Canadian Apartment Properties (CAR.UN.TO)

Still likes the assets, management, and the huge shortage of high-quality apartments in markets like Toronto.
A great holding.

Has done fantastically, owning apartment buildings mainly in Ontario. Largest landlord in Toronto region, and benefiting from high rents. Biggest issue is that it’s very expensive, trading about 28x AFFO, compared to most REITs at 16-18x. Large cap spend on older units, but they’re developing so there’s growth. Question as to what new Ontario government will do with rent control.

They did very well in Q1. Funds from operations up 10% y-o-y. NOI up 7%. Good balance sheet. 72% payout ratio. 47% debt to fair value. Everything great except it is trading at 22.8 times 2019 earnings.

Income generator. A stable one. It is richly valued. They look for a combination if income and growth.

Take the money and run. It is an all stock deal. He is not bullish on the sector. His issue with the sector is valuation. There is very little growth here except by acquisition.

(A Top Pick Feb. 16/17, Up 16%) High-quality properties with low vacancies and benefits from a tight rental market. Well-run though they lost their chairman. Good yield play of 3.6% that will likely rise. Lower dividend than other REITs, but with higher-growth potential.

Never a fun of REITs. He mistrusts them. He worries about the return of capital issue on REITs. He is not very keen on buying Toronto Real Estate now also. He rather had a covered call on banks for income.

Brookfield (BPY.UN-T) vs Canadian Apartment (CAR.UN-T) He thinks Brookfield has good management and is well diversified buy has had liquidity issues. He expects Canadian Apartment to continue to outperform, because it is focused on the Greater Toronto Area where vacancy is tight and rents continue to go up. He regrets not getting into CAR.UN-T.

He still likes it. They had a change of ownership. They seem to be steady. He has a lot of clients at 70 that want to sell their house and move into an apartment. But there are insufficient apartments.

Doesn't follow this closely. It owns a lot of apartment buildings, particularly in areas like Metropolitan Toronto, where the housing market is relatively tight. Very steady cash flow streams. They get rate increases every year, so it's a relatively defensive type of investment. A good candidate if looking for yield and a defence of cash flow. Dividend yield of 3.5%.

He continues to like this. The demand/supply fundamentals are great. CHMC just released an apartment survey and their outlook for vacancies in major metropolitan city centres are absurdly low in Toronto, Montréal and Ottawa. This one tends to be focused in eastern Canada, and are definitely going to benefit from that low vacancy rate. Also, management spent a ton of money in the last 10 years reinvesting in their properties, allowing them to charge a little more for rent.

There is a huge shortage of rentable apartments, particularly in Toronto. Rents keep going up. With the extension of rent control to newly built buildings in Ontario, no one is going to build anymore apartments. That has been great for this company.

Owns apartments in Canada, with significant exposure to Eastern Canada and a modest exposure to continental Europe. He owns this and continues to like it. It is very well-capitalized and well-run. Spent over $1 billion in investing in their own properties, enabling them to affect above guideline increases in Ontario. They will be able to benefit from the Ontario changes in rent regulations. 3.7% dividend yield.