Howard Schwimmer
Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed
Thank you, Michael and thank you everyone for joining us today. As on the past calls, I'll update you on our markets and review our recent transaction activity. Let me start by providing some perspective on our markets, primarily utilizing market data provided by CBRA. 2015 has started off continuing the trend of our Southern California infill markets being more landlord favor as available supply continues to dwindle and it’s actively looking for space for facing challenges options are limited. 11 landlords to more dramatically push rents and lower concessions in virtually every markets. In Los Angeles County, gross activity have started off strong. The market generated 11.2 million square feet of gross activity with 60% of the activity occurring in the 100,000 square foot segment. The market generated 2.2 million square feet of positive net absorption which is an increase of 12% over the last quarter. Garment, consumer goods, food e-commerce and third-party logistics attributed immensely there is a positive net absorption. But vacancy rates were up 20 basis points since the last quarter, bringing the overall vacancy rate to 1.7%. The rapid fall in vacancies as trended has continued since the beginning of 2014 is the high demand and low product supply. The average asking lease rate increased 3.1% quarter-over-quarter, which represents a growth of 8% year-over-year. Further CBRA expects rents to increase another 5.1% over the next 12 months. Orange County is also off to a good start posting positive net absorption of 690,000 square feet in the quarter. The overall vacancy rate dropped 30 basis point since the last quarter to 2.4% while average asking rental rates were flat in the third and fourth quarter of 2014. The market is tightened and the average asking lease rate has grown 2.9% in the first quarter of this year. Lease rates have moved up due to the lack of available industrial product, while landlords continue to pushing rents and reducing concessions. CBRA expects rents to further increase 8.5% over the next 12 months as landlord pricing power strengthens further. In San Diego County, net absorption was positive for the 11th consecutive quarter, posting an impressive 1.1 million square feet versus 881,000 square feet in the last quarter. Every industrial building type posted positive net absorption in the quarter with warehouse product posted more than half of the total positive net absorption. The vacancy rate decreased 60 basis points to 5.5%. Overall vacancy is now 6.1% lower than the peak vacancies of 11.6% reached in the first quarter of 2010 and is now only 10 basis points away from the pre-recession trough of 5.4% in 2006. Rental rates have increased as well, growing 2.1% over the last quarter. The industrial market in Ventura county continues to show encouraging fundamentals as well. Net absorption was a positive 146,000 square feet in the quarter and the vacancy rate dropped 70 basis points to 3.8%, affirming up with the market caused 1.6% growth in asking lease rates over the last quarter. It mainly require a substantial growth of 2014 carried over into this quarter. The company generated 4.1 million square feet of positive net absorption, which almost doubled the net absorption in the last quarter. The overall vacancy rate dropped 40 basis points over the quarter and 4.1%. Inland Empire West posted a vacancy rate of 3% which was down 70 basis points since fourth quarter 2014, New model in the Inland Empire east, which is not a focus for our expert. Vacancy increased 10 basis points to 5.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2014. Positive rent growth of certain space size ranges has been neutralized by the underperforming growth and others. So the average asking lease rate remain unchanged since the end of 2014. Overall, CBRA expects that asking rents will increase 13.2% over the next 12 months although this could be tampered by an increased amount of construction. Thirdly, there is 19.2 million square feet under construction in the Inland Empire, which is a 22% increase when compared to the first quarter of 2014. Now moving on to our transaction activity. During the first quarter, we acquired four property, obtaining a total of about 432,000 square feet for an aggregate cost of about $52.4 million. Three of the four acquisitions were off market or lightly marketed sales and they're all consistent with our value driven investment strategy. Our earnings release has details of these transactions, so I will only provide some sights and quick highlights. In January, Rexford acquired Imperial Highway, 101,000 square foot single tenant industrial building in Santa Fe Springs, within the Mid-Counties submarket in Los Angeles, like Class A property acquire for $12.2 million, or$120 per square foot and 100% leased for 2019. We anticipated initial yield of 5.3% with below market in place rent. In January, we acquired Miramar Commerce Center, a 112,500 industrial park within the Central San Diego submarket or $18.5 million or a $164 per square foot. The property is 92.5% leased with in place rents approximately 30% below peak levels. The plan is to implement cosmetic upgrades and lease up the remaining vacant space. We anticipated initial yield of 5.5% based on stabilized occupancy with substantial room to grow rents thereafter. In March, the company acquired Red Gum, a 65,000 square foot industrial facility in Anaheim for $7.7 million, or $118 per square foot. Consumer tenant property has leased to 2019 at a below market rent and we anticipate an initial yield of 5.3% increasing at future periods as we build market. In March, Rexford acquired De Soto of 28 foot clear 154,000 square foot industrial building in Chatsworth within the Greater San Fernando Valley submarket, for $14.1 million, or $91 per square foot. The property is vacant and we plan value add – functional enhancements to capture higher rents on leasing. We anticipate a stabilized yield of 6% on total costs. Subsequent to quarter end, we closed two acquisitions totaling $15.4 million. In April, we acquired Norwalk, Boulevard Santa Fe Springs, a 10.26 acre parcel that includes a 26,000 square foot industrial buildings, a 12,000 square foot office building and about 400,000 square feet of paved outdoor storage for $9.64 million, which represents $22 per square foot of land. In May, we also acquired Arthur Street, a 61,400 square foot single tenant building in Cerritos for $5.77 million or $94 per square foot. It’s worth noting again that our acquisition volumes can varies from quarter to quarter as we do not control the timings of closings. We continue to see a large volume of potential product that fits our criteria and we currently have $29 million under contract comprised of three single tenant buildings and another $40 million NOI, which we anticipate closing in the coming months and quarters. We remain extremely comfortable with our full year guidance and expectations for acquisitions of $250 million or more. I’ll now turn the call over to Adeel.