Independence Realty Trust Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 4, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Leasing momentum improved, with like-term new lease spreads rising from negative 3.9% in Q1 to negative 2.7% in Q2 and slightly positive in August; concessions also declined materially, while occupancy remained approximately 95%.
  • Positive Sentiment: IRT raised its full-year same-store NOI growth midpoint by 70 basis points to 1.5%, supported by stronger revenue and lower expense growth, while maintaining core FFO per-share guidance of $1.14.
  • Positive Sentiment: The community Wi-Fi rollout is ahead of schedule, generating about $400,000 of Q2 revenue and expected to contribute approximately $5.5 million of 2026 revenue, $3 million of NOI, and at least $0.01 of 2027 core FFO per share.
  • Negative Sentiment: The Tisdale at Lakeline Station development continues to lease more slowly than expected, reaching only 42% occupancy in July versus 36% in Q2 and pushing expected stabilization to Q1 2027; higher interest expense also offsets the improved same-store outlook.
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Earnings Conference Call
Independence Realty Trust Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Independence Realty Trust's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and the replay will be available on the Investors section of the company's website shortly after this call concludes. At this time, I will turn the call over to Stephanie Krewson-Kelly, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Krewson-Kelly, please go ahead.

Stephanie Krewson-Kelly
Stephanie Krewson-Kelly
SVP of Investor Relations at Independence Realty Trust

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Independence Realty Trust conference call to discuss second quarter 2026 results. On the call with me today are Scott Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Sebra, President and Chief Financial Officer, Janice Richards, Executive Vice President of Revenue Strategy, and Jason Lynch, Senior Vice President of Investments. Before we begin, please note that any forward-looking statements made during this call are based on our current expectations and beliefs as to future events and financial performance. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Such statements are made in good faith pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and IRT does not undertake to update them except as may be required by law.

Stephanie Krewson-Kelly
Stephanie Krewson-Kelly
SVP of Investor Relations at Independence Realty Trust

Please refer to IRT's press release, supplemental information, and filings with the SEC for further information about these risks. A copy of IRT's earnings press release and supplemental information is attached to IRT's current report on the Form 8-K that is available in the Investors section of our website. They contain reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures referenced on this call to the most direct comparable GAAP financial measure. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott Schaeffer.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Thanks, Stephanie, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I am pleased to report that operating momentum is building across our portfolio as market conditions continue to improve. As our results demonstrate, rental rate growth has improved throughout the year, driving a 120 basis point sequential improvement in new lease rates during the second quarter, with further improvement in July. Additionally, as of today, with 65% of new lease activity completed for the month of August, new lease spreads for like-kind leases are slightly positive. The consistent upward trajectory in leasing spreads is a clear signal that our markets are in recovery, which when combined with the new Wi-Fi revenue stream that we've established, supports our confidence in our guidance for same-store revenue growth. As expected, the volume of new deliveries has declined in our markets, and macroeconomic drivers of demand continue to outpace national averages.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Recent employment data continues to highlight healthcare as the primary driver of national job gains over the past year. This is visible across our footprint. Education and healthcare employment grew faster than total employment in every one of our 10 largest markets over the trailing year, aligning with our residents' income profile. People continue to relocate to the Sun Belt and Midwest markets for employment opportunities and quality of life. The high cost of homeownership continues to support rental demand and IRT's value proposition, namely larger apartment units, good school districts, proximity to essential retail and employment centers with monthly rents that are meaningfully less than new construction continues to attract and retain residents. Bearing this point, the steady improvement in market conditions has resulted in greater lead generation volumes over last year and a decrease in concession use.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Importantly, overall market occupancies across our portfolio have generally reached levels that support market-wide rent growth. The combination of durable demand, rising market rents, and normalizing concessions has driven sequential improvement in rental rates that I mentioned earlier. New lease trade-outs for like-term leases at our Midwest communities were +2.3% in the second quarter and a +2.1% in July. New lease spreads at our Sun Belt communities were a -3.8% in the second quarter and improved 180 basis points in July. In the West, new lease trade-outs were a -3.2% in the second quarter and improved 340 basis points to a +20 basis points in July. Taken together, net effect of rental rate growth in our markets is gaining steam. With the recovery that is upon us, rent premiums from our value add activity will also increase.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Because we perform a full repositioning of the apartment community, our renovated properties successfully compete with newer Class A properties by offering modern interiors and attractive on-site amenities at a lower price point than new construction while delivering a mid-to-upper teens return on investment. Our approach to value add renovations enables us to capture an immediate rent premium and benefit longer term from lower repairs and maintenance and turn costs. The higher rents and lower operating costs realized on renovated units has expanded our NOI margins and boosted same-store NOI by more than 20% annually. Additionally, over the past two years, we have significantly decreased the time it takes to renovate units such that moving forward, we can increase the volume of value add renovations without impacting occupancy, further benefiting future NOI growth.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Lastly, as I referenced at the beginning of my remarks, during the quarter, we successfully completed the initial phase of our community Wi-Fi initiative ahead of schedule. This new revenue stream not only supports our outlook for same-store revenue growth this year, but will also contribute at least $0.01 of core FFO per share to next year's results. In short, our markets are in recovery. We are on track to achieve our 2026 guidance, and we are excited about the earnings momentum building towards 2027. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Thank you, Scott, good morning, everyone. Core FFO per share for the second quarter of $0.28 was ahead of our internal expectations, driven by stronger than expected same-store NOI growth of 1.2% that outpaced the 80-basis point midpoint of our original guidance range for this year. The outperformance was driven by stronger revenue growth and lower expense growth. Same-store revenue growth of 90 basis points in the quarter was led by a 7.3% increase in other property revenue

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Along with continued improvement in bad debt, which declined to 1.1% of total revenue from 1.3% in the prior year period. Average occupancy of 95% was down 20 basis points sequentially and reflected our deliberate strategy of capturing rental rates over occupancy to maximize revenue. Looking ahead, revenues from our community Wi-Fi program will contribute significantly to other property revenue and same-store revenue growth during the second half of 2026. More on this in a moment. Rental rate growth in the quarter was fueled by a combination of stable asking rents and declining concession use. Asking rents across our markets increased by 3% from January through May, have held steady since. As demand strengthened during the year, we were able to reduce concession use from 54% of new leases in April to approximately 28% in July.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

As a result, like-term new lease trade-outs have improved throughout the year from -3.9% in the first quarter to -2.7% in the second quarter and -1.1% in July. Finally, as Scott mentioned, with over 65% of our expected new leases signed for the month of August, new lease trade-outs for like-term leases are slightly positive. While this is early, we are excited to see the continued improvement of market fundamentals translate into better pricing power. We provided July and August data in today's prepared remarks. Investors should not expect monthly data to continue to be presented on future calls. We are only providing this detail since one, new lease trade-outs are in focus right now, and two, this activity helps investors understand the momentum that is building and our confidence in achieving our guidance, which we will discuss momentarily.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Regarding individual markets and new lease growth, seven markets had positive new lease trade-outs during the second quarter, 11 were positive in July, so far in August, 13 markets are seeing positive new lease spreads. Markets with the highest new lease trade-outs in the second quarter were Lexington at a +9.6%, Cincinnati with 4.6%, Charleston with 1.8%, Columbus and Oklahoma City both with +1.1%, San Antonio with 1%, and Louisville with 30 basis points of positive spreads. Looking at our largest market, Atlanta's new lease trade-outs were -3.4% during the second quarter, they accelerated to a +2% in July. For renewal leases, our data science efforts are supporting lower renewal concession use and higher effective renewal rates without significantly impacting resident retention, which was 58% in the quarter.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

To date, renewal spreads on like-term leases are ahead of expectations, increasing from 3.2% in the first quarter to 4.1% in the second quarter and further accelerating by 50 basis points in July to 4.6%. August renewals, which are 95% complete today, are a +4.5%. All in all, our blended rent growth across like-term leases improved from 70 basis points in the first quarter to 1.3% in the second quarter, resulting in blends for the first half of the year of 1.1%. In July, blended rents on like-term leases were +2.5%. On the expense side, same-store operating expenses increased 50 basis points in the quarter, reflecting higher payroll and contract services, partially offset by decreases in property taxes and insurance.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

On our property Wi-Fi initiative, I'm pleased to report the program is running slightly ahead of plan due to earlier implementation at 19 communities that went live in May and June. Wi-Fi contributed roughly $400,000 of incremental revenue in the second quarter, which was ahead of guidance and is ramping quickly to achieve our original second half guidance of $5.5 million in revenues and $3 million of NOI. Turning to capital allocation, our value-add renovation program remains our most attractive investment opportunity. Through the first half of the year, we have completed 1,026 units, putting us on track to meet our original guidance of 2,000 to 2,500 units. We achieved 16% ROIs on renovations in the first half of the year and, as Scott highlighted, expect to capture higher rent premiums going forward as market rents continue to recover.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

On the capital recycling front, we are under contract for the sale of Stonebridge Crossings in Memphis, which should close before the end of this quarter. We intend to use the proceeds to de-lever and forecast ending the year with a net debt to EBITDA ratio in the mid-fives. Additionally, I'm pleased to highlight that in June, Fitch Ratings increased our outlook to positive from stable and that both Fitch and S&P affirmed our BBB flat rating. Turning to guidance. We are increasing the midpoint of our same-store NOI guidance for the full year by 70 basis points to 1.5%. This increase equates to an additional $2.5 million of NOI as compared to our original guidance and is based on our outlook for same-store revenue growth, which we affirm at 1.7% for the full year and our expectation for lower operating expenses during the second half of the year.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

For core FFO per share, the expected increase in same-store NOI is offset by $2 million of higher interest expense and a $2 million decrease in expected non-same-store NOI. In addition, core FFO per share is benefiting from a lower weighted average share count due to our first quarter share repurchases. After all these moving pieces, we are maintaining the midpoint of our core FFO per share guidance of $1.14. Details on our updated same-store guidance are as follows. Same-store revenue growth of 1.7% at the midpoint is unchanged. That implies second half growth of roughly 2.1%, an acceleration from the 1.1% we delivered in the first half. We want to be clear about the components of this growth.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Of the roughly $10 million of same-store revenue growth in our guidance for the year, $8.7 million is already in the books from revenue earned in the first half and the $5.5 million from our Wi-Fi program in the second half. That leaves about $1.3 million of revenue that will come from leases signed in the second half of 2026. As we sit here today, we've already signed about 50% of our leases for the second half of the year at blended spreads of 2.8%. To achieve the $1.3 million of incremental revenue growth, we need to sign the remaining 50% of our leases at blended spreads of 1.6% or better. Ultimately, all in all, as we sit here today, 87% of our full year revenue growth is already achieved or contracted.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Our revised midpoint for operating expense growth of 2% is 140 basis points lower than our original 3.4% midpoint, primarily driven by better results in both controllable and non-controllable operating expenses. For our non-same store portfolio, the reduction in forecasted NOI relates primarily to the slower lease-up at the Tisdale at Lakeline Station, the development asset we consolidated during the first quarter of this year. The project's average occupancy of 36% in the second quarter was behind our original expectations. We made good leasing progress in July with the community now 42% occupied. We expect this community to reach stabilized occupancy during the first quarter of 2027. Lastly, we are increasing the midpoint of our full year interest expense guidance by $2 million, reflecting higher SOFR rates, including an assumed 25 basis point increase in September, and temporarily higher average debt levels associated with the timing of investment activity.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

As I mentioned previously, with the pending sale of Stonebridge and the associated de-leveraging, we expect to end the year with net debt to EBITDA in the mid-fives. Scott, that was a lot. Back to you.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Thanks, Jim. To summarize, same-store results through the first half of the year are ahead of plan, driving the increase in our same-store guidance for the full year. Demand remains strong as demonstrated by our year-over-year increases in leasing volume and the trajectory of new lease trade outs. Our Value Add Program will benefit from increasing rental rates in the ongoing recovery, and the shorter completion timeline will enable us to increase future Value Add activity with no impact on occupancy. Our Wi-Fi Initiative is ahead of plan and contributing meaningfully to the revenue growth assumed in our guidance. As we move through the back half of 2026, we expect continued improvement in apartment market fundamentals to drive stronger leasing and earnings momentum into 2027. We thank you for joining us today. Operator, you can now open the call for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Eric Wolfe with Citibank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Eric Wolfe
Eric Wolfe
Analyst at Citibank

Hey, thanks. Good morning. You mentioned that new leads were up year-over-year and concessions across your markets were down. If possible, could you just quantify those two data points, so the leads and the concessions? I'm just trying to understand sort of how big of a shift this was and get some context around sort of how quickly market conditions are improving.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Sure. Lead volume is up about 5% year-over-year. Concession usage, I'll kind of talk about it in two pieces. One would be just the volume of new leases that have a concession, and the second one will be the average concession. If you look at kind of the pace of concessions, where we are right now in, say, for July versus earlier this year. April and March of this year, 52% of our new leases had a concession. As you stated, in July, 23% of our new leases had a concession. That compares against last year's concessions for new leases at roughly around the same 23% mark. Year-over-year, concessions are kind of back to where they needed to get to, but where we are in July, it's a significant improvement from where we were earlier this year.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

That's all on top of obviously a 3%-3.5% asking rent growth that we've experienced since this time last year. The average concession is hovering in Q2 of this year for purposes of new leases in the $1,300 range right now.

Eric Wolfe
Eric Wolfe
Analyst at Citibank

Got it. That's helpful. You talked about new leases being positive thus far in August. Can you just talk about where occupancy is today? You mentioned sort of addressing most of your sort of second half leases already. I guess based on sort of what you've signed thus far, would you expect occupancy to sort of stay stable from current levels?

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah. Occupancy today is 95%, and yeah, we would expect it to stay stable. It might actually grow a little bit as we end the year.

Eric Wolfe
Eric Wolfe
Analyst at Citibank

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Going back a little bit to the concession question. I'm curious, which markets are you still seeing the heaviest concession usage and where the next opportunity or leg up is from driving down concessions? Can you give a little detail across markets? Thanks.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Great question, Austin. I'll start. Then I'll ask Janice and Jason to chime in wherever I miss something or misspeak. Obviously, the biggest positive move in concessions so far this year is really in Atlanta. Back in March and April, 60%-70% of our new leases had concessions. In July, that was down to about 17%. Really, a real positive move in Atlanta. Dallas today continues to be relatively high on the concession usage. Back in March and April, that was roughly about 45%-50%, and today we're running around 40%, 42%. Tampa is also seeing a little bit heavier concession usage, although it is down slightly in July. Earlier this year, it was in the, call it, the 55%-60% range, and right now we're hovering around 40%. Janice, Jason, feel free to chime in. Okay.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. Going back a little bit to the back half. Bad debts held a little bit above that 1% range after seeing some meaningful improvement in the back half of last year. Wondering, what are you seeing into the third quarter, and what's the expectation now for further improvement into the back half of the year?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Back half of the year, our guidance implies, I think it's 95 basis points of bad debt. That's where we're running right now for July and August.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Analyst at Wells Fargo

Hi. Thank you. This is Connor on with Jamie. Over the past several quarters, your team has highlighted the advantages of your Class B portfolio and its relative affordability. As concessions begin to moderate and supply is absorbed, are you seeing any meaningful divergence between Class B and newer Class A product in terms of retention, move-outs, pricing power, or other variables?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

No, I don't think we're really seeing any significant change today between the Class B in terms of those core operating fundamentals between Bs and As.

Analyst at Wells Fargo

Okay. Thank you. You've previously discussed the acceleration in same-store revenue in the back half of the year from Wi-Fi. Can you walk us through the second half contribution? As we move into 2027, should investors think about the initiative as largely ramped or is there additional upside from this rollout over time?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Thank you. Good question. We started the Wi-Fi program. We rolled it out effective early July. Obviously, a few communities were done in May and June. It's going to contribute about $5 million-$5.5 million of revenue in this year, roughly about $3 million of NOI. That is starting at an initial kind of ramp where there's about 70% penetration in July of all of our resident base. As leases turn, that penetration will grow. We expect it to be 80%-85% penetrated by the end of the year. That'll continue to improve into next year, as well as you'll get an extra six months of revenue and extra six months of NOI. We are currently evaluating additional properties for the program to be added to it next year because, again, this initial Wi-Fi program was only 19,000 units.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Once we come out with 2027 guidance, we'll give you some more color on how significant that'll be.

Analyst at Wells Fargo

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brad Heffern
Brad Heffern
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Hey. Morning, everybody. Thanks for the questions. Obviously, positive new lease spreads has been an area of investor focus. Appreciate the comments about being slightly positive in August on like term. I'm wondering, do you expect to see kind of a normal level of seasonal decline after that? Basically wondering just if we can expect new lease to be around zero or better in the third quarter, or if we're going to see the normal September fall off and we'll have to wait until next year to see that on a quarterly basis.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Good question. July, as we commented, new leases were down 1.1%, and that's about 40% of the third quarter expirations in terms of the month of July. I don't know if third quarter will be, call it, zero. In terms of guidance, what we've assumed is that we kind of maintain roughly a -50 basis points in new lease trade-outs through the end of the year. That pretty much assumes that asking rents stay flat. I will provide a little bit of additional color that it is coming upon good comps where we had large concessions in third and fourth quarter of last year that are not expected to be present this year. That should both support new lease trade-outs as well as renewable trade-outs.

Brad Heffern
Brad Heffern
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Got it. Then on concessions, you said earlier that they were flat year-over-year in July. Just want to make sure I understand that commentary right. Is the full new lease improvement just coming from rate growth? Or is there something else there that I'm missing that's contributing as well?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah, I would say if you look at year-over-year, it's coming from rate growth. If you look at it from earlier this year to now, it's coming from concession stopping.

Brad Heffern
Brad Heffern
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

John Kim
John Kim
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on your commentary on new lease trade-outs. Just given the success you've had so far through August, and lower concessions, do you think it could be an improvement from the -2.1% you had in the second quarter? Again, just given the easier comps and commentary you've had.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

In terms of the rest of the year?

John Kim
John Kim
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Yeah, for the third and fourth quarter.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah. We certainly think that third and fourth quarter should be better than the minus 2.7 in the second quarter. For sure.

John Kim
John Kim
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Okay. Then can you provide pricing commentary on the two assets held for sale?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

No. On the assets we're held for sale in Memphis, that's not something we typically disclose on this time.

John Kim
John Kim
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Would it be within the typical range of cap rates that you've sold in the past?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yes, sir.

John Kim
John Kim
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Ami Probandt with UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Ami Probandt
Ami Probandt
Analyst at UBS

Thanks. I was hoping to get a little bit more context on how the peak leasing season played out. Is it fair to characterize this as a normal peak leasing season in terms of length and magnitude? With the leasing season extending a little bit into July, is that due to stronger demand than normal, or are easy comparisons more of a factor?

Janice Richards
Janice Richards
EVP of Operations at Independence Realty Trust

Yes. This is Janice. We're definitely seeing a robust, strong absorption rate throughout the markets that have supported the recovery that we're seeing on our new lease rates as well as asking rates. I think whether it's a comp set or it is concessions that's going to elongate, we shall see. We are coming up against an easier comp set that will allow for us to have more pricing power. I think as we move into the leasing season, we'll see normal seasonal patterns kick in through the rest of the year.

Ami Probandt
Ami Probandt
Analyst at UBS

Great. Thanks.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah.

Ami Probandt
Ami Probandt
Analyst at UBS

You mentioned that. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Ami, just a little bit of a follow-up. The lead data in terms of the size and trajectory of leasing season is certainly suggesting it's back to a normal kind of cycle. As I mentioned earlier, our leads are up 5% for the year. To highlight, July was actually up quite significantly or closer to 20%-25%. We do see really good demand building, but we're still being cautious, and we're still driving the focus on rates as opposed to occupancy so we can continue to deliver our results and focus on the long term.

Ami Probandt
Ami Probandt
Analyst at UBS

Thanks. That's helpful. Then in terms of bad debt, you mentioned 95 basis points in the second half of the year, which I believe is still well above where you were pre-COVID. What do you think is leading to bad debt lingering at the higher level? Do you think that this is just kind of the new normal level of bad debt, or could there be continuing tailwinds in 2027?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Well, we think that certainly there's a new level of normal relative to post-COVID. We think certainly not that fraud is a huge issue anymore, but the ability to have fraudulent IDs is still a lot easier today than it was in 2020. I think, that's something that we're continuing to use technology to try to sort out and figure out. I think, we certainly expect to continue to make some forward progress into 2027. Is there aspirations to get back to pre-COVID levels? Sure, absolutely. We think we can get there. It's just going to take additional kind of technology rollout and usage throughout the portfolio.

Ami Probandt
Ami Probandt
Analyst at UBS

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Wes Golladay with Baird. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Wes Golladay
Wes Golladay
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Hey. Good morning, everyone. I want to go back to the comment about the increased leads. I guess, can you talk about your conversion rate? Are you signing more of those leases, those leads into leases?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah. I would say our conversion rate is still roughly this consistent with where we've seen in the past. We really focus on, obviously, the whole conversion from It's not just conversion from lead to tour, but the closing ratio of tours to applications to leases. I would say just largely it's resulting in more volume of leases, yes.

Wes Golladay
Wes Golladay
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Then you mentioned the Tisdale was a little bit behind on occupancy. Can you also comment on the rate expectations there?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah. The rate expectations are also behind some of the initial underwriting we made when we entered. If you remember, that was a joint venture development deal that we entered several years ago. The rate environment has been different or more difficult than what we originally anticipated. The deal is ramping nicely. It is obviously experiencing a little higher use of concessions today. We do expect to hit stabilized occupancy, if you will, in Q1 of 2027. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of John Pawlowski with Green Street. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

John Pawlowski
John Pawlowski
Analyst at Green Street

Hey, thanks for the time. A few questions on expenses, I want to make sure I heard that statistic properly. Lead volume was up 5% in 2Q, and it was up 25% in July. If I heard that right, is that really a function of organic demand, or were there other idiosyncratic factors with marketing campaigns or something unusual that happened in July, from a year ago?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah, it's certainly no additional marketing spend, just getting better at our various organic, what I would say, search engine optimization, making sure we're ranking high with both Google algorithm as well as all the AI tools that exist today. I think from the standpoint of the fundamental driver of it is clearly from just the organic algorithm and the search demand.

John Pawlowski
John Pawlowski
Analyst at Green Street

On expenses, it's been maybe 2.5 years where repair and maintenance costs have declined on an absolute basis. I know turnover is down meaningfully versus two or three years ago. Curious if we should expect any kind of outsize, well above inflationary costs on R&M in the next couple of years, if there's a kind of a catch-up to be had on the very low R&M costs for the past couple of years.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah, no, I don't think so. I think the teams are doing a great job of taking care of our properties and really focused on turning units and being smart about the use of vendors versus interior individuals on site doing various things. I think no, there's no expectation for any kind of outsized increase in repairs and maintenance costs down the road.

John Pawlowski
John Pawlowski
Analyst at Green Street

Okay. Thanks for the time.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Sure.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Peter Abramowitz with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Peter Abramowitz
Peter Abramowitz
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Yes, thank you for taking the question. Just wondering if you could give an update on a potential sale of The Mustang in Dallas. I know it's something you've talked about marketing for sale in the past. Just curious how the process has gone there, and I guess pricing and kind of depth of demand relative to your expectations.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Good question. We have not made a decision yet on whether to sell the asset or not. We did market it to a limited extent. It's a great asset in a great location with, we think, tremendous opportunity long term. We're still analyzing what the best approach is, whether or not we keep it and/or we end up selling it.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

The project is doing fine. It's basically stabilized. Occupancy is north of 93%. Concessions are declining. As we look forward, we think it might be a good addition to our portfolio. We're not ready to make that decision or give that answer yet.

Peter Abramowitz
Peter Abramowitz
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

I appreciate that, Scott. It looks like you paused the buybacks in the second quarter after doing, I guess, a modest amount in the first quarter. Just looking at it, the stock was still trading at a pretty significant discount to NAV, and for much of the quarter, actually trading below the price at which you bought back stock at or below the price at which you bought back stock in the first quarter. Just wanted to ask about the thought process and decision making there around pausing the buyback and just kind of general thoughts on how you're thinking about use of excess capital today.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah. Good question. I think the decisions around the buyback, it's really just there wasn't any excess capital to use to buy back stock in the second quarter. If not, we would have certainly been a buyer of it. As Jason mentioned, the StoneBridge deal, that is selling here in September. Certainly, if there's excess capital that comes from that, we will certainly be looking to buy back stock. Our best use of capital today continues to be the renovation program. After that, it's still, given the stock price as of yesterday, we'll still be buying back stock. Again, it's all based on the availability of excess capital.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Frankly, where that capital comes from. The majority of the buybacks that we made, the capital came from the sale of joint venture assets that were not contributing to EBITDA. We have resisted selling assets, giving up the EBITDA in order to just buy back stock because, one, it becomes a negative relative to leverage. Also, we like our portfolio, and we like the long-term prospects of the portfolio.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Peter?

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Jason Wayne with Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Jason Wayne
Jason Wayne
Analyst at Barclays

Morning. Thanks for the question. Just on expenses, real estate taxes came in better than expected over the past couple of years as well. Just wondering where you captured the tax savings this year and which markets you saw that in.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Sure. The biggest win so far this year has been in the Texas markets. Texas reappraises or Texas reassesses every year. We go through an appeal process. I would say the savings in terms of the appeal process can be a bit lumpy from period to period, depending on the timing and obviously the success of the appeal. You have some of that kind of working through this quarter where we had appeals from last year that came in this year, and it came in better than we anticipated. Even that, when you look at our guidance for the year, we lowered real estate tax growth overall because we were expecting better assessments or lower assessments and probably the same, maybe slightly lower millage rates, where overall tax expense will be better than last year. Better than we originally anticipated.

Jason Wayne
Jason Wayne
Analyst at Barclays

Got it. You said you mentioned you see a path to achieve higher rent premiums on your value adds. Is that something you're looking to grow? How should we think about that contribution in 2027?

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

Yeah. I think the rent premiums will continue to improve as rental rates improve. As I said before, it continues to be our primary use of capital. It is a fantastic program and has really provided a tremendous amount of NOI growth for IRT over the years. As we kind of look forward to stabilizing and improving market fundamentals, it is certainly a program that we will continue to look at to accelerate when it makes sense and where it makes sense.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Let me add, clearly, the renovated units compete most directly with the new construction. With all of the new construction that came online over the last few years that were offering concessions, that actually put downward pressure on the premiums that we could then get on the renovated units. As we go forward with less competition from that new construction, we really see the premiums and the returns expanding on the value add program. Then you add in there that we've significantly reduced the amount of time that it takes to renovate a unit, so we can do many more renovations without impacting occupancy and thereby generating much better growth.

Jason Wayne
Jason Wayne
Analyst at Barclays

Makes sense. Yeah. Thank you.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

You're welcome.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. Thanks for taking the follow-ups. Scott, just sticking with the comments you had there on value add redevelopment and kind of the ability to execute without impacting occupancy. How much from a unit volume perspective and spend can you really handle without increasing leverage as well as impacting occupancy? Can you just kind of frame up the sizing of that program, how big it could get in a given year?

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Sure. Last year, I think we did 1,700 units, give or take. This year, we're going to be closer to that 2,500 units. Jim's telling me 2,000 to 2,500. I'm going to tell you closer to the 2,500. When we started this program, it was taking anywhere from 30 to 35 days to turn a unit. Now we're down below 20 days. We've made a significant improvement in the process and in the amount of time it takes. We feel that we can really continue now to ramp it. I have always been resistant of doing too many because of the pressure that it was putting on occupancy, and I hated that headline risk of having a lower portfolio occupancy because of the value add. This will allow us to really ramp the program and presumably get to 3,000 to 4,000 units per year.

Jim Sebra
Jim Sebra
President and CFO at Independence Realty Trust

If you also remember, after the Steadfast deal, we took on those two on-balance sheet developments and really used a lot of free cash flow to fund those developments. Now that they're behind us, obviously, we took capital earlier this year and bought back stock, and that capital will be available next year to, as Scott mentioned, put into the value add program.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

That's really helpful. Maybe just last one. Just strategically, given the relative size of the portfolio and just ability for you to remain more nimble, what are the biggest other opportunities in front of you now that you are seeing fundamentals start to show some green shoots and improve into the back half of this year?

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

It's all about a cost of capital. We would hope that with the market recovery, that we have a cost of capital that will allow us to go back and acquire again. We have always resisted growth for the sake of growth. We've been patient. Value add continues to be clearly the best use of capital. We're generating, again, as Jim mentioned, I think in his remarks, mid-teens unlevered returns. Again, there's only so much of that we can do. At 4,000 units a year, you're talking about $80 million. I would like to see, again, the cost of capital at a point where we can, or a level where we can then start growing again. There's opportunities out there. We've proven that our strategy works.

Austin Wurschmidt
Austin Wurschmidt
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

I appreciate the thoughts there. Thank you.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Thank you.

Operator

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Scott Schaeffer for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Scott Schaeffer
Scott Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO at Independence Realty Trust

Well, thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest in IRT and look forward to speaking with many of you in the weeks ahead. Thank you.

Operator

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

Executives
    • Stephanie Krewson-Kelly
      Stephanie Krewson-Kelly
      SVP of Investor Relations
    • Scott Schaeffer
      Scott Schaeffer
      Chairman and CEO
    • Jim Sebra
      Jim Sebra
      President and CFO
    • Janice Richards
      Janice Richards
      EVP of Operations
Analysts
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