STAG INDUSTRIAL, INC. Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Key Takeaways
- STAG Industrial reported second quarter 2026 core FFO per share of $0.65, a 3.2% increase year over year.
- Net absorption was 69 million square feet in Q2, totaling 111 million square feet in the first half of 2026, the best start since 2022.
- Acquisitions in Q2 totaled $287.1 million, consisting of seven buildings with cash and straight line cap rates of 6.1% and 6.8%, respectively.
- Development activity includes nine buildings totaling 2.3 million square feet, with expected stabilized yields of 7.1%.
- Same-store cash and NOI grew 3.4% in Q2 and 3.9% year to date.
- Leasing activity in Q2 included 36 leases across 5.6 million square feet, with cash and straight line leasing spreads of 19.8% and 33.7%, respectively, and retention of 75.7%.
- Liquidity stood at $614 million at quarter end, and net debt to annualized run rate adjusted EBITDA was 5.2 times including $70 million of forward equity proceeds.
- The company refinanced $350 million of term loans into a single loan maturing in 2032 with a fixed interest rate of 3.53% until March 2027 and 4.79% thereafter.
- Data center-related tenants have accounted for a loss of 2.3 million square feet since early 2025, with demand concentrated in the Midwest, Southeast, and Texas.
- Inland markets continue to outperform coastal markets on demand and net absorption, benefiting STAG's portfolio.
Outlook
- Industrial fundamentals are stabilizing with vacancy having peaked nationally and within STAG's portfolio.
- Supply pipeline has contracted roughly halfway from its 2022 peak, with under-construction product representing 2% of total stock, 55% of which is pre-leased.
- Demand tailwinds remain intact and diversified, driven by record-high e-commerce retail sales, nearshoring and onshoring trends, and data center support demand.
- Improvement in supply and demand is viewed as real and durable, positioning the portfolio for improved rent growth entering 2027.
- Inland markets such as the Midwest, Southeast, and Texas are showing strong performance, while port markets like Savannah and Charleston are slower.
- Smaller tenant demand (70,000 square feet or less) is picking up, while demand for 150,000 to 300,000 square foot spaces is improving after a lull.
Guidance
- Credit loss guidance was reduced from 50 basis points to 30 basis points, with 6 basis points incurred to date.
- Average same-store occupancy guidance was increased by 25 basis points to a range of 96.25% to 97.25%.
- Retention guidance was narrowed to 75% cash.
- Same-store cash and NOI growth guidance was increased to a range of 3% to 3.5% for 2026, a 25 basis point increase at the midpoint.
- Acquisition volume guidance was increased to a range of $400 million to $700 million.
- Stabilized capitalization rate is expected to range from 6% to 6.5%.
- Core FFO guidance was increased to a range of $2.61 to $2.65 per share, a $0.01 increase at the midpoint.
- Spot occupancy is expected to increase slightly by year-end, while average occupancy is expected to remain relatively flat for the remainder of 2026.
Executive Comments
- CEO Bill Crooker highlighted the strong first half of 2026 and the team's excellent execution, setting up well for the remainder of the year.
- CFO Matts Pinard emphasized low leverage, strong liquidity, and successful capital market activities including ATM share issuances and refinancing.
- The company is focused on acquiring Class A assets with clean cash flow and minimal CapEx needs, and is seeing good development yields above 7%.
- Data center demand is broad-based across several regions and represents long-term leases with strong credits, primarily supporting existing data centers.
- Management noted that portfolio premiums are seen mainly in portfolios sized $500 million to $1 billion, with smaller portfolios pricing closer to individual asset levels.
- Leasing spreads for the year are expected to be near the higher end of the 18% to 20% range, with strong tenant retention and demand.
- Development pipeline activity is strong, with build-to-suit projects underway in Dallas and Phoenix, and good leasing momentum in markets like Charlotte and Louisville.
- Management remains cautious on acquisition cadence due to macroeconomic volatility but is confident in maintaining current pace if conditions remain stable.
Q&A
- On acquisitions, the company has limited LOIs or contracts currently but sees good market activity and expects Q4 to be the largest acquisition quarter.
- Acquisitions in Q2 were mostly Class A assets with cash cap rates around 6.1%, generally accretive and with clean cash flow.
- Portfolios between $500 million and $1 billion are seeing some cap rate compression, but STAG underwrites acquisitions on individual asset pricing and does not pay portfolio premiums.
- Leasing spreads are expected to be close to 20% for the year, with Q1 having some exceptional lease roll-ups and Q2 having more normalized spreads.
- Development yields are strong at 7% plus, with the company looking to ramp up development but noting it takes time to scale beyond current $290 million under construction.
- Data center demand is broad across Midwest, Southeast, and Texas, primarily for servicing existing data centers with long-term leases averaging seven years.
- Dispositions are opportunistic and non-core focused, with pricing around 8% cap rates for non-core assets and 5.7% for opportunistic sales; timing does not always match acquisitions.
- Regional strength is seen in Midwest, Southeast, and Texas, while port markets like Savannah and Charleston are slower; Reno is slower for traditional logistics but active in manufacturing and data center sectors.
- Tenant demand is increasing for smaller spaces under 70,000 square feet, with some pickup in 150,000 to 300,000 square foot spaces.
- Leasing for 2027 is ahead of plan with 35% of the leasing plan executed by end of July, compared to 26-28% at the same time last year.
- Balance sheet leverage is managed around 5 to 5.5 times net debt to EBITDA; forward equity proceeds are used prudently to fund acquisitions and development or pay down revolver.
- No material change in tenant non-renewal trends; non-renewals are consistent with historical averages and often due to consolidation or growth.
- Public bond market access is considered but private placement market remains preferred due to flexibility and successful history.
- Blended escalators on new leases signed so far this year are north of 3%, between 3% and 3.25%.
Greetings. Welcome to the STAG Industrial, Inc. second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Steve Xiarhos, VP Investor Relations. Thank you, Steve. You may begin.
Thank you. Welcome to STAG Industrial's conference call covering the second quarter 2026 results. In addition to the press release distributed yesterday, we posted an unaudited quarterly supplemental information presentation on the company's website at stagindustrial.com under the investor relations section. On today's call, the company's prepared remarks and answers to your questions will contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Examples of forward-looking statements include forecasts of Core FFO, Same-Store NOI, G&A, acquisition and disposition volumes, retention rates and other guidance, leasing prospects, rent collections, industry and economic trends, and other matters.
We encourage all listeners to review the more detailed discussion related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC, and the definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures contained in the supplemental information package available on the company's website. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of today. STAG Industrial assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. On today's call, you'll hear from Bill Crooker, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mats Pinard, our Chief Financial Officer. Also here with us today are Mike Chase, our Chief Investment Officer, and Steve Kimball, our Chief Operating Officer, who are available to answer questions specific to their areas of focus. I will now turn the call over to Bill.
Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the second quarter earnings call for STAG Industrial. We are pleased to have you join us and look forward to discussing the second quarter 2026 results. Industrial fundamentals continue to stabilize in the second quarter, and we remain constructive on the trajectory heading into the back half of the year. In our view, vacancy has peaked both nationally and within STAG's portfolio. Net absorption was 69 million sq ft this quarter, a meaningful acceleration from Q1, and was 111 million sq ft in the first half, the best start to a year since 2022. Supply continues to work in the market's favor. The development pipeline has contracted roughly halfway from its 2022 peak and under construction product now represents just 2% of total stock, of which about 55% is pre-leased. Demand tailwinds remain intact and diversified.
E-commerce as a percentage of retail sales hit a record high earlier this year. Nearshoring and onshoring trends remain a new and growing source of demand as supply chain diversification has become essential for companies both large and small. As we've messaged earlier this year, we've seen significant warehouse demand from users contracted to support ongoing data center operations. While the future impact from this trend is hard to quantify, it continues to be a strong source of demand within our sector. Since the beginning of last year, we have leased 2.3 million sq ft to data center related tenants. Notably, inland markets have continued to outperform coastal markets on both demand and net absorption, and STAG's portfolio is well positioned to benefit.
Overall, we believe the improvement in both the supply and demand picture is real and durable, and it positions our portfolio for improved rent growth as we move into 2027. In the first half of this year, we saw an increase in acquisition opportunities in the market. Acquisition volume for the second quarter totaled $287.1 million. This consisted of seven buildings with cash and straight line cap rates of 6.1% and 6.8% respectively. In terms of our development platform, we have nine buildings or 2.3 million sq ft of development activity that is not in service as of the end of Q2. These buildings are in various stages of development and have expected stabilized yields of 7.1%. In April 2026, we closed on a 343,000 sq ft build-to-suit project located northeast of Dallas in Rockwall, Texas.
Construction commenced in the second quarter with an estimated delivery date of Q2 2027 and an expected yield of 7.5%. Also, in April, we closed on a 184,000 sq ft development project located southeast Phoenix in Chandler, Arizona. The 12 acre site is well located within the Southeast Valley sub-market with immediate access to I-10. We are currently working through the project design and anticipate breaking ground in late Q3 2026 with an estimated delivery date of Q3 2027. In May, we executed a lease for 35,000 sq ft or 25% of our Tampa development. The lease is to a fueling solutions provider and commences on August 1st. Close went to quarter end, we executed a lease for 47,000 sq ft or 62% of one of our Reno developments. The lease is for an e-commerce company and commences on September 1st.
With that, I will turn it over to Mats, who will cover our remaining results and guidance for 2026.
Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everyone. Core FFO per share was $0.65 for the quarter, an increase of 3.2% as compared to last year. Leverage remains low, with net debt to annualized run rate adjusted EBITDA equal to 5.2 times. When incorporating the currently unfunded $70 million of forward equity proceeds, leverage is 5.1 times. Liquidity stood at $614 million at quarter end. During the quarter, we commenced 36 leases across 5.6 million sq ft, generating cash and straight line leasing spreads of 19.8% and 33.7%, respectively. This was another strong quarter in terms of new operating portfolio sq ft leased. Retention for the quarter was 75.7%. As of today, 92% of our forecasted leasing for 2026 has been addressed at levels consistent with our initial guidance and at levels in line with previous years.
Same Store Cash NOI grew 3.4% for the quarter and 3.9% year-to-date. Moving to capital market activity, as of today, the company issued 3.4 million shares on a forward basis under our ATM program at a gross average share price of $39, resulting in gross proceeds of $131 million. In the second quarter, we settled $59.8 million of proceeds related to forward ATM sales that occurred in the first half of 2026. As previously mentioned, we have $70 million of forward equity proceeds available to fund at our discretion, which will be used to pay down the revolver and match under net acquisition development pipeline. Subsequent to quarter end, we repaid the $50 million private placement note B, which matured on July 1st.
Additionally, on July 16th, we refinanced our $150 million Term Loan A and $200 million Term Loan F, which were scheduled to mature in March of 2027, combining them into a single $350 million term loan. The refinanced term loan matures January 16th, 2032, and bears an aggregate fixed interest rate inclusive of interest rate swaps at 3.53% until March 2027, and will then bear an aggregate fixed interest rate inclusive of interest rate swaps of 4.79% from March 2027 through maturity. As part of this refinancing exercise, we repriced our revolver and all outstanding term loans, achieving a 5 basis point savings across all bank debt, resulting in interest expense savings going forward. We made the following updates to guidance. Credit loss guidance has been reduced from 50 basis points to 30 basis points, driven by 6 basis points of credit loss incurred to date.
Average same store occupancy guidance increased 25 basis points to a range of 96.25%-97.25%. Retention has been narrowed to 75%. Cash same store growth guidance has been increased to a range of 3%-3.5% for the year, an increase of 25 basis points at the midpoint. Acquisition volume guidance has been increased to a range of $400 million-$700 million, and we expect the stabilized capitalization rate to range from 6%-6.5%. These guidance changes result in an increase in Core FFO guidance to a range of $2.61-$2.65 per share, an increase of $0.01 at the midpoint. 2026 guidance can be found on page 21 of our supplemental package, which is available in the investor relations section of our stagindustrial.com. I will now turn it back over to Bill.
Thank you, Max. I want to thank our team for their continued hard work and execution in 2026. The team has done an excellent job executing our operating plan in the first half of the year. The strong first half set this up well for the remainder of the year. We'll now turn it to the operator for questions.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Craig Mailman with Citi. Please, go ahead. Hey, good morning, everyone.
Just want to start off on the acquisition side. Clearly, 2Q was a much bigger quarter than Q1 and kind of puts you on pace to hit even the midpoint of your updated guidance. Could you just kind of give us a sense of maybe what's under contract or LOI or what we should expect from a cadence perspective for the balance of the year?
Yeah. Hey, Craig. We don't have much under contract or LOI right now, which is why we only raised the guidance, I think, $50 million at the midpoint. We're seeing good activity. There's a lot of sellers out there. Bid-ask spreads have tightened. The cadence, typically Q4 is our largest acquisition quarter. Just given the volatility in rates and the macro environment, we didn't feel that confident in the cadence in the third and fourth quarter, just given what's going on in the macro environment. That being said, if rates stay stable and there's not a lot of volatility in the macro environment, we feel pretty confident we can keep up this pace.
Could you just talk about kind of the mix of what you bought, maybe some backstory? I know at Nareit, you guys were talking about passing on a $300 million portfolio. It didn't seem like any of these were portfolios, but at the same time, it felt like one of the reasons you guys passed on that was cap rates were falling, and you weren't as pleased with where your cost of equity was, but now you lowered cap rates on acquisitions by sort of a quarter of a point.
I don't know, maybe we could just talk in general around how you're viewing kind of the upside in some of the assets that you're buying from either an IRR perspective, to kind of offset some of that cap rate compression that you're willing to accept, and maybe how much of this was single assets versus portfolios and what the spread in those may be, as well in the markets that you're targeting.
Yeah. Lot to unpack there. With what we bought this quarter, all Class A assets, some markets we feel really confident in, and we feel like we'll be a key player in for the long term. The cash cap rates were a little bit lower. I think it was 6.1 going in, 6.8 on a straight line basis. Decently accretive from where we could raise capital in the second quarter. Bumps on those leases about 3.3%, and generally these are at or slightly below market. Good clean buildings and, I say, call it clean cash flow. No really CapEx leakage for these properties because they're all Class A, and somewhat newly built. With respect to your question on portfolios, yeah, generally portfolios have garnered anywhere from 25, 50, even in the best of times, 100 basis points for portfolio premiums.
I would say right now, those middle-sized portfolios, call it $500 million to maybe $1 billion, probably garner some cap rate compression. Above that, maybe not as much just because it's hard to deploy that much capital, and when you're trying to deploy it, you may not be willing to pay the cap rate compression for that portfolio. Then when you get to smaller portfolios, at least what we're seeing now, those portfolios are pricing closer to individual asset pricing.
Great. Thank you. Thanks, Craig.
Our next question is from David Rodgers with Raymond James. Please, go ahead. Good morning, everybody.
Bill and Matt, wanted to talk a little bit about leasing in the second quarter. It looked like it was only eight leases in the new pool, but it just looked like some of the metrics were a little bit softer than what you experienced in the first quarter. Maybe you can kind of talk about if there was anything unique in that or in the first quarter, and then also just as you look kind of through the rest of the year, how you expect volume of leasing and spreads to progress. If you can give any color on that, be great.
Yeah. Thanks, Dave. For the year, we still expect 18%-20% leasing spreads, probably closer to the higher end of that range. Right on track to a little bit better than our original guidance. With respect to the first quarter, I think our leasing spreads for new leases was 35%-36%. We did have two leases that rolled up close to 60% in the first quarter, that was due to those leases coming off of long-term leases with low escalators. Market rent just greatly outpaced where those leases were. That was a great win. It was baked into our guidance. This quarter, we had one new lease that rolled closer to market. It was a shorter term lease that had some decent escalators, and just with the lower market rent growth over the past few years, it just rolled closer to market.
It was kind of twofold. You had a little bit of some great wins in the first quarter, and one lease that didn't roll as much in the second quarter. It all kind of comes out in the wash, and we're still looking at close to 20% leasing spreads for the year, and we're well on track to meet our leasing plan for the year.
Thanks for that. Maybe a follow-up on Craig's question. He was talking acquisitions. Clearly, acquisition pricing getting tighter, lots of buyers out there. You're trying to move more into development. Can you talk a little bit more about what you're finding kind of on the development front and the ability to perhaps accelerate starts even farther there to create a little bit more value versus buying at market today and in a competitive environment?
Yeah. We're having some great success on the development side. Really happy with that part of the platform. We were able to bring in a couple more developments. The Dallas one's great. build-to-suit in Dallas at 7.5%, sourced that internally. We're hopeful we're able to announce some new developments soon too, right? That part of the platform is operating at a very high level. The yields are 7%+, so a great return there for us, and also meets that, call it clean income as they're new buildings. That's an area where we think we can continue to ramp up. Right now we've got $290 million of developments under some sort of construction period, not in the stabilized bucket. We would love to get that another couple hundred million higher, it's going to take some time to do that.
Our JV partners, we're active with them. They're bringing us opportunities. We continue to expand the number of relationships we have, and we're also sourcing a bunch of developments with our own team, and being creative with some of the land we have in our portfolio. It's a great use of our capital. It's probably the best use of our capital. It's limited to the extent that we can do maybe what we're doing now and then a couple $100 million more. It's going to take some time to ramp up to that.
Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Carroll with RBC.
Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks.
Bill, I wanted to dig in your comments regarding the data center demand that you're seeing across your portfolio. Is that demand more concentrated in specific markets, or do you see it more broadly across your entire portfolio?
It's broad. It's not across the entire portfolio, but we're seeing it a lot in the Midwest. We're seeing it in the Southeast. We're seeing it in Texas. Michigan, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Houston. There's some areas in the U.S. that we're seeing it, that we just don't have vacancy, that we can't lease to data center-related tenants. It's in really those regions of the country. It's not demand that's just short-term. I think our weighted average lease term on that 2.3 million square feet we leased from the beginning of last year, it's like seven years. We rolled those tenants up, those leases up, 33%. It's good long-term demand. The credits are strong. It's just an incremental demand driver, and we're seeing that as an incremental demand driver. We're seeing e-commerce continue to be an incremental demand driver.
We're seeing onshoring advanced manufacturing to be an incremental demand driver. You have the typical GDP industrial demand. The sector is really in a really good spot, and all that incremental demand. You look at where the supply picture is, the supply picture is really in check. The industry's in the best spot it's been probably in the last four years.
Related to that data center demand, do you know what the breakout or the service those tenants are? Is it mostly to service existing data centers, or how much of it is it to construct and build new data centers within the area?
It's almost all servicing existing data centers and the upkeep. Having generators nearby, having spare parts in case something breaks there. That's primarily what this demand is.
Great. Thank you. Thanks, Mike.
Our next question is from Jason Belcher with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning.
Just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the cadence of dispositions we should expect in the back half of the year. Should we expect those to be largely matched with acquisitions from a timing perspective? Also, I know you give a cap rate range on the acquisition side. Just wondering if you could provide something similar on the dispositions.
Yeah. As much as we'd love to match our dispositions and acquisitions, it's not that simple. The disposition process starts a long time before the actual disposition transaction occurs. Ideally, we try to do it. At the end of the day, we identify dispositions that either are non-core, and we dispose of those, and we go through the process. Sometimes we have opportunistic positions that are reverse inquiries that have come in. In the last few years, that's been from users. We've gotten some really good pricing on those user sales. Others are just assets that we feel like we've realized the most value creation we can, and we dispose of those on an opportunistic basis. I think the assets we've had, I think we only sold three assets this year, two of which were just non-core and one was opportunistic.
Thanks. I guess, just touching on regional trends, can you talk about any pockets of strength or weakness outside of the data centers that you just mentioned across your markets?
Yeah. Those markets that have the data center demand, there's other demand drivers in those markets as well. When we look across our portfolio, Midwest has been really strong. Southeast has been strong. Absent maybe some of the port markets. Those are a little bit slower. In Texas, markets for us have been really strong. When you look at some of the weaker markets, it's the port markets, Savannah being one, Charleston being one. They're a little bit slower. El Paso's a little bit slower, just given the U.S.-Mexico relations. Reno's been a little bit slower. Overall, the portfolio is performing really well, and we're in our range of market rent growth for the year, probably trending a little bit to the higher end of our market rent growth range this year, and we're optimistic as we move into 2027.
Great. Thank you. Thank you.
Our next question is from Nick Thillman with Baird. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe along the lines of questioning around just competitive bids on the acquisition front, maybe viewing it more from the disposition side. Bill, you've talked about being a little bit more strategic then looking to grow the longer-term growth trajectory of the portfolio overall and maybe pruning some of the tertiary markets. Is this an opportunity here where you're seeing pricing firming, and we've heard from some of your peers that cap rates have been relatively tight to maybe exit some of these larger tertiary or some of these markets where you do have some assets that you can offload in this sort of environment here, then just redeploy, and lean into the development side. What are your thoughts around that just overall?
Yeah. We absolutely look to do that. We look to do that every year. This is a year where we feel like we can get some advantageous pricing on some of those assets, but it takes time. It's easy to maybe say, hey, this is a market STAG has said they don't want to be in. Why don't they just sell those three assets there? It also may be a situation where there's two years left on the lease term. We feel like the tenant has a very high probability of renewing, so we're not going to sell that asset with two years of lease term. We're going to renew that tenant for five or 10 years, and then sell the asset. We don't want to sell assets when we feel like we can realize a higher value by executing our operating plan for that asset.
Certainly we have been disposing of some of our non-Core assets. You said two out of three assets disposed of so far have been non-Core. Those have sold in, I think about an eight cap rate. The other opportunistic transaction we sold this year was a 5.7 cap rate. We'll continue to look at them. We expect, obviously, based on our guidance, more dispositions in the second half of the year. Those take longer. As I mentioned, you have to put the book together, you have to market it. Expect some more dispositions in the back half of the year. I would say past years we've been about 50/50 weighting opportunistic non-Core dispositions. It's probably going to be more skewed to non-Core dispositions this year.
No, that's helpful. Maybe more theoretical high-level question. As we look at your footprint maybe in the Midwest and some of the central part of the country, we've seen a big pickup in just middle market M&A from PE-backed groups. Traditionally, they aren't really looking from a growth perspective, more so from an expense side and consolidation footprint. Curious if you're seeing any trends when you look at non-renewals as a percentage of your portfolio. Is it tenants retrenching and maybe consolidating footprints? Or if there's anything you can read through on the tenants that you aren't renewing.
No, there's no material change from past years. What we're seeing for non-renewals, which is right at our historic average. I think our retention rate is around 75% this year. The non-renewals, most of the time it's consolidating operations into bigger buildings or growing out of our building. Sometimes it's moving to a different building. We saw a trend at the end of last year, a little bit at the beginning of this year. Some tenants were moving to Class A space from some of our Class B space. That trend has slowed significantly because those rents are starting to gap out a little bit, those Class A versus Class B rents. Nothing material versus prior years.
Very helpful. Thank you all.
Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Griffin with Evercore ISI.
Please go ahead. Great. Thanks.
I wanted to go back to leasing. Clearly this year has been very successful with 92% executed on your 2026 plan. Yes, I realize I'm not asking specifically for 2027 guidance, but maybe, Bill, you can give us a sense of how that leasing trend is trending relative to maybe your forward leasing plans at this time last year. Just want to get a sense of how the cadence of leasing has been progressing as we kind of turn the corner to 2027.
Yeah, thanks. It's been progressing really well. When this time, end of July, you're not signing a lot of new leases into the next year. It's primarily renewals at this point, early renewals. Historically around this time, we're at 26%-28% of our leasing plan next year. This year around 35%. Ahead of plan. I think it speaks to the demand that we're seeing in markets, and our tenants' willingness to stay in our buildings. Obviously, we're a very good landlord. Tenants love working with us. They're looking to lock up space a little earlier. Making great progress on our 2027 plan at this point.
Thanks, Bill. That's certainly some helpful context. Maybe one for Matt, just on the balance sheet. Clearly leverage is in a very favorable position in the low fives on a net debt to EBITDA basis. You recently refied the term loans. I recall you talking in the past about potentially looking to tap the public bond markets. I realize you don't have any sizable maturities until 2028. Can you maybe give us a sense of the opportunity cost, the pros and the cons of maybe going for a public bond offering versus continuing to track in sort of the bank debt arena?
Absolutely. Good morning, Griff. I think really the question is long-term debt, because we've been active in the bank debt market for a while. Historically, we've been a private placement issuer and we've had phenomenal success in that market. We're a seasoned issuer, we've been in there for more than a decade, and that market continues to expand and mature. Seven years ago, it was a bunch of life insurance companies. Now you're seeing some financial buyers in there. There's a lot of flexibility in that market. You can really tailor your offering to your debt maturity ladder. Comparing that to the public bond market, public bond market you need a certain size. It's a different audience. The one benefit of the public bond market is the ability to execute a transaction in a tighter timeframe.
As we sit here today, based on economic conditions, we could go either way. Historically, we've really enjoyed the private placement market, though.
Great. That's it for me. Thanks for the time. Thank you.
Our next question is from Eric Borden with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I just want to talk about the occupancy cadence for a little bit. Guidance implies that the second quarter is in fact a trough, but just curious if you can elaborate on the confidence and how occupancy improves from here, what that recovery trajectory could look like over the next several quarters, and where do you ultimately expect to end the year on an occupancy standpoint?
Yeah, our occupancy guide is an average occupancy, and it's based on our same store. That's where our guide is, just to make sure everybody's on the same page. Our midpoint of our revised guidance is 96.75%. It's where we are right now in our same store pool, I think we're at 96.8%. It's an average occupancy number. Our spot occupancy at the end of Q2 in our same store pool is 96%. We expect spot occupancy to increase slightly as we move through the end of the year, but average occupancy to stay relatively flat for the rest of the year. That's what's in our guide. That would imply that the occupancy pickup we're expecting happens closer to the end of the year.
Great. That's helpful. Just more of a bigger picture question, Bill. You had talked about portfolios above $500 million to $1 billion, not having that portfolio premium just given it's harder to write larger checks and there's less companies to do so. You're in a good shape from the balance sheet standpoint. Your cost of equity has improved. Just curious, do those larger portfolios create an opportunity for STAG? And just how are you thinking about scale overall?
Just to clarify my previous comment, what we're seeing is portfolios sub $500 million not having a portfolio premium, $500 million to $1 billion having some portfolio premium, and above $1 billion kind of losing that portfolio premium, just given how much capital they need to deploy. It's that middle portfolio level, that $500 million to $1 billion where we're seeing that portfolio premium. At this time, just because of what we've established here at STAG and the people, the processes, the systems we've set up, we don't pay portfolio premiums, which is why we really haven't acquired a lot of portfolios over the years. We underwrite to individual asset pricing. I wouldn't expect us to acquire something in the $500 million to $1 billion range. Below that, above that, we'll certainly underwrite it.
Maybe there's an opportunity if the math works, if it does, we'll execute on it. If it doesn't, we'll just continue to execute our strategy.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question is from Jonathan Petersen with Jefferies.
Please proceed with your question.
Great. Thanks. I'm curious what you're seeing in terms of tenant demand at different box sizes. It seems like over the past, I don't know, six to 12 months, there's been heavier demand for the large million sq ft boxes in the market and maybe a little bit softer for the few hundred thousand sq ft boxes. Does that match up with what you guys are seeing in the market, and any change in that demand over the past few months?
Hey, John. Steve Kimball. Appreciate the question. Yeah, it's been very active in the bulk, and we've seen drops in the vacancy rate based on that activity in the bulk market. I think the new news is that it's broader, the demand in size, and we are now seeing a pickup in the smaller tenant demand. If you're 70,000 sq ft or less, we're now seeing that. We're seeing it across our operating portfolio and our development portfolio that we're finding more demand in the smaller space. There's still a little lull in the 150,000-300,000 sq ft spaces, but that seems to be picking up in activity as well.
Okay, great. I guess looking over the next year or two and thinking about your lease expiration schedule, if rents stay flat from these levels, where do leasing spreads trend as we get into next year for your portfolio?
Yeah, that's a big if, John, just given the dynamics we're seeing in the sector. If we assume they stay flat, if you just go look back the last couple of years, we chew into about 5% of leasing spreads every year. In the last few years, we've had 0 to two% market rent growth. Assuming that type of market rent growth, you would assume spreads- - deteriorate about 5% every year.
Okay, that's helpful. If I could sneak in one more. You have $70 million of forward equity that's unsettled. I think the leverage, while it's low, it did tick up a little bit in the quarter. Can you just talk about the decision-making on settling the forward equity versus allowing that leverage to trend a bit higher?
Yeah. A big part of that was, we typically try to operate our balance sheet five to five and a half times, and we've been at five times almost at every quarter end. There was an acquisition that we closed right at the end of the quarter that we weren't sure if that was going to close, and that was a decision of, "Hey, let's not fund this forward equity, settle this forward equity, unless we need to." Fortunately, the deal closed. I think we closed at the end of June. Otherwise, we probably would've settled some of that forward equity.
All right. Very helpful. Thank you.
Our next question is from Jessica Jung with Green Street. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Good morning. Just wondering, as you're seeing strong new demand from data center and manufacturing-related tenants, are there any tenant categories that are maybe leasing a bit less today than before? Just curious if you think there are any future growth opportunities from any other tenant groups.
There's nothing that jumps out on our stats and what we've seen about demand drop-off. It's just really just been some incremental demand drivers and the other sectors that are in our tenant base have been pretty steady.
Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.
Our next question is from Michael Mueller with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah. Hi. I guess looking at your in-process and recently completed developments, how broad-based is the interest and the tour activity that you're seeing? Is it skewed toward any, I guess, certain asset sizes or geographies?
Yeah. It's Steve Kimmel. I'll take that one. If you look at the supplemental, we first go with what we have under construction, we have the 4 projects that Bill referenced earlier on. 2 of those in the under construction are build-to-suit. We're 65% leased in the under construction pool, which is a high percentage for us in that group because we're skewed to build-to-suit there. The 2 other projects you see, one's in Kansas City, which was on some excess land that we had. That building's under construction. I can actually use the word excellent for the activity we have on that building. We've had a number of people looking at that building. It's in an established industrial park in Lenexa in the southern sub-market of Kansas City, we've had a very good activity on that building.
The 2nd one under construction's in Phoenix, we're not breaking ground on that asset in the Chandler sub-market until late in the 3rd quarter. That's really going to work. Phoenix is an improving market, we should be delivering that product right into a healthy market, it's in an infill location. Probably you're more focused a little bit on the substantially complete portfolio, I'll walk you through that. I would say the one market that Bill referenced that we're watching a little more closely is the Reno market, right? We're happy to report we had the 47,000 sq ft leased on subsequent to quarter end. That's a 75,000 sq ft building, we got the majority of that leased up. We're left with the 284,000 sq ft building in the North Valleys sub-market.
Reno is a very active market, that activity is really in the manufacturing and the data center business a little less in the traditional logistics that is located in the North Valleys market. I would say a little bit slow in Reno, Nevada, for distribution tenants, that's playing off a little of the lull in the California markets. We'll watch that a little closely. We do have activity. We have worked with different groups, I think that's one sub-market that we're watching a little more closely. Charlotte, we built the 2 200,000 sq ft buildings. We have good activity on the remaining 20,000 in our first building, which would bring that to 100% leased, we also have good activity on our second building there. I would say that's a market hovering a little over 7% vacancy.
When you drill down to the smaller tenants in our sub-market, it's below that. Feeling good about Charlotte. Last but not least on that list is the Louisville market. You've seen what's happened to bulk product in the Midwest. Those markets were hovering 200, 300 basis points higher in vacancy and has quickly dropped to about 5% in all those Midwest markets. We have the 500,000 square foot cross-dock in an established park in Bullitt County, just south of Louisville, and we have very good activity. There's probably four or five large spaces that have been delivered, and there's four or five tenants that are out in the market looking at those buildings. That one also fits the market well, and we expect to have good activity.
Got it. Thank you. Maybe one other quick one. What were the blended escalators on the new leases that you've signed so far this year?
I don't know if we have the exact number.
Hi, Mike. I can take this. I don't have it to the decimal point. It's north of 3%. It's anywhere between three and a quarter.
Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike. There are no further questions at this time.
I would like to turn the floor back over to Bill Crooker for closing comments.
Just want to thank everybody for joining the call today. I appreciate the questions as always, and look forward to seeing everyone soon.
