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Sun Communities Inc (SUI 0.22%)
Q1Â 2019 Earnings Call
April 25, 2019, 11:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Sun Communities First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, management would like me to inform you that certain statements made during this conference, which are not historical facts may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meanings of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, the Company can provide no assurance that its expectations will be achieved.
Factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in yesterday's press release and from time to time in the Company's periodic filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to advise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release. Having said that, I would like to introduce management with us today. Gary Shiffman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; John McLaren, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Karen Dearing, Chief Financial Officer. After their remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions.
I'll now turn the call over to Gary Shiffman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Shiffman, you may begin.
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. Strong performance in the first quarter has laid a solid foundation for the balance of 2019. Core FFO for the quarter was $1.18 per share, ahead of the top end of our guidance range and a 3.5% increase over first quarter 2018. Looking across our operations, contributions were very strong from our manufactured housing and RV platforms, home sales and our rental program.
The quarter's performance included strong Same Community NOI growth of 7.2% and the benefit from the incremental contributions of the investments we made and the expansion sites we've delivered over the last 12 months. Our outperformance allows us to increase full-year core FFO per share guidance by $0.03 at the midpoint to a range of $4.80 to $4.88. We have also revised Same Community NOI growth guidance to a range of 6.4% to 7%. As we shared with you on our year-end call, Sun has been active on the acquisition front, having completed approximately $325 million of investments in seven operating communities in the first quarter. These investments are comprised for roughly 3,600 sites with 83% of these sites in manufactured housing communities. Our pipeline of opportunity remains full with prospects in both manufactured housing and RV resource and we are carefully valuing these potential investments.
We believe that our long-term relationships in the industry, the ability to bring management, development and expansion expertise and our efficient tax structuring capabilities provide us with an advantage and sourcing opportunities. Sun's portfolio continues to deliver strong results. Total occupancy rose to 96.4% at the end of first quarter from 95.8% in the first quarter of 2018. Demand for our communities is robust as reflected by the strong pace of applications, continued occupancy gains and home sales volume.
Before turning the call over to John and Karen, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on Sun's history and operating philosophy in the manufactured housing and RV resort industry. We have been a trusted provider of affordable housing and vacationing solutions for nearly 45 years as a private and public Company. That trust was earned because we have always approached this business as a long-term proposition, given that Sun is their livelihood.
We value our residents and guests and pride ourselves on the value we deliver through the reinvestment in our communities and world-class customer service. It is this attention to service and reinvestment that has differentiated Sun as a viable housing and vacationing option for many individuals and families across the US and Canada, as well as a sustainable long-term investment vehicle for our shareholders. As we progress through 2019, we will continue to seek to execute on our four core investment strategies, which are the investment in our existing portfolio; the acquisition of operating properties; the construction of expansion sites adjacent to our operating communities and allocating capital to select ground up developments all to drive sustained industry leading results.
I will now turn the call over to John and Karen to discuss our results in detail. John?
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Thanks, Gary. Sun delivered excellent operational results for the first quarter, with strong contributions from each of our business lines. The largest of these is the contribution from our Same Community portfolio, which delivered 6% revenue growth driven by a 4.2% annualized increase in monthly rental rate and a 210 basis point gain in Same Community occupancy on an adjusted basis.
Drilling down further in the Same Community revenue, manufactured housing revenues rose 5.9%, with annual RV revenues gaining 10.5% and transient RV revenues growing by 1.7%. With the inclusion of recently delivered but still vacant sites, total same community occupancy is 96.4% with manufactured housing at 95.4%. Top line performance and favorable expense growth as compared to last year drove our Same Community NOI increase of 7.2% for the quarter.
Total portfolio occupancy rose by 60 basis points to 96.4% at March 31st, 2019, driven by the addition of 2,555 revenue producing sites over the last 12 months, including the addition of 571 site gains during the first quarter. Of the first quarter gains, 43% or approximately 250 sites were in our manufactured housing expansion communities. We also converted 165 transient RV sites to annual leases.
One element of Sun's ability to generate incremental occupancy opportunities stems from the construction of expansion sites and communities that are near capacity with strong consumer demand. In the quarter, we completed the construction of the first 67 vacant expansion sites across three manufactured home communities and are on pace to add 1,200 to 1,400 expansion sites in 19 communities for the year. We also expect to deliver an additional 800 sites to 1,000 sites from our ground-up development projects by the year end.
With respect to home sales, we continue to see sustained demand. In the quarter, we sold roughly 800 homes, with an increase in new home sales volume of approximately 18%. The strong demand for new homes was concentrated in Florida, Michigan, Texas and Arizona, which accounted for 77% of sales. Our new home sales margins came in better than expected at 14.5% for the first quarter, as compared to 12.9% for 2018's full-year new home sales.
In addition to Sun's home sales business, we provide an operator brokerage resale business asses our residents in selling their homes. The brokerage business has seen a 20% average increase in sales volume over the last three years, providing price stability and flexibility for our residents. From 2016 through 2018, it's important to note Sun brokered homes have had an average price increase of almost 12%, demonstrating the value that is created through our continual reinvestment into our communities. This trend has continued in 2019.
Regarding our ground-up developments, construction at Carolina Pines and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and River Run-Ranch in Granby, Colorado is progressing well and we expect to deliver approximately 600 sites by the end of the second quarter. We have already started taking online and call center reservations for these communities for the summer season. We are very pleased with our first quarter results and with our positioning, which allows us to deliver an excellent product to our residents and guests, which in turn drive shareholder value.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Karen to discuss our financial results. Karen?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Thanks, John. Sun reported $1.18 of core FFO per share for the quarter ended March 31st, 2019, ahead of the top end of previously provided quarterly guidance, and a 3.5% increase over the first quarter of 2018. This outperformance was driven in part by strong annual and transient RV revenue growth, as well as the net contribution from home sales, driven by better-than-expected sales margins as discussed earlier. We anticipate that some of the outperformance experienced in the first quarter may reverse over the rest of the year due to the timing of certain property operating, maintenance and corporate level expenses. These expectations are reflected in our updated guidance, which we will discuss shortly.
As Gary referenced earlier, our investment pipeline is quite active. We have invested $325 million across seven operating properties and continue to underwrite additional opportunities. Given our consistent focus on enhancing our balance sheet flexibility, we believe we are well positioned to fund perspective investment activity. We closed the quarter with $22 million of unrestricted cash on hand and we are currently in discussions with our relationship banks to recast and upsize our revolving line of credit. Total debt outstanding for the quarter was $3.4 billion, with a weighted average interest rate of 4.39%. At quarter end, the Company's net debt to trailing 12 month EBITDA ratio was 6.0 times. Our leverage ratio is 5.6 times on a pro forma basis, reflecting the impact from a full-year of EBITDA contribution from our recent acquisitions.
Looking at our debt maturity schedule, the Company has no material debt coming due until 2021. With that said, we will continue to look for financing opportunities to further enhance our liquidity and extend or improve our debt profile and balance sheet flexibility. Moving on to guidance, we are raising our annual core FFO guidance per share for the year to a range of $4.80 to $4.88. This increase reflects the outperformance in the quarter, offset by expense timing over the rest of 2019 as previously mentioned. We are also revising our same community NOI growth guidance to a range of 6.4% to 7%. As is our practice, our guidance does not include the impact of prospective acquisitions or capital markets activity, which may be included in analyst estimates.
This concludes our prepared remarks. We would like to open up the call to questions. Operator?
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from Nick Joseph of Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Nicholas Gregory Joseph -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thanks. Maybe just start it on the update to same-store NOI growth guidance. Can you walk through what the assumptions are pursuing store revenue and same-store expenses?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Yeah, sure. Nick. So we -- as I mentioned a little bit, we did it have higher than anticipated RV revenues and lower than anticipated utility, supply and repair, real estate taxes and other general operating expenses. On the expense side, we believe some of these items are simply timing and they will be incurred in future quarters. So that being said, we increased the midpoint of the Same Community guidance by 10 basis points. What that does, it reflects a decrease to the range of total operating expense growth to approximately 4.2% to 4.9% original guidance head that at 4.4% to 5.3%. And our revenue growth expectations were essentially unchanged.
Nicholas Gregory Joseph -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thanks. And then maybe just on occupancy for the portfolio overall, it's high, but if you look at the individual States there's a bifurcation between a handful that are very high and three specifically Texas, Arizona and Indiana that are below the average and have been for the trailing five quarters. Is there an opportunity in those three states to raise occupancy or is there a structural issue with those states?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Texas was -- is really about expansions and the filling up of expansions. We've been doing a lot of expansions in that State. And I'm sorry, Nick, what were the other two states?
Nicholas Gregory Joseph -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Arizona and Indiana.
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Arizona had one of the recent acquisition in Arizona had a little bit lower occupancy than our total portfolio. So it pulled occupancy down there. And there was also an expansion, significant expansion at a property in Arizona also.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Indiana.
Nicholas Gregory Joseph -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Indiana.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, Nick, this is John. In Indiana, we actually from the end of the year to March 31st, we actually saw an occupancy increase in Indiana. We've seen a little bit of a decline in 2018 much as a result of a couple of expansions there as well and now they're picking up steam and we're seeing that growth.
Nicholas Gregory Joseph -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thank you.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yep.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from John Kim, BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Thank you. I guess rent control has been permitting in the media, mostly in multifamily, but even John Oliver talked about mobile home communities on his HBO show recently. So I'm wondering, are you sensing any discussion in your markets about rent control in your community?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I think we could probably -- I'll respond to John, we're obviously very sensitive to some of the materials and articles and John Oliver's story. So we watch them very closely. We talk about it internally and there is nothing that we could point to that's any different today than it's been in the past, it's unfortunate. There are a few bad apples and to paint the entire industry the way it's been painted and a few negative related issues to those personalities in the industry. And some of the things that are taking place as the industry is attracting so much capital, driving the cap rates so low and we'd speculate that that is causing some of those new entrants to the industry to try and push up their returns on their investments, fast track as I indicated in my initial remarks. It's a long-term investment for Sun as we look at communities and look at creating value for the shareholders. So we are sensitive to rent control, but there is nothing that we would point to right now, that we are aware of.
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
And on the cap rate discussion, what are you seeing today in some of your markets and how is that compared to cap rates, maybe four months ago?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think as I've shared and this is Gary speaking again last few conference calls, we've seen that tightening and compression kind of reach a level, but that level is pretty surprising to us. Same things trade for the first time in coastal areas with a sub four handle on it. We see it often on. And we are all pretty aware of how many financial institutions, severance and other platforms have been created over the last three, four years, probably attracted the fundamentals that Sun and its competitors are well aware about that. So they've driven down cap rates and they've been pretty much at this level for, I'd say last 12 months to 18 months. And as I also share that cap rate is the first thing that we're looking at, but it's not the last thing that we're looking at. We're really trying to determine at Sun based on the purchase price, what kind of value can we drive over a one, three and five-year period of time through the obvious expense reductions, repositioning of the properties, filling vacancies, professional management et cetera.
So we've been able and expect that we will continue to be able to source accretive acquisition opportunities, but it is very, very competitive out there. And we do rely more on relationships. When we go to the auctions, we don't quite compete at the levels some of the other funds are at. But we are very, very competitive throughout the industry both manufactured housing and RV.
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Gary on that sub 4% cap rate transactions, are they other communities in specific markets or are they sizable communities?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, we're seeing it mostly in California mid to large size communities. Some of it little bit in certain areas of Florida and some of it in certain areas of Arizona and certainly some of it in the northwest, but they tend to be mid to large communities. I think one of the benefits that Sun has is a strong history in the last five to 10 years of acquiring properties from sellers who actually do feel a responsibility to their residents. They've had long-term ownership of the assets. And how we've demonstrated the investment in those communities, we've acquired a professional management and as John like to say the absolute emphasis on customer service. It has helped us a lot and that's why our pipeline is full. It's mostly from inbound calls, I'm wanting to understand what it might look like if they were to sell their properties to Sun.
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
My final question is on new home sales, which increased significantly this quarter. I realize that demographics in financing options are major drivers, but I was wondering if obsolescence could be a major driver for home sales for you going forward?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I'm sorry, John, you broke up a little bit. We heard obsolescence and then lost you there.
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Basically if obsolescence could be a driver of home sales going forward, if you're tracking the average age of your homes and if there is a sweet spot where when home sales could increase?
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, John, this is John. I think that the bottom line for us is that the demand for homes in our communities continues to grow. As you've seen over the last few years and we think that it's really more a direct result of the as Gary has talked about many, many times the continual investment in our communities and plus the overall repositioning strategy that takes place and at the time that we acquire communities that come into our portfolio and the sales know-how of our teams in terms of the product selection pricing and volume and balancing all that we've got a lot of experience and expertise in doing that, that's been able to balance that through. And really what's even more paramount to all that, as we said many times is the experience that our residents have in our communities. That relationship really builds what we think is like the greatest sales force that you could have to support your brand and be advocates for your brand.
So we get a fair amount of referral business into our communities, which has led to that increase in interest in new home sales. And on top of that, what we're seeing in terms of product selection is concern, is our consumers to level spec that they want and homes has changed versus a couple of years ago where that's really grown and we've been successful in passing the majority of this on in the form of house pricing along the way.
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I would only add, John, that we offer affordability at all different levels, the entry level and perhaps some homes offer that. And then the new homes that John is indicating are crossing retail price line that we haven't seen in the long, long period of time. So it seems like we're working well against both ends of the model. So we don't see functional obsolescence per se, but we will see a home that cost 20%, 30%, 40% less 10, 15 years ago as appealing to one group and the newer homes with a higher specs appealing to a different group.
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Drew Babin of Baird. Please go ahead with your question.
Andrew T. Babin -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Hey, good morning.
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Drew.
Andrew T. Babin -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Question on page 19 of the supplemental, the breakout of CapEx, little quick expansion in development spending, just year-to-date is higher than past year run rates, obviously, as you've talked about, there's lots of opportunity there, but I was just curious whether that sort of $50 million number would be a good quarterly run rate for the rest of the year or whether there's kind of a lumpy amount of spending in 1Q?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Drew, that $51 million is in line with, well, our expectations were for the quarter and annualizing that to around $200 million is an expectation for development and expansion spend for the year.
Andrew T. Babin -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. And then what have you, Karen, one more question on the balance sheet, anymore large secured loans expected for this year whether they be opportunistic or up financing-type opportunities like the one executed in the first quarter?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Oh, well, we don't have any significant debt maturities coming up until 2021, but just looking at funding overall and our balance sheet positioning with our pro forma net debt to recurring EBITDA at 5.6 times and we have comfort and I think we've discussed before, operating at a leverage in the low sixes, we do have capacity to secure additional debt funding. We have a significant portfolio of unencumbered properties and very strong relationships in interest from lenders. So it's a possibility, but ultimately we have a lot of flexibility, it will depend on the transaction pipeline overall capital needed. We'll just look at all the sources that we have available.
Andrew T. Babin -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Okay, great. That's all from me. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from John Pawlowski of Green Street Advisors. Please go ahead.
John Pawlowski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst
Thanks. First question is on the strategy in Canada, I guess over the next three to five years are you most likely to grow, shrink or exit Canada?
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Well, we've been pretty pleased with Canada's performance. So our plan would be to continue to grow it, John.
John Pawlowski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst
Any sense for size?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
John, I think that will depend upon the acquisition opportunity. I can tell you that our Sherkston Shores on Lake Erie is approaching with the most recent expansion 2,000 sites. We're now looking at surrounding land there because we can't really meet with the demand. And I would suggest that it would be nice to think that we could double the size of our Canadian business in a reasonable period of time. Otherwise, we would look for selective disposition.
Andrew T. Babin -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Okay, makes sense. And then just in terms of opportunistic acquisitions at the portfolio level, when you look across the top 10 private operator list, I know a few of them have recapped in recent years, but if you're making a bid, how many of these top 10 operators you think could hit the market or the portfolios could change hands in the next, over the near-term?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Again, it's Gary. You know, like our competitor we're always looking to be able to expand through the acquisition of a quality portfolio, there obviously are only a handful of high quality portfolios that would be of interest to us. There have been several portfolios as everyone is aware that have transacted, but not fit the profile of us or our competitors. So with that handful we'll carefully watch and there's none that I'm aware of that will be coming to the market near-term.
One thing that we are finding though that might influence that over a period of time is that, with a little bit of the market volatility that's come and gone over this last 12-month period of time, sensitivity to what may or may not happen with interest rates, the length of the economic run. We are in more dialogues with high quality owners of properties that might be one or two or three type community owner operators that hadn't previously been considering a sale. But I think in a lot of cases due to the market circumstances I just described, the age what's happening generationally with the management, we're able to really review opportunities that weren't in front of us a year ago, but they're onesies and twosies.
John Pawlowski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst
Okay, understood. Makes sense. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Samir Khanal of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead with your question.
Samir Khanal -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. So, Gary, what's the update on your Australian joint venture at this point. Just trying to understand sort of the opportunity set that you see possibly for this year?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. We will be breaking ground late this quarter on our first joint venture, it's in a place called Burpengary, it's about 40 miles -- 40 minutes North of Brisbane and what they call the way to their Sunshine Coast, which is a really fast growing retirement corridor. It's a 131 approved and developed sites for 12.1 million, I'm sorry, 46 of them are already developed, but the purchase for 131 is $12.1 million. There are a 102 additional sites requiring approvals that we'll be paying just under $6 million for. So we hope by the end of this quarter or early third quarter to actually be moving homes and selling homes onto that first group of 46 sites that are developed. And then we do have a second JV identified and we would expect to acquire it and be in the ground very late this year. So we look forward to really updating everybody when we've closed and put a shovel on the ground started moving in houses in Burpengary.
Samir Khanal -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Got it, OK. Thanks for the color. I guess my second question is around the operating expense side, just sort of, maybe you can talk generally about sort of the pressures you're seeing kind of on the real estate, are the property taxes side, the 6% you did was better than sort of what you're forecasting. So maybe just color around kind of what you're seeing on real estate assessments and maybe property taxes?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Yeah, as you noted real estate tax expense growth in Same Community was lower than what we expected. It's pretty early in the year when it comes to getting in your tax assessment. So we do see there is a potential for a reversal of that benefit. As we do continue to see pressure on our assessments in several states including Florida, including Texas, we do so much expansion work and real estate taxes are impacted by the completion of construction expansion sites also.
Samir Khanal -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Got it. I guess my final one is on the acquisition side, you did over $300 million in 2018, you've already done $320 million in 1Q. I guess what does that opportunity set look like for the remainder of the year. I mean you've talked about sort of additional opportunities you're looking at, I mean how should we think about that?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, we can't forecast exactly what we think will happen within the pipeline, but I think we can share that our equity raise from 2018 leaves us with capacity to move forward comfortably. And I think that you will see something that looks like the $100 million to $200 million range that we feel we will be able to close on over eight, maybe 12-month period of time, but it's hard to tell what that choppiness will look like on the closing side from quarter-to-quarter. And I guess if we understood it better, we could include it in forecast and guidance, but we're just going to have to wait till we actually close them.
Samir Khanal -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Okay, thanks so much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Wes Golladay of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.
Wesley Keith Golladay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Good morning, everyone. Can you tell us how the transient segment is performing excluding the conversions, I guess comparable to lodging a RevPAR maybe a RevPass in this case.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Hey, Wes. This is John. I can tell you that we talked about in our prepared remarks, we saw 1.7% growth in transient in Q1. This is really a reflection of the seasonality associated with that revenue stream. And we would expect it to be a little bit lower in Q1 because the revenue generated is in Southern resorts, which have the highest concentration annual residents. Looking out forward, we expect to achieve our guidance growth rate of 2.9% to 3% for 2019 transient, even with having fewer transient sites available to lease, as a result of the success that we've had in the transient guest annual lease conversion that you mentioned. Got that RevPAR.
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
We don't have our -- we don't have that the RevPAR right in front of us, Wes. Things go, Keith will probably follow-up with Fernando to get that later.
Wesley Keith Golladay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. And then on -- my next question would be for development starts in North America this year hash or for the next 12 months, how many do you plan to do and then what would the split be between RV and manufacturing?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I think we see three that I can refer to right now, new developments and they're actually split. One is a RV community, one is strictly a manufactured housing community, one in California and one in Colorado. And then they -- third one they were looking at on the East Coast, which would be a hybrid both manufactured housing and RV and one new development.
Wesley Keith Golladay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Todd Stender of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead with your question.
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Hi. Thanks. Just a follow-up on the new home sales, I guess maybe there's two questions starting here. The price points now that we're seeing they're well in excess of 100,000, can you speak that, one, how residents are financing these higher prices? And then two, just affordability among these type tenants who can pay these kind of prices, when I look at your base rents going up 4.1%, it just suggest that folks can afford rising rents and higher prices, maybe you could just talk about this kind of dynamic you're seeing.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, I think that with respect to the pricing itself, again it goes back to sort of what consumers are wanting first and foremost, is driving a little bit of that. And it does vary geographically where we've got for example, we talked about this couple of years ago with the repositioning of a particular community called Ocean Breeze and Jensen Beach, Florida.
These are homes that were typically beyond on stilts because they're right on the water and so they're going to -- they're going to be a little bit higher price, but you have to look at that relative to the market and what's around you, OK, when you think in terms of what affordability is. So we might be selling a house there as an example for $150,000, $160,000, $170,000 where everything around is selling $300,000, $400,000, $500,000. So, within that specific geographic area or we could say that pretty much in every market that we're in, we are in the sweet spot of affordable housing, so relative to everything else that's what makes it work. And then, if you don't mind, just one more time on the second part of your question, I appreciate.
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Sure. Thanks, John. The monthly rents are up 4.1%. So, you're obviously having the -- your occupancies are extraordinarily high, allows you to push REIT, I totally understand that, but it's still affordable housing at the end of the day. But maybe your answer regarding affordability kind of points to that and push rate in some of these markets.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
It's all relative within the given market is basically what it boils down to, which is why we carefully look at that on an individual property basis whenever we're going through that rent increase process.
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Right. That's helpful. And just my final question, just to stick with you, John, you gave some new supply numbers, when you talk about the split between expansion and ground-up for 2019, can you give those numbers again?
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
The guidance numbers?
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Yeah, please.
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So the guidance numbers for expansion was 1,200 to 1,400 sites and for ground-up was 800 to 1,000.
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
And any internal rate of returns or yield expectations split between those two?
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, sure. I think that in our underwriting model for the new development side of things, we look for something in the very high-single digits on a unlevered internal rate of return. And we are generally pretty comfortable that we're targeting it, but that's on a three-year, four-year stabilization with RV communities and approximately a five-year stabilization in manufactured housing communities. When we think of 300 site communities in the cases of what we have under development right now, these communities are closer to a 1,000 or greater than 1,000 sites each when they'll be fully developed out. So, we still feel pretty comfortable with the way we're thinking through and modeling things and having to time down some of the takedowns of future phases in order to hit those hurdles. So, we're not going in there building everything at once, we're kind of carefully phasing one phase at a time.
On the expansion side, Karen, you want to share?
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Typically on a four to eight per month sale on a typical 100 to 150 site expansion we're looking at five year unlevered IRRs in the 11% to 14% range.
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any additional or closing comments.
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
We just like to thank everybody for participating today and we look forward to sharing our earnings next quarter. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.
Duration: 40 minutes
Call participants:
Gary A. Shiffman -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
John B. McLaren -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Karen J. Dearing -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
Nicholas Gregory Joseph -- Citigroup -- Analyst
John Kim -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Andrew T. Babin -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
John Pawlowski -- Green Street Advisors -- Analyst
Samir Khanal -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Wesley Keith Golladay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Todd Stender -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
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