Douglas Emmett Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Office leasing momentum remained strong: Douglas Emmett signed approximately 960,000 square feet of leases, achieved roughly 60,000 square feet of positive absorption, and reported a 3.2% increase in straight-line lease value versus expiring leases.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company and joint venture partners acquired the 246,000-square-foot Bedford Collection medical-office portfolio in Beverly Hills for $260 million, while management said it is pursuing additional acquisitions at attractive pricing and underwriting targeted 10-year all-cash IRRs of approximately 10% or more.
  • Positive Sentiment: Debt-refinancing activity reduced near-term maturity risk: The company refinanced $400 million and $415 million office loans for four years, with interest effectively fixed at 6.15% and 6.18%, respectively, through 2029.
  • Negative Sentiment: Higher market interest rates are expected to more than offset improved operating-income expectations, leading the company to forecast 2026 diluted net loss per share of $0.20 to $0.16 and FFO per share of $1.39 to $1.43.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Including the partially leased Studio Plaza redevelopment in the full-year portfolio is lowering reported office occupancy guidance to 75%–77%, although management said the property is more than 50% leased and continues to lease up.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Douglas Emmett Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Douglas Emmett's Quarterly Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, you will receive instructions for participating in the question and answer session. I will now turn the conference over to Stuart McElhinney, Vice President of Investor Relations for Douglas Emmett.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Thank you. Joining us today on the call are Jordan Kaplan, our Chairman and CEO, Kevin Crummy, our CIO, and Peter Seymour, our CFO. This call is being webcast live from our website and will be available for replay during the next 90 days. You can also find our earnings package at the investor relations section of our website. You can find reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures discussed during today's call in the earnings package. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of, assumptions made by, and information currently available to us. Our actual results will be affected by known and unknown risks, trends, uncertainties, and factors that are beyond our control or ability to predict. Although we believe that our assumptions are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future performance and some will prove to be incorrect.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Therefore, our actual future results can be expected to differ from our expectations, and those differences may be material. For a more detailed description of some potential risks, please refer to our SEC filings, which can be found in the investor relations section of our website. When we reach the question and answer portion, in consideration of others, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Jordan.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We had a very active quarter and made real progress on all four of our strategic priorities, which are leasing up our office portfolio, acquiring properties at attractive pricing, redeveloping properties to maximize value, and refinancing upcoming debt maturities. We signed 960,000 sq ft of office leases with a good mix of new and renewal deals and achieved positive absorption of approximately 60,000 sq ft. Healthy office rents and low concessions helped us sign new leases that were 3% more valuable than the expiring leases they replaced. Of course, most of the positive impact of this leasing will occur over the next 12 months. Our apartment portfolio remains fully leased with increasing rents. On the acquisition front, we and a few of our joint venture partners acquired an extremely well-leased block of prime Beverly Hills medical office properties.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Our redevelopment efforts are exceeding expectations. Studio Plaza in Burbank is now leased well over 50%, we have moved it from development to in-service. Our apartment redevelopment projects are on track to add over 1,000 new units. Finally, we refinanced over $800 million of debt this quarter. With that, I will turn the call over to Kevin.

Kevin Crummy
Kevin Crummy
CIO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks, Jordan, and good morning. As Jordan mentioned, in April, we and our joint venture partners acquired The Bedford Collection, a five-building, 246,000 sq ft medical office portfolio in the Beverly Hills Golden Triangle for $260 million. We manage the joint venture and hold a 13.3% equity stake. The entity was capitalized with $150 million of equity and $130 million of debt. In addition, during the quarter, we refinanced two office loans scheduled to mature later this year. In May, we refinanced a $400 million loan for four years and effectively fixed the interest at 6.15% until June 2029. In June, we refinanced a $415 million loan for four years and effectively fixed the interest at 6.18% until July 2029. With that, I will turn the call over to Stuart.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, we signed 234 office leases totaling just under 960,000 sq ft, including 93 new leases totaling over 375,000 sq ft and 141 renewal leases totaling over 584,000 sq ft. That's a healthy leasing volume for us, and it builds on the momentum we've been seeing over the past few quarters. On rental rates, the straight line value of leases we executed in the quarter increased by 3.2% compared to the prior leases for the same space. With our typical 3%-5% annual fixed rent bumps continuing to more than offset the impact of lower beginning cash rents. As Jordan mentioned, we have now moved Studio Plaza to our in-service portfolio.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Since the first-generation leases at Studio Plaza take longer to build out, this will have the effect of widening our leased to occupied spread for the next few quarters. In addition, while the lease rate at Studio Plaza is now well over 50%, its inclusion will mean lower reported leased and occupied percentages for our office portfolio until occupancy at Studio Plaza equals or exceeds our average office occupancy. Our lease transaction costs average $5.35 per sq ft per year, well below the benchmark for other office rates. Our residential portfolio continues to perform well, with cash same-property NOI of 2% compared to the second quarter of last year. Demand remains very strong across our markets, with our portfolio still over 99% leased. With that, I will turn the call over to Peter to discuss our financial results.

Peter Seymour
Peter Seymour
CFO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks, Stuart. Good morning, everyone. Compared to the second quarter of 2025, revenue increased from $252 million-$257 million. FFO increased, but still rounded to $0.37 per share, and AFFO increased from $54 million-$56 million. Same property cash NOI decreased 1.2% for the quarter. At approximately 4.9% of revenue, our G&A remains the lowest among our benchmark group. We are now including Studio Plaza in our occupancy assumption for the full year. Despite being leased well over 50%, its occupancy has not yet reached the average for our portfolio. Solely as the result of including Studio Plaza for the full year, we are lowering our office occupancy guidance range to between 75%-77%. Our operating income expectations have improved from our prior projections, but we anticipate that this improvement will be more than offset by the impact of higher market interest rates.

Peter Seymour
Peter Seymour
CFO at Douglas Emmett

We now expect our 2026 diluted net income per common share to be between -$0.20 and -$0.16, and our fully diluted FFO per share to be between $1.39-$1.43. For information on assumptions underlying our guidance, please refer to the schedule in the earnings package. As usual, our guidance does not assume the impact of future property acquisitions or dispositions, common stock sales or repurchases, financings, property damage insurance recoveries, impairment charges, or other possible capital markets activities. I will now turn the call over to the operator so we can take your questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw the question, please press star then two. Again, in consideration of other participants, please limit your queries to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Steve Sakwa with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore

Thanks. Good morning. Maybe Jordan or Stuart, could you maybe just comment a little bit more on the leasing activity? You've obviously now had two pretty solid quarters on the new lease side. I'm just curious if there's any sort of larger deals that may be influencing that trend. What is your expectation for new leasing volume moving into the back half of the year?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

We can both answer that.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Yeah. Look, I'll jump in. I'd say we've had three really good quarters, actually, if you go back-

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

That's what I was going to say.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

-three pretty good quarters in a row. We're building on the momentum here, so we're excited about what's going on in the leasing. Another great quarter with 960,000 ft. I think the Q1, if you look at Q1 with the record new leasing we did last quarter, that was chunkier as we talked a little bit about that last quarter with some larger deals. This quarter was less so, just we had pretty typical activity from that larger group that we call over 10,000 ft this quarter, so not super chunky. I think we're very optimistic that we're going to have good momentum continue through the second half of the year.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I agree with all that. I'm very happy with what our leasing group is doing. I hope that we're getting a little wind at our back and we're going to continue, and it feels that way. Like I keep saying, I don't know if the proof's in one quarter, two quarters, three quarters, four quarters, but when I look at what we've done, I feel very good.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore

Okay. Then maybe just on the debt, I know you've got a couple of swap maturities coming up over the next kind of 12 months or so. Just kind of remind us your plans for those swaps and is there anything you can do to sort of help mitigate or offset some of that higher interest expense or kind of it is what it is?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I don't want to say it is what it is, that's for sure. Look, we don't choose to live in a world where we have a lot floating, right? When you see something go to floating, it's probably during the last bit of the term of that loan, which means we're going to refi that loan. We've started working on refi-ing that loan, it can get refied at the beginning of that time or later in that time. We have a window to do it. I don't think we're going to stay floating.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I'm not thrilled with where interest rates are, we were just talking about that and I'm really trying to think of a good way to deal with those interest rates because the rest of the company, the rest of what's going on is so good that I feel that the changes in the increased cost of interest, we were low leverage. None of our buildings are jeopardized. None of the ownership is jeopardized. It's really kind of clouding our performance, it bothers me as much as it bothers you guys, we're really thinking about solutions to that.

Steve Sakwa
Steve Sakwa
Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore

Okay, thanks. That's it for me.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Jamie Feldman
Jamie Feldman
Managing Director and Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo

Great. Thanks for taking the question. I'm sitting in for Blaine today. Interesting portfolio transaction in Beverly Hills. Can you just talk more about any other interesting opportunities you're working on or that might be out there, unique asset types or larger portfolio transactions. With the transaction market improving and investor expectations, and investors maybe getting more aggressive, how have return requirements changed, both in terms of what you're willing to get and what your investors are looking for?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Well, I got to tell you, because it's funny, to me, we had a great quarter. I was surprised the stock was off, because we were talking about it, I'm like, "This is the best time to be in real estate." We're working on a bunch of acquisitions, I will tell you that. Will we make them? I don't know that, but there are definitely some large ones, and it's getting a ton of our focus. We've gone through very long periods where we've been accused of some early on, after 2009, we only buy, we don't develop. As we got later in the term, we were only developing, we never buy anything. Now we're back to buying, which we are developing residential, but I love buying deals at good pricing. I think the opportunity's extremely good right now.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Other than interest rates are probably playing a part in the opportunity that's created, this is a great time to be in real estate because I believe in the markets, I believe in the real estate, and pricing has conspired in the way it hasn't since the early '90s to create opportunities to buy fantastic buildings that we've been after forever. We're super focused. It's what's driving most of my travel.

Jamie Feldman
Jamie Feldman
Managing Director and Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo

Okay. I guess, the second part of the question was just return expectations, how are yours changing given maybe markets are improving, and then how are your investors changing, or what they're looking for changing?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Well, everybody's looking for better returns driven by where interest rates are and the lack of equity and debt that's generally available in the market, which is probably what's creating opportunity. At the same time, it means we're not always in agreement with the seller. We're obviously making deals. You're watching us do it. We are making these deals in a very good part with our JV partners, who seem pretty happy with what's going on because they're continuing to ask what's next. We have to get the what's next and get it organized and get it in front of them correctly, because there's definitely an appetite now, which you're seeing even for office in our markets.

Jamie Feldman
Jamie Feldman
Managing Director and Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo

Okay. Thank you for that. I guess for my follow-up, it looks like there were some adjustments in the UCLA tenancy this quarter. You have two more leases with them and one additional property and some expirations were shifted. Can you give us a general idea of how your conversations with them are going and how committed to their space in your portfolio they seem to be? Can you also comment on the 77,000 sq ft Morgan Stanley expiration in 2027? Thank you.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Sure. Yeah. Sure, Jamie. I think we're in good conversations with UCLA about the remaining expirations this year. We feel good about that. They don't act like a single large tenant. They have a bunch of leases with us. Literally we've had it in one quarter where they've given back space and leased space in the same quarter because they have a bunch of different departments that are kind of acting independently. We feel good about the space that's coming up. Same with Morgan Stanley next year. I think there's productive conversations happening. We're feeling good about the expirations that are next year for Morgan Stanley.

Jamie Feldman
Jamie Feldman
Managing Director and Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo

Okay. Do you have a sense of when you might have an answer on Morgan Stanley? Like how early they tend to lock things in?

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Well, generally, we're not in the business of giving you guys details on individual tenants. I know they're on our big tenant list, so I understand why you're asking. I'll also mention that that's more than one lease with Morgan Stanley. That's not one large lease. They also have multiple leases with us, which is multiple leases in that 77,000 ft.

Jamie Feldman
Jamie Feldman
Managing Director and Head of REIT Research at Wells Fargo

Okay. All right, great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Hey, morning out there. Jordan, on your debt comment and where interest rates are, as you think about the company, clearly, you guys run it on a pretty lowly levered overall perspective. If you think about the individual asset financing that you do and the JV structures, are you thinking that you and your partners would run the buildings with lower leverage? Meaning, as loans are maturing, you guys would either pay them off entirely or refinance them at lower LTVs, and that way, yeah, you can't do anything about interest rates, but you can do something about where the loan balances are. I'm just trying to think if you're thinking along those lines.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

It's a little more complicated than that, you're right. There might be ways, especially with the fact that we're buying at the same time and bringing in partners to reduce our exposure to the fluctuations in interest rate or to this higher level interest. We don't really have high level debt. I think unlike many of my peers, especially ones that have non-recourse debt, we haven't been in a position of giving anything back. We have equity across the board. We're in good shape there. Obviously interest has moved against us, and it's a cost that's hitting us now. It's funny because the great news is interest rates will go up and they'll go down.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

When they're dropping, it's going to be great, because if you really look at our NOI, the way we've maintained our NOI and cash flow coming off the properties before interest, it's been outstanding. I mean, beyond outstanding. As the properties lease up, you're looking at a lot of NOI and a lot of income. Interest, obviously, has been taking the cream off of that, and then the question is, do we want to do some more permanent things and try and really just reduce our exposure to it? Do we go, "Hey, it's a moment in time. We're making acquisitions. It's helping us get those done at great pricing, and it won't always sit this way." We'll take something. It's better than buying a building at a super high price, which you live with for the rest of your life. Right?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Just thinking through all of that, I think it's really getting in the way of people realizing how well our markets and how well the company's doing operationally.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Okay. The second question is, if you look at what's going on with Paramount and the state attorney general on that debate and whether maybe they do relocate or not, is there any concern in L.A. that maybe the environment there isn't even as amenable to corporate Hollywood staying, and maybe that that industry will start to morph to other markets? Or is the view that, no, this is just headline noise, nothing is going to change, and therefore all the Hollywood, all the office users, there's no disruption to that market? I'm just trying to think about how this plays out and obviously the saber-rattling that's going on.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Well, I think the deal's going to close. I'll admit I'm at a little bit of a loss why our state government is against two California companies being here and merging. Putting that to the side, I think overall, it's healthy for the people here. I think you've seen stuff from, whether it be David or his father, they're pretty committed to California. The talent is here. The directors are here. Frankly, they have giant capital commitments to facilities here. I think it's been running at a low. Now you're starting to see big movies come out. I'm not sure what's going on there, unfortunately or fortunately, ever really impacts us a lot because the tenants we have are definitely living here, like, literally in our neighborhood, and they're renting from us, because they're living here.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Now, when you talk about the studios, we don't own any of that. I want California to do well, and I want all the industries to be able to be here, but I'm not sure it impacts us that much. Though I do hope that the state gets out of the way and lets them merge because I think that the new company is going to produce even more, and I think they're going to lean into those big movies.

Alexander Goldfarb
Alexander Goldfarb
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Thank you, Jordan.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Rich Anderson with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Rich Anderson
Rich Anderson
Managing Director at Cantor Fitzgerald

Thanks. Good morning out there. On Studio Plaza moving into the operating portfolio, besides it making the marquee of your occupancy guidance now going forward, what was the impact from that on guidance, if anything? Is there a cap interest burn-off as a result? Besides higher interest expense that you point out, what role did Studio Plaza play in the guidance, if any?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

If Studio Plaza had debt, it would've been included already, but it doesn't have any debt. Start with that. Most of the stats for Studio Plaza have been included forever. It's only the leasing or maybe some type of same store stats. We've really said it. The impact is on leasing. It had a slightly negative impact on leasing simply because it's obviously not leased as well as the rest of the portfolio, but it's been extremely well leased. We redid the building and have leased it up to this point, in what I think has been a pretty rapid fashion, and it's moving along at a good clip. We were asked to include it. People didn't like it being on the outside, so we included it.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Yeah, I think that part of the operational improvement we mentioned is seeing as offsetting some of the interest includes Studio Plaza. It's going well there, and that's part of that.

Rich Anderson
Rich Anderson
Managing Director at Cantor Fitzgerald

Okay. Outside of Studio Plaza redev being among your four priorities. You were once upon a time making 30% on your money on repositioning activities around the portfolio. Can you talk about and provide some color about that business, again, outside of Studio Plaza, where it's happening, if you can provide that and what types of returns you're seeing today?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Sure. I don't know, 30% or whatever percent, we have done a very good job over time. You know there's a mark where they don't really let you build new office buildings, and it's extremely difficult to build apartment buildings. We're talking about repositioning, not new. We're doing a lot, putting a lot of capital into building new apartments. In terms of repositioning, there's repositioning being done on our resi portfolio. There's also always repositioning or work done of we're always doing a certain number of lobbies, we're always doing a certain number of elevators because we want all our buildings to stay at the top of the market, in terms of perception, like a top 10%, 20% of the market. There's a huge ranking process for that. We're constantly doing work.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

If you follow the portfolio for a while, things that people don't even expect, like 12424, it's got a whole new skin now. We redid the lobby at 100 Wilshire. All these buildings were getting great rents before too, by the way. It keeps the building at the top of the market, and you get even more out of it because it takes what's at our bottom and moves it back up. We've been spending that capital for probably mine and Ken's whole career. Although I will admit we amped it up over the last five, six, seven years, something in that range, and it has paid very good dividends for us, to push up into that top, like I keep saying, 20% range.

Rich Anderson
Rich Anderson
Managing Director at Cantor Fitzgerald

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Upal Rana with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Upal Rana
Upal Rana
Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. Thank you. Jordan, you talked about solid leasing activity over the past three quarters. Could you comment on where some of that tenant demand has changed the most over the past few quarters? Any industries that may have surprised you or either positively or negatively?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Surprise would not be the word. Now, I am happy that the larger tenants have come back and they came back probably even a little more than three quarters ago, but you've really seen it reflected in our numbers. The small tenants were always kind of rolling along at a good clip, but it was still back, like when a large guy doesn't renew, it takes many small tenants to fill in the space. Now that we're getting a good dose of large guys and small guys, we're not being left with such kind of visible holes that we have to plug. I won't say I'm surprised because as I've said many times, I believed in the market, but I'm really happy that that's moving along much better now than it certainly did during COVID, and then it kind of had another little drag.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

It started recovering, then had a little drag down when the Fed came out and said, "Okay, inflation is real and we're going to start raising rates." Now, it feels like we saw a late 2024, early 2025 bottom, and it feels like we're on a good clip right now. You want to say something? Go ahead.

Stuart McElhinney
Stuart McElhinney
VP of Investor Relations at Douglas Emmett

Yeah. Just on the industries, Upal, if you look at our pie chart of our industries, those top six categories that are probably largest have all had very good demand. It's remained very diverse across those industries. Legal, financial services, real estate, still all good and active, and entertainment has been very strong. Despite the headlines, we've been doing good entertainment leasing as well.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Yeah. I got to say, we keep getting asked about entertainment, I guess, vis-à-vis studios, but we're actually doing a lot of leasing to entertainment. That was the solid tailwind between where Studio Plaza is today. I realize that probably they're not using as much studio space.

Upal Rana
Upal Rana
Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. That was helpful. You mentioned the benefit from this quarter's leasing won't be realized until the next 12 months. Your leased but unoccupied spread is now almost sitting at 500 basis points. Maybe you can quantify how much of the analyzed NOI is embedded in these leases and have those already been signed, but I'm just kind of curious, how should we be thinking about this as we roll into 2027?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Maybe Peter has some kind of idea.

Peter Seymour
Peter Seymour
CFO at Douglas Emmett

You've got a sense of our average lease rate, and you know how much space it is, and if it moves in over the course of 12 months, you can kind of do that math. It's a very meaningful number, and we're very pleased with that trajectory and expect to continue to add that as we continue to maintain high leasing volume over the next few quarters.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I have to say, I saw that 450 basis point spread.

Peter Seymour
Peter Seymour
CFO at Douglas Emmett

470.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

470, yeah. You can't get better news than that. I will tell you, when that spreads wide, we're leasing a lot. When that spread narrows to below 200, you go, "Well, there's not a lot of leasing going on," because fast and aggressive leasing creates the spread. Almost more than the fact that we're reporting very meaningful positive absorption is that spread gapping out that wide, which might be one of the widest I've ever seen, is an extremely good sign.

Upal Rana
Upal Rana
Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay, great. Thank you.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Dylan Burzinski with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

Okay. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe Jordan, just going back to your comments around the team being sort of active on working on a number of acquisitions, have you sort of seen pricing change at all in the last, call it six-nine months? I guess as you guys are sort of underwriting opportunities, are you able to share sort of the yield on cost you guys are sort of targeting?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

We're able to get deals done now. Pricing is down from, we'll call, whatever, 2017, 2018, 2019. Okay? Probably even 2020, 2021, 2022. Pricing is down from that. I'll say, in my life of, this is my 40th year, I've only seen guys selling buildings for less than they bought it for twice, and one was in the early 1990s, and this is the second time. That by itself, if you stand back, you go, "This is an incredible opportunity." Separately, what's creating more of an opportunity is the fact that it's kind of whatever the beating's been long enough, rates have been high for long enough, whatever you want to call it, they're starting to be a meeting. We're getting some people to trade at numbers that work for us, our investor, and them, and they're like, "Fine, I'm out." Okay?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

That is the biggest thing, right? Because we lived through that 2008, 2009, 2010. It was hard to buy stuff because rates were very low and people just weren't willing to meet, let's say, the pricing that a bunch of grave dancers were sitting around and expecting in terms of equity yields. Not a lot of buildings traded. No, what traded was debt pieces, okay? I actually think some really high-quality real estate's going to trade. You're actually seeing it happen because we're doing it. We've already done two deals. I'm thinking this is a very good opportunity because separate from getting someone to do something out of whack with what the market is doing, there's a real meeting at a good price point, a good cost per foot, and with a good yield.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I go, "Okay, that's everything good, so don't waste this." We're out working to make sure we don't.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

When you say good yield, are you able to share what you guys are underwriting to at all?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Well, I think our all-cash IRRs on a 10-year look are probably coming in 10% or better. We haven't seen that for a long time.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

Okay. That's helpful

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

All the rest of it has a big impact. The real yields are obviously different.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

Right. That's helpful, Jordan. Thanks. Maybe just one last one. Any update at all on some of the insurance stuff going on at Barrington Baza?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I don't have an update you guys would care about. There's an awful lot of paper movement, I can tell you that. Everyone's asking for more to more and more and more. It doesn't make it easier, but they keep getting a lot of attention now.

Dylan Burzinski
Dylan Burzinski
Senior Analyst at Green Street

Great. Thank you.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Kim
John Kim
US Real Estate Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. Just given the opportunities you're seeing in office on the acquisition side, are you putting some of the residential developments, 8,000-10,000 units, sort of on the back burner for now? In particular, I wanted to ask about 10900 Wilshire, which is one of the redevelopment projects. I think you said last quarter that was going to start this year. I'm not sure that's still in the works. I wanted to get an update on that redevelopment as well.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I still think it's possible for it to start this year. I'll tell you, honestly, we purposely slowed it down because we've gotten some indications that there's some real interest from some large. One way or another, that thing will have residential, okay? I don't want to walk away from an opportunity to have a mixed-use project, and the office can be more profitable, especially if some big tenants say, "I'm going to take this for a while." We need to give a little time, let it mature. I said, "Slow it down. Let's just make sure we're not doing something that we lose our ability to accommodate some larger leases that could be in there," and then we would have resi and large leases.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

We saw this in Hawaii, that as people start seeing what we're going to do and the amenities, they're like, "Well, I don't mind having my office building in that," because look at these crazy amenities, whether it be gym and a club on the top and a pool and whatnot. We have to let that play out a little bit. It's not that we're not ready. All the money is funded. Everything's good to go on it. We just want to watch a little bit for a while. That's why we kind of slowed down our language on it.

John Kim
John Kim
US Real Estate Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Okay. Given the opportunities you're seeing for investments, and banks no longer redlining office as an asset class, have you thought about reestablishing a credit facility? I realize you have $355 million of cash on the balance sheet, but just to give you some additional flexibility.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I do think about that. I'm going to tell you something. Every time I think about doing that, we have a lot of buildings that don't even have loans on them, right? I always have to compare borrowing cash on a credit line to just borrowing the money and then arbitraging it into an interest-bearing account until I need it, and looking at that cost. For better, or probably it's worse, but for whatever, that calculation does not tell you to have a credit line. That calculation just says borrow the money and arb it into an interest-bearing account because it's a lower cost. Banks and people that are lending are still charging a lot for unused fees and a lot of fees around that because they really want to have outstandings. Just click it off, Ken.

Peter Seymour
Peter Seymour
CFO at Douglas Emmett

Sorry about that.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

All right. Sorry.

John Kim
John Kim
US Real Estate Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Is that your alarm clock?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Well, that was actually my phone. I forgot to turn it off for this call. Stuart, whenever, took it from Ken and shut it off. Okay. It's just a calculation, and if we wanted more capital, we would be better off just borrowing it at the moment because of where the credit line market is.

John Kim
John Kim
US Real Estate Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

I got it. Okay. Thank you.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Seth Bergey with Citi. Please go ahead.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Senior Analyst at Citi

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Good morning out there. I guess just going back to some of the acquisitions commentary. You mentioned it's a good time to be in real estate. Your last acquisition was kind of outpatient medical. Are we thinking about that all as office, or is there anything interesting in residential or other asset classes that you're focused on? Then just on the office piece, how many high-quality buildings are out there that cater to those smaller tenants, similar to how your office portfolio is currently constructed?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I think there's going to be meaningfully sized real opportunities coming up, or they're coming up right now. First of all, okay, we've been looking for office. I always love medical office. That medical office came up, and we did it. Okay? We also did a large office building, which had an opportunity to be both resi and office. Actually, plan A was office, and then we said we'll flip to resi because we had them both built into our analysis. There are some fully leased office buildings that we're really chasing hard. They're sizable. They're big. It's us, JV partners, real money. I would not say you should expect us to buy apartment. Apartments are still trading relative to the rest of the real estate in the world at very low cap rates, at pretty good pricing.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

There's a lot of new stuff trading because they might have financed it with construction loans that were relying on very low cap rates that now they can't get out of their construction debt, so it's selling. In terms of making their hurdles, in terms of rental rate, you see it in our portfolio. The res have gone where and better where people thought they'd go. In general, things are extremely well leased up. Those kinds of debt, you just look at the deal like we would buy it because we don't use a lot of debt. You'd go, "Well, the pricing's not necessarily that denuded compared to what it was even in 2019, 2018, 2020, whatever." I just don't feel acquisition is as good an opportunity.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Office, like I said, a guy that bought an office building in 2017, 2018, 2019, he's selling it today, if he does, for less. He's gotten used to the fact of where rates are, where yields are, and therefore I go, "Great deal." We're not seeing that in apartments.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Senior Analyst at Citi

Just a quick follow-up on some of your return comments. Does that include kind of the economics of doing that in the JV structure?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

No.

Seth Bergey
Seth Bergey
Senior Analyst at Citi

Okay.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

That was a simple question and a simple answer. Do you have anything else? All right. Move on.

Operator

The next question comes from Jana Galan with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Director at Bank of America

Thank you. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe following up on the apartments and your multifamily portfolio specifically, can you talk to rent growth expectations for the second half of the year, given your high occupancies?

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

I don't know if you remember, but if you go back and rents and our revenue was moving at a clip that I said every quarter, "This is unsustainable. We've never seen anything like this. It's unsustainable." The long-term trend has been significantly less than what you saw the last couple of years. I would expect to go to the long-term trend. That trend is a trend that you can calculate 100 different ways going all the way back to the 1990s in terms of growth of apartment rents. I don't know why we would be so dramatically off track of Well, I do know why, but we've been very off track in terms of growth the last couple of years, which has been much higher than normal. I would always expect it to go to normal.

Jana Galan
Jana Galan
Director at Bank of America

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jordan Kaplan for any closing remarks.

Jordan Kaplan
Chairman and CEO at Douglas Emmett

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Goodbye.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Stuart McElhinney
      Stuart McElhinney
      VP of Investor Relations
    • Kevin Crummy
      Kevin Crummy
      CIO
    • Peter Seymour
      Peter Seymour
      CFO
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