ConnectOne Bancorp Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 25, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Deposit momentum continued in Q1, driven by new C&I client wins, entry into the Long Island market and expansion in Florida, with deposits growing after Q4 gains.
  • Net interest margin bottomed in January and widened from 2.66% in February to 2.72% in March, with a projected ~15 bps expansion by Q4 even without Fed rate cuts and ~5 bps benefit per 25 bps cut.
  • Credit metrics improved as non-accrual loans fell ~10%, criticized assets declined for a fifth straight quarter and delinquencies hit a historic low, while CRE concentration is being reduced.
  • Loan growth is expected to be muted (0–2.5% in 2024) as the bank prioritizes relationship-based C&I and construction lending and winds down non-relationship and CRE exposures.
  • Dividend raised by $0.01 to $0.18 (5th increase since 2021) and capital ratios remain strong (TCE ~9.25%), supporting continued share repurchases.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
ConnectOne Bancorp Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

you for standing by. My name is Marvie Lou, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the ConnectOne Bancorp Inc. First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. Now like to turn the conference over to Sia Bancha, Chief Brand and Innovation Officer. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and welcome to today's conference call to review ConnectOne's results for the Q1 of 2024 and to update you on recent developments. On today's conference call will be Brian Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd also like to caution you that we may make forward looking statements during today's conference call that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings. The forward looking statements included in this conference call are only made as of the date of this call, and the company is not obligated to publicly update or revise them.

Speaker 1

In addition, certain terms used in this call are non GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of which are provided in the company's earnings release and accompanying tables and schedules, which have been filed on Form 8 ks with the SEC and may also be accessed through the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Frank Sorrentino. Frank, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sia, and I appreciate everyone joining us this morning to discuss ConnectOne's Q1 performance. We entered the Q1 firmly on the offensive. And despite the backdrop of a challenging landscape, we remain dedicated to our relationship banking model. The efforts of our team, the investments we've made in our future and our unwavering commitment to our clients is paying dividends and demonstrating the strong forward direction. As you've heard me emphasize before, supporting our clients is ConnectOne's top priority, an approach that has consistently proven effective and has enabled us to expand our banking relationships, grow in the number of verticals and expand into new markets, while also reducing exposure to non relationship businesses.

Speaker 2

Through the aligned efforts of our entire team, we began to see an increase in deposits in the Q4 of last year, and that momentum is continuing during this Q1. We're optimistic that this trend will continue throughout the year. Bill will get into this future, but the sources of deposit growth include building our C and I client list, our recent entry into the Long Island market and the ongoing expansion of our presence in Florida. As for the loan portfolio, we continue to see opportunities from our existing clients, particularly in the C and I and construction verticals, and we've begun to manage non relationship loans off the balance sheet. These actions are intended to improve our loan to deposit ratio and lower our CRE concentration.

Speaker 2

Shifting to net interest margin. We're already seeing a gradual expansion in our net interest margin ahead of Fed rate cuts. And as Bill will cover in more detail, our NIM showed a favorable trajectory during the Q1. Turning to credit. Several important credit quality metrics improved during this Q1.

Speaker 2

Non accrual loans declined, criticized and classified loans continued to decrease and delinquencies remain very low. These efforts all reflect our long standing high credit standards, our relationship based client philosophy and our track record of avoiding riskier sub segments such as the New York City office, which represents just 1% of our total loans and New York City rent regulated where the exposure is less than 5%. In terms of capital, our regulatory ratios remain well above required minimums, and our tangible common equity ratio was 9.25% at the quarter end, affording us the flexibility to repurchase stock during times of slower growth. We expect to continue repurchases under the current operating and economic environment. But those who follow us closely know we've had an excellent track record in growing tangible book value.

Speaker 2

And once again, our tangible book value per share increased during the Q1 and is up over 5.5% from a year ago. Additionally, reflecting the confidence in our future profitability and a solid capital base, we're pleased to announce a $0.01 increase in our cash dividend to $0.18 a share. This is our 5th dividend increase since 2021, and our Board of Directors will continue to evaluate future dividend increases in the future. Supporting our focus on driving growth, we continue to hire high performing talent, adding to an already experienced team of bankers here at ConnectOne. This is nothing new for us as we've always taken an opportunistic approach to talent acquisition and the shifts in our market and among the competitors that provide lucrative opportunities for us.

Speaker 2

I'm also pleased to note we're seeing compelling opportunities for non interest income growth, including within our Bowfly platform. The platform continues to onboard new franchisor brands, while expanding the use of its hallmark product, Be Verify, through the company's franchisee base. As we look ahead, we continue to explore opportunities to build that ecosystem around the needs of franchisees. In summary, I'm pleased to report the company delivered a good start to the year, both financially and operationally, and we believe ConnectOne is well positioned to execute on our long term objectives. So with that, I'll turn it over to Bill to give us a little bit more depth and some color on the results.

Speaker 2

Bill?

Speaker 3

Okay. Thanks, Frank. Good morning to everyone. I'd like to start off by giving everyone on the call just a general view on where ConnectOne's financial statements and where our metrics are headed this year. So notwithstanding the Fed's continued hawkish stance, our goal and our outlook is to finish 2024 with an even stronger balance sheet and increased profitability.

Speaker 3

First, we see a wider net interest margin coming for ConnectOne, which will drive improved profitability. 2nd, we are aiming for slow but smart loan growth, which will contribute to wider margins, improve our loans and deposit ratio and reduce our commercial real estate concentration regulatory metric. 3rd, of course, we want to maintain a sound capital base and credit quality. Lastly, I want to mention that we remain very close to the $10,000,000,000 threshold. It's not clear right now if we're going to cross it in 2024 or early 2025, but we want to make it perfectly clear that we have been and continue to be well prepared with our regulators.

Speaker 3

The turbine here will be small and expenses associated with the threshold are already in our expense base. Our regulatory risk based capital ratios remain strong as does our tangible common equity ratio, which is in excess of 9% of the holding company and it's in excess of 10% at the bank level. These TCE ratios have largely been unaffected by AOCI due to the hedging that we put in place several years ago. Our capital plans call for continued stock repurchases along with today's modest dividend increase, but also we are targeting to end 20 24 with capital levels at or above where they are now. So the margin did compress slightly during the Q1 from the sequential Q4, but the good news is that the margin appears to have bottomed down in January and is now headed upwards.

Speaker 3

Our February net interest margin was 2.66 and that widened by 6 basis points to 2.72 in March and April is also off to a good start. The margin stabilization comes as our cost of funds is remaining relatively constant. That's helped in part by growth in non interest bearing demand and the fact that we probably hit our terminal beta. At the same time, the loan portfolio yield continues to inch up. Recently, we've been booking loans at about 8.5%, while the loans rolling off are at 6.5% or below.

Speaker 3

Our loan pipeline predominantly consists of wider spread C and I and construction, while tighter spread multifamily originations have been limited we foresee that trend continuing. So if those dynamics over the past couple of months continue and we believe they will, our projections indicate that even without any rate cuts during 2024, our margin could expand upwards of 15 basis points between the Q1 and what we expect for this year's Q4. And on top of that, I'm going to stick with my previous guidance, which stated that for each 25 basis point Fed cut, our margin will expand almost immediately by 5 basis points. For the Q1 deposits grew while loans decreased. As Frank alluded to, deposit traction is building through several sources, including our C and I team continuing to onboard new clients, the continued build of our South Florida foothold and entry into the Long Island market.

Speaker 3

In terms of loan growth, we will continue to prioritize relationship based non CRA lending, while placing less emphasis on commercial real estate lending and proactively reduce non relationship credits, all of which is expected to result in subdued, if not flat net loan growth. Switching over to net non interest income, the quarterly run rate has been approximately $3,700,000 I'm projecting modest increases here are coming from higher SBA loan sale gains, higher fee revenue at Bowfly and we also expect to implement a tax based restructuring of some of our outstanding bowling policies. All in all, just projecting that we'd have 10% growth in the non interest income by year end. On the OpEx side, sequential growth from the Q4 was 3.7 percent, not unexpected. It's typical ConnectOne for the Q1.

Speaker 3

And going forward, I'm estimating 1% to 2% sequential growth in expenses throughout the rest of 2024. Now that expense growth rate could be higher or lower and could be influenced by actual revenue growth. But as Frank has mentioned many times, we are committed to investing in our infrastructure as well as taking advantage of opportunities created by M and A's structure. Let me turn to credit. We continue to feel very comfortable with overall portfolio credit quality.

Speaker 3

Non accrual loans fell by about 10%, while our 30 to 89 day delinquencies were at an historic low at just 0.04% of loans. The total criticized assets came down again to 5th straight decline to 1.3% of loans. Our provision for the quarter was 4,000,000 dollars approximately in line with Street expectations. We had 15 basis points of charge offs in the quarter coming from a handful of partial charge offs related to loans acquired as part of an acquisition. Now we could see similar levels of charge offs for the remainder of 2024, but my expectation is that the charge off level is likely to subside as we get beyond the end of the year.

Speaker 3

Adding to the provision for the quarter were some modest upward adjustments to our CECL qualitative factors and that pushed the allowance percentage to above 1%. At this point in the economic cycle, we certainly believe it makes sense to be conservative by increasing the allowance coverage. As a reminder, exposure in New York City office is 1.2% and all New York City multifamily is 7.5%, but only a portion of that 7 point 5% are rent regulated loans. So the risk exposure is even less. I'd say it's in the 4% to 5% range.

Speaker 3

We could continue to scrutinize and stress our rollover and repricing risk. We do this both on a top down basis utilizing electronic analyses as well as bottom up loan by loan reviews when needed. The results of those stress tests analysis show a limited potential impact on credit costs going forward. And just one more item before I send this over back to Frank. I just want to give you guidance on the effective tax rate.

Speaker 3

For the quarter, it was 25.5 percent. That was helped by the expiration of New Jersey surtax rate that had been in place for several years. Going forward, our effective tax rate could increase due to growth in taxable income and we always try to mitigate some of that increase with additional tax free income sources. With that Frank, back to you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Phil. In summary, our operating results remain solid, our balance sheet remains strong and our credit metrics remain resilient. Looking ahead, we're optimistic about 2024. There are attractive opportunities in the markets we serve. And we're confident that by diligently pursuing our strategic objectives, ConnectOne is well positioned for enhanced profitability and sustained success, which would also be amplified by the Fed lowering rates.

Speaker 2

As always, we appreciate your interest in ConnectOne, and thanks again for joining us today. Operator, we'll now open the line for any questions.

Operator

Thank And your first question comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Good morning, Frank and Bill. First, I guess, on the loan growth guidance, you mentioned you're going to be managing non relationship balances off the balance sheet and then remixing or reducing the commercial real estate concentration. So just curious kind of how you're thinking about non relationship balances that you've got right now, what that might look like in terms of runoff? And then on the other side, just where you're expecting to see growth not in multifamily or commercial real estate?

Speaker 2

I would Dan, it's Frank. I would tell you that we go through our portfolio on a 1 by 1 basis. It's not that we're looking at a spreadsheet of numbers. These are relationships or people that have promised us true relationships that consist of deposits and loans. In the cases where we find that those things are not true or not to the point where we're comfortable with them, we've asked those people to look for other places to do their banking.

Speaker 2

In most cases and part of the reason you saw the increase in deposits this quarter, we did get people to recommit some of their efforts to us. Part of that was because of a lot of disruption in the market, but part of it's also just because we're out there asking the right questions and holding people accountable for what they promised us in the past. We've always been a relationship bank here at ConnectOne. And so that means doing having a full relationship, which includes your deposits and your loans. But as you know, some people make promises.

Speaker 2

We're generally the type that put our best foot forward first. We trust everyone. And now we're in the verify part. And if we don't like what we see, we're asking people to move out. So very difficult to say with any certainty what the numbers would look like.

Speaker 2

That is a very general theme around the entire organization and it is showing up in the numbers. We do have an emphasis today on or have had for quite a while on our C and I portfolio. And that's showing some results too, which is also showing up in the deposit growth numbers. And there it's almost a guarantee that if we're taking on a C and I relationship, we are getting the deposits along with the loans. And we also since our inception almost 20 years ago, we've always been pretty active in the construction marketplace.

Speaker 2

I like that business. My background is in it. We think there's a lot of compelling projects around the New York Metro market that make a hell of a lot of sense, especially with the housing dynamics here. And we like the types of relationships that brings to the table. So we've had a bit of a focus there as well.

Speaker 4

I appreciate that Frank.

Speaker 3

Danny, it's Bill. Just to give you some guidance on how we get to a growth rate, likely to see some decline in multifamily. And then overall, this would just be an educated guess here. It's hard to be precise with these projections, but I'd see very low growth anywhere from 0% to say 2.5% total growth in the portfolio including declines in multifamily. Okay.

Speaker 4

On the personnel side, I guess, given that shift, these lenders are some of these lenders historically just commercial real estate and multifamily lenders? Are they going to be kind of just shifting over to looking at construction and C and I and anything else? Or do you expect to be going out and looking to hire new lenders or teams to accelerate that growth?

Speaker 2

I wouldn't see it as a shift. I do think we have expertise in particular areas and we continue to maintain that expertise in the various verticals that we represent. I think it would speak more to who we're hiring, what teams we're enhancing or building or creating, as opposed to I think it's hard to take somebody who's been whatever in one particular vertical and move them immediately to the other. I'm not so sure that's the way to go about it. But when we're thinking about adding folks or people who have a desire to come to work for ConnectOne, we've gotten a lot of inbound calls.

Speaker 2

We're picking and choosing the folks that will help expand the areas that we think make sense for us to expand and in the markets in which we hope to do that as well.

Speaker 4

Okay. All right. Thanks. And then just a small one. The loan to deposit ratio, you said you're going to manage that down.

Speaker 4

Obviously, the loan growth being close to flat will help do that. But do you have a target that you want to get to before the loan growth starts to ramp back up?

Speaker 3

I don't want to really give a target out here, Dan, but rather say that we're working towards reducing that ratio over time.

Speaker 4

Okay, fair enough. All right. Well, thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Frank Schiraldi with Piper Sandler.

Speaker 5

Good morning.

Speaker 3

Hey, Frank.

Speaker 5

Let's talk a little bit about growth into Long Island and continued growth in South Florida. I wondered if you could just talk a little bit more about your strategy in those two geographies and kind of where you guys are at this point in total loans deposits?

Speaker 2

Yes. I'll let Bill give you some actual figures. But Long Island has been actually both markets are what I consider to be adjacent markets. And even though one of them has 1,000 miles between us, but they're adjacent in that. That's where our clients either live or work or have business interests or are developing or whatever.

Speaker 2

And we find Long Island to be almost an exact mirror image of what we've created in the Northern New Jersey market. We've been very successful in hiring some really terrific folks that represent that market in the way in which we go about doing business that care about their clients. And we're finding that there's not a whole lot of really strong competition in that Long Island market for that type of relationship business. So we've had a lot of success there. We're continuing to have success.

Speaker 2

We're going to continue you're going to continue to hear. We're making hires there. We're putting brick and mortar there. And we're picking up a significant amount of business in that marketplace. Florida, I would say, is almost exactly the same thing.

Speaker 2

We have a lot of our New York, New Jersey base is also planting roots in Florida and we're supporting that. And as word is getting out about the way in which we do business types of businesses that we've been supporting, we've also been getting organic growth in that Florida market as well. We're very excited about the folks that are supporting our team down there. And we've had, I think, some really good successes for the short amount of time that we've represented that market. Now we've always had some assets in Florida, I would say always probably for the last 10 or 15 years.

Speaker 2

But it got to a critical point where we really needed to have a substantial boots on the ground effort there and that is now paying some very, very nice dividends. Bill, I don't know if you want to add some color to that. I know

Speaker 3

we have close to $500,000,000 of deposits that are domiciled in Florida. So that's a nice number. The loan totals about $200,000,000 to $250,000,000 down there and growing. And Long Island where we've always done some business in Long Island. So it's part of our balance sheet and there's close to $500,000,000 in deposits there.

Speaker 3

And we're going to continue to make right inroads to grow in that region.

Speaker 6

Okay,

Speaker 5

great. And then just in terms of with a little bit of a mix shift anticipated on the loan side. Can you just remind us where your CRE concentrations are currently? And where do you think you'll get to or what are you anticipating to get to on that front, say, by year end?

Speaker 3

Frank, it's similar to the loan to deposit ratio. There's no one out there forcing us to lower our concentration levels. But we recognize that the market likes to see lower levels. So we're moving that ratio down slowly. I think it's been down the last 5 quarters at least and we're somewhere in the 4.35 range as a percentage and that's down from the previous quarter.

Speaker 5

Okay. So it will continue to fall, but there's no hard and fast Right. And then just lastly on the you guys talked about in the release a $20,000,000 90 days plus still accruing. You talked about low LTV. And I wonder if you could just give us a little bit more color on that front in terms of location?

Speaker 5

Is this, I guess, investor cree? And on that loan to value ratio, how updated is that appraisal? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. So it's a New Jersey multifamily property. The loan to value at 60% is very recent. We just got a recent appraisal on it. And the owner is just going through some negotiation issues with the purchaser and that's what's holding it up.

Speaker 3

But no, very well secured.

Speaker 5

Okay. And was this I'm sorry, you said the borrower is going through some negotiation with the buyer?

Speaker 3

Yes, the borrower seller is and it's under contract right now.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's great. And then just a point of clarification. Bill, you mentioned, I think, 10% growth in fee income. Was that year over year?

Speaker 5

Or what was the guide there?

Speaker 3

I'm hoping that the Q4 will be 10% higher than the Q1. Okay, that's my objective. Okay.

Speaker 5

All right. Fair enough. Thanks.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Switzer with KBW.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Good morning. Yes, I appreciate the color on the degree of NIM expansion you guys expect over the rest of the year without any Fed rate cuts. Can you maybe help us quantify the magnitude of NIM expansion once we get maybe 1 or 2 Fed rate cuts in the back half of the year and the deposit beta expectations you guys have on that?

Speaker 2

Well, first, I love your optimism that we're going to get 1 or 2 rate cuts at the end of the year. I think that's starting to get a little faded, but let's hope you're right. I'm not sure, Tim,

Speaker 3

if you're on the last call. But we have a formula that for every 25 basis points of seg cut, we'll improve our margins by 5 basis points. And of course, that's on top of the margin expansion going on without any rate cuts. And yes, it's dependent upon what the beta might be. Some of us believe that the banking industry is waiting for a rate cut and it's going to be a very high beta on the way down.

Speaker 3

It depends how tight money is, right? Whether or not we're still fighting over funds. So it's a middle of the road beta that we use for that estimate.

Speaker 6

Okay. That's helpful. And do you think that 5 basis points changes one way or the other as we progress through the cycle? I know this could be getting really optimistic, but if we get a series of rate cuts, does that change over time? Maybe deposit competition lessens as we get deeper.

Speaker 3

Yes. It's always subject to volatility, those estimates. As we pass through to let's say, for example, there were no rate cuts for 5 years, okay. We would continue in our view having improvement in our margin. And so the rate cuts would have less of an impact.

Speaker 3

But I'm looking out right now in my head, let's say we're going to go through the end of the year with no rate cuts and that's going to start next year. And then those estimates I stand by, okay? Does that helps you? Yes. That makes sense.

Speaker 2

And just looking at the business, our business for ConnectOne, I'm much less concerned about the rate cuts. I almost don't I don't want to say I don't care, but I almost don't care about the rate cuts. I care a hell of a lot more about the liquidity that's available in the marketplace and the ability to track deposits and what you mentioned is competitive environment. To me that's way more important to whether our margin goes up or down or stays flat than whether the rates are I actually prefer a market where the rates stay right where they are, but liquidity improves and right and we're not fighting as hard for every next dollar.

Speaker 6

Yes. That makes sense. I think speaking of yield curve would be helpful as well. I was wondering, have you guys started testing maybe lower deposit rates in certain categories or certain markets at all? And what's kind of been the customer response to that?

Speaker 3

It's hard to say. And that's an ongoing challenge to see how low we can go. We think it's over the time when people said, hey, my deposit, I'm only getting 50 basis points. Why am I not getting 4.50 or 5? And so today, we do feel there's some room to lower rates to some extent without losing deposits.

Speaker 3

So we are looking into that in certain instances. The whole deposit portfolio was a little bit complicated, whether it's commercial customers, big retail customers, small retail customers and different products. And so, we're as you said, we should be testing those things and we are.

Speaker 6

Awesome. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of

Speaker 7

I did want to go back to the loan growth discussion. And I was curious for how long do you think it will take you to kind of deemphasize non relationship lending. Is that isolated to just 2024? Or do you expect that to continue to 2025?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think the most of it occurs this year as we go through a complete cycle or a cycle and a half of bringing loans up on review, going through the entire portfolio and getting the message out there that this is that we're pretty serious about this aspect of the business. So yes, I would say by year end, look, I think it's a continuous

Speaker 3

practice because

Speaker 2

as you know, Matt, everybody promises you the world on the day you sign all the documents and someone needs something from you. And then a year later, you look back and you say, wait a minute, this isn't what we all signed up for. So and I got to believe that's going to continue in the future as well. But we certainly have a very laser focused eye on those types of relationships and whether or not people did in fact do what they said they were going to do and how we recognize those things.

Speaker 7

Yes. I mean the follow-up here is in 2025 and I know it's a long way off, do we get to some normalcy in terms of loan growth even if it's kind of mid single digit growth for you?

Speaker 3

If liquidity can just improve Yes, right. There would be more higher probability of higher growth.

Speaker 2

And maybe that speaks more to why we should be voting for some Fed rate cuts, right? There is definitely parts of a variety of businesses that have been negatively impacted by higher rates and so they're just borrowing less. So while we may be out there and we may have a very strong pipeline of new loan product coming in, which now currently is being offset by loans that we're intentionally moving off the balance sheet. At some point, that's going to right side a st a steeper yield curve and there'll just be additional opportunities. But I don't know, can you tell me if that's going to be at the end of this year, the beginning of next year or the end of next year.

Speaker 2

I don't know the answer to that.

Speaker 7

Neither do I. But I did want to touch on, Frank, maybe the priority stack of capital deployment options for you right now. I mean, obviously, loan growth is going to be muted this year. If you have to deploy the next dollar, does it go into buybacks? Does it go into securities?

Speaker 7

Where are you putting it right now?

Speaker 3

Well, I think our first choice is widespread lending business. Long as it's a good deal and it's bringing in deposits, that's going to be the priority. On the dividend is kind of fixed and whatever is left over, as long as I'm seeing the capital ratios constant are inching up, we would go for that. At this level, we did 280,000 shares this quarter. That seems to be the right level the way things are going down in terms of buybacks per quarter.

Speaker 7

Okay. So we can assume kind of securities portfolio flat at this point, that's not going to move too much? Yes.

Speaker 2

All securities portfolio has never really been widely fluctuating. We've kept a certain amount and that's about

Speaker 3

it. It's margin dilutive, right, securities purchases. And I'm of this belief, Matt, once upon a time, the securities portfolio was viewed as a place for liquidity. Today, I'm thinking more what is readily available in cash this minute. And securities in your portfolio takes time to convert it to cash.

Speaker 3

So if you need the money today, it may not be good to have that. So we've placed a great not that we're cutting back the storage portfolio, we've played a greater emphasis on the lines, readily accessible lines at the Federal Home Loan Bank and the Fed. Right. Okay.

Speaker 7

The last one for me is that you had mentioned that rent regulated multifamily is less than 5% of loans. That's a tough one to define and companies are defining rent regulated differently. How are you defining it? Is that the bucket that's 100% rent regulated or 50%

Speaker 3

and above or any We can use about 5, a little under 5%. All of it, any portion, if it has no rent regulated unit in it, then it's not rent regulated. But if it has one, then it goes into the 5% bucket. If it's if you go to the 50%, I think we're down to 3.75%, something like that.

Speaker 7

Okay.

Speaker 3

Does that make sense?

Speaker 7

Yes, that makes sense. And I guess as a follow-up there, in the state of New York, they're kind of slowly passing or looking to pass another kind of piece of legislation on housing with a cap on rents, market rate rents, some flexibility on the rent regulated stuff, but the big thing is a cap on market rate rents. And I was curious your thoughts on potential impacts from that.

Speaker 2

Yes. I was having a discussion the other day with a couple of owners that one of the interesting things about the bill that is probably going to get I think it has been passed is that everybody is unhappy with it. So it must be a pretty good bill. I think that it's hard to argue against the fact that you can have up to 10% increases and still be within the law. So I'm not too upset with that overall.

Speaker 2

There are very few times in history where you're entitled to more than a 10% increase. So I think that gives a lot of flexibility to a variety of owners. Now certainly, if you're way on the market in a rent stabilized scenario or even a rent regulated scenario, 10% may not be enough, but it's better than what was on the table before by a significant margin. I think it helps for the new construction and development that we need in the New York Metro market. And I think it gives probably more than 3 quarters of the market the amount of relief that they really needed in order to make a lot of these buildings viable.

Speaker 7

On the rent regulated side, the ability to invest

Speaker 3

in the future? Yes, right.

Speaker 2

On the rent regulated side, because before you had no opportunity to raise rents or very limited opportunity. So now it's I put it in the reasonable bucket.

Operator

There are no that concludes our Q and A session. I will now turn the conference back over to the management team for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. And of course, thank you for all the great questions. We look forward to speaking with you again during our Q2 of July. Everyone enjoy.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

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