Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Flagship Communities REIT First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will hold a brief question-and-answer session for analysts and institutional investors. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. Today's presenters are Kurt Keeney, Flagship's President and Chief Executive Officer, Nathan Smith, Chief Investment Officer, and Eddie Carlisle, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking information, and this information, by its nature, is subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information on these risks and uncertainties, please consult the company's relevant filings on SEDAR+. These documents are also available on Flagship's website at flagshipcommunities.com.
Flagship has also prepared a corresponding PowerPoint presentation, which it encourages you to follow along with during this call. Now I'll pass the call over to Kurt Keeney. Kurt?
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We've gotten off to a strong start in 2026 as we continue to execute on our strategy of driving growth through both organic initiatives and disciplined expansion in our core markets. Our first quarter results reflect solid growth across our portfolio and continued progress on our long-term value creation plan. Our rental revenue increased by 20.6% over the same period last year. Our NOI improved by 17.4% over the last year, and our FFO adjusted and AFFO adjusted increased by 12% and 10.4% respectively over last year. We also continued to see strong growth in same-community metrics during the quarter.
Our same-community revenue grew by 8.6% over last year. Our same-community NOI grew by 5.3% versus the first quarter of 2025. In addition to our strong organic performance, we completed a strategic acquisition during the quarter in Cleves, Ohio, which further expands our presence in one of our core markets. This acquisition is consistent with our approach of targeting markets we know well and communities with occupancy upside potential. Nathan will provide more detail on this transaction and how it fits into our broader growth strategy during his remarks. Our financial results provide a sense of the strong fundamentals of our industry and the progress we're making towards our growth strategy.
While performance is important, our mission remains our main focus. That is to provide affordable housing and exceptional residential living experiences in our adult and family-oriented manufactured housing communities while creating value for our shareholders. Sustainability is embedded in what we do. We've outlined our ESG practices and performance in our sixth annual ESG report, which is available on our website. We are encouraged by the progress we have made in many different areas, including environmental stewardship and community reinvestment and in corporate governance. With that, I will now turn it over to Nathan for his remarks. Nathan?
Thanks, Kurt. Good morning, everyone. We continue to see strong performance across our existing communities while also completing strategic acquisitions. Strong performance for us begins at the community level. We continue to see positive results from our core initiatives, including occupancy growth, lot rent, and additional revenue increases across the portfolio. We also remain focused on enhancing resident experience across our communities. We are very proud of our continued investment in amenities, infrastructure improvements, and community engagement initiatives, all of which support resident satisfaction and long-term retention. In addition to our focus on operational performance, we continue to pursue strategic acquisitions that are located in key markets where we operate. This past quarter, we acquired a 96-lot community in Cleves, Ohio, further expanding our bolt-on strategy and presence in that market.
This transaction builds on our recent acquisition of three communities in Greater Cincinnati area and reflects our continued focus on core markets where we can drive operational efficiencies and create long-term value. As with many of our acquisitions, we see the potential to enhance performance through future community expansion that can support an additional 12 lots. The community has also benefited from significant infrastructure upgrades, such as newly paved streets and solar lot projects. It also has improvements to its amenities, including a large clubhouse, playground, ball field, and basketball courts. Overall, we remain focused on our operating strategy of combining strong organic growth with disciplined acquisitions. With that, I'll turn it over to Eddie to review our financial results in more detail. Eddie?
Thanks, Nathan. Good morning, everyone. Our first quarter results reflect continued strength across the portfolio, driven by organic growth and contributions from recent acquisitions while maintaining a conservative balance sheet. Revenue for the quarter increased by 20.6% over the same period last year due to acquisitions as well as lot rent increases across the portfolio. Same community revenue of $26.9 million for the first quarter grew by approximately 8.6% over the comparable period last year. This increase was driven by higher monthly lot rents and ancillary revenues combined with a rise in same community occupancy. Net operating income and NOI margin were $19.3 million and 64.5% respectively compared to $16.4 million and 66.2% during the same period last year.
Same community NOI margin for the first quarter was 64.2%, a decrease of 2% compared to last year. While NOI saw an increase from amenity fees, NOI margins were negatively impacted due to these services having lower margin than what we have historically achieved. Winter storm during the quarter also had significant impact on costs and decreased margins. FFO adjusted and FFO adjusted per unit for the quarter were $9.6 million and $0.381 respectively, a 12% and 11.4% increase respectively compared to last year. AFFO adjusted and AFFO adjusted per unit for the quarter were $8.6 million and $0.341, a 10.4% and 10% increase respectively compared to last year.
Same community occupancy of 84.8% increased 1.4% over the same period last year, which continues to reflect our commitment to resident satisfaction and ensuring our communities are located in desirable locations. Rent collections for the quarter were 99.8%, demonstrating the strength and consistency of the MHC sector. As at March 31, our total lot occupancy was 84.1%, and our average monthly lot rent was $516. We remain focused on maintaining a conservative balance sheet with an emphasis on long-dated fixed rate debt. Our weighted average mortgage interest rate was 4.54%, and our weighted average mortgage term to maturity was eight years. We have no substantial debt maturities until 2030. We had total liquidity of $13.2 million. The REIT currently has 21 unencumbered investment properties with a total fair value of $130.7 million as at March 31, 2026. With that, I'll now turn it back over to Kurt for some final remarks. Kurt?
Thanks, Eddie. As we look ahead, we remain focused on executing our strategy and continuing to deliver long-term value for our unit holders. During the quarter, we were proud to be recognized by the Manufactured Housing Institute as the 2026 Manufactured Home Community Operator of the Year award. This marks Flagship's second consecutive Operator of the Year award and our fifth national Community Operator of the Year recognition from MHI. This recognition is a direct result of the dedication of our team and their focus on creating safe, amenity-driven, and vibrant communities across our portfolio. We believe this continued focus on operational excellence, combined with our disciplined growth strategy, positions us well for a year ahead. Thank you for your time today, and I will now open up the line for questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announce. To withdraw you question, please press star one one again. Please standby while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Tom Callaghan with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Morning, guys.
Morning, Tom.
Morning. Maybe just start off on the occupancy side of things. Q1 was quite strong, relative to Q4 of last year. Anything specific to call out there in terms of the drivers? I know you guys kind of point to 100 - 200 basis points of growth per year, but just given how Q1 came in, is it, you know, reasonable to expect there could be some upside there this year?
Yeah, I think that we've still got some runway on the occupancy this year. You know, we had a little seasonality kick in at the end of the year last year. You know, sometimes in your home rental fleet, you just have a little turnover, and we had a little bit at the end of the year last year, and we've released those units up. Again, I'm pretty optimistic in all of our markets that our occupancy is gonna grow in our forecasted range.
Great. Maybe switching gears to the expense side of things for Eddie, you did note there the winter storm had an impact in Q1. I guess, is there a way to quantify the impact on expense growth? Maybe, you know, said differently, how should we be thinking about same property expense growth through the balance of this year relative to the kind of that Q1?
Yeah
number in the 15% range?
Yeah. Q1, it was a bit of anomaly from a couple standpoints, mostly around kind of the snow removal and the labor work and repair and maintenance that go along with that. You know, as I'm looking at it, I think that was about somewhere between $0.005 and $0.01 of FFO per unit. You know, kind of an impact of, call it $250,000 or so in total year-over-year increase in cost. As you think about, you know, expenses moving forward and you wanna remove that effect, I think that's a, probably a pretty good range.
Okay, that's great. I will, I'll turn it back and hop in the queue. Thanks, guys.
Thank you, Tom.
Our next question comes from the line of Mark Rothschild with Canaccord. Your line is now open.
Thanks, and good morning, guys.
Morning, Mark.
Hey. Could you just talk a little bit about the homes that you've been buying? How will this impact your growth over the next year? I think there's about 150 or so homes that you bought in the quarter. Do you expect to do a lot more of this, and how should we think about that?
We were having a little hard time hearing you, Mark, but I think you asked about the rental home fleet that we added in the first quarter.
Yes.
You know, every year, you know, our commitment is to try to drive the rental home fleet down as a percentage of our overall occupancy. We think it's, you know, a necessary tool in the shed, but we think homeownership is a better tool. We grew our occupancy through releasing rental homes and through home sales in the first quarter. What we've done with that rental fleet is we're high-grading the current rental fleet, and we're looking to sell off those older units. I, you know, again, I don't know that we would put a lot more into the fleet this year, but I'm sure we will, you know, as we're managing the individual sites. Sometimes when you get these sites up to, you know, 98% occupied, you know.
Right now we've got about 40 of our communities are at historically high occupancy standards, if not, you know, 98%- 100%. When you look at that, you know, those last 2%, sometimes you have to put a rental home in to get those up into the full occupancy.
Okay, great. Thanks. Let me just one other following up on the discussion on expenses. Because Q1 was impacted so much from the weather, should we expect, you know, all else being equal, stronger same property NOI growth through the rest of 2026?
I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, my thought has always been that we can get to, you know, higher single-digits, low double-digits on the same property NOI. Some of that's obviously slowing because of the fact that the year-over-year implementation of our cable agreements are now catching up with themselves, right? At this point for 2026, we don't have any additional agreements that are going in place. You know, we're gonna continue to pursue that which could give us some help. I certainly see, you know, being able to get that back to the higher single-digit numbers moving forward.
Okay, great. Thanks so much.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from the line of Kyle Stanley with Desjardins. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Morning, guys.
Morning.
Morning.
Just wanted to switch over to the home sales side of things. You know, how have home sales gone to start the year? I, you know, I believe there's typical seasonality and strength towards the beginning of the year, particularly post-tax time. Just curious how that's gone year to date and maybe how that compares to any previous years.
Well, home sales were good in the first quarter. They've also continued even, you know, into April. What you did see, though, the weather did impact the homes being able to be shipped. I think actually we would have had better home sales in the first quarter if we could actually have gotten the houses to the lot. I mean, many times, Kyle, they went 10 days without shipping any homes because you cannot ship homes when you got snow on the ground in the Midwest. You know, it's not Canada where you guys are familiar with doing that often. You know, in Kentucky, we have, like, three snowplows. In Tennessee, they have zero. That creates a little bit of a problem. I was very pleased with the first quarter home sales comparing that we were up against.
Okay. No, thank you for that. Maybe just one more, kind of going back to the rental fleet. I did see there was an establishment of a rental fleet maintenance technician team. Just curious, can you elaborate on that a little bit? What is it? You know, was the need for that just given the larger rental fleet? Just wanna understand how to think about that.
We're just trying to be more efficient. You know, again, if we have a rental home, we're gonna put out a good product, and we've committed staff just to make sure that that happens and to get those units turned faster. It's more efficient on the CapEx side with them because we can do that. It's one of the benefits that we have because, again, we have this bolt-on spoken wheel kind of strategy, right? Like in Louisville, there's 15 locations. You can actually have with all within, you know, half an hour of downtown Louisville, and that's repeated throughout a lot of our markets. You can really have these efficiency moments, which makes our margins better. And again, that's just us managing that and being the operators that we are.
Okay. Just to clarify, in the past on turnover of a rental unit, like how would that have been managed? Was it, you know, outsourced to someone else or?
Yeah. Traditionally in the past, you'd have a subcontractor that would come in, you know, do whatever work that would need to be done to turn that unit. What we've tried to do is to Kurt's point, for two reasons. One, for timeliness. You know, sometimes it's hard to get the contractor there and get that turned timely, so we have a vacant rental for a longer period of time. Having our own crew allows that to be done quicker, also allows it to be done more cost-efficient.
Okay, perfect. That's it for me. I'll turn it back. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Himanshu Gupta with Scotiabank. Your line is now open.
Thank you, and good morning.
Morning, Himanshu.
Just on same community NOI, it was mid-single digit in Q1. Eddie, I think you mentioned high single digit. Just want to clarify, is that what you're seeing for the full year, or is that what you're seeing from Q2 to Q4 onwards in that ballpark of high single digit?
For what my assumption is kind of Q2 through Q4, we'll start to see that, you know, that momentum pick back up and see that the OpEx is more back in line to what we've seen historically. You know, the fact that we actually have a more full seat from our management standpoint, we're gonna see a little higher OpEx just from a payroll and benefits standpoint because we were able to have more of our seats full. While it does hurt you, I say hurt it, while it does increase your OpEx numbers, it also gives us the ability to drive occupancy, right?
You know, part of the reason that some of the things you struggle with on maintaining occupancy or increasing occupancy is when you don't have managers in seats to help us with our home sales or the rental of the units. I think we'll continue to see the benefits of it, but also from the OpEx standpoint, you're gonna see a little bit elevated from a payroll and benefits because we do have those seats full. Q2 through Q4, I think we can get back in the higher single digits. Full year, you know, we're probably kind of in those mid-single digits.
All right. Okay. Okay, that's pretty strong. Thank you. My last question is, I mean, you got the Operator of the Year award. What are you doing on the operational side that, you know, differentiates you from the others? Like, why do you think you got this recognition?
Well, that's a secret that we're not sharing on this call. If we do that, we'd be telling our competitors what they're doing wrong. I would say that one of the things that the industry looks at us is how we have integrated home sales into our communities because, you know, we're a one-stop shop, and you can only do that when you have communities that are very close together. As I always say, you can't have one in Houston, Texas, one in San Francisco, and one in Baltimore and think you're gonna have really great home sales. What you really need is 12, 15 in Louisville and 12 in Evansville and seven in Paducah. That's what you really gotta have.
I think our commitment to investment in our amenities is really powerful and something that the industry looks at as a positive, right? Kurt says it all the time, but you know, people move in because it's affordable, and they stay because they like it, and I think that's the key. That second part's more important than the first, right? We invest in the communities. We're putting in playgrounds and basketball courts and dog parks and walking trails and fishing lakes. All those things make the quality of the community. It makes it feel like a community, right? It's not just a place to live. It's a community, and I think that is what people see when they look at how we operate our company.
Got it. Thank you, and thanks for giving a slice of your secret sauce. Thank you. Okay, bye.
Thanks so much.
Our next question comes from the line of Matt Kornack with National Bank Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys.
Matt.
Eddie. Just quickly on R&M, like, just the $250,000 additional cost, is that in your R&M line?
The majority of it. In total, we spent about $250,000 on just snow removal in general. If you look at year-over-year, that's only up about $150,000. The remaining portion of that, yes, is in the R&M line and the increase in payroll. We had a considerable amount of overtime during that period helping plow snow, helping, you know, do any repairs to water lines and those type of things. The majority of it, I'd say $200,000, is gonna show up in the repairs and maintenance and another $50,000 in the payroll and benefits line.
You know, one of the things our team did was, you know, we had to go help our residents. That does make overtime happen. You're gonna send that maintenance person to help Mrs. Jones get her water line unfrozen because it's the right thing to do.
Yeah. I think what's interesting about this is that I'm really pleased with our first quarter results because when you really add up the we had multiple winter storms hit us, and I'm not making any excuses. When you have 89 locations get hit by one storm, it shut down our home sales operations for weeks. I mean, we were literally shut down because we were helping, to Nathan's point, we were helping the residents, you know, plow the streets, plow their driveways, unfreeze their water lines, and just trying to be, you know, good neighbors. So I'm really pleased with it because, you know, our home sales were up, and we basically took three weeks off to do, you know, snow and winter weather issues.
I know for us it was January and February that were particularly bad. Would that have impacted kind of the cadence of your occupancy gain as well? Would the occupancy have been mostly in March, or did you gain occupancy?
No, we gained in February and March. What's funny is there was a couple of brief moments, and I think people were pretty pent up. When they came out, they came out. You know, it's such an affordability play for us right now, you know, that they came out and, you know, this was tax refund season, and that started in mid to late January. They were ready to commit to their new home. But yeah, it was, it wasn't the ideal sale season, and we still came through it and came through it well, so I'm very proud of the team.
Yep. No, that's good to hear. Last one for me, again, back to Eddie, just on the utilities and the utilities recoveries. You mentioned that there's no new kind of additive contracts, but the margin there, it was off quite a bit relative to last year. Is that kind of a new normal, or is there anything one time in nature in terms of how kind of the expense versus the recovery will trend?
I don't think I wouldn't call it one time. What I would say is that what we saw in Q1 last year Q1, our actual water sewer recapture exceeded 96%, which for us is kind of best in class. This year that was closer to 90%, 91%. Some of that related to the winter storm, you know, just to keep going back to that, but part of it's related to that. I mean, there is certainly a new normal when it comes to the lower margins on the cable piece of it as well. We were slightly impacted by the winter weather, but for the most part, it is kind of a new norm there on that recapture.
Okay. Appreciate that. I mean, it's a cold spring here, but hopefully you guys have no more snow in store, so.
Yeah.
We'll talk soon.
All right. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thanks, bye.
Our next question comes from the line of Jimmy Shan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Just a couple from me. The lot rent growth was increased by about 6.8% on a quarter-over-quarter. I recall you had said something about raising by 5.7%. I was curious what changed there. Wanted to know if you could elaborate on sort of what's going on in the investment market. What does that look like? Any incremental change in terms of opportunity and pricing?
I'll take the first part on the lot rent growth and let Nathan talk about the investment opportunities. The lot rent, there's a couple of things there. Again, this is another play where when you see the some property taxes that grow, right, and we have to pass those on. There's some portion that wasn't a part of them we call lot rent growth, I'm thinking just our lot rent increases that we send out in November that take place in January 1st. There was some additional property tax increases that were added throughout the first quarter. The other thing is the acquisitions that we took over in Q4 of last year, the large acquisition in Seymour, Indiana, and then the three in the Cincinnati markets.
Those were not considered as being part of the 5.7% growth. All of those assets had higher lot rent than our overall average, so When you're looking at quarter-over-quarter, it drug up that average. I'll let Nathan talk to the.
Yeah. We're, you know, the fourth quarter of last year and even the first quarter this year, it has been pretty light on acquisitions deals out there. I have not seen cap rates change on what deals are out there. We continue to look at deals, as we say, but we're gonna look for deals that are in our footprint. If they're not in our footprint, we're not really interested in expanding right now into other markets.
Okay. Just a quick follow-up on the lot rent. The lot rent that you quote then is, it would be inclusive of any property tax recoveries that you would have?
That's correct. Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay. All right.
Yeah. We gave guidance that we raised the rent 5.7% on average January. Most of that started January 1st. Due to those other factors, it actually drove up.
The quarter- over-quarter basis.
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, to ask a question at this time, please press star one one on your touch-tone telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Dean Wilkinson with CIBC. Your line is now open.
Morning, guys.
Morning, Dean.
Just wanna circle back on the acquisition conversation. Like, I look at a market like Nashville, and you're seeing, you know, some pretty significant corporate commitments to go into that market. Is this an area where you think that there's a lot of growth? I think historically it's been sort of a, you know, a tight rental market in MHCs, then, you know, you've got some occupancy gains you could make there. What are your thoughts around sort of that market or the sub-markets surrounding Nashville as, you know, looking to build up, you know, some more scale there?
Yeah. We're always looking in markets that we're already in, especially Nashville. You know, we went into Nashville and went sort of with two properties there, and we continue to reposition the one, and it's going excellent there. Would we like to buy more in Nashville? Of course. Would we like to also be in other places in Tennessee? We are out particularly looking all the time in the eight states that we're doing it in. You know, Again, we're not gonna buy a three-cap. It's just not something we're gonna do. We haven't seen an expansion of cap rates either. They've been staying somewhere between 4.5 and 7, and they haven't changed much at all. We, you know, we're still out there looking every day.
It just has been, you know, it does seem to be competitive. There does seem to be some sellers that are maybe starting to have some problems here and there.
I also think some of the selling opportunities, Dean, in Nashville or in any market, is really gonna be, I think, driven by You had a lot of folks that during the COVID, around COVID, you know, rates were really good. Five-year debt on those assets. That debt now we're starting to come around to where that debt's coming due. I do think that there will be some opportunities, I mean, not particular in Nashville, just in general in our business, that will start popping up in the near future.
Well, that's great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Dean.
Thank you. I'm currently showing no further questions at this time. I'd now like to hand the call back over to Kurt Keeney for closing remarks.
Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for participating today. Please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team at ir@flagshipcommunities.com if you have any further questions. Have a great day.
This concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.