MAA
#Thanks, <UNK>.
I'm sorry, <UNK>, you broke up there.
We didn't hear that question.
About $1 million for the year, for the full year.
It'll take final for that program to ramp up and be as fully productive as we expect it to be in 2018 and even going forward, but we got, call it, $1 million addition in 2017.
Broadly speaking, it seems like the economists generally are gathering around an expectation of 150,000, 200,000 jobs added a month.
We continue to believe that our markets in the Southeast, Southwest regions will get a good healthy component of that, so on a macro basis we think that the employment trends in 2017 are pretty consistent to what we've been seeing in 2016.
I also talked about the fact we're trying to create a balanced earnings profile and that the DC market has dynamics associated with it that are different and offer some diversification for us.
So we're going to continue to evaluate that market and meanwhile harvest the opportunity that both those assets that have some redevelopment associated with it and the recovery in that market have to offer, harvest that opportunity for capital over the next couple of years and then we'll evaluate from there.
I would generally tell you that once you get above 10% of the portfolio in a given market, it starts to create some nervousness, at least on my part.
There's no magic to that.
To some degree a 10% or 12% allocation in a given market, you have to also look at how you diversify from a price-point perspective, you have to look at how you're diversified from a sub-market perspective, you have to look at what is the redevelopment opportunity that may or may not exist in that portfolio.
So there's a number of factors that we think about, but once you get to 10%, I really start to challenge our thinking a little bit in terms of why do any more in that market and we have to have enough diversification there to support it.
I would think that for us it's probably a couple years or so to make that transition in Atlanta.
<UNK>most every one of them are a retrade and we still see ---+ there's not as many people in the process as there was, say, a year or two ago, whereas when a product would come to market there would be 12 people in the tent, now there's five or seven.
I can't think of a deal that we've bought for the last two years that wasn't a rebound transaction where the deal had been on a contract before.
We would.
We believe in the merits of Houston long term.
It's a much more diversified market than it has been historically.
Obviously still a lot of oil and gas there, but, yes, we've got capacity to do more in Houston should the opportunities present themselves.
Thanks.
Thanks, <UNK>.
Hey, <UNK>, this is <UNK>.
We really want to protect the strength of our balance sheet, for sure.
We like where are.
It's a big part of our ---+ cost of capital is very important to producing the returns that we need for our investors, so we like that.
So no significant change there.
I will tell you, though, this year if you take the amount of investment from the acquisitions we plan to make, funded with dispositions and with internal capital, we are leveraging up a little bit, call it between 50 and 100 basis points, still well below 35% debt to assets, so it's really a very safe place to be.
I'll tell you as you move into 2018 with development funding likely to decline some, that will probably trickle back down a bit as our internal cash flow and earnings growth, internal cash flow picks up and even grows from there.
Summary of that is, we like where we are.
It may fluctuate a little bit around where we are as we execute our business plan, but no significant changes in that.
The way we look at is from a long-term perspective is what growth rate in the dividend do we believe our business model really supports and right now, the way we think about it, we think that we've got a model and a portfolio in place that will sustain a core 6% earnings growth rate over a long period of time.
It'll fluctuate a little bit year over year, but broadly we think we've got a business model that supports that 6% growth rate and ultimately we think that keeping the payout ratio where it is, then, by definition would mean an annualized 6% growth rate in the dividend.
Now, as a consequence of some of the things that we're doing with this Post portfolio and driving down our cost to capital, we may very well see our growth rate, I hope, start to improve a little bit beyond where it is right now.
But ultimately, the dividend is a more function, and the growth in the dividend on a sustained recurring basis, is more a function of core organic growth rate of earnings of the Company as opposed to we don't think about it so much in terms of payout ratio.
Dallas is one that I probably should have mentioned as far as having supply come on board.
We're a net effective rent shop, so the numbers that we have been giving you on our rents have been inclusive of concessions.
You're seeing some people use them from time to time, half month or a month, something like that, but it is ---+ we've had relatively good results in Dallas thus far.
But that's one that has ---+ will be facing some supply headwind in 2017.
There'll be two areas you may see it come down, <UNK>, in the future.
One is real estate taxes.
If you look at our expenses this year and what our guidance is, all the areas of our expenses other than real estate taxes are well under control.
Taxes, which are about 30%, 35% of our operating expenses, are the one pressure point, really Texas, Georgia, Tennessee in this year continue to be some pressure in those areas.
That's the one thing to consider is that over time hopefully will come down and Texas in particular is very aggressive.
Think about taxes as a backward-looking theme.
2016 was a good year.
There were a lot of transactions that support a very low cap rate, so we expect values to push that.
In the other areas we expect to be pretty modest and under control.
I do think as we move into 2018 and 2019 we will see some capture from the Post side which will hopefully blend.
The other areas, repair and maintenance and some of the other areas down as well.
In general you're correct with taxes and merger success.
Well, I'll take the first one and let <UNK> do the second.
In terms of markets where we may see some expansion, some growth and opportunities present themselves with a market like Charlotte, where we don't have a lot of the exposure to the downtown, more urban-oriented centers of Charlotte.
Most of our locations there are suburban.
A lot of the supply pressure that's taking place in Charlotte right now is more the downtown, fringe downtown areas, so I wouldn't be surprised to see opportunities come out of that market that fit a need that we have.
Somewhat similar story in Raleigh.
Then also, as <UNK> mentioned, Nashville is another market that I feel like offers that opportunity.
A lot of stuff going on in Nashville right now downtown, the Gulch area, where we have no exposure to, and we like the performance dynamics of Nashville long term.
Those are the three that come to mind offhand.
I'll just add the spread for the year is pretty straightforward and simple in our model.
We'd start from March through, say, November of the year pretty even spread (inaudible) something like it, <UNK>.
That there's no science to that other than to spread that evenly as we could, where the activity will likely be.
Then I'll say on the disposition side, that's different.
We have basically two waves that we expect something mid year and something later in the year, similar to what we did this year and that's particularly how we do it.
In 2017 and growing in 2018.
Initially start funding on the line.
We look at our line as the liquidity for us to have flexibility and move as we want to in acquisitions, and then we move tactically throughout the year to ---+ if everything worked perfect from our maturities to our capital plans, we would do one bond deal a year and use our line of credit to manage around that.
That's what we're thinking for 2017.
We did postpone a deal that we were going to do late last year that's moving into 2017, so we'll likely early to mid year be in the market potentially for a fairly large deal to pay down our line of credit and to fund those acquisitions and development.
Broadly, and <UNK> may add some components to it, but broadly what we see in 2017 is because of the components of other income, it's going to grow a little slower than our rent growth, and so that's why what you saw in the fourth quarter we had revenue growth of 3.6%, although we had effective rent growth 3.9%, so some of the components of that, our cable projects, our utility reimbursement program, they don't tend to grow as fast as our rents in some parts of the cycle, and so that's actually taken our revenue (inaudible) just a bit in 2017.
We don't have any further remarks.
Appreciate everybody for joining the call.
