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Michael Manelis

Thanks, Mark, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. This morning, I will review our 4th quarter 2024 operating performance and our operating outlook for 2025. In addition to our earnings release published last night, we've also published a detailed management presentation that provides additional color on the drivers of our guidance that I will refer to.
We ended the year with continued healthy fundamentals and solid demand from a well-employed renter population, which drove strong occupancy of 96.1% and a blended rate growth of 1%, both of which met our forecast for the quarter. I'd also like to highlight that our fourth quarter turnover was just 9%, bringing our full year turnover to 42.5%, which is the lowest we have reported in our 30 year history as a public company. This clearly demonstrates our success in creating remarkable resident experiences and reflects the favorable supply demand dynamics in our portfolio.
On the expense side, for the full year, we have kept growth in same store operating expenses below 3% with a special call out to the relatively flat payroll growth and 2% growth in repairs and maintenance, including a 5.5% reduction in turnover expense. This again highlights our ability to share resources across properties and minimize reliance on outsourced labor. We are pleased to report that 2/3 of our properties have a shared resource model in place, and we're excited about the additional opportunities that further automation and centralization provide.
Moving to 2025, our same store revenue growth guidance range is 2.25 to 3.25%, with an expense rate growth range of 3.5 to 4.5%. Bob will provide color on the expense guidance in a moment, but let me focus your attention on the building blocks for revenue growth as detailed on page 6 of the management presentation.
Our revenue midpoint assumes the following. We start with embedded growth of 80 basis points in 2025. This is 40 basis points lower than our starting point in 2024 and at the lower end of the historical averages, but the GAAP is largely expected to be made up through stronger leasing activity during 2025. That strong leasing activity will be driven by continued strength and overall demand from better job growth forecasted in our markets and very manageable levels of competitive new supply, particularly in our established markets which are 90% of the total portfolio.
This is expected to yield blended rate growth between 2 and 3% for the full year, which is about 60 basis points better than what we delivered for the full year 2024, with a good portion of that improvement coming from the recovery of some of our West Coast markets that I will discuss later.
We also expect continued strong resident retention as a result of both the benefits of a centralized renewal process, our enhanced data and analytics insights, and the high cost and low availability of owned housing in our markets. As I said earlier, turnover in the portfolio remains the lowest that we have seen in the history of our company, and we expect that trend to continue in 2025.
This leads to approximately 3% residential same store revenue growth, which is identical to 2024, which is then partially offset by declines in non-residential same store revenue to get to the 2.75% midpoint of our guidance range as described on page 6 of the management presentation.
Occupancy should hold at levels similar to last year, which at that strength will allow us to capture rates.
Operating results will also benefit from our continued execution and innovation initiatives, with the majority of it running through the other income line. This year we will be focusing on our analytical efforts with data-driven pricing and retention strategies, expanding automation to drive additional operating efficiencies, and all the while endeavoring to ensure that we provide a great customer experience.
In 2025 we expect about 70 basis points, or nearly $20 million in other income growth, with a large majority of it coming from initiatives that we have discussed in the past and the further rollout of our internet connectivity and technology programs. Bob will walk through the associated expenses with that, but net net, these will be additive to earnings overall.
In terms of the overall market performance, Seattle and DC should lead the pack with same store revenue growth of approximately 4%. And New York and San Francisco will follow very closely behind. While we did include some further recovery in downtown Seattle and San Francisco in our guidance, both markets have the potential to outperform if we get more robust pricing power early in the year.
And our expansion markets, which reflect only 10% of the total company NLI, we expect to produce negative same store revenue growth, given the impact of elevated, albeit declining levels of supply that need to work through the system.
As we look at the individual markets, let's start with Los Angeles, where I would like to echo Mark's comments with tremendous gratitude to our amazing team in this market. Our guidance does not assume potential operational impacts in either revenues or in terms of cleanup expenses from the fires that I will discuss in a moment.
Here's what we have included. So first, the market will see more supply than it did in 2024, but we expect the impact on our portfolio to be manageable and consistent with last year, with the mid Wilshire, Koreatown submarket feeling the most competitive pressure, followed by the San Fernando Valley, which will see an increase but without significant impact to us. Our guidance assumes that the market will continue to work through delinquency and bad debt issues, which will contribute to additional revenue growth.
As I'll discuss in a moment, depending on the regulatory actions taken in LA, this improvement may happen more slowly than what is now assumed in our guidance.
Physical occupancy and pricing trends started improving late last year, and we modeled the continued pace of improvement which results in our full year same store market revenue projection for LA to be around 3%. But again, this may be impacted by any regulatory limits put in place in response to the fires.
Which brings us to the potential impact from the fires. While there has been a lot of speculation, we believe it is still too early to understand the full impact on operations. There will likely be more demand in the market as fire impacted residents seek new accommodations, especially in the 2 and 3 bedroom units, which comprise about 45% of our LA portfolio, which we have already seen in certain submarkets.
There will also likely be cleanup expenses the company incurs from the fires and various governmental actions that could negatively impact our operations.
There are also likely to be twists and turns in the recovery process and governmental response. For now, we feel like the base case we outlined is our best assumption. We'll keep you posted on what happens here and anticipate that we'll have a better color on our first quarter call in April.
Staying on the west coast, San Diego and Orange County were some of the better performers last year. In 2025, we expect that these markets will continue to see good demand. Job growth in both markets is expected to exceed 2024 levels, and there is a general lack of housing. High home ownership costs make renting in these markets the most attractive option. Both markets are expected to see slightly more competitive new supply in 2025, but overall we would expect good performance here.
In San Francisco, we are optimistic about the new mayoral administration and its commitment to improving the quality of life in the city. Job growth expectations continue to improve, and demand in the downtown and peninsula submarkets are strong, which should lead to additional pricing power in 2025. As I mentioned a moment ago, we have modeled some improvement in the operating conditions for the overall market of San Francisco, with growth primarily coming from both the peninsula and downtown submarkets.
A more robust recovery is certainly possible if demand and pricing improve early enough in the year.
Currently, concession use remains elevated in the San Francisco market, especially in the downtown submarket, but overall improved significantly in 2024. We expect with improving occupancy, we will begin to see net effective pricing improvements in the market as rents and occupancy are increasing, which will most likely lead to a further pullback and concessions if these occupancy gains home.
New supply forecast for 2025 in San Francisco is very similar to 2024 quantities, with almost no supply in downtown San Francisco, and most of it concentrated in the South Bay, where absorption has been strong.
We also are feeling really good about Seattle in 2025. Despite heightened pockets of supply, particularly in the urban core and Redmond submarkets. We finished 24 in a strong position and look to have increasing pricing power resulting from continued demand as employers like Amazon bring their teams back to the office and supply begins to abate in the second half of this year.
Quality of life issues in the city continue to improve, and the city has a bounce in its step after a pretty good stretch in the doldrums. Competitive deliveries with our portfolio peaked in the 4th quarter of 2024, and our pricing power held up during a period of time when it normally declines. We expect Seattle to be one of our strongest revenue growth markets in 2025.
Moving to the East Coast starting in Boston, with high occupancy and limited new competitive supply, this market should perform well in 2025. The market is supported by a strong employment base in finance, tech, life sciences, health, and education. Overall, new deliveries will be about the same in 2025 as last year, but the majority of the deliveries will be in the suburbs, which bodes well for us, given 70% of our assets are located in the urban core of Boston.
Our urban assets outperform suburban ones in 24, and we expect that spread will be even greater in 2025.
New York was a top performer in 24, and we expect that to continue in 2025. The employment base is strong, market occupancy is high, and there's almost no new competitive supply being delivered in Manhattan, where we have the majority of our portfolio.
Washington DC was our top performer last year.
And our expectations remain high for 2025. The absorption here has been very impressive considering that the market has been delivering more than 10,000 units a year and will do so again in 2025. We're almost 97% occupied in the market, which is a good start to the year, and the wild card here is what impact the new administration and its focus on both cost cutting and a return to office policy for federal employees will have on the local job market.
In the expansion markets, our long-term outlook remains positive as we expect to continue to see higher than average job growth in those metro areas. But our near-term operating environment is challenging. We have seen stability in new lease rates and occupancy in Atlanta and Dallas the last two months, and while volatility is possible, we currently expect that new lease rates will improve as they usually do in the busy spring leasing season in these in these markets.
In Denver, conditions today are challenging as we have some new deals in close proximity to our assets that could push the improvement to later in the year. Even with these hope for improvements in operating conditions, we expect same store revenue in our expansion markets to be lower in 2025 than it was in 2024.
Looking at the overall company level as we sit here today, we really like our position. We're looking forward to capturing the opportunities the spring leasing season brings, which will help frame pricing power for the full year. I want to give a shout out for our amazing teams across our platform for their continued dedication to our residents and focus on delivering these results. With that, I've turned the call over to Bob to walk through the rest of our guidance expectations for 2025.

Robert Garechana

Thanks, Michael. With Michael having just walked through 2025 same-store revenue expectations, let me finish with same-store expenses, normalized FFO and provide some color on anticipated capital markets activity for 2025. Turning to expenses. Expense management remains a core strength of EQR as demonstrated over the years and during 2024. Our 2025 guidance of 3.5% to 4.5% implies somewhat higher growth in 2025 than 2024, as outlined on Page 6 of the management presentation, but still reflects that strength. As you can see, the incremental growth in expenses are stemming from a couple of items. First, connectivity expenses are adding approximately $5 million to expense growth as we deploy bulk WiFi in the portfolio.
As Michael mentioned, they are also adding revenue, so we will be accretive to NOI for the full year. Second, we have another Europe 421-a tax abatement step-ups in the New York portfolio. We're down to only a handful of properties and step-up with most nearing the end of the period. As we have mentioned in the past, once fully taxed, there is an incremental income opportunity as affordable units convert to market rate in the future. Beyond those 2 items, same-store expense growth will look relatively similar to 2024, but with a little incremental growth from utilities and payroll given the low growth in 2024, setting up a tough comparable period. Moving to NFFO. Page 8 provides some narrative around NFFO contributors outside of same store, along with a bridge to the midpoint of our guidance range. This bridge can also be found in the earnings release. Beyond residential same-store NOI, let me provide some color around a couple of the larger categories.
First, transaction NOI. The majority of this contribution is coming from 2024 transaction activity and our buys themselves last year. There is some impact from our assumptions in 2025. But as Mark mentioned, this will be contingent upon what market conditions look like, so that could change. Second, interest expense. The majority of the increase in interest expense is coming from increases in anticipated balances from investment activity, mostly acquisitions, with about $0.01 of the increase also coming from refinancing of our 2025 maturity and what we expect to be a higher rate. More about that in a second.
And finally, lease-up NOI. The $0.01 contribution from lease-up NOI is coming from our few consolidated lease-ups. The majority of our lease-ups are from unconsolidated ventures in our expansion markets that are encumbered with project-level debt and the net income from those projects runs through the income from investments in unconsolidated entities line. 4 of these unconsolidated JV development deals were completed late in 2024 and will be leasing up throughout the year. Given current leasing velocity and the cessation of capitalized interest on loans, we do not expect these joint venture assets to contribute to NFFO growth in 2025. We've added specific guidance on this income to the guidance page of the earnings release.
Finally, let me briefly mention our anticipated capital markets activity for 2025. We have won significant maturity, which is a $450 million, 3.375% note due in June of this year. We would expect to refinance this note at or near the maturity, most likely with unsecured debt. We have ample liquidity and capacity under our recently expanded commercial paper program to float this pay off and be opportunistic about when exactly we refinance the maturity. All other financing activities will be dependent upon transaction activity and conditions, as Mark mentioned. Our guidance assumes $500 million to $1 billion of debt issuance because we modeled being a net acquirer of $500 million in our guidance. Expected that issuance, however, will adjust as that adjusts.
With that, let me turn it over to the operator to begin Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions)
Eric Wolf with City.

Eric Wolfe

You mentioned that same-store revenue should accelerate throughout the year. Can you just talk about how much of that is driven by other income versus improved fundamentals? And then what type of acceleration you're expecting in the second half versus first half? Or -- or where you expect to start the year versus the year however you think we should think about it?

Robert Garechana

Yes. Eric, it's Bob, but I'll start with that kind of outlining the shape of what we expect revenue to be. the shape should be such that as you mentioned that the acceleration of the year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter growth will be higher in the back end of the year than the front end of the year. And there's 2 main drivers associated with that.
The first driver is really that we're starting the year with a lower embedded growth than historical, and a lot of the growth is coming from actual leasing activity in 2025. And so as you get to the second quarter and the third quarter, which are the prime leasing season, you start to see that contribution come through the quarter-over-quarter. And so there's a good portion of growth associated in the back-end quarters. There relative to the front quarters, which will be lower because of that lower embedded growth.
Additionally to that, you also have the other income, which has kind of got the same shape to it. So you have -- the other income is a lot of it, as Michael mentioned is connectivity, so you have that growth component also more weighted in the third and fourth quarter as you roll through the program of rolling out the WiFi piece.
So from a kind of quarter-over-quarter perspective in same-store revenue, you should see the first quarter being the lowest and a little bit lower, and then it builds as you see the leasing activity and as you see the other income contribute overall such that you get to a higher Q4 relative to Q1.

Eric Wolfe

Got it. That's helpful. And then you outlined some markets that you expect to improve throughout the year, I think many SS and Sunbelt, at least from like a blended rent perspective, maybe not from a same-store revenue for Sunbelt, but can you just talk about how much better the sort of second half blended rate growth might be versus the first half? I'm just trying to understand the sort of the degree of improvement you're expecting in those markets?

Michael Manelis

Yes, Eric, this is Michael. So I mean I think you would follow a shape right now. We gave some guidance in the release for the first quarter as to how blends will play out, which is the 1.4% to 2.2%. And I'll tell you, in that equation, I mean, you've heard [Micak] before about the consistency in our renewal process. So renewals are pretty much flat going month by month throughout these quarters. So I think the build, as you see the year play out, you would clearly start to accelerate in the second half of the year, which the third quarter probably having the strongest but then you would expect moderation again in that fourth quarter. So the shape doesn't look materially different than other years. It's just -- it's going to be elevated as you work your way through the middle of the year.

Eric Wolfe

Got it. Thank You.

Operator

Steve Sokwa with Evercore ISI.

Steve Sakwa

I know you're trying to get away from a ton of sort of KPIs on the leasing side kind of month-to-month and quarter-to-quarter. But could you just maybe provide some color on where our renewal rates are going out? I guess we were pleasantly surprised that, 5% renewal increase in the fourth quarter, but new leases did come in, I think, a touch weaker than we had expected. So maybe where are you sending out renewals today across the portfolio in the first quarter?

Michael Manelis

Steve, this is Michael. So first, I just want to remind you, we do have a centralized renewal team handling our entire renewal process, including all the negotiations which has really allowed us to execute like various strategies across the markets as we see conditions changing. Right now, we're in the process of tightening up negotiations as we start dealing with renewal months that are heading into that leasing season like Mark. We have conditions that are improving in Seattle, San Francisco, L.A. We love the current occupancy position that the portfolios in. So for the next several months right now, the quotes that are out there in the marketplace are about to 7% and I'd say that we would expect to achieve increases somewhere right around that 5% kind of range. We've got good insights. We got a lot of confidence in the stability of this renewal performance in the portfolio right now.

Steve Sakwa

Great. And then maybe on capital deployment. I know you've got net acquisition volume of $500 million, but you do have a moderately active development pipeline. I'm just curious, how does development sort of play into your thought process today where are yields on new projects? And how do those development yields kind of stack up to the acquisition yields you're looking at?

Alexander Brackenridge

Steve, it's Alec. It's a pretty uncertain market right now, just to be able to even start and peg an acquisition cap rate. But for the moment, assume it's a round of [5], I can't tell you there are a lot of transactions right now because the market is pretty frozen. So you'd like to think you could build to around a [6]. And I think that's the number most people are shooting for. And with rents where they are and costs not going down too much. There's been some lower costs. But overall, it's pretty hard to get to that [6] for a location you really like, unless it's really simple product. So we're seeing is more stuff being built further out further more suburban, even ex urban and not really the stuff we're crazy about. So we've been really patient. We have -- just 3 starts this year and nothing geared up yet for this -- sorry, sorry, 3 starts from last year and nothing geared up for this year. But we keep looking at if we can find the right location, which would be a place where we don't think we'll be able to buy -- and the 3 starts last year, as a reminder, we're in suburban Boston and suburban Seattle, that's what we would pursue. But right now, it's really tough to make the numbers work on something that's appealing to us.

Steve Sakwa

Great thanks.

Operator

John Pawlowski with Green Street.

John Pawlowski

I have a follow-up question on the -- your comments around supply likely being down 30% in 2026 relative to pre-pandemic -- pre-pandemic norms. I'm curious if you bifurcated that between urban and suburban. Is it fair to assume that Urban's down significantly more than that 30%. And then -- if so, how are you just thinking about your ideal market mix right now or submarket mix between urban and suburban given Urban might have a longer runway of no supply than the suburbs?

Mark Parrell

John, it's Mark Parrell. First off, go Eagles, right? Second, I'll say to you, we agree, I think, with your comment, I think that's perceptive. On the urban side, we see a lot less being built, the high-rise product you need to build to make those numbers work. Frankly, don't work at all of those numbers at this point. And we see a longer runway in some of the urban submarkets. And that's why we've talked a little bit about continuing to stay exposed in our legacy established markets to the urban core and in our new markets of having a presence in urban areas as well. There's deeper pools of demand in urban areas. It's typically been more, supply, but we think that dynamic is going to change. So we like being differentiated by continuing to think of the urban centers is worthy of investment. But every city varies and Alec can amplify that. There's places that are less appealing, like frankly, Dallas, Central City.
And there's places like Midtown Atlanta that do have a lot of supply, but are much more appealing to our demographic. So, we're going to continue to balance that out. But we are investing in urban areas, both in our current coastal markets as well as these new kind of expansion markets that we've been focused on.

Alexander Brackenridge

Yes. To Mark's point, so we do distinguish between, say, the CBD, which sometimes people think is only the only urban area. With some neighborhoods that are closer still very dense but offer a great quality of life without some of the legacy issues that we're seeing in CBDs throughout the country. .

John Pawlowski

Okay. But I guess in terms of the capital allocation read-through relative to 6 or 12 months ago, you guys being -- are you guys becoming more open-minded that your urban concentration should be higher than you expected it to be 6 to 12 months ago moving forward?

Mark Parrell

I'm not sure that's changed a great deal. I think it's just the balancing act. There are a few assets in urban centers on the West Coast that we probably will sell over time because, John, we're a little over concentrated in certain submarkets. But I mean, we talked about the benefits of urban concentration even when things were difficult during COVID. The opinion has changed. We like the exposure in the urban areas. We like it. Now I think you're going to see the benefit of it in our numbers in the next year or so -- so I think having that diversification not being all suburban or ex-urban or whatnot is a good thing for us. But there's going to be markets like Dallas, where as Alec said, we're kind of a little more distant urban and a lot more suburban. And then markets like New York where we're entirely urban. And I like having that toggle. I think markets have different best spots to invest in. And -- so yes, we feel good about our urban, but frankly, we feel good about it a year ago, too.

John Pawlowski

Okay. My last question, Michael, just on the D.C. market. I know it's really early in the news flow changes by the hour. Just curious what your local team is seeing on the ground in terms of foot traffic, pricing power on existing tenants or new tenants just given the uncertainty about potential layoffs for federal employees?

Michael Manelis

Yes. It's a great question, John. So I mean, right now, I got to tell you, the D.C. portfolio is occupied 97.1% today. We have a pricing curve that's on par to slightly better than what you would expect for the beginning of the year. In terms of like the feedback on on-site right now, we haven't really seen anything kind of flow through with renewals. I think everybody is still a little bit on edge.
And I think as I said in my prepared remarks, there's still a lot of uncertainty on the overall impact, I guess, I would say, to demand in terms of layoffs versus this concept of bringing people back into the office, like does that neutralize each other in the demand. So I think it's still a little bit too early, but I can tell you I know there are people that are on angst right now in the market, and we just kind of need to see how this plays out over the course of the next couple of months.
But the positioning of the market and the portfolio today is really strong.

Mark Parrell

And the diversification of employers is a lot better in D.C., John, it's Mark than it used to be. I mean there are other employers there. There's a lot, by the way, of defense industry-related stuff, which may not be subject to the same staffing restrictions. I know some of those people weren't sent the same e-mail that I guess was sent to the general federal workforce. So I think there are definitely ups and downs there. And probably a smaller federal workforce going forward. But in terms of the D.C. focused workforce, that number might end up being higher because of the defense concentration. And as Michael said, them just asking or demanding that people be in the office. Those people that are far away are not currently renters from us and maybe new renter soon for a portfolio that is very little slack in it already.

John Pawlowski

Okay. Thanks for your time. Thank you.

Operator

Michael Goldsmith with UBS.

Michael Goldsmith

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. My first question is on seasonality. It seems like in the second year in a row, maybe a weaker fourth quarter, but with expectations of a stronger first quarter. So can you talk a little bit about the factors that are influencing that? And then also within the comments that it seems like the momentum should be sustained through this year into the fourth quarter of '25. So what gives you confidence that the momentum can be sustained through this year, which was kind of like the trends in the last two years?

Michael Manelis

Yes. Michael, this is Michael. So I think from a seasonality standpoint, I would tell you, the fourth quarter kind of played out the way we expected it to play out. I mean, you normally see deceleration. Clearly, we have some very seasonal markets like Boston is a great example of that, where you do see that deceleration occur. And then you turn the corner into January and you start your run into the spring with pricing and momentum building.
So I think the shape of the curve for this year is not materially different, right? You're going to build up as you work your way through the spring and into kind of the fall and have stronger momentum and stronger kind of new lease change than what we experienced in '24 because I just think the macro indicators for us tell us that we are in for a period of stronger pricing power this year than what we had last year, but that doesn't mean that we won't see deceleration in the fourth quarter of 2025.
We would expect to see some deceleration at that time just based on normal seasonality trends in the way these markets act. But the strength in the portfolio right now gives us that confidence of having this pricing power build and some of the recovery in these West Coast markets clearly are going to put us in a position to start having stronger blended rates than what we've seen in the past.

Michael Goldsmith

Got it. Helpful. Second question, on the 421-a the expense component is pretty clear, but how should we be thinking about the potential benefit to these buildings in terms of revenue as restrictions burn off? And if I can squeeze one more in as well. How much Sunbelt is entering the same-store pool this year?

Michael Manelis

Yeah, Michael, it's Ale just on the 421A question, it's really hard to project that because they don't turn the market until they vacate. So if someone stays in the unit a longer time, you obviously can't get to that unit sooner. They could move out tomorrow and we get to it right away. So it's hard to peg, but the upside is high because a lot of these rents are like, say $1.01 dollar or $50 a foot, and they could go up to $6 to $7 a foot. So there's some pretty dramatic increases that are potentially possible.

Robert Garechana

Hey Michael, and on the same store component with the Sun Belt, the 2025 same store set is not materially different than the 2024 same store set. There's a couple assets coming in, to it from the Sun Belt. The majority of our transaction activity, won't hit the full year annualized same store set until 2026 because we recall that you might see it in the in in Q3 and Q4 of the quarterly set. Because we bought the assets like from the Blackstone portfolio and did most of our transaction activity in the back half of 2024 but until that you enter the full year same store set, it won't materially change until.

Mark Parrell

206. And just to add a little more color, Michael, good question. In 2026. A lot of those units are going to be suburban. It just happens by coincidence as we built these balanced portfolios that we bought, for example, more in Denver in urban areas initially those properties are in the same store. They did really well for us, and now they're getting hurt by the supply. So you see our numbers sort of suffer disproportionately, but the non-sam store pool, which is predominantly almost entirely suburban, In those big three markets for us of Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver, when that rolls in the same store in 2026, I think that's going to be very helpful, and I think it's going to prove out the benefit of having a balanced portfolio in kind of both parts of a market, not just all suburban, not just all urban. We will have gotten benefit through the whole cycle.

Michael Goldsmith

No, thank you very much.

Operator

Anthony Palo with JP Morgan.

Anthony Paolone

I would like to shift over first to acquisition market. Can you maybe give us a sense as to where private market is right now in terms of IRRs, where thinking is for NOI growth the next few years and just how you're seeing liquidity out there?

Alexander Brackenridge

It's Alec. There is a lot of interest in the multifamily sector. I was at NMHC and Las Vegas and everyone is eager to buy. But -- the market is really frozen right now. So people would like to buy it around [5%]. I think they probably project that to be a 7.5-ish IRR on their numbers. But the [4.5], 10-year, I'm not sure that they're ready to pull the trigger plus all the other uncertainty in the world. So right now, the markets get a bit of standstill. But with all this capital out there, plus a lot of these deals that aren't capitalized for the long run, and we're getting the sense that lenders are more likely to pull the plug on those and stop extending them, but there will be more supply available. And hopefully, in a quarter or 2, I'll be able to give you a more fulsome answer would have some examples because we expect that to happen, the market to pick up. But as it stands today, it's really theoretical because there's very, very little activity.

Anthony Paolone

Okay. And then just a question for Bob. You talked about the drag in JV FFO from the development stabilizing there. Can you give us some sense as to what the difference in FFO is likely to be when those projects stabilize versus what's in your 2025 guidance?

Robert Garechana

Yes. Let me talk about kind of how to think about that as opposed to necessarily giving a specific ['26] year-over-year. So there's 2 drivers, right? There's the "drag" from just the lease-up process. Number one, is just the NOI, right? So when you're leasing up -- and you typically incur the operating expenses before you get the revenue as you build occupancy that I think we're familiar with. So by the end of this year, from an NOI perspective, these assets will be accretive, right? Like they will have turned to be NOI positive. They will start -- they will continue to be the ramp up, you'll be over that component. They may not be FFO accretive because they have construction loans on them, and those construction loans are at 6.5% rate, they won't have gotten to the yield as we there yet, right? And so that's where you're seeing that cessation of the cap interest and the NOI kind of to cash flow streams line up.
When you think about getting to 2026, there's 2 things to keep in mind. Number one, you'll have the positive that they will have stabilized, and you'll have probably all 4 quarters being stabilized or close to stabilized from the NOI standpoint. Number two, we're also at the buy-sell component. So we'll likely be able to exercise with our JV partners a recap of the ventures. And put what I would say, better debt on or no debt on or the acquirer in that process, and therefore, they will be much more accretive than what they were this year.

James Feldman

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.

James Feldman

Great. I just want to start with the same-store revenue build. So the -- can you talk more about the nonresidential piece to the guidance? What's in there? And then, I guess, just bigger picture, what do you think -- I guess, for Bob, what do you think moves your guidance the most? I think you came out 2% below the midpoint of -- the Street, where is the most upside or downside or easiest upside or downside to your numbers on FFO?

Robert Garechana

Yes. So let me start on the nonresidential piece. So just to remind everyone, nonresidential is about 4% of the aggregate kind of portfolio from a revenue standpoint. So it's not a huge component of the business, and it mostly consists of half of it is, I'd call it, third-party parking and the other half of it is street-level retail. That acts as an amenity to the space. The 20 basis points drag, some of you may recall that in the first quarter of 2024, under the accounting rules, we recognize because the tenants became more collectible and we'd previously written off the straight-line leases, we actually reinstated the straight line on a number of those assets. And therefore, we got a [$4.5 million-ish] kind of pick up overall to revenue. That was a onetime item that happened in Q4 that's not going to happen -- or Q1 of 2024, that's not going to happen again. And so that's that drag overall as it relates to the nonresidential piece. Otherwise, the business is largely performing the way you would expect those 2 lines of business to perform.
As it relates to guidance, we give you a guidance range because there are a variable series of outcomes that could occur. Obviously, within the same-store portfolio, depending on how the leasing is because we're so dependent on the leasing season this year. And our outlook looks like the leasing season. Michael mentioned some of the items that could put you on the higher end of the guidance range from same-store. It's Seattle, San Francisco performed better. if you get a bigger pickup, that could move same-store. And same-store is the largest driver to NFFO in the aggregate by far. It is the core business that makes up the vast majority of that. All the other items I would tell you are largely noise. We could do a little better in refinancing. We could do a little bit better in overhead, but those are just marginal components. It really is the growth engine of the business really is the core portfolio.

James Feldman

Okay. And then I mean, the headlines have been fast and furious since the inauguration. So I guess just to get inside your boardroom and your C-suite, I mean what is your team talking about the most in terms of -- what's good -- what could be good for the business, what could be bad for the business over the next 4 years or maybe 2 years? And then if you could get more granular on by market, that would be interesting, too.

Mark Parrell

It's Mark. I'm going to start and maybe others or will contribute to that. I mean the new administration is in its very early innings. There's certainly been a lot going on, but we're only a few weeks into it. The Congress has only been convened for, little longer than that. So it's a little bit hard to tell. I want to make a comment, though, about how we think about it because there's a little bit of a bifurcation here. We've been through these periods of heightened uncertainty. We have no idea. I'm not sure anyone knows for sure what all these actions are going to do to economic growth, what they're going to do to housing demand, I mean all that remains to be seen. But we need to focus on our dashboard. So we say it internally, focus on your dashboards, not on the headlines. Michael and his team's dashboards across our 300 properties are busy watching micro demand trends, and they feel good.
Those dashboards buy and large are green. That's the optimism you hear your management team reflect, and we're going to run the business based on what we see there. On the capital allocation side, for me, Alec, the rest of us in the Board on the refinancing side for Bob, I mean, I think this kind of situation speak some caution. I certainly think there's a fair bit of uncertainty. Uncertainty can mean opportunity when you're one of the best capitalized guys in the space like we are. So I would say I'm not sure market-by-market is that helpful. But I would say as it relates to the federal government and whatever it ends up doing, we're prepared for that, we think, as much as we can be. We are not directly impacted by things like tariffs because we aren't predominantly housing people in the manufacturing area or the foreign trade area. We are part of the bigger economy for sure. But I'll also make a comment, which I kind of alluded to in my remarks, it's pretty good to be in a business with -- that's fundamental that has no foreign operations. That has got strong cash flow and a good dividend in a time of uncertainty. My guess is companies like ours will be better valued by the Street in the next sort of uncertain period of time than maybe more speculative firms have of late.
So again, we're looking at all those things and like you, we'll see what happens. As for local government, I mean the big win in California was great. And, we think we did a great job there, as I said in our remarks and making the case to the people. These other states are really important regulatory-wise, places like the state of Washington will be focus points. But policy wise, I think it's the federal show, and we'll see what kind of comes next.

Operator

Julian Bluin with Goldman Sachs.

Julien Blouin

Just wondering, in L.A., how you're thinking about the profitability of those rent freezes and eviction moratorium proposals passing. I don't know if there's sort of stuff you're hearing from your teams on the ground that can maybe sort of give us an indication?

Mark Parrell

Yes. Thanks for your question. I appreciate that. You got to start off whenever you talk about daily fires, by the huge level of empathy we have for our colleagues in that market for our residents, for the whole community. I mean they've been through a lot, and it's been a real tough process. We think we've been really supportive and responsible corporate community participant. We've been supporting charities in that market. that are working on relief efforts. We've been supporting our residents and our employees, including being really thoughtful about rent even before the governor put his anti-gouging order, which by the way covers goods and services, not just rent into place.
So we think we've been very thoughtful about those sort of things. We think these ideas, one of which is a sort of a pretty broad eviction moratorium that's being considered are just terrible ideas. This market continues to recover from the 3-year plus COVID eviction moratorium, which was broad-based and not well policed and really caused a lot of disruption. And even worse for L.A., which desperately need a ton of housing investment to rebuild and needs it to just house the people even before the fires didn't have enough housing for. This is really discouring. This is the consideration of these sort of anti-housing measures like eviction moratoriums again, further the reputation L.A. has a being anti-business and anti housing, and it pushes capital away.
So that's the argument we're making with our local associations. Like I said, I think there's more effective ways to do this. There's a lot of relief money the federal government and state have, I understand if there's folks that need help specifically on rent, I'm sure that mechanics can be created to be helpful there, but some sort of broad-based sort of rule in an area that large just makes very little sense to us. And same goes for any rent control besides what the governor put out there on the anti-gouging side. It's just, again, we and others have been pretty responsible. If you want to encourage housing production you have to send the right price signals. And I think more and more regulation is not the signal. We're so encouraged about Seattle and San Francisco. They're doing so much better being pro business and pro housing. And we just hope L.A. comes along. That market is still not there on the government side, and we're going to continue to advocate for it to turn.

Julien Blouin

That's really helpful. And I guess as a second one, sorry if I missed it, but did you provide January new lease rate growth in [plans] -- or is there sort of -- can you give us a sense of where they landed relative to the 1.4% to 2.2% range for the first quarter plans?

Michael Manelis

Joy, it's Michael. So I think I've explained this in the past that these metrics are best used like over a longer period of time versus the stand-alone months, especially given the small quantity. So you didn't miss it. because I haven't said it. What I will tell you is that we are seeing sequential improvement, which is what you would expect in the month of January. And based on this full year expectation, 2% to 3% blended rate growth. We anticipate the first quarter is going to come in between the 1.4% and 2.2% that we included in the press release. As I mentioned last quarter, these states have a lot of variability in them. And the quantity of transactions in either new lease or renewals can impact the reported blended rates in any given quarter or even a month.
So we always have these various puts and takes in our revenue model and the new lease change is only one of these variables in the equation that happens to be very dependent upon who moves out. which is why you've seen a shift towards providing ranges of blended rate results by quarter. And I guess I would just stop by the fourth quarter came in exactly where we thought it would be. And I think right now, when we're looking at the dashboards and seeing what we think, we have a lot of confidence in that first quarter range that we put out there.

Julien Blouin

Okay great thank you.

Operator

John Kim with BMO Capital Markets.

John Kim

That's L.A.. I know you want to be conservative and there's -- maybe it's too early to come out with any guidance impact. But you did mention that you expect occupancy or demand to increase for your larger units. And I was wondering how much of that you've already seen in January, if you could provide possibly an occupancy number for L.A. and Orange County in January?

Michael Manelis

John, this is Michael. So I guess I want to say [too]. In the fourth quarter, right, we actually felt better. Like you heard me say that even on the last call, that we started to see this improvement. We started to see the improvement in demand that allowed us to backfill. So the occupancy for the fourth quarter, I think ticked up to like [$95.8 million]. We originally modeled this market to have additional improvement both with some rate recovery and additional occupancy gains. And in the month of January right now, I would say we're seeing some of that incremental improvement Specific to the fires and specific to my comment I had in the prepared remarks, 45% of our portfolio is 2 and 3 bedrooms. We initially saw kind of that spike in demand for that type of unit really hyper focused in 3 submarkets: Ventura County, Glendale, Pasadena and West L.A. and both Venture and Glendale are very small. We only have a few assets in those submarkets.
So, we did see some of this incremental demand, but it's not like you see this kind of widespread kind of increase coming across the entire broader market. So I think I just want to stand back and just say, our base case still kind of holds. We do believe this market is ripe for improvement. We saw some of that happening in the fourth quarter. I think there will be some incremental play with the occupancy in the market. But I'm not sure at this point, we have enough confidence to say that it's like a significant shift to the underlying base case that we put out there.

John Kim

Yes, I'm just curious on the timing. I would have thought that the spike, if there were any, would have already occurred and people are displaced. But is it because people will have the place and went to taper housing or?

Michael Manelis

Yes. I mean I think part of this is a geography, like where do they get displaced? Are these families that have children that were in schools that need to stay close. So I think a lot of this is the geography, which is if you think about the 3 submarkets I laid out, we're not surprised that we saw that initial demand. And there's no doubt. In those 3 submarkets, we clearly saw an increase in demand for 2 and 3 bedrooms over the course of 2 to 3 weeks following these fires. So I just -- right now, we're still trying to see how does all of this stuff settle out? And where do people really kind of want to live longer term. And that's kind of what we're focused on this broader demand in the market.

John Kim

Okay. My second question is on your blended lease growth guidance of 2.5%. If you could break that out between new and renewal, it would seem to imply if you have renewals of 5% that new would be flattish. And I'm wondering, just given the market runs about why new lease growth couldn't be higher?

Michael Manelis

I think it's really just -- I mean, so you're not off with kind of that underlying assumption that's one way to get to that blended rate growth of 2.5%. And I think what you see is it's very common. Again, we have these data points going all the way back to 2006, we understand how these market seasonality components play into both new lease renewals and pricing trend.
It is not uncommon for us to see negative new lease in the fourth quarter, negative new lease in the first quarter even that then put some of that downward pressure into that blended. So you're right that at the end of the year, you may walk away and have a new lease rate kind of growth that effective at 0. But I think some of these markets are also positioned right now where you could see an additional pullback in concessions.
So maybe some of that net effective ticks up a little bit. But we're not saying that we're not going to see normal seasonal trends play out.

Mark Parrell

There was a prior question about where the opportunity lies in our numbers, and I think you've done a good job of saying where it is. I mean it's new lease growth. It won't totally defy seasonality. But if we're reporting better numbers on new lease through the year, even if the fourth quarter is negative, but the second and third are more positive than we think, that's going to be the way early enough in the year where the numbers will move around to the good.

John Kim

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Haendel Juste, Mizuho.

Haendel St. Juste

I was hoping to get a bit more color on some of those blended rent expectations by region. And maybe, I guess, most of us assume that East Coast blend should be better than West Coast and Sunbelt will lag, but I was hoping you get a bit more color on perhaps the range or or a sense of the expectation for blends by region?

Michael Manelis

Yes. Haendel, it's Michael. So I mean I think what you should think about is the West Coast recovery is going to drive improving blends in the West Coast markets, all of the West Coast markets, even including the Southern California portfolio. I think we're going to continue to see strength in the East Coast markets, so maybe similar kind of blend than what you saw this year.
And then in the expansion markets, you kind of see a little bit of this stability right now for us in Atlanta and Dallas. And my hope is that as we kind of work our way towards the spring season, you start to see either rates improving or concessions falling back that then show you not only stability and blends, but a little bit of this path to recovery of blends that sets you upgrade for 2026.

Haendel St. Juste

Okay. That's helpful. And on the subject of concessions, can you talk a little bit about where concessions are today in your San Fran and Seattle portfolios and where we -- or maybe where you'd expect them to trend over the next couple of quarters and how much of a tailwind that could be into the back half of the year?

Michael Manelis

Yes. So I mean I think on the concession use overall, right? The fourth quarter came in exactly kind of where we thought it would be. We lean into this occupancy during the slower periods of time. We saw significant reductions in San Francisco while holding a solid occupancy of 96%. And then Seattle saw a 100 basis point improvement in occupancy but we had similar concessions there to the fourth quarter of 2023. So I think as you think about concessions in the marketplace right now, specifically in those 2 markets, it's still kind of elevated. San Francisco is still a concessionary market especially that downtown.
But I think what we're looking at right now is total revenue because if you have the demand and have the occupancy, you could see base rents start picking up in those markets, which is what we've kind of been doing even though the concessions kind of stay neutral. Our expectations as we work through this year is that the concession use will start to kind of moderate. We did model for fewer concessions in '25 than we used in 2024. And I think we see some of the strength right now and the positioning of the portfolio that gives us confidence that, that could play out.

Haendel St. Juste

That's helpful. And if I could just ask about the same-store expense guide. You put out the range out there. I appreciate that, but any details perhaps on the buildup for items, including taxes, insurance, R&M. So maybe some color on the components?

Robert Garechana

Yes. Haendel, it's Bob. Page 6 gives you a little bit of the contribution to growth overall. But -- so ex kind of the 2 called out items, which are the connectivity expense and the real estate tax expense, I think the 2 biggest call-outs and I mentioned them in terms of like growth that is dissimilar or maybe greater than what you saw in 2024, would be utilities. Utilities is one of them that you're just seeing higher commodity prices, continued pressure in -- and we also, frankly, had a really good year in 2024. So utilities is probably growing in the more mid to mid-single digits than kind of lower single digits. So that will contribute to growth more in '25 than it did in 2024.
Same thing with repairs and maintenance. Repairs and maintenance, the headline number will look really big because the connectivity expense is mostly in that line item or is in that line item. But outside of that, you just have some wage pressure and some typical stuff. And then payroll we model to be more like a typical 3% range. And we've had phenomenal payroll experience over multiple years, but last year, '24 in particular, where it was flat. So -- those are probably the main category items. I know people are typically interested in insurance because insurance, although a small category has been growing really fast. We did model that. We expect it to be, call it, high single digits as opposed to low double digits. So some improvement in that market, we don't renew until March.

Mark Parrell

And I'm just going to add some color on insurance here for a minute because we have a unique perspective to share. Our risk management team just happened to be in London meeting with our (inaudible) and some of our insurance carriers just to the fires in L.A. and so we had the opportunity to ask them how the market fell to them and what might happen with commercial renewals. And their response was they didn't expect much of an impact and that they add capacity and they had had good financial results lately. And so we are feeling optimistic about where we may end up, including thinking you could get close to flat on this renewal or somewhere in that range. And I say all that because the fires appear not to have reached reinsurers at their level.
And their experiences lately post some of the earth -- the big increases after the hurricanes is that they've built up reserves and there is more capacity in the insurance market. So Again, we're feeling optimistic about that renewal, as Bob said, that occurs for property for us in March, but some early indications from our reinsurers and some of our primary insurers are is they're in a pretty good position that the fires in Los Angeles were terrible, but probably won't affect that part of the insurance market and us very much.

Haendel St. Juste

Appreciate the call guys.

Operator

Brad Heffer with RBC.

Brad Heffern

One thing that hasn't come up in the political discussion so far as immigration obviously, just as many unknowns there as in the other things. But how much of an impact do you think that could potentially have on the business? And how would you view it differently between the expansion markets and the legacy portfolio?

Michael Manelis

So, Brad, this is Michael. Maybe I'll start and somebody else can weigh in. So I think from the operations standpoint, there's actually 2 areas to think about when we look at what's going on with immigration. First is on the resident side of the business, right, in terms of are you seeing kind of less demand from people coming in from foreign countries? Or are you seeing lease breaks or people leaving you due to kind of deportation or immigration risk. And honestly, right now, we haven't seen any of that. I mean the absolute count of transactions for us with foreign activity is really low in the fourth quarter, but both from the move in and the move-outs, they're trending in line with our historical norms.
The other part of the business that we're watching really closely relates to this contract service providers and whether or not they're going to be put in a position where they're not going to be able to provide services to us or try to increase rates. So right now, we have not heard anything of any issues impacting our vendors and their ability to continue to provide services to us. So from the operations standpoint, it still feels like it's just too early to tell what impact that this could have. And I think when we look at all of this, even inside of our vendor pool and inside of our resident base, these are just such small percentages of the total population that we deal with, whether that's the vendor population or within our renter base. In the renter side of the world, foreign move-ins are like 2% to 3% of our move-ins.
So it's just not a significant kind of quantity for us to be overly concerned about.

Brad Heffern

Okay. Got it. And then on the West Coast tech markets, can you just give your base case for market rent growth in those markets for '25? And then you've talked about the potential for outperformance? Any sort of scale as to what that outperformance could look like would be great as well.

Michael Manelis

Yes. Well, I think I said in my prepared remarks, Seattle is projected right now to be the strongest revenue growth, which is makes me very proud to say that because it's nothing we've been able to save for many years now, but that is projected to have revenue growth, call it, around for the year, which would be some of the best revenue would be the highest revenue growth that we have in the portfolio. San Francisco is a little bit less on that, so it's probably more like in the mid-3% range. But again, that's a pretty solid number coming off of a 1.5% growth. that we saw in 2024. So in terms of like the outperformance, it really comes down to the strength that Mark just mentioned a little bit earlier. When do we see this pricing power strength? How early in the leasing season how many leases can we capture at that to have it translate into revenue growth for 2025.
So there's 2 plays. The biggest drivers are occupancy and rate. And if you're going to get the rate, it's got to be early in the year were it to really make a big difference in the full year revenue guidance.

Brad Heffern

Okay appreciate it thanks.

Operator

Jeff Spector with Bank of America.

Jeffrey Spector

Great, thank you. Can you elaborate on your comment that you expect record retention to stay, record low turnover to stay in '25?

Michael Manelis

Yes. This is Michael, Jeff. So thanks for that. We have actually seen this now for 2 years in a row. And I think part of this is the housing equation or the move-outs to buy home or at record lows. We don't really see anything kind of in the immediate future to suggest that, that's going to be materially different for us in 2025 even if you saw like mortgage rates contract a lot, that would probably mean that values and houses go up. So we don't really see this being like a light switch impact that's going to change. We also see this improvement in office using job growth.
So therefore, on the demand side of the equation, we're not overly concerned about seeing lease breaks from people losing their jobs. So all of the macro drivers in this reported turnover number, the reasons for move-out, we just don't see anything telling us to expect any significant changes this year. And we're really focused we get so many data points -- it's like 200,000 data points from our customers every year. We're hyper focused on making sure we are delivering a seamless, exceptional customer experience to our residents. And I think that's showing up in these turnover numbers.

Jeffrey Spector

Great. And then one follow-up on the urban conversation. Are you looking into any of the office to resi conversions as an opportunity for your company?

Alexander Brackenridge

Jeff, it's Alec. We've got a lot of experience owning buildings that have been converted from office to residential. And also seen how other people have gone through that process, and it's a tough process. But we wouldn't say no for sure. We look at any opportunity. But -- generally speaking, they take longer, cost more and come out with a less attractive projects than people think they will. So we go and completely eyes wide open. I don't think it's going to be a huge part of our development pipeline. And I also think it's going to be hard in a lot of cases to have it be a meaningful contributor to supply. Even in New York, where they got a specific tax abatement program geared towards these conversions it's really hard to make the numbers work. And maybe there'll be a number of 2,000, 3,000 over time that gets developed and maybe that normalizes to that kind of to 2,000 units a year over time. If you like Manhattan, that's just not going to materially impact us. And most of the locations aren't competitive with us. They're either all the way downtown where we only have 1 asset or they're in parts of Midtown that just aren't competitive residential locations.

Jeffrey Spector

Great. Maybe if I could sneak in just one more. Can you provide a quick preview on what you plan to discuss at the Investor Day?

Mark Parrell

Jeff, it's Mark. Well, I don't want to run it. I think we'll run it. I think the focus is going to be on the strategy, both on the capital allocation and operations side. It also, frankly, gives us an opportunity to show off a broader array of folks that are on the team. We've got an exceptional team here at equity. So you'll have to wait and see, but we're really looking forward to talking to everyone in a few weeks.

Jeffrey Spector

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Rich Hightower with Barclays.

Rich Hightower

Good afternoon, guys. I want to go back -- I apologize. I want to go back to get a clarifying response. I think Steve asked the question about renewals and asking rents kind of for the springtime. I think you said asking [7%] should achieve [5%], but did that apply just to San Francisco, Seattle and L.A. Or was that for the whole portfolio?

Michael Manelis

Rich, it's Michael. No, that's the whole portfolio.

Rich Hightower

That's the whole portfolio. Okay. Great. And then, I guess, my real question, I didn't want to waste one on that. But I think as you think about the progression of improvement in the Sunbelt, specifically in your expansion markets over the course of the year, curious if you want to take a wager on when new lease growth inflect positive in those markets generally at what point in the year, if it does?

Mark Parrell

All right. Well, I think that depends. It's Mark, as well on the lease that's being replaced. I guess I'm not willing to hazard that on any specific and every market is different. I mean we feel better about some parts of our portfolio in the 3 markets we're really in the 2 big Sunbelt markets of Atlanta and Dallas and Denver. So I don't really have an estimate. And by the way, it could go positive in the third quarter and go negative again and likely wood in the fourth. So I think the second derivative, I know is really important to the Street, but it's just going to be uneven. It's going to get a little better and then it's going to get worse. And if you have interruptions in job growth, it will be really problematic. So I don't think this team is willing to put real money on that bet. But I think we'll all feel a little better about all the Sunbelt markets, particularly ours in the second and third quarter.
I think you're going to see good demand. You have a lot of supply, a lot of that supply happens to be front-end loaded, but that's okay because there's a lot of demand in the middle of the year. So I think there'll be some better sentiment. I just don't think it's going to translate into better cash flow growth for quite some time as we've talked on prior calls about how long it takes to redo the whole rent roll and take those numbers up, and that's why it's more of a '26. And even for some markets in like a '27 outcome in terms of having better same-store revenue growth.

Rich Hightower

Alright, very helpful thanks Mark.

Operator

Alexander Goldfarm with Piper Sandler.

Alexander Goldfarb

I think you guys are still an hour behind. So 2 questions. First, Mark, just big picture. Obviously, change in the administration, their policy on business regulation versus the prior you had that late FTC fee income just days before the inauguration, there's the continuing federal on real page. From a federal level, do you guys have any sense update on any shift in how DOJ or FTC is looking at these? Is it still continuing on? Or is there a sense that they may be more constructive and amenable on these? Any update?

Mark Parrell

Yes. Thanks, Alex. I'll start by saying we're not in that gray star case. That's the FTC fee case that came out, like you said, a couple of weeks ago just before the change in administration. So don't really know anything about that case besides what's in the paper. I certainly think the focus that the administration has said about supply and maybe making federal land available. I'm not sure if that's desirable that land is to where people want to live, but -- those supply solutions Alex are much -- from our point of view, much more effective than some of the other regulatory efforts. But they just haven't done much, and they obviously have a lot of things going on. And I'm not sure we're top of their list.
I will put one thing on your radar to consider there has been some conversation at the federal level about returning the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to more private ownership. From their current mostly federal control. I don't know how that would happen exactly. There's a lot of complexity to that. But I think there is some push. I think that's worth watching at the federal level. To be honest, I think most of the regulatory issues and the opportunities we have are at the local level. And at the state level. But the Feds and their control of the real estate finance world through the GSEs is a pretty material thing. And we got to all keep track of that and see how that unfolds.

Alexander Goldfarb

And then, Mark, that's a perfect segue to my second question. You guys were just at NMHC. And as the market -- the transaction market continues to fall, are you seeing any pricing differences setting out Sunbelt versus coastal meeting as people understand the regulatory changes and some of these recent local regulatory litigation efforts. Is there pricing differences that you're now seeing markets trading 50 bps wide or 70 bps wide or anything that's discernible that prices in some of these different risks that you guys have been articulating and others in the industry as well? Or is pricing pretty tight regardless and it's not really factoring in some of the issues that are out there.

Alexander Brackenridge

Alex, it's Alec. There's such broad interest in multifamily housing that different investors are different interested in different parts of the country for different reasons. And you certainly see even in a place like Austin, it's got all the supply, there's still people who are interested in paying what I think are very, very aggressive cap rates. That will be great. But you also see it in the coastal markets, a return to interest in places like San Francisco, which in the last couple of years, we just hadn't heard many people that wanted to buy there and now we hear a lot. So the whole market is benefiting from multifamily being a favorite asset class.

Mark Parrell

Yes. I'd say it's more like just what markets are open for business, Alex. And as Alec said a moment ago, we think San Francisco by that we're specifically talking about downtown and the more urbanized area of the Peninsula, we think is open business and there'll be transactions there. We think there'll be larger scale transactions in downtown Central Seattle.
I would call out Los Angeles is still a market that probably doesn't have that especially central downtown Los Angeles that developed a level of interest institutionally. But again, we're hopeful some of this regulatory stuff. So as the Mayor in San Francisco energetic guy is out there doing this thing and Seattle does some constructive stuff. We vetted those markets will continue to improve. And will support better cap rates and more investor interest over time.
They have probably more growth in them. So my guess is they should, at some point, have lower cap rates, and our model for that is New York. I mean just New York was kind of given up for dead, then it came all the way back. And I think we have record low cap rates in New York relative to anywhere else if we were willing to sell any of our good Manhattan assets there. So we got to see that play through the year, but that's our general sense.

Alexander Goldfarb

Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley.

Adam Kramer

I'll keep it quick here with just one. I just wanted to ask about the comments, I think, pretty early in the call around office using job growth. I think you're expecting to be higher in '25. I know you kind of mentioned the West Coast being a driver there. But just wondering if you could add any more detail. I think that may have come in a little bit of a surprise, maybe at least to me. So maybe just kind of what's what's driving that expectation from an office using job growth perspective? And I guess in the other markets like New York, Boston, D.C., what are the expectations there?

Mark Parrell

Yes. So it's Mark. I'm going to start and maybe my colleagues will jump in here. So we generally use Moody's Analytics, we look at it. And again, we also, again, look at our dashboards and see where our people feel. And there was some terrific tech hiring maybe over hiring during the pandemic. And then you saw that kind of turn negative because a lot of those employment clusters of higher wage jobs are related to the information services sector or professional and business services. But when we talk to the economists, we tell our people on the grid, it feels better to us. It feels like there will be good job growth.
And we just look at the job boards in those markets. So that's what we're basing that assumption on in San Francisco and Seattle and elsewhere on the job side. I will point out in the December government numbers you saw an improvement in professional and business services, you hadn't seen in a while. You saw information sector to a positive when it had been negative for a while. So you started to see in the numbers nationally some improvement in those office using jobs. In late in 2024, and we hope that kind of powers through 2025. And certainly San Francisco and Seattle, I think, would be beneficiaries of that from what we're thinking.

Operator

Alex Kemp with Zelman and Associates.

Alex Kim

I hope that the team had a productive trip up to NMHC last week and great to see and hear the optimism surrounding the multifamily industry. There was some commentary at the conference about recently built assets, especially as sold by now based on traditional merchant build time lines since that could be unlocked in 2025. I was wondering if there could be any upside to your target $1.5 billion in acquisition volume this year?

Alexander Brackenridge

Alex, it's Alec. Yes, we certainly want to be optimistic and hope so. And I think we're really, really well positioned to move quickly. As we showed last year, the year started out slowly, but we did $1.5 billion in the third quarter alone. So we have machine here that can ramp up very quickly. And we've showed that we will do what we say we're going to do and perform in a way that many others, frankly, can't because they don't have the same access to capital. that we do. So we're excited to see those opportunities, and I did allude to that earlier. I think it is true what you heard that these recently built assets were not financed for the long run, and we're excited to see them come to the market.

Alex Kim

Great. And I know the call is going on, and I appreciate you all stick around. The strategy so far has been rating into newer vintage properties in your expansion markets, are there any additional markets that you're looking into at the moment?

Mark Parrell

Our focus is really on the 3, Atlanta, Dallas and Denver. There are other markets we'd consider that we've mentioned on occasion and we've talked to our Board about that share those same kind of attributes. But right now, the primary focus of those 3 markets. Austin is on the list, we have 3 properties there. It's just the supply picture was really tough. And there may be a year or so of delay before we kind of reengage in that market. But no, there isn't another market for us to announce on this call.

Alex Kim

Got it. Thanks for your time.

Operator

Linda Ty with Jeffrey.

Linda Tsai

Just a quick one. In terms of your favorable view towards Seattle and D.C., the 4% revenue expectation, how does the embedded growth for these 2 markets compare to the 80 bps for your overall portfolio?

Robert Garechana

Linda, it's Bob. I'll start and maybe Michael can add. Directionally, the embedded in D.C. is actually really strong. So you had a really strong leasing performance, and you can see that from funded rate. So it's probably a little bit higher than the 80 basis points. Seattle is probably more like the average or slightly below the average because we had kind of that recovery experience in 2024. Rule of thumb I always think about is kind of taking your blends.
This math doesn't perfectly work but taking your blends from the prior year, dividing them by 2, and that's kind of roughly your embedded. So that can give you a directional sense. But I'd say, directionally, starting with a really solid embedded, that's the driver of growth in D.C. The Seattle story is more starting with an okay embedded, but it's really more of the leasing activity in the current year and the occupancy gain that's going to drive the revenue growth. .

Linda Tsai

Could you expand that to New York and San Fran too?

Robert Garechana

New York probably looks more similar to D.C., where you had the really strong leasing season and San Francisco probably looks more similar to Seattle. They probably align -- they happen to be on the same cost, but they also fundamentally probably more aligned with what I talked about relatively.

Operator

Tayo Okusanya with Deutsche Bank

Tayo Okusanya

Yes. Just a quick one for me. In regards to the 2025 transaction assumption on the transaction dilution of negative 25 basis points Wondering if you could talk a little bit to that, just around the comfort of doing dilutive deals, at least in the first year? And how we should kind of think about the deals ultimately breaking even and actually adding shareholder value over time?

Mark Parrell

I'm going to add a comment on Alec, may add. So one of the things to think about here is we're trying to give you numbers for the model. And NFFO is obviously before CapEx. A lot of these deals that we're selling are -- as Alec has commented many times considerably older and have a lot more CapEx, especially in the near term, that we don't believe in, we'll get the return we need.
So on an AFFO basis or on any sort of adjusted IRR basis, you're doing better by selling these assets. That's how we pick them. In terms of where those lines cross, it could be a year or 2, but I would say on a cash flow basis, you may be advantaged immediately by selling an asset that really needs a renovation or a lot of common area work that we frankly don't believe in.

Alexander Brackenridge

Yes. Just to give you an example, last year, the average property that we bought was 5 years old and what we sold was 35 years old.

Operator

Nick Yulico with Scotiabank.

Daniel Tricarico

It's Daniel Tricarico, apologies if I missed this. I know we've already talked about L.A., but curious if you could share the same-store revenue growth expectation for your L.A. portfolio this year would be useful for us to know what's in there given the moving pieces?

Michael Manelis

Daniel, it's Michael. Yes, I had that, I think in the prepared remarks that we expect L.A. right now in our base case to deliver right around a 3% revenue growth. And that's based on some momentum and trajectory we saw in the fourth quarter and continuing some marginal improvement to play out through 2025, but nothing kind of like an outsized recovery in that market. .

Daniel Tricarico

Great thanks that's all for me.

Operator

Rich Anderson with Wedbush.

Richard Anderson

About 4 hours ago, Mark, you said your targets for expansion -- your target for expansion markets is 20%. I remember the number, 25%. I just want to -- I don't know if you're just short handing it there or are you walking back your ultimate landing point for expansion markets?

Mark Parrell

Rich, thanks for sticking in there for the call. Yes. No, it's 20% to 25%. That's what we talk to our Board about by was just short handing it I think as you get to 20%, you may see us be maybe a bit less purposeful in hitting those numbers in a bit more open to doing buys in other places, like, for example, our coastal existing markets. So 20% isn't magic, 25% isn't either, but we'd expect to land in that range. So there is no change in approach, but we could end up either place.

Richard Anderson

Fair enough. And so to my next quick question and like in August, you did a $1 billion deal with Blackstone added 2 percentage points to your exposure. This year is $2.5 billion, meaning you do every acquisition is an expansion market and every dispositions in coastal, do you get 500 basis points upside? And do you think that by this time next year, we'll be saying, well, you're at around 15%. Is that the cadence you guys are thinking about for the expansion markets? We all just want to get this kind of behind us and -- but also not rush it, of course. I'm just curious if you can sort of provide some timing ideas around finishing the job.

Mark Parrell

Yes. I think you definitely restated exactly how management feels. We like to get this done as quickly as possible, provided there's good value to the shareholders, and it's not dilutive. So I'd tell you that your numbers are about right. About every $350 million to $400 million is a 1 percentage point you move it all out of one and into the other thing you got to think about is the denominator. So if we do grow the company and by debt issuance, which is what we put in there, I guess, we could issue equity, but that's not being contemplated now given the share price. Then you're in a position where you're going to accelerate that move a little bit. But I think your give or take 15% if you do everything the way you said, and that's what we hope. So to be done in a couple of years would be fabulous.

Richard Anderson

Awesome. Okay, thanks very much.

Operator

And that concludes today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back to our presenters for any additional or closing comments.

Mark Parrell

Yes. Thanks, everyone, for sticking around for the call, for this long call. I just want to put a quick plug in for our upcoming Investor Day that Jeff Spector alluded to a minute ago. We're going to host that on Tuesday, February 25. We look forward to spending some time at all of you discussing top-level strategy and a longer-term outlook for the business. It will be quite interesting and exciting. So we look forward to that. Thanks to everyone for joining us today.

Operator

And once again that does conclude today's conference. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.