Highwoods Properties Inc. Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Good morning, welcome to the Highwoods Properties second quarter 2026 earnings call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. To ask a question at time, you will need to press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Brendan Maiorana, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call this morning are Ted Klinck, our Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Leary, our Chief Operating Officer. For your convenience, today's prepared remarks have been posted on the web. If you have not received yesterday's earnings release or supplemental, they are both available on the investors section of our website at highwoods.com. On today's call, our review will include non-GAAP measures such as FFO, NOI, and EBITDARE. The release and supplemental include a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are discussed at length in our press releases as well as our SEC filings.

As you know, actual events and results can differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and the company does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I will turn the call over to Ted.

Thanks, Brendan, good morning, everyone. We had another excellent quarter, delivering strong financial and operating results and executing on our key long-term initiatives. Let me start with 6 key highlights. First, leasing volume was healthy, with over 1 million square feet of second gen signings, including 326,000 square feet of new leases. Plus, we signed 63,000 square feet of first gen leases in our development pipeline. Second, rent growth continued upward with cash rent spreads over 3% and GAAP rent spreads over 20%. Plus, our net effective rents were 8% higher than our prior five-quarter average and the second highest in our company's history. Third, our occupancy increased by 70 basis points sequentially, or 110 basis points when adjusting for properties owned and in service for the entirety of the second quarter.

We expect occupancy will continue to improve as we move into the second half of the year. Fourth, our development pipeline now consists only of 23Springs in Uptown Dallas, where we increased the lease rate to 93%, up 10 percentage points during the quarter, and where we only have $28 million of projected spend to bring this property to stabilization. Given strong leasing, we've accelerated the projected stabilization date of 23Springs by nine months from the first quarter of 2028 to the second quarter of 2027. Plus, rents are meaningfully higher than the original underwriting. Fifth, we made significant progress pruning our portfolio and replenishing our dry powder for future investments. We sold nearly $260 million of properties in the second quarter and expect to close on an additional $74 million of non-core dispositions over the next few weeks.

This will bring our disposition total to $375 million thus far in 2026. Sixth, we continue to advance discussions on potential new investment opportunities, mostly around build-to-suit or substantially pre-leased development projects. We have growing confidence that we'll have new development announcements later this year and into next year that will generate attractive risk-adjusted returns and replenish our future growth engine. This body of work over the past several quarters sets the stage for a significantly improved portfolio with an even stronger balance sheet than we currently have, all while delivering steady growth in earnings and cash flow over the foreseeable future. Turning to Sunbelt office dynamics, we believe our portfolio is well positioned to deliver outsized rent growth given the lack of new supply currently under construction and dwindling blocks of high-quality space in BBD locations.

Simply put, existing customers and new prospects don't have a lot of options when seeking commute-worthy office space. We're pushing rents across most of our BBDs and buildings and believe this dynamic, combined with occupancy growth, will drive meaningful upside in NOI over the next few years. To this end, we estimate vacancy rates across high-quality buildings in our core BBDs are at least 5% lower than the stated overall vacancy rates for these submarkets. CBRE recently published a study highlighting prime office vacancy is 640 basis points lower than non-prime office, which is the widest spread since CBRE began tracking this metric. While a rising tide is likely to eventually buoy rent economics across a broad range of office product, current market dynamics are driving pricing power at commute-worthy buildings in the strongest BBDs across the Sunbelt. Turning to investment activity. We generated disposition proceeds of $260 million during the quarter, consisting of the sale of Bridgestone Tower in Nashville and a non-core land parcel that we owned with a JV partner in Richmond.

Bridgestone Tower is an excellent building in a BBD location that we developed and delivered in 2017. The tower is 100% occupied with over 11 years of lease term and annual rent bumps well below average for our portfolio. Essentially, we swapped Bridgestone Tower for 600 South Tryon in Charlotte. A building we acquired late last year, is eight years younger, for a total investment of $30 million less, with $1 million more in NOI upside upon stabilization, higher annual rent bumps, longer weighted average lease term, and a diversified rent roll.

We expect to close an additional $74 million of non-core dispositions in the next few weeks, including a fully leased building in the Century Center in Atlanta, a $6 billion portfolio in Richmond. These sales will bring our year-to-date disposition total to $375 million. We have several more assets currently in the market for sale at various stages, and now expect to close at least an additional $100 million and maybe as much as $300 million by the end of the year. These potential sales include a combination of non-core buildings and land. With regard to acquisitions, as a reminder, we have the option to acquire an additional 40% interest in Bloc 83 in Raleigh for $85 million and have included this at the low end of our acquisition outlook for the balance of the year.

Last quarter, I mentioned we are starting to see inquiries for build to suit and highly pre-leased development opportunities. These conversations have continued to advance, giving us confidence around future development announcements. These opportunities are all in existing core markets, some with potential development partners, and some on company-owned land. As a result of these conversations, we now expect to announce at least $100 million of new development during the remainder of the year, and potentially as much as $400 million. Turning to the quarter, we delivered FFO of $0.90 per share, which included $0.04 of land gains. Our occupancy improved, and given the strong leasing that we have completed in the first half of the year, we expect occupancy will continue to march higher in the second half of the year.

Based on our strong results year to date and confidence for the remaining two quarters, we have increased our 2026 FFO outlook to a range of $3.46-$3.70 per share, which equates to $3.58 at the midpoint, an increase of $0.04 per share. Excluding land sale gains, our range is up $0.01 per share, despite $0.04 per share of dilution from higher than expected dispositions without reinvestment of excess cash proceeds. Given the meaningful dry powder we now have on the balance sheet, combined with a positive outlook for NOI growth across our portfolio, we expect to deliver healthy growth in NAV, FFO, and cash flow over the foreseeable future. Before turning the call over to Brian, I want to reiterate the strategic priorities we have highlighted over the past few years that will drive long-term value creation for our shareholders.

First, we have mentioned for a couple of years our focus on driving occupancy towards stabilized levels in order to deliver meaningful NOI growth. We continue to prioritize occupancy, but we're also pushing rents more aggressively, which adds to our long-term NOI growth outlook. Second, we have been focused on delivering and stabilizing our development pipeline. With our pipeline now delivered and nearing stabilization, we are focused on replenishing this pipeline with new projects that will generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. Third, we have been focused on improving our portfolio quality and long-term growth rate by recycling out of non-core CapEx intensive assets and assets with lower growth profiles and investing in properties with better cash flows and higher long-term growth rates. We've made meaningful progress in the first half of the year, expect additional improvements in the second half of 2026 and beyond.

fourth, we continue to maintain a strong and flexible balance sheet and have significant dry powder available for new investments. With the progress we've made over the past several quarters, combined with a strong fundamental backdrop across our Sun Belt BBDs, we are well positioned to deliver significant organic growth from our current portfolio and deploy our dry powder into new investments that will generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. Brian. Thanks, Ted, and good morning, everyone.

Kudos to our team for a standout second quarter. The macro story here is simple. Our Sun Belt markets are outperforming the nation, and a structural supply low is moving the market in our favor. Per CBRE, the national office construction pipeline has plunged to just 6.4 million square feet, the lowest level since 1996, back when there were 11 million fewer jobs using office space in America. Between obsolete space getting demolished and new starts at all-time lows, there is a growing shortage of prime commute-worthy space across our Best Business Districts. We capitalized on that setup this quarter, signing over 120 leases, including 41 new deals totaling 326,000 square feet that will directly drive future occupancy. Most importantly, we're seeing attractive economics.

GAAP rent growth jumped 20.9%, cash rents were up 3.2%, and net effective rents came in 8% higher than our prior five-quarter average. Our operational performance this quarter highlights the ongoing strength of our Sun Belt BBD strategy. CNBC recently ranked the top states for business, and our footprint dominated the list, with North Carolina holding its top two streak since 2021, and Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee all firmly in the top 10 with major announcements of new front office executive and revenue-generating operations at scale. This business-friendly macro environment continues to drive employment growth, corporate relocations, and talent retention directly into our Best Business Districts. Turning to our markets. Leasing volumes and improving metrics were consistent across the portfolio, and I'll highlight three markets where activity was especially strong: Charlotte, Nashville, and Dallas.

In Charlotte, we continue to see the market act as a magnet for corporate talent. Uptown saw major job and capital commitments from Capital Group and Sumitomo Mitsui, each taking approximately 200,000 square feet. In the suburbs, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Actelion recently announced a $1.5 billion headquarters and lab that will bring 1,500 overall jobs to the area. CBRE reported that announcements like these helped drive over 550,000 square feet of positive net absorption in the quarter and pulled overall vacancy down to a three-year low of 23%. Prime Trophy availability has tightened below 4%, and direct asking rents for that space broke $59 a square foot for the first time, a 60% premium over the market average.

Our 2.4 million square feet in SouthPark and Uptown Charlotte sit right in the middle of that scarcity, with cash rent roll-ups of 10%, GAAP roll-ups of 29%, and net effective rents averaging over $31 a square foot. Nashville was our leasing volume leader for the quarter. Roughly half of our 241,000 square feet of leasing there was new business, adding to our first quarter momentum when we signed over 130,000 square feet of new leasing there as well. This volume of new leasing represents meaningful momentum for notable occupancy gains into next year. The broader market reinforced that story, with Starbucks signing a long-term lease for their 250,000 square foot Southeast corporate office downtown and JLL recording 1.3 million square feet of leasing activity and 400,000 square feet of positive net absorption in the quarter, more than double the first quarter's pace.

Active construction in Nashville is limited to just 450,000 square feet, 77% of which is already pre-leased, meaning commute-worthy space across our core BBDs of Downtown, West End, Brentwood, and Cool Springs is becoming scarce. This reinforces the organic growth embedded in our assets in Music City. Finally, to Dallas. Headquartered there, CBRE noted that fundamentals continued to accelerate with nearly 940,000 square feet of positive net absorption in the second quarter. Vacancy was down 70 basis points sequentially to 25%, and Class A asking rents rose north of $39 per square foot. Our footprint in Uptown and Preston Center, where vacancy sits below 5%, is capturing that demand directly, generating double-digit cash and GAAP rent spreads and net effective rents above $50 a square foot.

In summary, with a commute-worthy portfolio, a limited supply picture, and a trophy asset team operating in the nation's most business-friendly states, Highwoods is well-positioned to keep delivering on our simple strategy: occupancy gains, rental growth, and long-term value creation. I'll now turn the call over to Brendan.

Thanks, Brian. In the second quarter, we delivered net income of $93.5 million, or $0.85 per share, and FFO of $100.7 million, or $0.90 per share. The quarter included a $0.035 per share land sale gain from the disposition of a non-core parcel in Richmond that was sold by a JV in which we had a 50% interest. G&A was nearly $1 million higher than expected due to write-offs of previously capitalized pre-development costs related to projects where our view of the highest and best use has changed. These write-offs are the primary reason our G&A outlook for 2026 increased compared to our prior outlook. There were no other unusual items in the quarter. Our balance sheet remains in excellent shape.

We have ample liquidity, no near-term debt maturities, and we made significant progress lowering our debt to EBITDA ratio from 6.7 times to 6.2 times in the second quarter. We ended the quarter with $145 million of cash on hand and nothing drawn on our $750 million revolving line of credit. We extended the maturity date on our $150 million term loan from 2027 to 2031 and reduced the borrowing rate by 15 basis points. Subsequent to quarter end, we closed a $56 million secured mortgage at our 50/50 Midtown East JV, repatriating over $44 million from this recently stabilized development back to Highwoods. As Ted mentioned, we expect to close over $70 million of asset sales in the next couple of weeks, which will result in a pro forma cash balance of more than $250 million and no borrowings outstanding on our revolver.

The only maturity we have between now and the first quarter of 2028 is our March 2027 bond, which has a balance of $289 million after we repurchased $11 million of the notes during the second quarter. This debt can be repaid at par starting in December. Given our strong cash position, we don't anticipate a need to raise capital to address this maturity. We expect to close one or more additional JV financings during the remainder of the year, which will repatriate even more capital back to Highwoods and further strengthen our liquidity and unencumbered debt-to-EBITDA ratio. Based on our current expectations of NOI growth, we expect debt to EBITDA to be modestly lower at year-end and continue to decline throughout 2027, assuming otherwise leverage-neutral investment activities.

We have only $28 million of remaining capital needed at our share to complete 23Springs, which is the only property remaining in our development pipeline after placing Midtown East in service during Q2 2026. Given even stronger than expected leasing, we now project 23Springs will stabilize in the second quarter of 2027, which is nine months earlier than our pro forma and with NOI meaningfully higher due to better than anticipated rents. We are no longer capitalizing costs on this project, which will result in upside to FFO and cash flow as signed leases commence over the next four quarters. As Ted mentioned, our occupancy improved 70 basis points from the end of Q1, which includes a 30 basis point headwind from the sale of the 100% occupied Bridgestone Tower.

Even with the occupancy impact from the sale of Bridgestone Tower, we continue to expect to end the year with occupancy in a range of 86.5%-88.5%, implying nearly 200 basis points of upside over the next two quarters at the midpoint of our year-end outlook. Before I turn the call back to the operator for questions, I'd like to give some color on our financial outlook for the remainder of the year. We updated our 2026 FFO outlook to $3.46 to $3.70 per share, which is up $0.04 per share at the midpoint. Excluding land sale gains, our FFO outlook is up $0.01 per share at the midpoint, which includes $0.04 per share of dilution from higher than anticipated disposition activity and $0.01 from the aforementioned pre-development cost write-offs. Neither of these headwinds were in our prior outlook.

To be clear about the dilutive impact from the additional 2026 disposition proceeds, our updated 2026 outlook assumes we will keep the excess disposition proceeds in cash for the remainder of the year. We ultimately expect to deploy these proceeds into new investments, which should drive accretion in both FFO and cash flow as we fully reinvest the proceeds into income-producing assets. As far as our FFO expectations for the second half of 2026 are concerned, and excluding any impact from land sale gains, we expect to end the year with an acceleration of FFO based on three main factors. First, our projected occupancy ramp is expected to be weighted more heavily in Q4 than Q3. Second, we expect steady NOI gains at 23Springs over the next few quarters.

Third and finally, OpEx seasonality typically results in lower operating margins in Q3 compared to the other quarters during the year. Overall, given our implied FFO outlook for the second half of 2026, combined with ample cash on hand available for future deployment, we're upbeat about the trajectory of FFO and cash flow for the foreseeable future. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw any questions, press star one again. Our first question comes from Seth Bergey from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Just kind of want to ask on the sustainability of the dividend and funding some of the leasing CapEx. Just calculating kind of an AFFO payout ratio of kind of over 100%. Just any kind of thoughts there and how you kind of look to fund some of the additional development projects that you mentioned might be coming in the prepared remarks.

Good morning, Seth. Thanks for the question. This is Ted. I'll start out and maybe Brendan can jump in. Regarding the dividend, we discuss it with our board virtually every quarter. We view the dividend as a very important part of our total return. We're not going to overreact on a year or two of shortfalls. If you go back to 2020, we've generated roughly $150 million of free cash flow above our dividend.

I think we feel very comfortable that we're going to get back to covering $2 a share next year, hopefully. It's going to be significantly better than it is today. I think in general, we feel comfortable with it.

Yeah, Seth, it's Brendan. Maybe just to add a little additional color. A couple of options as we think about the dividend. I think there's probably three main reasons why a company would look to make an adjustment. One is if there's an acute leverage problem, which given kind of the leverage profile that we have, we feel very good about where our leverage is and where that's heading. Number two, as a source of funds, given we've sold $375 million year to date, we have additional sales teed up. We have lots of proceeds coming in the door. We don't feel like we have difficulty in terms of raising capital. Third, which I think is primarily what you're driving at, is do we have operating cash flow that is sustainable to support a payout ratio over time? We believe that we do.

I think the reason why coverage is so low this year is, number one, there's an occupancy build, and with that comes generally free rent, and then spend on leasing capital. We've talked about kind of that straight line adjustment, which is probably $20 million-$25 million higher in 2026 than a normalized level. We expect that that cash flow will come on as we have a bunch of free rent that converts over into cash rent. Second, we've talked about how much NOI upside we have, just as we have the development deliveries come online, and then we have normalized occupancy. That's in the range of around $40 million. Third, and finally, we've been spending a lot in terms of leasing CapEx. I think we spent $84 million in the first half of the year.

That's an annualized run rate of close to $170 million. We really expect that that number's going to come down to probably $120 million over time. That's an additional $40 million-$50 million of cash flow. When you add all of that up and you get to normalized levels, we expect that cash flow levels will be in that neighborhood of $100 plus million higher than at least where the annual run rate is for the first half of the year. We feel very good about that outlook, and I think we'll get back to those levels of cash flow retention that Ted mentioned we were a few years ago.

Thanks. That's helpful. Maybe just on a follow-up, can you kind of give a cap rate on some of the dispositions that you have teed up, and I know you called out kind of the $0.04 of dilution to 2026. Just any color on how we should think about that impacting the FFO run rate heading into 2027?

Again, Seth, it's Ted. Maybe I can start again. I think we put in the press release last night. With what we've sold so far this year, the $300 million, and then the $74 million or so that'll close in the next couple of weeks. Combined, that's roughly an 8 cap. After that, as we mentioned, we do have some additional dispositions in the market that will close, whether it be late this year or I'm sure some will roll into next year, just who knows. Look, I think those are going to be higher. My gut is those are going to be in the high single-digit cap rates.

Seth, just to kind of put a point on kind of the dilution outlook there. Obviously, we made up for the dilution, in terms of keeping that cash on balance sheet from the excess proceeds. I think we've sold $135 million more than what we told you at the beginning of the year and included in the guide. We've made up for that with higher NOI on a go-forward basis. I think as you think about additional sales that we put in the outlook but not in our FFO numbers, those could come in and let's say even if we use those proceeds only for debt reduction or maybe to fund development.

You think about all of the cash that we have on hand, and as we deploy that, I think you would mitigate even in the most conservative sense of use of additional proceeds coming on the door. Given the excess cash that we have on hand, I think we would likely mitigate the vast majority of that dilution with then building that pipeline of kind of future earnings growth as that capital was deployed into income-producing assets.

Great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ronald Kamdem from Morgan Stanley.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. I guess, just the first one for me is just starting with development a little bit. Clearly some success with 23Springs, but was wondering if you can comment broadly on sort of the flavor of additional development projects such as Ovation or anything else, because I noticed the release sort of increased the potential for development, the dollar amount. Thanks. Sure, Ron. Look, with regard to development, I think in the last several months, maybe even talked about on a prior quarter, we're starting to see some interesting development opportunities.

It's numerous opportunities. We're seeing opportunities in most of our markets today. We're certainly sharpening our pencil and trying to replenish our development pipeline. We feel confident we're going to have at least an announcement or so in the next few months. Nothing's done yet. We've got CAs signed on all the opportunities we're looking at. Hopefully we'll have more to discuss. I will say, just to reiterate, we do have a fair amount of development opportunities that we're looking at right now. I think when I look at it with a historic low amount of new construction on the way Capitalized developers are going to have a first-mover advantage.

If we can get some pre-leasing done, I think there's going to be a real opportunity to take advantage of this environment.

Hey, Ron. Brian, just to give you a little color on Ovation, just to remind everyone. We fully own the close to 150 acres. We've got it fully re-entitled. The density that's approved there from the city of Franklin, which is the white-hot center of suburban growth and affluence in Nashville, is 1.4 million square feet of office, within which our Mars Petcare headquarters is in that number. We have 1,600 residential units entitled, both for sale and for rent, 430,000 square feet of retail, 350 hotel rooms. Great partnership with the city of Franklin. We've identified build-to-core partners who have aligned interest in capital and are looking forward to advancing and sharing as we finish the year when we're going vertical.

Great. Just my second question, if you take just a big step back, thinking about the guidance for this year. Just what's the number for the dilution from capital recycling, right? I know it said $0.04 of incremental dilution. What's sort of the total number from dilution from this year? The land sale gains, presumably that creates a headwind for next year if it does not recur. Last but not least, on the same store, the cash number I think was reiterated just as you're gaining occupancy, just any sort of breadcrumbs about what tailwinds that could become in 2027 as lease commits. Thanks. Hey, Ron. It's Brendan.

I'll try to tick through those questions. If you go back to the beginning of the year, what we talked about was the recycling of capital with the acquisition primarily of 600 South Tryon that was not stabilized, right? It was stabilized from a lease perspective, but not stabilized from an occupancy perspective. We mentioned that that had $0.07 of headwind in that number for our 2026 outlook. That number still holds. That goes away in 2027 as that will be in the low 90s in terms of occupancy by the end of 2026 and then generate roughly a stabilized level of GAAP NOI in 2027.

In addition to that, we just disclosed kind of the $0.04 of additional dilution associated with the excess sale proceeds from Bridgestone Tower and then the two dispositions that we announced last night. You kind of have a full $0.11 that was in there. What we talked about initially was the dilution from 600 South Tryon was largely offset by the land sale gains in that initial guide. We were initially at $3.54. You kind of had $0.08 of land sale gains, $0.07 of dilution from 600 South Tryon. They roughly offset one another. I think a normalized level of kind of earnings power was in that mid $3.50s context for 2026. You'll kind of get that growth from 600 South Tryon next year that will come online.

You've got organic growth from just the occupancy build and 23Springs. I think I tried to give some color in the prepared remarks about the trajectory of FFO in the back half of this year. I would expect that Q3 will be kind of ex land sale gains in line-ish with where we were in Q2, which suggests that you've got an accelerating FFO trajectory on Q4. On top of that, you've got additional gains that we would get in terms of 23Springs as those leases commence in the first half of 2027. I think we've talked previously about how we have a positive view of occupancy, not just in the back half of this year, but we think we're set up well to deliver occupancy gains in 2027 as well.

We're going to sharpen our pencil and kind of give you more specifics at the beginning of the year on the 2027 outlook, but I think we feel good about the trajectory of where that's all going.

Helpful. Thank you. Our next question comes from Blaine Heck from Wells Fargo.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great, thanks. Ted, wanted to follow up on your commentary on the potential for build to suit opportunities. I know you said there are opportunities in each market, but are there any specific markets that you're seeing that offer the best risk reward at this point? Any color on the profile of tenants that you guys are talking to or industry? What's your required return hurdle on a yield basis? Sure. With regard to the opportunities, really it's the sectors. It's financial services and corporates for the most part. Markets, Blaine, it is exactly what I said. We're really seeing opportunities in just about every one of our markets. I guess we're really not looking at anything in Richmond and Orlando, but really have opportunities to look at across the spectrum. Again, not all of it's on our own land. Some of it is. In others, it would be on other people's land.

We're just super excited about the inbound activity that's occurred over the past, again, several months, but things seem to be picking up a little bit and giving us some more confidence. We'll see on that, but hopefully we'll have more to talk about the next quarter or so. In terms of our required returns, as you know, we don't normally talk about it, largely from a competitive standpoint. Then, there's just a lot of factors that go into it and what market is it Urban, suburban, what's the credit?

What's the term? What annual bumps you're getting, anticipated exit cap rate. There's just a lot of factors that make a comparison really hard to make on these transactions. Every deal is sort of a snowflake, if you will, to a certain degree. Again, just the activity we're seeing, we're pretty excited about.

Okay, great. Just following up on that, it does seem like you're leaning into development, but I guess, how are you thinking about the balance between investing in acquisitions, where you get immediate yield and NOI contribution versus developments where you have some incremental capitalized interest, but the full NOI contribution is delayed, kind of pushing out earnings growth relative to the kind of immediate gratification you could get from acquisitions. How do you think about the balance?

Yeah, look, we think about it all the time. Again, we're always evaluating the best use of our capital over the long term. I think over multiple cycles, we've rotated pretty well between acquisitions and development and always looking for really what we think the best risk-adjusted returns. If you think about the last 2025 and early 2026, we closed on about $600 million of acquisitions that we thought we were going to get very attractive risk-adjusted returns, and we've been incredibly pleased about it. As the development is picking up, we're seeing those development opportunities with higher yields than even the acquisitions. Again, we're looking at it over the long term. It's something we toggle between all the time, we're always discussing.

Very helpful. Thanks, Ted. Our next question comes from Vikram Malhotra from Mizuho.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking the question. I guess, Brendan, maybe I missed this, sorry if I'm asking you to repeat. Based on all the new leasing you've done this quarter and kind of what you can see into 3Q and maybe 4Q on renewals and the pipeline of new leasing, is there a possibility of sort of hitting towards the near end of the occupancy guide? As we look into 2027, do you mind just reminding us of any new move-outs that could impact the occupancy trajectory from needs to occupied?

Yeah, Vikram. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I think from the occupancy outlook, just to give a very kind of high level roll forward of where we stand today, which I think I did last quarter as well. We've got a little less than 800,000 square feet of expirations remaining in 2026. We currently project that two to 300 of that will renew, which means that we're At the midpoint of that range, there's about 550 vacates kind of between now and year end. We have 1 million square feet that is signed, that is not yet commenced, that will commence by year end 2026. That dynamic there is +450,000 square feet of net absorption. 8.5% has to do with that.

We'll need to have a little more spec new kind of come in and start, probably do a little bit better than at least what the midpoint is in terms of some of the retention that we have for the back half of the year. That'd probably put us I think it'd be unlikely to get to 88.5%, but maybe gets to that 88% level. I think to get down to the lower end of the range, again, it's probably just the reverse of those things. Maybe retention is a little bit lower, then, there can always be sometimes an early move out here or there, or we may proactively take space back to do a long-term extension or something like that. Those are probably the things that kind of move us around.

What I would say is I think we feel very good about the leasing that we've done thus far year to date. To be able to maintain the midpoint of the year end outlook with selling Bridgestone Tower that was 100% occupied. That in and of itself had 30 basis points of headwind to that year end number. I think we feel very good about the progress that we've made halfway through the year. Sorry, I think you mentioned about 2027.

2027. 2027, as I think we were talking about earlier.

We feel like we're well-positioned. We've got, I think, roughly 2.5 million sq ft of expirations there. None that are large. I think we have one that's over 100,000 sq ft. I think we feel good about that renewal. Not a whole lot there. There are some early term options that we've been notified on. We had expected those for a long period of time. Nothing surprising that's popping up. I think given the backdrop for 2027, I think we feel good about the ability to drive occupancy higher as we migrate throughout next year as well.

You mind just giving us a sense of how margins will progress given all the leasing you've already done that's due to commence into the second half in 2026? Just remind us any one-time impacts in terms of property tax true-ups or anything you're anticipating that would, I guess, change the trajectory of the NOI margin upside.

From a margin perspective, I would say just overall, without kind of getting into the quarterly numbers that are there. It's going to bounce around a little bit. It probably depends a little bit on kind of where mix issue on occupancy gets better versus comparatively worse What I would say generally, as you're thinking about incremental margins and leasing that falls to the bottom line, we were in that mid 85 kind of context in the second quarter.

We were suggesting we're up kind of 200 basis points by end of this year. I think we have opportunity to grow occupancy, a decent amount, in 2027 as well. Typically, 100 basis points of occupancy for us is kind of $8+ million of annual rent. That incremental margin on the occupancy gains is very high. Probably somewhere in that 90% range.

Rather than kind of get pinpoint down on what overall operating margins are, I think you can think about that context of the revenue gains and how much of that is going to fall to the bottom line, I think is probably a better way to think through that as what the impact is likely to be in terms of FFO and cash flow.

Great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Nick Thillman from Baird.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning guys. Maybe wanted to touch a little bit on just areas where you're seeing some strength in being able to push rate. Historically, you guys, over the last couple quarters have been mentioning Dallas and Charlotte as areas where you're seeing some rent growth. As we look at throughout the portfolio now, it sounds like even in Buckhead, you're starting to be able to push rents there as well. As you just look at the portfolio comprehensively, what percentage of just the overall portfolio are you being able to push right now, given that you're starting to see some inflection on the vacancy side that's making it a little bit more favorable for landlords here?

Good morning, Nick. Maybe I'll start and Brian can jump in if he has anything to add. Look, I just think the overall comment, like tour activity in really all of our markets remains very active. Probably the best way to characterize it is that we haven't seen a summer slowdown this year. I think the brokers are all working hard, both our internal leasing folks for the tenant reps. Our leasing funnel's full, largely consisting of our bread-and-butter type deals, working on a few larger renewals. All of our markets are active. I'd tell you our markets from a desirability where we think we have landlord pricing power, it's really Dallas, Charlotte, and Nashville would be our top three markets. Yeah, like you said, Buckhead's getting better. We do have some pockets in some other markets.

Westshore and Tampa, we're seeing some pretty good economics as well. You do have to go sort of market by market, and sub-market by sub-market and really look at the competitive set. We're starting to get pricing power. You said what percentage? Look, I don't know. Is it 60%-65% maybe? We still got a few soft sub-markets that are maybe lagging, in general, all of our markets are improving. Just the cadence is different by market.

Hey, Nick. Brian, just to tag on a little bit. Nashville and Charlotte probably represent the greatest positive rate of change when you combine the quarter-over-quarter this year absorption and rate escalation. That's a really nice look. Dallas is a huge metroplex market, but where we're at kind of sharpshooters with in Preston Center and Uptown, we've greatly benefited from increased rents and low to no concessions. The rest of the teammates across our markets are really blown away by some of the metrics in Dallas. Even as you mentioned, I guess Charlotte, 20% up probably year-to-date, from an asking rent perspective. You mentioned Buckhead. Asking rents there are probably up 5% year-over-year. To Ted's point, we're kind of staking our ground where we can and we're going to lean in.

That's helpful. Then maybe following up a little bit on the disposition front. Ted, you mentioned high 9s probably for the non-core sales. When we talked in June, it seemed as though you guys thought if conditions held that you could do up to $200 million of additional sales on the non-core front before year-end. It seems as though with what you're closing in 3Q and what you have kind of laid out that's not embedded within guidance, that you're feeling a little bit more opportunistic here on just the sale front. We back into what the sales were on like a cap rate basis for the 3Q, and it's around like a 12. I assume there's some land sales numbers that could skew you closer to that 9 number.

If, I know we're looking at it from a headline cap rate number, but also maybe look at from a cash flow perspective. If we look at just your overall CapEx as a percentage of NOI of the assets you're exiting on the non-core versus maybe what you're buying at here for like a $600, just to give us a flavor of how this longer-term shakes out for just cash flow growth within the portfolio. I know that was a lot to digest, but I wanted to kind of piece all those together.

Let me take the first half and maybe Brendan can take the second half. Look, I think you're generally right, in terms of our confidence level in getting more dispositions out the door. I think we're seeing more buyers in the market. I think we're seeing more financing sources in the market. It gives us confidence on sort of the non-core assets that we can push them out the door. Again, cap rate range. Look, without a doubt, there's going to be some double-digit cap rates, but we have some other, again, one of them we're selling in the next couple of weeks is a single tenant deal at a pretty low cap rate. It's a mix of assets, both single tenant, multi-tenant. You're going to see a mix of cap rates as well.

There is some land that's mixed in as well, without a doubt, Nick. I think in that high single-digit, if that comprises both the lower and then the double-digit cap rates, I think you're going to be in that average of the high single digits.

Yeah. Nick, just in terms of the cash flow, your point is spot on. I think, the nominal cap rate, the nominal NOI tends to be high, but these assets carry a much wider CapEx load or much heavier CapEx load than what we see in the typical portfolio. When it's distilled down to underlying cash flow levels, I think regardless of use of those proceeds, it's probably likely to be accretive to cash flow. At worst, if it's kind of a debt paydown, it's probably roughly neutral.

Very helpful. That's it for me. Thank you all. Our next question comes from Peter Abramowitz from Deutsche Bank.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, thank you for taking the question. Ted, you certainly sound pretty optimistic on build to suit and other development opportunities. I guess I just wanted to ask, could you contextualize maybe the change in tone from maybe what's changed to make development more feasible in your markets? I know the conversation for a while has been that you were having conversations behind the scenes. A lot of it might slow down when you get to the point where new tenants realize that the rents that they have to pay to justify your construction cost. Could you kind of contextualize maybe the pickup you're seeing in potential development opportunities around that conversation? What changed? Or is it just kind of market and deal specific?

No. Look, Peter, I think that's a great question. I think a couple of years ago, we were going down the road on some development opportunities, and when they saw the rents that were required, we had a couple that backed off. Just probably to your question, what are we seeing and what's different today? First, there is very little new construction that people can go to. Companies are looking out, they're seeing the low amount of development that's underway, and a lot of that's pre-leased even, Peter. There's really no large or very few large blocks of space that anybody can even take if they need space in two to three years. Right? If you start a building today, it's two to three years to get delivered. Customers are looking out and prospects looking out two or three years.

They're not seeing the high quality space available. They know they have to pay the higher rents to do that. Look, we've had a couple that just these companies, they want to be in their own building. It's from a culture standpoint. They're coming and saying, "Look, I understand you might be able to get a pretty good space in a building in a couple of years, but I want to be by myself, just as part of our culture." It's sort of a combination there. I think in a couple of our markets, a couple of trends were interesting. This is maybe off development. We do see some of our customers coming to us three to five years before their expiration because they're looking out and seeing the premium space.

There's a lack of premium space, they know they're going to have to pay up if they want to move, that's going to prompt development. That's also sort of going through our own portfolio on renewals. We've had some large customers that have expirations in three, four, five years that are asking us to renew now, which I think goes to the office demand long term as well and the sustainability there. Specifically on development, look, I just think they're willing to pay the rents now. They know they have to get into high quality space.

Peter, I'm not sure it adds much other than some additional color. I think as Ted mentioned, when previous developments or build to suits were kind of underwritten with prospective anchors, they saw the rent running away as they saw costs running away. We keep thinking, "Oh, there's no office being built in this country. Construction costs should go down." Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to ever go down, but it has moderated. Now we're seeing in those kind of BBDs with no space available, the rents outpacing the construction costs in terms of growth. It does create an inflection point to start making these things underwritable.

The other thing, I'm a bit of a broken record for the last number of years I've been able to be on these calls, is that when we talk to CEOs, we talk to the heads of the HR and people department, we talk to the CFOs, they tell us that 1% of what they spend every year in sort of their G&A is on utilities, 9% is on real estate, 90% is on people. They're going to lean in on their 90%. They can grind down their 9%, and it's been shown that a bad workplace experience from a built environment can kind of reduce your productivity and your recruitment and all of that. They're leaning in to investing in their 9% to positively impact their 90.

All right. Thank you both. I appreciate that. Then, another question on capital recycling. Just in the context of kind of the pickup in some of these incremental asset sales, could you talk about just interest in the Pittsburgh assets and kind of where that falls in the plan today in terms of timing expectations? I would imagine just in light of kind of improving fundamentals around the country that broadly you would expect to see a pickup in capital markets activity. Specific to those assets, could you speak to interest today and where in the process you are with those?

Sure. We really have two assets. One's a multi-building project, PPG Place. Where we are on that one is we're really locking down. We're in negotiations right now on several renewals, really just to solidify the rent roll and long-term cash flow that we can present to a potential buyer. Look, I think that's. We're in process of doing that. That's going to take another few months at least. We're just being patient as we get those deals done to lock down that rent roll. That's probably. Maybe we can get to that. That's 2027 sale we're hopeful for. Then the other one is our Liberty building, 625 Liberty. That's out in the market right now. We're going through the process, and we'll see how it plays out. It is in the market for sale right now.

All right. Appreciate the time.

Our next question comes from Dylan Burzinski from Green Street. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. Maybe just a quick one. Can you kind of touch on sort of the acquisition pipeline given the dry powder that you guys have today, but also with the forthcoming dispositions? Then maybe as sort of a parallel to that, can you kind of talk about, if the acquisition pipeline is robust enough and given where the stock trades today, if at a certain point, equity issuance and sort of taking advantage of that extra number growth afforded to you by the public market is an option that you guys would be open to?

Sure, Dylan. I'll start, maybe Brendan can jump in. With regard to the acquisition pipeline, look, without a doubt, deal flow has picked up from last year. Not all of the assets that we're seeing are assets that we're interested in. Our acquisition investment team is certainly active on underwriting deals. Look, we're weighing that against development as well. Again, it's all about risk-adjusted yields. We're looking at virtually everything, whether it be core or value add. We'd love a value add deal where we can mark the market, the rents, and get a very attractive yield. But we do measure it against development as well. While there's more opportunities out there and more sellers are bringing their assets to the market, more buyers are looking at assets. The capital markets, without a doubt, have more liquidity today than they have.

I wouldn't say there's anything. We're looking at a lot of stuff. There's nothing imminent from our standpoint on the acquisition side.

Hey, Dylan, it's Brendan. Just what I would say in terms of sources of capital for new opportunities that are there. Obviously, we've been very successful kind of selling assets, $375 million done year to date, additional ones that we expect to get done in the back half of the year. I think we are very focused on exiting the non-core pieces of the portfolio. That's going to kind of happen regardless of recycling of those proceeds. We will do that. I think if there are other sources of capital to raise, we've been very judicious in terms of kind of the equity over time. We contemplate that. It's sort of just what the opportunity set is that's there.

I think we're very confident that we're going to have sources of capital coming in from the non-core asset sales that we get done in the back half of the year here. In all likelihood next year as well.

Great. Thanks, guys. Our last comes from Mike from Truist Securities.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. I'm going to come back to the land and development theme. As prime space becomes more scarce and rents are going up, and yet on the other hand, you're selling land. I understand it's on a case-by-case basis, but I guess a bigger picture question about how land fits into your strategy, how much should you hold in an environment like this? How patient are you in holding it? You had a question earlier sort of about opportunity cost of that. The rent's going up and the build to suit's becoming more likely, and yet selling down the land a little bit. Just maybe talk about that a little bit.

Sure, Michael. Look, the land that we're selling, just so I'm clear, it's really non-core land. It's land that we look at, I think two to three times a year. We look at our land bank and say, "Is that a good office land parcel? Or is that better use for a different use?" We do have sort of land that we think is better for multi-family or better for retail. The land parcels we are selling really are all parcels that we believe are better suited for a different use. We're really not selling office land because we do think having a judicious land bank is very advantageous for us as we're chasing build to suits. We can go through build to suit after build to suit that we would not have won if we didn't have land.

Having the right amount of land is incredibly important for us as developers. It's just making sure we're selling what's not. Some of the parcels we're selling, they used to be office land parcels. We just think the market has moved. Not every piece of land we've owned 10 years ago is an office piece of land today. We just take a hard look at it a few times a year, and we don't have that land. Let's get rid of it and let us go deploy into some other land.

Okay. The last question, I guess the last question of the call. This is a small one, why repurchase $11 million of the 2027 notes? It would cost like those are swapped at a really attractive rate, 3.78%. I don't know if there's a swap burning off or if there was another reason why you would tackle those early.

Yeah. Hey, Michael, it's Brendan. Yeah, good question. That is the maturity that comes up in March of 2027. They're payable at par starting in December. Given the excess proceeds that we had on the balance sheet, a lot of those proceeds were slated for that repayment. We just got those at a modest discount to par and took those on early rather than wait to pay those off in par sometime between December and March. That was just the rationale for that. I think we'd do more if there was more available, they don't trade that often, it's a little bit difficult to get at those.

Okay, I understand. Thank you.

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back to Ted Klinck for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you everybody for joining the call this morning, and thank you for your continued interest in Highwoods Properties. Have a great rest of the summer, and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.