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Chatham Lodging Trust (CLDT -1.37%)
Q3Â 2019 Earnings Call
Oct 31, 2019, 10:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Chatham Lodging Trust Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Chris Daly President of Daly Gray. Thank you. Mr. Daly you may begin.
Chris Daly -- Analyst
Thank you Devin. Good morning everyone and welcome to the Chatham Lodging Trust Third Quarter 2019 Results Conference Call. Please note that many of our comments today are considered forward-looking statements as defined by federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties both known and unknown and described in our most recent Form 10-K and other SEC filings. All information in this call is as of October 31 2019 unless otherwise noted and the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company's expectations. You can find copies of our SEC filings and earnings release which contain reconciliations to non EF financial measures referenced on this call on our website at Chatham lodging trust calm. Now to provide you with some insight into channel 2019. Third quarter results Allow me to introduce Jeff Fisher Chairman president Chief Executive Officer Dennis Craven Executive Vice President Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Wagner Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer
Let me turn the session over to Jeff Fisher. Jeff?
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
All right. Thank you Chris. Good morning everybody. Glad to be here again. Earlier today we reported our third quarter results and RevPAR finished at the upper end of our guidance range and adjusted EBITDA and FFO beat consensus and the upper end of our guidance due to very strong margin performance that we'll talk about here. With our two 2018 acquisitions ramping up our third quarter adjusted EBITDA rose over 3% and adjusted FFO rose over 2% after accounting for the sale of our 2 Western PA assets earlier this year. Our improved performance in the third quarter is driving our raised guidance for the full year which is nice to deliver to our shareholders. As we initially guided at the beginning of the year and have reminded everyone since then we do have a very tough fourth quarter RevPAR comp due to the significant amount of revenue we earned in 2018 from the gas explosions in North Boston as well as a huge quarter in San Diego. Our 2018 fourth quarter RevPAR grew 4.1%. As a reminder that was driven by a whopping 36% gain at the 4 hotels which benefited from the gas explosions and 34% RevPAR gain in San Diego last year. Turning back to our third quarter.
This year I'm particularly proud of our ability to increase operating margins in the quarter as I said when comparable RevPAR was down 30 basis points. Even when you look at our year-to-date performance our comparable operating margins are only down 10 basis points while RevPAR has declined 50 basis points. This performance of course is not typical nor what you should expect from us going forward when RevPAR declines but I will say that we have invested and are continuing to invest a tremendous amount of energy working with Island Hospitality to examine all facets of our operations with the goal of maximizing our top line and bottom line during the challenging generally flat RevPAR environment that we're in. Through these efforts. We're adding revenue as we've talked about and reducing expenses or minimizing expense increases wherever we can and I could tell you that we're not done yet. We're continuing to find ways and look for ways to enhance our operating results and enhance our free cash flow. As we look forward to 2020 and work with Island in setting the budgets for 2020
We firmly believe we have the best-in-class operating platform as you've heard before but our collaborative efforts really with Island really have paid off over the last couple of years. You could see the proof in the lack of margin erosion if not improvement. Everything is on the table and our ability to move quickly is paramount. Our other revenue is significantly up. Our RevPAR market share is up. We're adding F&B outlets that are bringing incremental profits in the select service hotels. We are converting inefficient or nonprofitable spaces into -- when we say F&B outlets it really ought to B&F outlets because we're looking for beverage primarily small bars is the key in some of these extended stay hotels. We're rolling out efficiency programs aimed at improving our housekeeping and maintenance departments. And we're investing dollars to reduce our energy usage where the return on investment is worthwhile. We are enhancing our risk management programs to reduce losses or minimize premium increases. Turning back to third quarter results RevPAR declined 0.3% which was at the upper end of our guidance range of flat to minus 1.5%. Silicon Valley was particularly strong with RevPAR up almost 5% excluding the 1 hotel that was still under renovation and that RevPAR gain was a few hundred basis points better than our expectation.
Also as I alluded to earlier we're continuing to gain RevPAR index which was up almost 1% in the quarter and is up a strong 1.2% for the year. This is really impressive I think considering all the new supply that has come into a lot of our markets and continues to be absorbed. So as we look forward to touch briefly on supply again new upscale supply in our market tracks as measured by Smith Travel peaked at 5% in 2015 and declined each year to 4% in '16 3% in '17 2% in '18 but ticked back up slightly to 3% in 2019 we would expect new supply numbers to be pretty similar in 2020. Strategically we'll continue to explore asset sales on a limited and opportunistic basis with the intention of using those proceeds to invest in additional development opportunities on a limited basis where we believe we can add long-term value and incremental cash flow such as our $65 million Warner Center project in LA. Acquisitions remain challenging due to what we believe are unreasonable expectations as to going-in cap rates for stabilized assets. So it would take a pretty special situation for us to make an acquisition more of a value add opportunity I think. Looking ahead to 2020 it's still too early for us to disclose a RevPAR expectation.
We're working with and through our budgeting process with Island and continuing to negotiate with top corporate accounts across the country. 2020 does set up better for us though on the renovation front as we will only be renovating 4 hotels next year compared to six this year. And this year six includes two of our largest hotels Sili 1 and Sili 2 the Sunnyvale Residence Inns. The number of rooms where renovations are commencing is going to be down 32% next year. This helps our RevPAR performance on a comp basis and reduces our expected capex by $5 million to $10 million and of course enhancing our free cash flow.
With that I'd like to turn it over to Dennis for a little more detail. Dennis?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Thanks Jeff. Good morning everyone. RevPAR declined 30 bps to $145 in the quarter for our 40 comparable wholly owned hotels. ADR rose 0.5% to $173 while occupancy declined 80 basis points to a very strong 85%. And we had some nice RevPAR gains in 4 of the top 6 markets. Houston continues to be weak and L.A. is underperforming our expectations by a little bit. October RevPAR is forecast to be down a little over 5% for our portfolio with most of all of that decline due to the 4 Boston gas explosion hotels that helped us in 2018 as well as just that San Diego market from 2018 and we've also got a little bit of an extended renovation going on at our San Mateo Residence Inn that's carried into the fourth quarter. Looking into our 6 largest markets. So starting with Silicon Valley which is by far our largest market contributing approximately 1/4 of our EBITDA. RevPAR was up almost 5% to $194 ADR up 3% to $245 and occupancy was up 2% to 90%. Our hotels did a fantastic job with some of our key corporate accounts including welcoming our largest group of interns earlier this summer.
San Diego represents our second largest market and RevPAR was up 1% in the quarter to $180 over a pretty tough comp in the third quarter of '18. Our Mission Valley Residence Inn had a solid quarter with RevPAR up 3% as it continues to battle and absorb new supply over the last couple of years in that market. And our Gaslamp Residence Inn was down 1% as Downtown San Diego as Jeff alluded to a bit earlier had a pretty big second half of 2018. Washington D.C. experienced a RevPAR gain of 5.4% to $152 driven by strong gains at our Tysons Residence Inn where RevPAR grew 14%. The hotel is benefiting from a great renovation earlier this year that's bringing back some corporate guests as well as the deflagging of a hotel that was in our comp set in the past. Our 3 Northeastern coastal market hotels in New Hampshire and Maine continue to outperform with RevPAR advancing 4% to $225 the highest RevPAR of our top 10 markets. All 3 hotels are benefiting from healthy consumer spending. And our Portsmouth Hilton Garden Inn has done a great job securing both corporate and leisure business within the quarter. Houston which is our fifth largest market continues to struggle with RevPAR declining 17% to $84. Two of the hotels were under innovation during the quarter but our other 2 hotels were also weak.
Supply in our directly competitive markets is up while demand is down. We're especially impacted by a new Residence Inn at the Medical Center as well as a 354-room Intercon at Medical Center as well that we believe are certainly trying to ramp up occupancy as quickly as possible and of course that comes at a sacrifice to the overall market. In Los Angeles RevPAR was down 5%. Our Residence Inn Anaheim was down 8% in the quarter as demand related to Disneyland and specifically the new Star Wars opening earlier this summer remains softer-than-expected in the market. As Jeff already highlighted it was really a standout quarter with our operating margins up despite a decline in RevPAR. Total revenue was up $2.6 million in our 40 comparable hotels and operating profit was up $1.2 million. So obviously had some pretty good flow through 46% on that incremental revenue year-over-year. Parking revenue was up $400000 or 22% in the quarter. We continue to roll out parking charges at additional hotels where the market allows and increasing parking rates in other hotels.
We're examining corporate accounts to ensure that we are earning the approximate amount of total revenue from those accounts which includes obviously the impact of parking revenue on that group rate. Payroll and benefits represent approximately 36% of our overall operating expenses and 18% of our revenue. On a per occupied room basis payroll benefits rose 1.5% and our overall cost which includes casual labor and overtime payroll was up 4.3% while our benefit costs were actually down 7.6% on a per occupied room basis. Wage pressures remain our biggest concern and are due to historically low unemployment rates which is obviously driving hourly wages higher but also causing a shortage in qualified workforce. Within the quarter casual labor doubled and was up $150000 in our hotels. We're communicating and again going back to the platform we're communicating with our customers to understand the services that they value most on a daily basis so that we can spend our time performing tasks most critical to our guest satisfaction. We're using that knowledge to customize our guest service model. We're sharing those experiences with our brands who are also rolling out pilot programs around the country.
We expect to spend over $60 million on payroll and benefits in 2019 and our rooms department will comprise about 60% of that expense. Working more efficiently will allow us to improve employee satisfaction and offer competitive wages to our employees and hopefully reduce overtime casual labor and employee-related claims. Working better and more efficiently to improve our employee retention without sacrificing guest experiences would be a model changer that could benefit us down the road. Lastly during the quarter I guess acquisition costs were down 1% in the quarter and this aided our margins by approximately 18 basis points. Brand related costs were the primary drivers our retail segment production was down about that same 1% in the third quarter.
With that I'll turn it over to Jeremy.
Jeremy Wegner -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Dennis. Good morning everyone. For the quarter we reported net income of $10.1 million compared to net income of $14.7 million in Q3 2018. $3.3 million of the decline was related to impairments recorded on 3 hotels in the JVs in Q3 2019. The primary differences between net income and FFO relate to noncash costs such as depreciation which was $12.9 million in the quarter; other charges which were $0.3 million and our share of similar items within the joint ventures which were approximately $5.3 million in the quarter. Adjusted FFO for the quarter was $28.6 million compared to $28.4 million in Q3 2018 an increase of 1%. Adjusted FFO per share was $0.60 compared to the $0.61 per share generated in Q3 2018. Adjusted EBITDA for the company increased 2.1% to $39.4 million compared to $38.6 million in Q2 -- Q3 2018. In the quarter our 2 joint ventures contributed approximately $5 million of adjusted EBITDA and $2.6 million of adjusted FFO. Third quarter RevPAR was down 0.3% in the Inland portfolio and down 1.5% in the Innkeepers portfolio. Our balance sheet remains in excellent condition. At the end of Q3 we had $86 million drawn under our revolving credit facility and $164 million of remaining availability.
Our reasonable leverage and significant credit facility availability will enable us to fund the remaining $50 million of costs for our $65 million Warner Center California hotel development entirely with our credit facility. At the end of Q3 we had $574.9 million of debt. Our weighted average cost of debt was 4.5% and our weighted average debt maturity is four-two years. Transitioning to our guidance for Q4 and full year 2019 I'd like to note that our Q4 guidance takes into account the renovations of the Residence Inn San Mateo and Residence Inn Sunnyvale 2. We expect Q4 RevPAR decline 6.5% to 5% and full year 2019 RevPAR to decline 2% to 1.5%. As a reminder our Boston area properties will face very difficult Q4 comparisons due to the surge in onetime gas leak related business in Q4 2018. We expect that the challenging comparisons for our Boston properties will impact our Q4 RevPAR by approximately 330 basis points. In addition our Q4 RevPAR will be impacted by approximately 70 basis points due to renovation delays at our Residence Inn San Mateo property and by an additional 70 basis points due to onetime business in our 2 San Diego properties in Q4 2018. Our full year forecast for corporate cash G&A is $9.5 million.
On a full year basis the 2 joint ventures are expected to contribute $15.9 million to $16.4 million of EBITDA and $6 million to $6.5 million of FFO. Our full year adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be $128.7 million to $131.1 million Our full year FFO is now expected to be $85.4 million to $86.8 million which is an increase of $500000 or $0.01 per share at the midpoint.
I think at this point operator that concludes our remarks and we'll open it up for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ari Klein with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question
Ari Klein -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Good morning You mentioned EBITDA margins are holding up a little bit better despite the RevPAR declines but you also mentioned not to necessarily expect that kind of performance going forward. How should we think about the trade-off between RevPAR and EBITDA as we look to next year?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
This is Dennis. Thanks for joining the call. I appreciate you having us -- being with us and with Chatham. So listen I think specifically when we look at the fourth quarter obviously with RevPAR down 5% to 6.5% there's no way in heck we're going to be able to maintain our margins for the fourth quarter. But as you asked as we look ahead to 2020 we've been pretty consistent in saying that for our portfolio it's going to take somewhere around a 2% RevPAR gain on a stabilized basis to be able to maintain our operating margins. I think as we've continued to make things a little more efficient and really driving the other revenue over the past kind of 6 quarters or so. And we still got some ramp in that. That number comes down a little bit as we move into 2020. So I think we still got some run rate for year-over-year growth there. So maybe that comes down into the 0% to 1% RevPAR gain and we can possibly maintain margins. But I think certainly we believe that it's a little bit less for our portfolio than that 2% as we move into 2020. But I think that's pretty encouraging compared to a lot of our peers.
Ari Klein -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yes. And then the 4 hotel renovations for next year. Was that always part of the plan or have you pulled back a little given the current environment?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
We actually -- it's -- we originally scheduled for -- that's a great question. We originally scheduled for 5 hotels the one that we pushed into 2021 from 2020 is our Hampton Inn in Portland Maine which is just due to condition and performance we were able to I think we think we can competitively push that off 12 months. So it was 5 we pushed that down to 4.
Ari Klein -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay. And then just last one for me. To what extent has the parking fees been rolled out across the portfolio? How much opportunity do you think is left in that?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
There's a couple of different opportunities related around that. So we still have a few hotels that we are not charging for parking yet. So ultimately we'd like to say that we'll roll out something there. But there's 2 other parts to it which is one is continuing to find markets that can absorb rate increases; and two is and what I alluded to in my prepared comments is the execution of charging and collecting those parking revenues whether that be for a transient customer or in the essence of a corporate customer where we're negotiating a rate for next year in the past we might have waived parking charges or we might not have had parking charges. So as we move forward into 2020 we have to analyze for the total revenue for a corporate customer to say hey are we going to be able to get the right rate out of this customer A or customer B depending on whether we're going to be able to include parking or charge for parking for that customer. So we still have some ramp as we get into 2020 to grow that revenue line item.
Ari Klein -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Batory with Janney Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question
Tyler Batory -- with Janney Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hi good morning. Thanks for taking my questions So I wanted to follow-up a little bit more on the third quarter specifically. Could you just talk a little bit more about some of the markets that showed some variance versus your budget? I'm also curious you called out some weakness in Houston Los Angeles and Boston. How did performance in those 3 markets come in versus what you guys were originally budgeting?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Tyler this is Dennis. Yes I mean especially compared to our expectations I think Silicon Valley was better to the tune of a few hundred basis points better than what our third quarter expectations were. Houston was pretty much spot-on our expectations for the quarter. I think maybe it was -- our expectation was down 16% and it was down 17% or it was pretty darn close and the same for Boston. So generally we were right on top of what our expectations were. The biggest outperformer compared to what we -- our guidance was Silicon Valley with -- and that was an outperform to the positive.
Tyler Batory -- with Janney Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay. And then how about the Houston Los Angeles and Boston?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Houston and Boston were spot-on basically very close to our expectations for the third quarter. L.A. was weaker. And I don't have the number on it but it was definitely weaker by 100 or 200 basis points compared to what we had built into our guidance for the third quarter and that's primarily due to our Anaheim market which is just still weaker than what we thought with the Star Wars opening in June.
Tyler Batory -- with Janney Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay got it. That makes sense. And then switching to guidance here. Could you talk a little bit more about what you're seeing early in the fourth quarter? And has your view on how the fourth quarter is going to shape up changed since the last time you guys reported?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
No it's basically in line for October right now obviously we're at October 31 but our expectation is for RevPAR to be down kind of in the 5% to 5.5% range for October. And if you actually look at the 3 kind of main disruptors for us in the fourth quarter which is the 4 gas explosion hotels the 2 San Diego hotels and the San Mateo extended renovation you back those out and our October RevPAR is down -- it's either flat to down kind of 50 basis points in that range. So those obviously 4 -- those 3 different items have about a 500 basis point impact on where our October performance is.
Tyler Batory -- with Janney Capital Markets -- Analyst
And last question for me. Can you talk a little bit more about the 2018 acquisitions how the ramp-up is going at those assets?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Yes. I mean I think consistent with what we talked about last call Tyler the acquisitions are I think underperforming in terms of total revenue especially in our Summerville Residence Inn. I will say that as we've kind of gotten through October Summerville is doing a little bit better than what we -- what has been the run rate for the last few months. The Dallas Downtown hotel even though it's underperforming our original model I think -- listen I think we're very encouraged by the efforts of our team there. And I think because it has -- because the Courtyard has not only a tie-in given its proximity to the convention center in getting a handle on that business and bringing it in-house it also has some nice meeting space on the bottom and the top floor. And I think it's taken some time to ramp up those sales efforts to get that business coming in that hopefully we'll see some growth -- some outsized growth in 2020 at that hotel.
Tyler Batory -- with Janney Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay great. That's all for me. Thank you for the detail
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Thanks.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Powell with Barclays. Please proceed with your question
Anthony Powell -- Barclays -- Analyst
Hi good morningJust stepping back others in the industry have reported kind of a deceleration of business and leisure travel trends in September and October. It seems like you're seeing more stable trends. Is that the case? And why do you think that is?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
I mean listen I think part of that Anthony good morning to you. I think part of it is we've absorbed a lot of new supply over the last couple of years. That has waned in 2018 and 2019. So that's certainly helpful for us especially in our asset classes. And I think that's probably the biggest reason behind that is really just -- we're I think hopefully starting to see the end of that. I mean we've got hotels that are starting to -- that have been hit pretty hard in the past such as Cherry Creek Savannah which had pretty decent quarters with mid- to upper single-digit RevPAR gains. So I think a little bit difference this year versus last year is we're starting to see a little bit of change there.
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
And I do think Anthony it's Jeff that sometimes management teams or others will just comment on slowing demand and attribute frankly in my view new supply to -- well not attribute the new supply to what they say is just slowing demand. Let's put it that way. In reality most of the issue seems to be new supply very competitive pressures particularly on ADR that we're all familiar with in these markets because occupancy for the most part is stable or down 50 basis points max. So that kind of tells you that there's still plenty of people out there wanting to travel.
Anthony Powell -- Barclays -- Analyst
Got it. That makes sense. And just going to Houston the RevPAR there is $84. I think that's 43% below your portfolio average. At what point does that market become noncore? Or something that you may want to exit?
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
Well it certainly had a pretty huge decrease from the peak there so far. I think that we're going to still be a believer in Houston as one of the top markets and top cities in the United States. And I think stay with the hotels because we're not really fond of exiting something at the bottom I think growing and diversifying is another way to kind of get out of the Houston problem frankly over time and just have less exposure there by growing as opposed to just cut and run but we'll see where this thing goes.
Anthony Powell -- Barclays -- Analyst
All right. And on Silicon Valley demand seems pretty strong there despite some supply growth. Can you update us on the plans that you had to expand your hotels in that market.
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
I mean yes those -- I think at this point are tabled. We'll continue to -- we've got great real estate and a lot of land there. So as the land gets sucked up at all these trillion-dollar companies and everything we like having that -- those plots of land but as far as the expansions at the moment those are tabled.
Anthony Powell -- Barclays -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Thank you
Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Maher with FBR Riley. Please proceed with your question
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
The morning Shifting gears a little bit. I think you made a comment about unreasonable seller expectations kind of being prohibitive when it comes to making acquisitions. At what point do you consider maybe putting a couple of hotels on the market to play into that high valuation that they're getting?
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
We're always looking at that as you know Brian and try to see where the real opportunity is to make a good positive spread on a trade and we'll continue to look at that and I wouldn't be surprised as we move forward in the next 12 months that we take advantage of 1 or 2 of those kind of opportunities.
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
Okay. And then the Warner Center hotel when is that scheduled to open again?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
It's going to be sometime middle of 2021.
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
It's going to be sometime middle of 2021.
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Yes. I mean I think we've talked about it previously Bryan I think we would certainly be open to doing on a limited basis whether that's another 1 or 1 or 2 more but they're probably going to be staggered in terms of timing to some degree. So listen I think we believe we can generate some good value there. So especially as Jeff just talked about potentially selling a couple of hotels opportunistically and taking some of those proceeds and putting it into an investment we believe that delivers a little bit more return.
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
But there's not a development opportunity kind of imminent in the next quarter or 2 outside of Warner correct?
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
Not in the immediate future no.
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
No.
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
Okay. And then lastly for me on the labor cost. I mean it was good to see that the benefits were coming down as a cost. But can you talk about what specifically in the benefits was it healthcare? What was it that drove the benefits component down and which markets are you operating in where labor costs continue to put the most pressure on you?
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
So yes so on the benefit side it's a combination of premiums on the health side as well as claims on the health side. And the third point is workers' comp which is also down year-over-year. So I think on the premium side again going back to the -- our platform and our close working relationship with Island Hospitality to have an owner such as Chatham where we can sit in with our operating partner and -- on renewal meetings and talk about plan design premium allocation co-pays availability of drugs networks you name it we've made some tweaks there and we were a little bit more aggressive in 2018 to reduce those costs. But we have seen a pretty good drop in claims both on the health side and the workers' comp side. And we've invested some dollars into incremental -- or not we but Island invested some dollars on the risk management side that I think have been pretty beneficial in reducing and being a little more active on health and workers' comp claims as far as addressing closing minimizing keeping a claim out -- a claim open that just incurs additional costs. So I think those investment dollars have paid off as well already. So I think that's that. And then I think the second question was...
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
Wage pressure.
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Wage pressures in key markets. Listen the main thing for us obviously we've got a lot of value in California and in Seattle. Those have clearly been the markets where demand labor demand is high and the availability of labor has shrunk. So we're certainly still seeing the most pressure out west.
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
Okay thanks. That's all for me.
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Brian.
Operator
We have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for closing remarks.
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
Well we appreciate everybody's attendance today. Good questions today. And we tried hard to set the expectations straight for the fourth quarter the overall year results. Even when you bake those results in we think are pretty much right in line and feel good about where we're headed in terms of some new initiatives for 2020 that we're working on with the operator and the operating team to again maximize EBITDA here in a flattish I'll call it RevPAR environment. So we're going to keep blocking and tackling on those fronts and look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thanks a lot.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 35 minutes
Call participants:
Jeffrey H. Fisher -- Chairman of the board President and Chief Executive Officer
Dennis M. Craven -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Jeremy Wegner -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Chris Daly -- Daly Gray Public Relations -- Analyst
Ari Klein -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst
Tyler Batory -- with Janney Capital Markets -- Analyst
Anthony Powell -- Barclays -- Analyst
Bryan Maher -- FBR Riley -- Analyst
