Good morning. My name is Ludi and I will be your conference coordinator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Minto Apartment REIT 2024 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the number 2. Before we begin, I want to remind listeners that certain statements about future events made on this conference call are forward-looking in nature. Any such information is subject to risk, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially.
Please refer to the cautionary statements on forward-looking information in the REIT's News Release and MD&A dated May 7, 2024 for more information. During the call, management will also reference certain non-IFRS financial measures. Although the REIT believes these measures provide useful supplemental information about its financial performance, they are not recognized measures and do not have standardized meanings under IFRS. Please see the REIT's MD&A for additional information regarding non-IFRS financial measures, including reconciliations to the nearest IFRS measures. Thank you. Mr. Li, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, operator, and good morning. This is Jonathan Li, CEO of Minto Apartment REIT. Also on the call is Eddie Fu, our Chief Financial Officer, and Paul Baron, our SVP of Operations. We're off to a great start in 2024. We delivered strong operating performance in the quarter while taking further measures to strengthen our balance sheet and reduce exposure to variable rate debt. As a result, as you can see in the bottom left-hand chart, our normalized FFO per unit increased for the fifth consecutive quarter, culminating in growth of 27.3% compared to Q1 last year. Our normalized AFFO per unit increased by 32.8% compared to Q1 last year. Normalized SP NOI and normalized SPNOI margin increased materially year-over-year, reflecting continued strong revenue and rent growth and lower operating expenses due in part to a mild winter.
We continue to accretively strengthen our balance sheet during the quarter, building on our efforts from last year. We sold two properties in Ottawa and received payment of the CDL for Fifth + Bank during the quarter. The proceeds from both transactions totaling almost CAD 100 million were used to pay down our revolving credit facility. As a result, interest costs in the quarter were 11% lower than last year, variable rate debt made up just 6% of total debt at quarter end, and both debt to GBV and debt to Adjusted EBITDA decreased materially, which demonstrates the solid progress we have made in strengthening our balance sheet while at the same time growing cash flow per unit. I'll now invite Eddie Fu to discuss our first quarter financial and operating performance in greater detail. Eddie?
Thank you, John. Turning to slide 4. Same property portfolio revenue was CAD 38.2 million, an increase of 6.1% from Q1 last year, reflecting higher average monthly rents for unfurnished suites, partially offset by slightly lower occupancy and lower furnished suite revenue. Normalized same property portfolio NOI increased 12.3% year over year to CAD 24 million, while the normalized NOI margin rose by 350 basis points to 63%. The growth reflects higher revenue and lower operating expenses. As John noted, our normalized FFO and AFFO per unit increased by 27.3% and 32.8% respectively. Normalized AFFO payout ratio was 62.3%, a reduction of 1,800 basis points from Q1 2023. Turning to slide 5. This chart highlights the REIT's steady quarter-over-quarter growth in average monthly rent and strong quarterly gain-on-lease performance. Over the last two years, we have captured consistently strong gain-on-lease, even in the slower winter leasing season. Moving to slide 6.
We signed 369 new leases in the first quarter, generating gain-on-lease of 12.5%. We had double-digit gain-on-lease in every market except Toronto, where the gain-on-lease was impacted by the mix of suites that turned. In Toronto, approximately 70% of the 95 new leases were executed at Niagara West in the popular King West neighborhood. This property is not subject to rent control and has sitting rents that are closer to market. As you can see in the table, the new average monthly rent in Toronto is above CAD 2,800 per month, which is much higher than our portfolio overall. Excluding Niagara West, our gain-on-lease in Toronto was 19% and 13.8% across the portfolio. The embedded gain-to-lease potential at the end of Q1 remains strong at 15.9%, representing CAD 21.4 million of annualized incremental revenue growth. Moving to slide 7. The same property portfolio annualized turnover was 15.9% in the first quarter.
This was in line with seasonal norms, and move-ins kept pace with move-outs, resulting in stable closing occupancy. Turnover in Calgary was 29%, and strong demand supported high closing occupancy at 99.1%. Ottawa experienced flat turnover year-over-year and maintained occupancy of 97.7%, and turnover in Montreal was in line with seasonal norms while occupancy increased to 96.2%. Turnover in Toronto increased, driven by tenants in non-rent-controlled suites. There was a slight drop in closing occupancy in Toronto as lease-up of one-bedroom suites has lagged during a slower leasing season. We are strategically using a small amount of promotion to increase occupancy of these suites, which has shown early signs of success. We continue to expect turnover to slow in 2024 as the gap between sitting rents and market rents remains elevated. On slide 8, we provide an update on our commercial and furnished suite portfolios.
For our commercial portfolio, we had year-over-year revenue growth of 17.3%, driven by the opening of Dollarama at Niagara West during the quarter. At Minto Yorkville, we had received strong interest in the ground-floor retail space from different types of users, including high-end restaurants and luxury retail. It is a trophy location across the street from the Four Seasons Toronto with excellent visibility and curb appeal, and we are excited to add vibrancy to the corner. We expect to have a lease sign this year and to start receiving lease payments in 2025, factoring in the time for preparing the space for the new tenant. For our furnished suite portfolio, revenue declined by 6.9% compared to Q1 last year due to lower occupancy. Minto Yorkville in Toronto was impacted by seasonality as well as the continued recovery from the writers' and actors' strikes.
Minto one80five in Ottawa was impacted by fewer transient stays. Average monthly rent for the furnished suites increased 22% compared to Q1 last year, which partially offset the impact of lower occupancy. The furnished suite inventory has also been reduced by 11 suites compared to Q1 2023, and we continue to evaluate further reductions. Turning to slide 9. Normalized property operating costs for the same property portfolio decreased by 2.2% year-over-year in Q1, as a mild winter resulted in lower snow removal and lower repairs and maintenance costs. Same property portfolio property taxes increased 4.7% due to changes in assessed values in Montreal and Calgary, and increased rates in Ottawa and Toronto. Utility costs declined 11.4%, primarily due to a large drop in natural gas costs that reflected lower rates and decreased usage due to mild winter weather. Moving to suite repositioning on slide 10.
We repositioned 7 suites in the first quarter, generating an ROI of 9.4%. Over the last four quarters, we repositioned 91 suites and generated an average ROI of 9.7%. We expect to reposition 50-90 suites this year. That is fewer than previous years as we strategically assess each repositioning along with lower anticipated turnover. Turning to slide 11. We have provided our key debt statistics. Our maturity schedule remains balanced, with no more than 9% of term debt coming due in any of the next five years. As of March 31, 2024, the weighted average term to maturity on our term debt was 5.81 years, with a weighted average effective interest rate of 3.43%. We have steadily reduced our exposure to expensive variable rate debt, which peaked in the first quarter of 2023 at 26% and ended the current quarter at 6% of total debt.
We also materially improved our leverage ratios, decreasing Debt to Gross Book Value by 140 basis points to 41.4% and decreasing Debt to Adjusted EBITDA by 0.85 times to 10.94 times. Total liquidity was approximately CAD 188 million at quarter end. I'll now turn it back over to John.
Thanks, Eddie. Moving to slide 12. We continue to have an attractive pipeline of growth projects. We are advancing the intensifications at Richgrove and Leslie York Mills, with stabilization of both projects expected in 2026. Construction continues to progress well at the CDL properties, and the next stabilization is expected in the fall of 2024. Our previous capital allocation decisions have strengthened our financial position, but we will evaluate these upcoming purchase opportunities with discipline and careful consideration of our cost of capital, future cash flow per unit growth, pro forma leverage, market sentiment, and other factors. As shown with Fifth & Bank last year, we are disciplined with our capital and will only exercise any purchase option if we are confident it is in the best interests of the REIT. We also note that MPI has agreed to amend the terms of the Highland CDL.
The expiry date of the purchase option and the CDL maturity date have been extended, and beginning in June, the coupon payable by MPI will increase from 6%-7.07% to match the current interest rate on our revolving credit facility, subject to a range. You can find updated photos and other details on the projects in our development pipeline on slides 13 and 14. I'll conclude with our business outlook on slide 15. We expect that rental housing demand in Canada will remain strong for the foreseeable future. Even with the recent initiatives from the federal government to address both supply and demand issues, we expect the fundamentals underpinning the sector will remain robust, including strong population growth relative to all other G7 countries, insufficient supply of new housing which remains inelastic, and continued affordability pressures driving many to the rental market.
Going forward, we will continue to focus on the following: optimizing revenue and expenses, growing FFO and AFFO per unit, exploring attractive refinancing opportunities, minimizing our credit facility balance, and critically assessing the growth opportunities in our pipeline. With our high-quality portfolio and strengthened balance sheet, we are well-positioned to capitalize on the robust rental market fundamentals and deliver continued strong financial performance. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press a star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by 2. Once again, please press star 1 to join the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Frank Liu from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just with respect to the impact of gain-on-lease in Toronto portfolio from the leases executed at Niagara West, I'm just curious if this is something unique this quarter where you happen to have a higher proportion of leases executed at this property, and how should we think about this impact moving forward?
Yeah, great question. Thank you. So it is a bit unique. We've talked a little bit about it before, but in Toronto, we're seeing our vacancy predominantly in our one-bedroom suite type. We've been focused on working through this availability using tactical promotion, some rent changes, and really creative marketing to lease it up. We've seen signs of this success. You see the number of leases at Niagara West in the quarter. From a competitive standpoint, it's due to a few reasons. We're seeing some pressure from the shadow condo market that's coming online, particularly on the smaller suite types, those one-bed units. Some investors are chasing cash flow and offering slightly lower rents. At the same time, Niagara West is still facing a little bit of pressure from the lease-up of The Well.
So that's the development just down the road that at the end of Q1 had about 35% availability. That said, we were able to get through a lot of those one-beds in Q1, and we continue to see strong interest in our twos and threes. And really broadly across the Toronto portfolio, the embedded rent in the portfolio remains strong. We're also anticipating a bit of an uptick as we enter the busy leasing season. Overall, net positive absorption according to Urbanation in the Toronto purpose-built market in Q1. So yeah, a bit unique to answer your question.
Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the caller. This is kind of leading to my second question. I'm not sure if you have any preliminary occupancy figure for Toronto in April and May that you may have handy because I think you commented that you started using some small incentives to drive occupancy. So just curious if you have any figures handy for April or May?
What I can say is that we are seeing results from the promotions and activities that I've described in April and May.
Got it. And then so I guess with some pressure from condos and other newly completed rentals in Toronto, I also see the market rent estimates coming down slightly. Is this a sign? Do you think this is a sign of softness in the Toronto rental market? I mean, we have seen results from Rentals.ca, that's the average rent is coming down slightly in recent months. Just want to hear your thoughts on this.
Yeah, it's certainly something we're watching closely. What we also know is the condos that are delivering through the remainder of 2024 were purchased on average above CAD 1,000 sq ft. The good news is that translates into about CAD 5 sq ft for those investors that are going to rent those out in order to cover their mortgage costs, condo fees, and taxes. So the economic rent of the new competition coming online as the year continues, those are quite high versus some of the market rents for the purpose built in the market.
Okay, great. Thanks to all the callers. I'll turn it back. Have a great day.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Kelcher with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. First question, just a quick one on Dollarama. Was it there for the full quarter, or did that come on stream partway through?
No, it came in partway through. So cash flow started on that one February 16th, and they opened their doors officially, yeah, that first week of March.
Okay. That's helpful. Secondly, just the furnished suites, it is more seasonal, and last year there was a writer's strike. What's your sense in terms of how Q2 and Q3 are shaping up this year occupancy-wise?
Jonathan, it's a good question. I mean, the business has evolved. We're seeing the transient business for the furnished suites down year over year. That said, we've seen an uptick in government bookings at 185 and the film business continuing to come back at Yorkville. So I would say we're trending slightly below our expectations that we shared earlier in the year for the furnished suites.
Okay. How far out can you see on that stuff? What's the booking timeframe?
Yeah, I mean, we've got really good visibility kind of three months out. And depending on the booking type, we've got bookings out for the remainder of the year. But I'd say good visibility, really 90 days out.
Okay. Then you talked, John, a little bit about the CDLs maturing this year. What are really some of your options there? What options are you guys looking at, thinking about?
Sure. Thanks, Jonathan. So we're looking at a whole bunch of different options. I guess just to lay them out, it'd be don't buy them. It would be buy them standalone. It'd be buy them with a partner. It would be sell assets and use those proceeds to buy them. And it could be a combination of any of those things. It could be buying one instead of two. So the reality is all options remain on the table for us. Obviously, some are financially better than others given current interest rate environment, i.e., the standalone acquisition of both is probably the most dilutive. And then it gets better from there with everything else that I just talked about. And I guess the good news is we don't have to make a decision now.
On one of them, we have till the end of the year, and then the other one, we have till the beginning of the next. And so hopefully, things change between now and then. I know I've been saying that to myself for the last two years, but it does look like there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I just don't know how long the tunnel is. And so I think time is our friend. You've got the Bank of Canada likely making a decision in June and a second decision in July. We have, at least until then, to monitor what we're doing, and I think that's what we're going to do.
Okay. And then would 88 Beechwood fall into the same sort of thought process?
Yeah, it would. It's kind of middle of 2025. I mean, I think this is a big project in Ottawa, 227 units. Leasing just started. The building is in really good shape. I walked it a couple of weeks ago, and very exciting building. But I think the lease-up time is probably going to take a little while. And so I think we have some time there as well.
Okay. That's it for me. I'll turn it back. Thanks.
Thanks, Jonathan.
Thanks, Jonathan.
Your next question comes from the line of Jimmy Shan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Just to follow up on the Toronto condo rent sort of flatlining. So it sounds like the Niagara West is a bit of a situation is a bit of a unique one. Curious what you're seeing in your other Toronto assets and thinking like the Yorkvilles, the Roehamptons. Where are sort of market rents trending in those assets?
Yeah. And Jimmy, I don't want to be too pessimistic. Just going back to Niagara, in Q1, we did push through renewal increases of 3.92% on average for that property. But to your question on the other properties in Toronto, so really seeing the availability on the one-bed side, I think the good news is, as I shared, doing some pricing adjustments at those properties as well, but still capturing significant embedded gains on turnover on new leases. So we are seeing pressure across the board in Toronto on the one-beds, but with the pricing adjustments and a little bit of promotion that we've put in place, we're seeing success, and we're capturing those strong embedded rents that are in those rent-controlled properties.
We're also seeing, I'd say, barbelled embedded rent opportunities. So you mentioned it. Niagara West as well as Yorkville, I'd say those are lower embedded rents. And I'd say the other buildings in Toronto, all the other ones, including Roehampton and Richgrove and Leslie York Mills and High Park, those are all very high in terms of the embedded rent, just given kind of the cost and where the competition is in terms of that high monthly rent.
Right. Okay. And it sounds like it's the smaller, as you mentioned several times, at least the smaller suite size, I guess, the supply, the deliveries in the smaller suite size that's causing a little bit of an issue at Niagara West. That's how you characterize it, right, as opposed to a broad-based, kind of high-end market issue.
I think that's accurate. I think we've been discussing the one-beds for a couple of quarters now, right? And even then, the framework that we've disclosed or at least talked about around our overall growth in that equation that we talked about with renewals and with turns and growth related to both of those, we've been pretty consistent, right? We're getting 3%-3.5% growth on our renewals, and we've been saying low teens to mid-teens on our turns. And that's what we keep getting. And I think that framework is still relevant for the rest of this year and likely for next. And so I think we were asked a question last quarter around, are we basically sandbagging our gain to lease? It's going to keep growing.
We've very consistently said, "No, we don't think that that's going to keep growing to the sky." And I think the framework that we've given folks for the next couple of years still applies.
Okay. And then it's the CMHC upward financing of CAD 55 million-CAD 65 million. When are you looking to do that?
Hey, Jimmy, it's Eddie here. So in terms of upward refinancing, I think that's still a good range. Right now, we're still just waiting for our paperwork to come in. So we're waiting for our certificates of insurance. And once we have that, we can then proceed with the financing.
Okay. And your expectation would be sometime this quarter, you'd be able to get those certificates?
That's correct.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thanks, Jimmy.
Thanks, Jimmy.
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Cornock from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Just following up on that line of questioning around kind of the supply side and delivery of condos. I mean, this is a legacy issue for condos that were under construction as a result of low financing costs during the pandemic. Can you give us a sense as to what that delivery cycle looks like? Because presumably, there's a bit of a vacuum developing in behind it. And then obviously, the government's trying to encourage new supply of apartments or purpose-built rental. But are you seeing kind of an indication that people are moving ahead with those type projects at this point?
Yeah, it's a good question, Matt. So I would say I don't have the fact right in front of me, but just the unsold condo inventory in the city right now is amongst the highest it's been in recent years. So I think to your point, the economics are getting more challenging. The other point that I had shared earlier was just the average cost of the condos that will be delivered into the future will be above that CAD 1,000 a sq ft mark, translating into, in our view, rents that need to be in excess of CAD 5 a sq ft, which looks very different as a competitor when they come into the market.
I think we're seeing the information that we've read is there's going to be a bit of a spike in supply, a small spike in supply in the next quarter or two. But the number of projects that are being mothballed right now is kind of at an all-time high. So we expect that long-term supply to start moderating quite significantly on the condo side.
That makes sense. Then if you look at your other markets outside of Toronto, Ottawa, I think there's a little bit of purpose-built rental that was highlighted as potentially something that may temper rent growth. Calgary's obviously strong. Montreal, it does seem like your occupancy has crept up and continues to creep up, but there's very limited supply in that market. Is this really a Toronto-specific, and maybe if anybody had Vancouver, but they don't, Vancouver-specific issue?
We're really seeing it as a Toronto-specific issue, Matt.
Okay. That's it for me. Thanks.
Thank you.
And once again, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Kyle Stanley with Desjardins. Your line is open.
Thanks. Morning, guys. You mentioned John and Eddie just in answering the previous question. The stabilization on Beechwood may be taking a bit longer than expected. Just curious what might be driving that. Is that maybe indicative of the market in Ottawa or competing product? Just thoughts there.
Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that it was taking longer than expected. I just think that there's a gap between when we expect that to stabilize and when the other two Vancouver projects are stabilizing. So I think our target was always kind of middle of 2025 for that one.
Okay. Thanks for that clarification. I mean, Paul, you just kind of hit on this, I think, along Matt's line of questioning. But you guys have been very transparent with the softness in maybe the one-bedroom rents and it being kind of within a few specific properties and strategic incentives being offered. Is it safe to say that maybe this softness is probably felt for the next couple of quarters as we see maybe this peak delivery cycle? And then to that end, as we hit this vacuum of new deliveries, maybe early 2025, you see that softness dissipate a bit? Is that how you're thinking of things?
I think that's a fair assessment. As you know, Kyle, we're working at hard, creative marketing, promotions, really trying to increase demand. We've seen early signs of that in the early part of this year. I think your assessment looking forward is consistent with our view.
Just to give you a very specific example of some of the things that we're doing, we were going through High Park Village a couple of weeks ago. We have a number of vacant one-bedrooms, and they're like 480 sq ft. There's no air conditioning. There's no washer-dryer in the unit. We're asking CAD 2,400 bucks a month. So we saw some really nice uptake because we did open houses when we reduced that by like CAD 100. So that's what we're talking about here, right? It's kind of like CAD 100 on quite a high rent for something that is the product offering is what I just described. So those are the types of things that we're doing. I think we're seeing some success in terms of filling up some of these vacancies.
But we are optimistic about the spring leasing season, and we think we'll be in a good spot, consistent with the framework that we've been describing for many quarters.
Great. Thanks for that, Color. I will turn it back.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Brad Sturges with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Just wanted to follow up on the discussion around the CDL program and just the thinking around the options that you have that you highlighted. I guess my question would be, given it's tied to your cost of capital, I'm curious to know how much of a decline would you kind of need in your cost of capital for the projects in terms of acquisition. Depends a lot more. Is there a range you're looking for in terms of a reduction in cost of capital before it makes more sense to pull the trigger on acquisition?
Yeah. The framework, Brad, is basically not the framework, but the current situation is cap rates are in that high 3%-low 4% range. And our cost of financing right now is in the mid-4% range. So we'd love that to be closer. But all of those different scenarios that I walked through in a previous question, the math is different for all of those. So there isn't necessarily a range that will a bogey that we're going to hit and automatically do the transaction. It's definitely going to be an educated call on what does this package look like as a whole. But I would say we understand that the market tolerance for any type of dilution in today's market is extremely low. And I would say even lower than what it was even back in January and February.
As we try to be an adaptable, nimble management team, we're adapting as we go here. The bogeys aren't set in stone. They're changing. We're trying to be mindful about what our growth looks like over the short, medium, and long term, and the quality of our portfolio over that same time period. We're going to balance it all.
Makes sense. And again, I guess in an ideal world, you can buy both Vancouver assets and you start adding scale there. But in the scenario that that's not feasible, do you think it does make sense to maybe execute on one versus both and not quite get the scale that you're looking for? How do you think about that in terms of a strategic footprint?
Yeah, pretty similar to what we've been saying all along, which was our partner is building a very large platform there. And the pipeline in Vancouver from Minto Private is robust. So if we don't execute on one or two right now, we can do something with them later. And that's okay. I mean, that's one of the advantages we have with such a well-capitalized partner that is an active developer.
Yep. Makes sense. I'll turn it back. Thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Mr. Jonathan Li for closing remarks.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for your time. We look forward to speaking with you again in the summer. Take care.
Thank you, presenters. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.