NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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May 15, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Management said the residential market is in a “supply trough”, with multifamily deliveries and construction starts falling sharply, which they believe should make the second half of 2026 and 2027 materially better for residential assets.
  • Positive Sentiment: At NexPoint Storage Partners, physical occupancy rose to 92.3% at quarter-end and 93.9% recently, while same-store revenue increased 6.4% and NOI grew 10.2% year over year, outpacing public self-storage REIT peers.
  • Positive Sentiment: VineBrook Homes is being repositioned toward higher-yielding built-to-rent communities, with management expecting the strategy and the externalization of management to save more than $15 million annually in G&A and eventually improve NOI and share value.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Paul Richards said NREF remains low levered at about 0.7x debt-to-equity, refinanced $180 million of unsecured notes with a new swap facility, and expects Q2 EAD of $0.43 per share and CAD of $0.54 per share.
  • Positive Sentiment: NXDT continues to pursue monetization and share repurchases, including more than 1.1 million common shares bought back at an average price of $3.83, while management sees spectrum-asset market activity as supportive of future value realization.
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Earnings Conference Call
NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Welcome to the NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust Q1 2026 investor update call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kristen Griffith, investor relations. You may begin.

Kristen Griffith
Kristen Griffith
Investor Relations at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Good day, everyone. Welcome to NexPoint Diversified Real Estate investor update call. On the call today are Matt McGraner, Executive Vice President, Chief Investment Officer, Paul Richards, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and John Good, Chief Executive Officer of NexPoint Storage Partners and Chief Executive Officer of VineBrook Homes Trust, Inc. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this update call and accompanying presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs. Listeners should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review the company's annual report on Form 10-K and the company's other filings with the SEC for a more complete discussion of risks and other factors that could affect the forward-looking statements.

Kristen Griffith
Kristen Griffith
Investor Relations at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

The statements made during this conference call speak as only as of today's date. Except as required by law, NXDT does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt. Please go ahead, Matt.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Thank you, Kristen. Thank you to everyone for joining the call this morning for updates on NXDT's progress. As Kristen said, I'm joined today by Paul Richards, our CFO of NXDT, and John Good, CEO of our storage and single-family rental businesses. This morning, we will discuss NXDT's real estate markets and provide updates on our top holdings. I'll begin by spending a few minutes discussing the residential market, the supply picture, and progress with our Cityplace project in uptown Dallas. I'll turn the call over to John and Paul to discuss our storage, SFR, and credit vehicles. Finally, I'll close with progress on efforts to monetize assets and repurchase stock. On the residential front, we are now firmly in the supply trough that I've been describing on these calls for several quarters. The thesis is playing out.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

We are coming off a record national multifamily cycle, net deliveries peaked at approximately 695,000 units in the trailing 12 months ending Q4 of 2024. For context, that compares to roughly 282,000 units of average annual deliveries since 2001. CoStar now forecasts 2026 deliveries to fall approximately 49% from 2025 levels, with another 20% decline forecasted for 2027. 2027 and 2028 forecasts have been revised down meaningfully from prior estimates as well. On the supply side, multifamily construction starts are running approximately 70% below their 2022 peak. That is locking in a multiyear supply trough, particularly in uptown Dallas. On the demand side, the structural backstop has not changed. The cost to own a home in our markets remains roughly 3 times the cost to rent.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

There is no reasonable mortgage rate scenario that closes that gap quickly. Our on-the-ground leasing data is consistent with the inflection thesis. Putting it all together, we believe the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be meaningfully better than 2025 for residential assets. While the longer-term effect of AI on white-collar employment remains an open debate, our demand thesis does not depend on the labor mix. With the cost to own a home running again 3 times the cost to rent in our markets and new supply collapsing, the structural case for rental demand holds across a wide range of employment outcomes. We would also note a support of longer-term demographic tailwinds as continued gains in health and longevity extend the renter age band and broaden the demand base over time.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Again, with respect to the CityPlace uptown sub-market, the supply picture is almost nonexistent, with just 232 units delivering in the CityPlace sub-market in 2027, and then nothing thereafter. We are nearing completion of design and capitalization of The Apron project, as reflected in the recent state filings. In addition, we have executed construction financing term sheets at accreted levels, and our underwriting remains intact with pro forma year-long costs remaining in the mid 6% range. Integrating new housing on The Apron with existing office space, building amenities, and future retail and hospitality offerings will be a significant step in advancing the broader CityPlace redevelopment. On that front, progress on the tower residential design and programming continues to remain on schedule, with an intentional lag behind The Apron as we phase the development.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

We expect to turn our attention to financing the tower in the second half of the year and remain overall bullish on starting this residential project this year as the sub-market supply literally falls off of a cliff. Now I'd like to turn the call over to John.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

Thanks, Matt. Welcome everyone. I'll start out by talking about results at NexPoint Storage Partners and then move on to VineBrook, and then turn the call over to Paul Richards. With respect to NexPoint Storage Partners' occupancy trends, at March 31, our physical occupancy was 92.3%, which was up 60 basis points from December 31, 2025, which had an occupancy at that date of 91.7%. Our 92.3% is identical to the 92.3% that we reflected at March 31, 2025. Our occupancy levels are performing to normal seasonal expectations, and our physical occupancy continues to rank among the highest in the self-storage industry. As of yesterday, our physical occupancy was 93.9%, 160 basis point gain since March 31, and roughly the same as our occupancy the same time last year.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

As for rental rates, sector-wide rental rates continue to inch forward as we move through rental season. Our portfolio's in-place rate on March 31, 2026 was $20.23 per foot, up 6.7% from the $18.96 that we reflected at March 31, 2025, and up 30 basis points from the $20.17 at the beginning of the year. Our average asking rate remained relatively flat year over year, rising $0.02 from $19.48 at March 31, 2025 to $19.50 at March 31, 2026. Growth in our average web rate, which is the rate charged to customers who find units and rent via the internet, which comprises the majority of our customers, was up 2.6% year over year from $13.30 at March 31, 2025 to $13.64 at March 31, 2026.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

Our properties continue to be subject to aggressive rate increase programs to existing customers, with those rate increases generally kicking in four months after a new customer comes into the facility, and those rent increases have been running north of 30% for the last several months. We expect these rate increases, along with stable occupancy, to support a 5%-6% increase in same-store revenue for 2026. Moving to revenue and net operating income. Same-store revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2026 was $23.1 million, or 6.4% higher than the $21.7 million recognized in the first quarter of 2025. Net operating income for the first quarter of 2026 was $14 million, or 10.2% higher than Q1 2025 NOI of $12.7 million.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

These results continue to lead the publicly traded self-storage REITs by a large margin, as they reported first quarter same-store revenue growth of an average of less than 2% and negative same-store NOI growth. Demand in the self-storage sector has typically been led by housing mobility and life events, and the historically weak housing market experienced over the past three years has softened self-storage demand. Our publicly listed self-storage REIT peers continue to operate a large portion of their respective portfolios subject to this slowness in demand, resulting in flat to negative revenue growth and negative NOI growth. However, our portfolio is the youngest portfolio of size in the storage sector, and our location in large, dense urban submarkets provides a consistent demand funnel made up of people who have to rent storage because they don't have enough space.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

This makes us somewhat immune from the continued slow housing market that is burdening the rest of the sector and has allowed us to substantially outperform our peers. Moving to supply. Development remains limited in self-storage due to high borrowing costs, land scarcity, significant inflation in materials cost, permitting challenges, and the continued weakness in the demand for self-storage caused by the weak housing market. The expected new supply for 2026 and 2027 is well below the 3% threshold needed for equilibrium and projected to fall even lower into 2027, likely renewing pricing power in the sector and allowing for stronger rate growth over the next couple of years. We continue to believe we have the preeminent urban storage portfolio in the United States that will continue to outperform our peers and command a premium valuation upon any liquidity event. Now moving to VineBrook.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

We began a transformation of Vinebrook Homes beginning in the second half of 2025 when we partnered with Evergreen Residential to manage our over 20,000 home portfolio and began to aggressively sell approximately 4,000 homes that comprise our lowest performing 20% and redeploy the proceeds in the higher yielding built-to-rent communities. The externalization of management to Evergreen is expected to save us over $15 million per year in G&A expense, and the repositioning of the bottom tier of our portfolio is expected to produce yields of 50 to 100 basis points ahead of our average yield for the entire portfolio, and 75 to 150 basis points ahead of the yields on the disposed of homes.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

The enhanced yields from replacing older, high-maintenance housing stock with new, lower maintenance, easier to manage, and higher yielding built-to-rent homes should, over time, be highly accretive to Vinebrook's net operating income and share value as those built-to-rent communities stabilize. To execute this strategy, during the first quarter, we removed 1,670 homes from the rented pool in order to make those homes ready for disposition. We sold 289 homes during the first quarter, and we acquired 181 built-to-rent homes during the quarter. As we execute this repositioning of our company, revenue will lag for a few quarters as existing homes are pulled out of the rental pool and sold, and as we acquire and lease up our built-to-rent homes. Once we complete this repositioning during 2027, revenue growth should be strong and the value of our company should be significantly enhanced. Our first quarter performance was solid.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

Physical occupancy within our stabilized same home set actually ticked up to 95.3% from 94.9% at year-end 2025. Our stabilized home count was relatively flat during the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2025, with count being 15,765 homes for Q1 2026 versus 15,747 homes for Q1 2025, an 18-home increase, or about one-tenth of 1%. Our net operating income margin on our same home portfolio was 63.9% for the quarter, a 60-basis point improvement over the same quarter in 2025, and consistent with our peers. In the first quarter, our rental rates on renewal leases increased 5.5%, and rental rates on new leases were essentially flat, resulting in a blended rental rate increase of 4.5% for the first quarter, more than double the blended growth rates reported by our larger publicly traded peers. Same home net operating income for Q1 increased 1.3% over Q1 2025.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

Over the past two and a half years, we have fortified the VineBrook balance sheet, reducing leverage, decreasing our interest rate, and extending maturities until the end of the decade. As part of that fortification, we were able to procure a $500 million acquisition line of credit from JPMorgan to fund built-to-rent acquisitions. The intent is to pay down the acquisition line through the sale of homes to which I just referred, making our BTR strategy leverage neutral to leverage positive. To date, we have purchased three stabilized BTR communities and have funded a portion of two forward sale BTR communities, investing approximately $100 million in these built-to-rent communities. Built-to-rent homes are higher-yielding assets in higher growth markets that are easier to manage.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

We have invested in built-to-rent communities in two of our better performing legacy markets, Indianapolis and Kansas City, as well as in new markets such as Nashville and Raleigh. As many of you are probably aware just from watching the news or reading the press, in early January of this year, the President challenged Congress to adopt legislation to make housing more affordable. Included in his challenge was a call for Congress to curb growth of what he called corporate ownership of single-family rental housing through a ban on additional purchases by institutional investors. After months of competing bills and negotiation between the House and the Senate, as of last night, both Houses have passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

We were deeply involved over the past six months, lobbying for a bill that would not restrict capital flows into our sector and would allow us to do business as usual. While most of the bill is designed to provide incentives to the private sectors and states and cities to increase supply and make home loans more available in smaller communities. Title 10, Section 1001 of the bill imposes on large institutional investors, which are defined as any entity or group of related entities that own more than 350 homes, a ban on future acquisitions of single-family homes for rent. There are a number of important exceptions to the ban. Newly constructed homes, purpose-built to rent homes purchased and renovated to meet local occupancy codes, homes placed in a rent-to-own program, and purchases from institutional investors.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

We believe the bill allows us to continue operating in our current manner and in accordance with our current business plan, and experts believe that the bill as passed will renew capital flow into the sector. Over the past two years, we have fortified VineBrook's balance sheet and created capital to allocate to build-to-rent opportunities. We have an active pipeline and ability to move very quickly to close on good opportunities, and now the legislation allows us to continue to do so. Finally, a few comments about net asset value and liquidity. Our net asset value at March 31, 2026 was $54.24, compared to $54.56 at March 31, 2025. A 60-basis point decline as the range of cap rates provided by Green Street Advisors, our third-party valuation firm, expanded.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

This is the worst housing market in two decades, characterized by low inventory, low construction starts, and high mortgage tax and insurance rates, as well as political headwinds in Washington, D.C. The shares of our publicly traded peers continue to trade at substantial discounts to their net asset values, reflecting these higher cap rates. Our NAV continues to be supported by our home sales, and we are pleased that the NAV has remained in a tight range over the past two years, despite a stubbornly weak housing market, rising costs, and volatility in the SFR REIT sector. We remain committed to providing some limited liquidity sometime in the second half of the year, the amount of which continues to be discussed by management and the board as we continue to monitor the macro outlook and execute on our portfolio reposition.

John Good
CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners

A listing during the next four quarters is still on the table, but our publicly traded peers continue to trade significantly below NAV, and we are mindful of conducting such listing in a manner where shareholder value is maximized to the extent possible. Management, the board, and NexPoint entities remain the largest shareholders in the company, and we continue to be absolutely aligned with all shareholders in terms of seeking to maximize value. With those remarks, I'll turn it over to Paul to comment on NREF.

Paul Richards
Paul Richards
EVP and CFO at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Thanks, John. As of today, NXDT holds shares of the OP units of NexPoint Real Estate Finance worth approximately $94 million in net asset value, or approximately $1.59 per NXDT share on a stand-alone basis. As a reminder, NREF is a publicly traded mortgage REIT focused on originating and/or purchasing credit investments in our key operating verticals of residential, both SFR and multifamily, self-storage and life science. NREF reported first quarter net income to common shareholders of $10 million or $0.42 per share. Cash available for distribution was $13.5 million or $0.58 per share. Moving to our portfolio and book value. Book value per share fell slightly to $18.96, reflecting sustained strong performance on our underlying assets. Our portfolio totals approximately $1.1 billion across 90 investments diversified across multi, single-family rentals and life sciences.

Paul Richards
Paul Richards
EVP and CFO at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Importantly, NREF remains one of the lowest levered mortgage REITs in the space at just about 0.7 times debt to equity, which provides us flexibility and downside protection. The stock is trading at a 30% discount to book value, creating an attractive entry point relative to intrinsic value. Next, a few comments on capital activity. On the most significant transaction of the quarter, we have successfully refinanced $180 million of our senior unsecured notes that were maturing May 1st. We replaced those 5.75% fixed rate notes with a new $242.5 million total return swap facility priced at SOFR plus 375 basis points, with three-year term and a one-year extension option. Next on the capital structure and positioning.

Paul Richards
Paul Richards
EVP and CFO at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Combined with the $21.1 million we raised in our Series B Preferred and the re-REMIC execution, we head back into the back half of 2026 with one of the cleanest and most flexible capital structures in the commercial mortgage REIT sector. On to the re-REMIC execution. We sold our VPs to MGEHO at 92.7, having purchased it at 68.69 in 2021, and reinvested into an HR tranche of the new structure at an 18.5% yield. That single transaction generated 46% share per book value appreciation, reduced refi financing by $75 million, and is expected to derive approximately $0.34 per share of annual CAD accretion going forward. Next, dividend coverage. We paid a regular dividend of $0.50 per share in the first quarter, which is 1.16 times covered by cash available for distribution.

Paul Richards
Paul Richards
EVP and CFO at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

Lastly, our future outlook and guidance. Looking forward, we expect earnings available for distribution of $0.43 per share in Q2 with CAD at $0.54 per share. With a debt to equity ratio of 0.7 times and a dividend coverage of 1.16 by CAD, we believe NREF is well positioned to sustain its distribution and create durable shareholder value. Our affiliates and long-term investors maintain significant skin in the game alongside our shareholders, a structure we view as a meaningful differentiator. Now I'd like to pass it back to Matt.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

All right. Thanks, Paul. As you can tell by John and Paul's updates, we continue to make operational progress across all of our platforms in spite of broader geopolitical and capital market noise. As I said the last quarter, certain monetization efforts continue to progress on several fronts. One example is MidWave Wireless, formerly TerreStar Corporation, which remains one of the largest independent wireless spectrum license holders in the U.S. The company continues to explore strategic options as it seeks to monetize its investment. We continue to see activity in the sector with spectrum licenses actively trading in the market, which we believe is a positive indicator for potential value realization over the next 12 months. By way of reference, recent public transactions underscore the depth of this market.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

AT&T agreed to acquire roughly 50 MHz of EchoStar's spectrum for approximately $23 billion, an implied value of about $1.40 per MHz pop, while SpaceX acquired EchoStar's spectrum across two transactions totaling nearly $20 billion, with Verizon and T-Mobile both reporting to be evaluating the remaining licenses. We view this level of large cap buyer demand as supportive of the value embedded in our holdings. This activity, coupled with our ongoing amortization of preferred stock holdings, will continue to fuel aggressive stock buybacks over the near term. As of the close of business yesterday, we had repurchased over 1.1 million shares of common stock at an average stock price of $3.83 per share. You should expect this buyback activity will continue over the near term.

Matt McGraner
Matt McGraner
EVP and Chief Investment Officer at NexPoint Diversified Real Estate Trust

In addition to stock buybacks, management and the board are keenly focused on improving disclosure and evaluating share issuances while we continue to make operational progress within our key operating verticals. That's all we have today for our prepared remarks. I'd like to thank everyone for joining today's call and look forward to providing further updates on our next progress next quarter. Thank you very much and good day.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Kristen Griffith
      Kristen Griffith
      Investor Relations
    • Matt McGraner
      Matt McGraner
      EVP and Chief Investment Officer
    • Paul Richards
      Paul Richards
      EVP and CFO
Analysts
    • John Good
      CEO at NexPoint Storage Partners
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