their portfolios where they have assets that maybe are regulated or a combination of regulated liberalized.
It's harder, it's more asset management intensive. They provide us to deploy that capital into the liberalized assets, which they perceive as being easier to manage, etcetera. And they brought a lot of that product to the market in the second half of last year. And historically, it's been a little bit more or a bit less seasonal, if you will. But now you're seeing those pension funds, those insurance companies, those type of players, what The Dutch call the institutional market, but it has a slightly different definition than what we would call it, now coming back into the portfolio.
There's a couple of portfolios that are in the market right now. And According to our sources, there's more to come in the second half of the year. So again, I don't see there being or having been A big rotation in terms of the traditional sellers with whom we transact to, I just or we just have seen or witnessed There was a pause for the first half of twenty twenty one, which was quite frankly anticipated. So we think it was Very good that we were able to find the off market deals, be able to step in on the horizon and continue to have some acquisition momentum even when the overall market was a bit quiet in the first half twenty twenty one.
Okay. That's good color. My question was more on the new supply itself. I mean, like who is building new supply? I know you spoke about the investment volumes in the deal flow, but Is there any slowdown in the new supply by private developers or housing associations for contributing new product in the market?
No, I don't think there is. I mean, I think there continues to be a pipeline of new supply, with housing associates being focused more on the regulated side and the other more independent developers being focused on the liberalized market. But we don't feel that, that is hurting our market or our ability to perform with excess supply in any way because it's still I'm falling short of the required new deliveries, just to maintain the current position. So the current position is continuing to get worse in terms of Required new housing units versus new housing units delivered. So, yes, it's still coming.
There's some bottlenecks right now in terms of capacity It's always quite slow getting planning in the Netherlands. But I haven't we haven't seen a dramatic shift in terms of That oncoming supply that we know and all of the market data suggests that the supply of new units is still insufficient to keep the current housing shortage from getting worse. So we don't perceive it as a problem or a risk.
Got it. That's helpful. And just sticking to the acquisitions, sir, the cap rate is 3.3% cap rate on the 2 acquisitions combined. So do you assume the 1st stabilization of the Horizon property in this assumption of 3.3?
Say that again, Himanshu.
So I think the CapEx you are expecting on these 2 acquisitions is 3.3%. So are you giving full stabilization of the property in this assumption.
Yes. And so that's a blended of the 2 and Horizon would have been on the lower end of that blend and Vila Nightclub would have been on
Yes. And I assume the capital is lower because it's a newly developed property. And do you expect a better rent growth profile as well on this property?
Yes. I mean, it is a new build. The Villa 19 was completely In 2019, but it really reflects the difference in the markets. So you're in Central Amsterdam on 1 versus a very strong, but still non Randstad location with Villa 19 in Arnhem.
Okay. That's fine. And then maybe just a follow-up question on the demand side. So can you comment on external factors such as immigration, expat or foreign students? Like is the border now open for new nationals for Netherlands?
And do you see other factors which can help demand further?
Yes. So as I've often said, I think there's a lot of parallels between the Netherlands and Canada, where you have organic Household formation growth as well as immigration. Immigration was globally shut down last year, but immigration is starting to come back into the Netherlands as the European borders are open and then the Netherlands is also more open. Again, They had a bit of a scare a few weeks ago with cases, but that's now coming back down. So most of their restrictions are lifted.
Some of the big group events are not. So yes, I think that immigration has historically paid a part and the household growth, household formation growth He is going to come back in the Netherlands and we're starting to see that. But again, just recognizing the defensiveness of our portfolio, even when that immigration We shut down because of COVID. We continue to move our business in the right direction. And I think that's largely a function of our split.
We're really not focused on the expat community so much. We're not focused on students. We're just more than normal Dutch Residents working normal jobs and we have good split between the Randstad, outside the Randstad. We have good split between regulated delivery lives and we have our Single family portfolio as well. So I'm all for and we're very supportive of that immigration and ultimately, of course, helps and increases the positive fundamentals, but we didn't really see a negative impact on our business when that slowed down.
But very happy to see it come back, and it can only be positive for us going forward.
Got it. Okay. That's it. And my last question is on the acquisition pipeline. I mean, realistically, how much more you can buy in this year?
I mean, you could start it with, I think, almost €50,000,000 of acquisition. How much you can do the rest of the year?
Of course, frankly, from a liquidity perspective, I don't think we're constrained at all because we have our undrawn capacity on our line. When we do the refinancing, that line will almost be cleanly cleaned down again, so that allows us even more capacity. Plus, we have the CapRe pipeline facility, so there's no Liquidity capacity whatsoever and our ability to continue to grow, the one thing we can't directly influence is that pipeline of opportunities. But again, What we're seeing and hearing and expecting is that the pipeline will come back to a more normalized amount going into the second half of the year. And again, we're aware that there are certain So I think we should be able to get our fair share of that and then quite optimistic that we'll do further external growth going into the second half of the Awesome.
Thank you. So we have no constraints
on our side of the business in terms of the ability to grow.
Got it. Totally understand that. And thank you so much. And I'll turn it back.
Thank you. The next question is from Dean Wilkinson from CIBC. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Hey, Dean. Good morning, Dean. Or afternoon, as it were.
And just for the record, I've been able to hear everything fine. There's a lot of consternation after the last quarter just on the regulatory environment, and perhaps it glossed over The exceptional strength in turnovers, and this quarter was even stronger than 2020, stronger than 20 We talked to some of those trends. When you look at how things look going forward and as we come out of COVID, Is there an expectation that you think that the turnover metrics could actually increase? And what did you see on July 1?
Yes. I mean, that's a great question, and we talk about that a lot internally. I mean, you have seen a very pronounced, Relatively steady, but very pronounced quarter on quarter over the past couple of years of an increase in turnover uplifts. Our turnover rate has within 100 basis Points have stayed pretty steady. So I don't see that moving dramatically.
Again, if our occupancy goes up a little bit, then our turnover goes up a little bit as we remediate it. But I don't expect or anticipate a very pronounced change in our turnover percentage, but we have seen that consistent and material positive trend and the uplifts on turnover. And I really put that down to the housing dynamics, right? I mean, there is a massive shortage of housing. House price inflation is extreme.
Rental inflation is going up also, but at about 50% of house price inflation. So it continues to give us pricing power. Again, I don't necessarily think that's an in perpetuity thing, we don't know. But so long as there isn't something meaningfully done to address the fundamental problem of a supply shortage. I think that is a very good place for us to be as a supplier of rental product.
So I would expect to see this trend continuing in terms of our ability to drive these type of rental uplifts.
And in terms
of sorry, I mean, just to finish the point also, as you have the new legislation in place, right, you're building in incremental uplifts, right? Before on the liberalized side, we had a lot of freedom to index annually. And to the extent that we can't index annually, That means there's always going to be that delta between what the then market rate is and what your current index rate is. So as these regulations have come in, yes, They're not preferred, but we really aren't losing that value. We're just pushing that value out a little bit.
And that's why you would also expect to see your turnover uplifts going up as well as there are men serving to catch up on the indexation that you didn't achieve.
And that was sort of my second question because it looks like that, that looks to have stabilized now in maybe a low for a routine kind of mark to market opportunity with the modularized suites, which is almost double what it was 2 years ago.
Yes. I mean, I think we need a little bit more data to come to that conclusion, but I do believe that's the right one because keep in mind, last year, We self imposed a 2.6% cap. I won't repeat how we got to 2.6%, but we self imposed that. This year, the government basically imposed a 2.4% Right. So we're dealing with that 1 year effect of the self imposed cap that we put in place.
So I think the market is getting stronger. Again, fundamentals are very much in our favor. I think there's some of that recapturing the indexation that we chose not to get. And then I think going forward, it would be very Because now it's imposed upon us as opposed to being voluntary, that will continue. And so again, I do believe there is a relatively permanent catch up that we will have in our liberalized turnover for the foregone indexation.
Yes. We call that a Canadian problem over here. And in terms of your ability to convert the regulated to liberalized, That seems to have sort of been pretty consistent, 50 basis points, you do 100 basis points per quarter. Do you think as you go through the back half For the year and into 2022, there may be an increased ability to liberalize those? Or should we be thinking that it's Kind of run rate as it has been sort of the past year or so.
Yes. I think that run rate probably stays the same because again, you will See the regulated suite turnover is typically much lower. There hasn't been a lot of volatility in that number and we can only convert when they turn over. So the only thing and you have only a portion of your resident or your regulated units that are liberalizable anyway because of their size, etcetera. So You're always we sort of use the general rule of 50% of our regulated suites are probably liberalizable.
But regardless of that, you still have to wait for them to turn. And so the only thing that would significantly increase that volume or that velocity would be an increase in regulated turnover.
Perfect. Okay, that's it, Tony. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from Matt Kornack from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Just a quick follow-up on Dean's questioning there with regards To regulated versus liberalized. Liberalized is a proportion of your portfolio has crept up. It's approaching, I guess, 60% Now some of that's on convergence, but I think acquisitions drove it as well. And your thoughts going forward, Just as you target acquisitions in the back half of the year, is there a difference in view as to whether you want regulated versus liberalized at this point?
Or are you still kind of hoping to be somewhere in the fifty-fifty range?
Yes. I mean, It all comes down to price versus expected return or yield on those assets. So We very much like the construction of our portfolio, a good mix between the 2 regulated and otherwise. We like a good mix between Randstad, not. We do like the fact that we have a 3rd single family housing as well.
So we were closer to fifty-fifty. As you say, we're now forty-sixty The regulated liberalized, we don't have set in stone parameters of what we want that mix to be. Some of it depends upon what comes out. If people are selling regulated units, we would as aggressively chase that at the appropriate price and underwriting as we would as aggressively chased liberalized portfolio at the appropriate price in underwriting. So I think forty-sixty-fifty-fifty, We don't attribute a big difference between that.
What is important for us is to continue to have that mix, as well as continue to have a mix between Randstad and NOD, as well as have that significant component of single family because we think that overall creates a good portfolio mix, takes a lot of the volatility out of the portfolio in any given economic situation. So we're always going to seek to have a good balance of both, but forty-sixty versus fifty-fifty isn't a big driver for us in terms of our underwriting strategy or what we're seeking to buy.
Fair enough. That makes sense. And then just a quick accounting one For me, Stephen, on cash taxes, I think it's been around like high $500,000 low $600,000 for the last two quarters, but that's a bit Above where it was last year, what should we think of for the remainder of the year? And I guess, is this a good run rate?
Yes. I think this is a good run rate for the back half of the year. So that $500,000 is a good number. But I mean, we tend to we are going to manage around that 4% to 8% effective tax rate using FFO as a basis.
Okay. So if you scale the portfolio, it will increase. Yes.
Fair
enough. Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thanks. Thank you.
The next question is from Brad Sturges from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, there. Maybe just another modeling question. Just on the NOI margin, a little bit higher in the quarter, just Thoughts on what the guidance or run rate might be for margin going forward?
Yes. I think we've been guiding with 75% to 77% NOI margin. I mean, this quarter was a bit higher just because of The landlord levy rebate was contributed about 200 basis points, but I would say for your modeling, I would go with the 76%
margin.
Okay, great. And just one question on the regulatory environment. We've obviously seen some changes. There was some discussion about a proposal on banning private investors So buying houses for the purpose of rental, if that were to come into law, Philip, how do you see that impacting The multifamily market and in particular, erez, would there be any impact also depending on what the law looks like on the ownership of the Dutch
Roethlisberger. No, I mean, again, there's articles on it. I hesitate to put too much credibility for legislation that could be really positive or really negative, particularly in a period of time, though their government hasn't been formed. But a lot of what I understand about that legislation is really targeted to the Airbnb investor. People buying up second Just so they can rent them on Airbnb, particularly in the big international cities like Amsterdam.
So as we understand that it's really not targeting professional landlords like us, because again, we have to remember that the housing associations are the biggest players in the game. And so it would be very difficult to pass legislation that would put them out of business, or you'd have to pass legislation that gives them Some sort of different treatment, which would immediately be challenged. So, as again, as much as we can try and understand it when it's generally newspaper articles and rumors and first. It's more targeting the Airbnb guys than it is an institutional landlord like ourselves.
Got it. That makes sense. Thanks a lot. I'll turn it back.
Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time. I will Turn the call back to Mr. Burns.
Well, again, thank you everybody for joining us this morning. And if you have any further questions, particularly given