Earnings Call Transcript - CUBE Q4 2025

Operator, Operator

Thank you for joining us. My name is Jordan, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the CubeSmart Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Now, I will hand the call over to Josh Schutzer, Senior Vice President of Finance. Please proceed.

Joshua Schutzer, Senior Vice President of Finance

Thank you, Jordan. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CubeSmart's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Participants on today's call include Chris Marr, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tim Martin, Chief Financial Officer. Our prepared remarks will be followed by a Q&A session. In addition to our earnings release, which was issued yesterday evening, supplemental operating and financial data is available under the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.cubesmart.com. The company's remarks will include certain forward-looking statements regarding earnings and strategies that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The risks and factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements are provided in documents the company furnishes to or files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Form 8-K we filed this morning, together with our earnings release filed with the Form 8-K and the Risk Factors section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K. In addition, the company's remarks include references to non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in the fourth quarter financial supplement posted on the company's website at www.cubesmart.com. I will now turn the call over to Chris.

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. We are encouraged heading into 2026 that fundamentals have stabilized, and we are positioned to return to growth. Operating metrics have seen improvement over the last couple of quarters. And now that's beginning to flow through to financial metrics. Our more stable urban markets in the Northeast and Midwest continue to outperform, while our more transient supply-impacted markets across the Sunbelt and the West Coast are beginning to see green shoots in the form of second derivative improvement. Across all our markets, our existing customer metrics remain strong with no change to attrition rates or credit. 2025 was a year of stabilization for demand trends. Overall demand patterns were more consistent throughout the year and the environment has been more constructive, leading to move-in rates in the back half of the year moving positive year-over-year. The trend in move-in rates has been very encouraging with year-over-year quarterly growth improving from minus 10% in the fourth quarter of 2024 improving to minus 8.3% in the first quarter of 2025, improving again to minus 4% in the second quarter of last year, continuing to improve and turning positive at plus 2.5% in the third quarter of 2025 and increasing that positive momentum at plus 2.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025. In the early part of 2026, we have seen similar trends with the occupancy gap continuing to narrow with positive move-in rates. Specifically, the occupancy gap at the end of January of this year improved from year-end when it was down 70 basis points to end January at 88.7%, 40 basis points below January of 2025 with rental and vacate trends consistent with our experience during '25. With a few days left here in February, overall trends continue to be encouraging, with the occupancy gap continuing to narrow and the quarter-to-date move-in rate trend continuing to be positive with year-over-year move-in rates growing generally in line with what we reported with fourth quarter results. The improvement in operating fundamentals is beginning to show up in the financial results. It will be steady, gradual improvement as we typically turn over approximately 5% of our cubes in any given month. We started to see that momentum play through in the fourth quarter and would expect that gradual improvement to continue through 2026. Demand does vary across markets and submarkets with continued outperformance from four urban markets in the Northeast and Midwest and more supply impacted through the Sunbelt and Southwest. However, we saw improvements in fundamentals across many markets. With over 75% of our top 25 markets seeing revenue growth accelerate from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2025. As trends in our markets have been quite positive over the last four or five months, I am optimistic that we are inflecting and see a path to return to more historical levels of revenue and net operating income growth. In 2026, only 19% of our same stores are projected to face an impact of new supply, the lowest percentage since we began articulating this metric back in 2017. The magnitude of the impact of this competitive supply continues to lessen as more of the delivery is in that three-year rolling impact from two or three years ago, and those stores are beginning to reach their first level of occupancy stabilization. Our highest quality portfolio and best-in-class operating platform, along with a seasoned management team with senior leadership having multiple decades of experience across cycles against the backdrop of declining impact of new supply and more constructive operating fundamentals has us well positioned to take on any challenges and maximize all opportunities through 2026. Now I'd like to turn it over to Tim Martin for insight on our thoughts on capital allocation and guidance for 2026.

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day and spending it with us. I'll provide a quick review of fourth quarter results, discuss our recent investment activity, and then jump in and provide some additional color on our '26 expectations and guidance. Same-store revenue growth accelerated from the third quarter to just shy of flat at negative 0.1% for the quarter, reflecting the continued stabilization of trends that Chris touched on and moving us to an improved starting point for 2026. Same-store expenses grew 2.9% during the fourth quarter, helped by some good news in real estate taxes and property insurance, offset by increases in marketing and R&M spend which are mostly timing-related as compared to spend in those areas last year. Same-store then resulted in declining 1.1% for the fourth quarter. We reported FFO per share as adjusted of $0.64 for the quarter. And during the quarter, we announced a 1.9% increase in our quarterly dividend, up to an annualized $2.12 per share. On yesterday's close, that represents a 5.3% dividend yield. On the external growth front, it's been a challenging couple of years to find accretive on-balance sheet opportunities to deploy capital especially on marketed transactions. We had success with structured transactions in late '24 and then early into '25 when we were able to accretively invest a combined $610 million on a pair of transactions. One was a recap and one was a JV buyout. Since then, we've seen very limited opportunities to invest on the balance sheet, given the disconnect in public and private market valuations, but we've been focused on other creative avenues for capital deployment. We recently announced a new joint venture with CBRE IM with a $250 million mandate to invest in high-growth markets. This allows us to expand our JV relationships and provides another avenue to continue to grow the portfolio with enhanced returns. We also closed on two on-balance sheet acquisitions for $49 million during the quarter. In the fourth quarter, we also executed on our existing share repurchase program as the relative value for our portfolio made it a very attractive investment option. When considering that we own the highest quality portfolio of self-storage assets and combining that with the disconnected valuation reflected in our share price during the fourth quarter, repurchasing shares was compelling for us on a risk-adjusted basis compared to private market values for lower quality assets. Our Board has recently expanded the share repurchase authorization giving us approximately $475 million in capacity to repurchase shares based on current valuation levels. We generated approximately $100 million in free cash flow annually, so we could execute under the share repurchase program on a leverage-neutral basis up to those levels. We're also looking at potentially selling some assets or contributing assets to a joint venture and using those proceeds to fund additional share repurchases should the public-private valuation gap persist further into 2026. Our balance sheet is in great shape with credit metrics very favorable to our existing investment-grade credit ratings. Leverage ended the year at 4.8x net debt to EBITDA. We do have a few things on the to-do list for 2026. We may look at opportunistically accessing the bond market in the first half of the year and use proceeds to repay amounts currently drawn on our revolver. And then in the back half of the year, we may look to go again and use the proceeds to repay our existing bonds that mature in September. Looking forward, details of our '26 earnings guidance and related assumptions were included in our release last night. Overall, our FFO per share expectation for '26 is a range of $2.52 to $2.60 per share. For same-store guidance, our 2026 same-store pool increased by 16 stores. The midpoint of our guidance range for same-store revenues assumes a generally similar macro environment to last year, a lasting impact from competing new supply in our markets, a continuation of steadily improving competitive pricing, and a narrowing of our year-over-year occupancy gap as the year progresses. On the impact of supply, embedded in our same-store expectations for '26 is the impact of new supply that will compete with approximately 19% of our same-store portfolio, as Chris touched on. For context, that 19% is down from 24% of stores impacted by supply last year and down from the peak of 50% of stores impacted back at the peak in 2019. We've been keenly focused on expense controls for several years. In fact, we've led the sector with the lowest expense growth over the last 3-year, 4-year, 5-year, and 6-year periods. So a bit of our growth overall in 2026 is in the context of us setting a really challenging comp for ourselves given our expense controls over the past several years. Areas that are pushing up our expectation for year-over-year growth include real estate taxes, especially late in the year as some of the good news in late 2025 creates a tough comp for us late in '26. Personnel costs coming off, again, a multiyear period of very, very low growth. And of course, the biggest impact is going to come from the winter-related costs from the storms over recent weeks, which were pretty impactful compared to really not much at all in early 2025 from weather events. Thanks again for joining us on the call this morning. At this time, Jordan, why don't we open up the call for some questions.

Operator, Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Michael Goldsmith from UBS.

Michael Goldsmith, Analyst

Maybe first, can we just start with supply? It seems like supply is coming down or at least new deliveries are. But I guess, at the same time, the demand environment has remained kind of stable, but not particularly strong. So how do you think about like how do you think about supply? Is it just kind of new deliveries? Is it the cumulative buildup over the last several years that's influencing it? And in the numbers that you quote, is that a reflection of expected deliveries this year? Or is that kind of like a multiyear number?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Michael. So the numbers that I quoted of the 19% of stores being impacted, what we have consistently disclosed over time is we look at supply and the impact of supply on our existing stores over a three-year rolling period. So for the 19% of our stores that are impacted by supply in 2026, those are stores that within their trade ring are going to compete against something that is delivered in 2024, 2025, or 2026. And as Chris touched on, the stores that were delivered in 2024 are going to be less impactful from a headwind perspective than stores in '26 because they will be in the third year, they will be starting to approach higher levels of occupancy and tend to start pricing more competitively within the market. So it's not only the 19%, it's kind of the nature of the 19% that's going to be a little bit less of a headwind, we believe, than certainly than when we were at the peak back in 2019. So it's a combination of those things, but all the numbers that we quote are on a three-year rolling basis.

Michael Goldsmith, Analyst

The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has filed a lawsuit regarding predatory practices in the New York market. Given your significant presence there, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Has it affected your operations? Although this lawsuit is directed at your company, how are you responding to it?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Michael, we're certainly aware of recent announcements, that specific one out of New York. There's been some similar attempts at legislation in other states around not only for storage but just in general pricing and transparency. We continue to monitor those and make sure we're in compliance. We are always focused on providing our customers with the optimum experience, and we'll continue to be flexible in terms of focusing in on that and doing that to the best of our ability.

Michael Goldsmith, Analyst

Good luck in 2026.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Viktor Fediv from Scotiabank.

Viktor Fediv, Analyst

I have a question regarding your operating expenses outlook for this year. And it's a bit higher versus, for example, your peers. Just trying to understand what are the key pieces impacting that difference. Probably New York, I see that in 2025 had probably a bit higher operating expenses growth. So can you provide some color on what's driving that?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. As we touched on in the introductory remarks, you have a couple of things going on. You have, again, having led the sector in expense controls and expense growth over the past several years, I do believe we have created a pretty high bar for ourselves from the standpoint of a baseline from which to compare. I think then the individual drivers of where we're getting a little bit of pressure, again, I mentioned, were on real estate taxes. In particular, in the later part of 2026, we're going to have some tough comps because we had some good news here in the fourth quarter of '25. And then the big one that I mentioned is the weather-related. We're going to have pretty significant year-over-year growth in weather-related expenses in the first quarter as we have a significant portion of our self-storage portfolio in the Northeast states. And frankly, the winter storms were impactful far beyond just the northeastern part of the country. So real estate taxes, weather-related costs are the big ones. And then even on a line like personnel, we've been able to manage personnel at flat to negative growth over a multiyear period of time. This year, we're looking at more inflationary or maybe just a little bit north of inflationary type growth in that line item. So those are the areas that are driving the thought process behind our same-store expense guidance.

Viktor Fediv, Analyst

Understood. And then as a follow-up, if you think about the new reform JV with CBRE, what is actually like your opportunity set? And what should we think about what is achievable for 2026 in terms of incremental investments there?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So we're super excited to expand our JV relationship. And now we have what we had disclosed with our new venture with CBRE Investment Management. We've been working together with them for several years on the operational side and have established a great working relationship through our third-party management platform. The venture that we announced is focused on investing across the spectrum of core, core plus value-add opportunities. And ideally, that will result in us being able to assemble a portfolio of geographically diversified assets in high-growth markets. So fairly broad mandate and the $250 million mandate is hopefully number one, and then we're successful there, and we can move on and create additional venture opportunities with CBRE and then, of course, continue to look at creating additional joint venture opportunities with others, including some long-standing relationships that we have.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brad Heffern from RBC.

Brad Heffern, Analyst

Can you talk about the assumption for move-in rates during the year? Are they just sort of steady during the year at the levels we see now? Do they decline as comps get more difficult? Maybe do they go up because of supply?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So we don't guide to the specific components. We guide to an overall revenue growth range expectation. I think what we have seen is what Chris touched on a little bit, which is we have seen a more constructive environment for pricing to new customers. And so we flipped to positive, and it's a good place to start the year. And then as I touched on, at least on the baseline of our expectations, would be in an environment where we're able to steadily close the occupancy gap throughout the year. That would be at the baseline of our expectation. The reality is busy season is going to come, and market conditions are going to be what they're going to be, and our systems are designed to maximize revenue. And so could you get a little bit more rate and a little bit less occupancy, a little bit more occupancy, a little bit less rate? Could you move towards the higher end of the range, the lower end of the range? All that we'll see. But overall, we just guide to the overall number, which you see in our release.

Brad Heffern, Analyst

Okay. Got it. And then sort of sticking with that, you said in the prepared comments, you see a path back to historical growth levels. If we see move-in rates stay flat around where they are now, call it, 3%, when should we see same-store revenue get to 3%? I know there's a huge number of moving pieces, but just wondering, generally, is it quarters? Is it a year? Is it 2 years, et cetera?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Yes. I think if you operate under the assumptions that you just described, then you see that gradual upward trajectory throughout the first year, which in this instance would be 2026, and then you would see yourself returning to more historical levels as you get into the second half of 2027 on a quarterly basis. And then ultimately, you would roll into that on an annual basis as you go out then another year.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Todd Thomas from KeyBanc.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Revenue growth in New York has improved since the third quarter and continues to perform well, similar to other key coastal markets. Do you expect this momentum to carry into 2026? What factors do you believe are contributing to the strong performance in New York City? Is it primarily due to the supply situation, or are you noticing an increase in demand? Do you have any insight on the reasons for the outperformance?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Todd, it's Chris. I would think about New York broadly as continuing to be the MSA that we would expect to be among our top-performing MSAs in 2026 as it was in '25. I think you have two things moving in our favor. One is North Jersey and to a lesser extent, Westchester County and Long Island are recovering from the headwind of supply. So when Tim talked about that and I talked about that 19%, a good market that is benefiting from that is that North Jersey, Westchester and Long Island markets as part of the MSA. And then in the city itself, we continue to see very positive trends that we've experienced over the last several years. You have good lengths of stay. Again, folks using the product as an alternative to their living spaces, not as a market that's as reliant on that buying and selling of existing homes. We obviously have extremely good brand awareness there, and we would expect that positive performance in the boroughs to continue.

Todd Thomas, Analyst

Okay. And then, Tim, you talked about buybacks and the buybacks completed in the quarter, potential dispositions, some potentially seeding assets into the joint venture. The stock price is higher by almost 15% relative to the price that you executed at in the fourth quarter. I guess, how actionable are buybacks today? And how do buybacks stack up against some of the other opportunities that you discussed?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I think we obviously have a share price, which is a little bit more favorable for us today than where we were repurchasing back in the fourth quarter. But who knows what tomorrow brings or next week brings or next month brings? I think the point I'm trying to make is that we're not sitting around waiting for the day where we get back to having a green light to grow and our share price is such that we can get back to buying $400 million, $500 million, or $600 million worth of assets and do so accretively. We haven't seen that environment now for a couple of years. And to the extent that we are in a continued prolonged period of time where private market valuations are very disconnected from public market valuations, then what's actionable for us to continue to execute on our long-term strategic objectives would be to perhaps improve the overall quality of our portfolio by trimming some things that would have us improve the overall quality of the portfolio and turn around and redeploy that capital to buy back shares because implicit in that is it's an awfully good opportunity when you think about the implied cap rate, even at the levels we're trading today, while not as compelling from a share repurchase as where they were, still pretty compelling relative to opportunities to buy things on balance sheet. So we'll see. It will be great for us if share repurchases were never attractive again and the share price continues to get back and we get back to where we believe we should be valued, which is at a premium to the value of our underlying assets. But to the extent we don't get back there and the disconnect remains, we're going to keep working to execute on our strategic objectives, and that might be a path for us to do it.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ravi Vaidya from Mizuho.

Ravi Vaidya, Analyst

I saw that in 4Q, your fee income line item as part of your same-store revenue was a bit elevated. Is this primarily from late fees or any other type of fees? And what is your assumption for this particular line item when considering your '26 guide?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you for the question. The other property income line in same stores comprises several elements. It includes merchandise sales, such as locks and boxes, as well as fees and truck rental income, among other items. We continually seek ways to enhance our cash flows and consider every opportunity, which has allowed us to successfully grow that line item in conjunction with increasing other revenue streams and managing expenses. What you're observing is the result of these efforts. Our expectations for 2026 are based on our goal to continue building upon the results from 2025 and possibly identifying additional opportunities as we move forward.

Ravi Vaidya, Analyst

Got it. That's helpful. And I wanted to kind of think about AI here. But from a demand perspective, some of the announcements that we've seen is some of the layoff activity, it seems to be coming in bulk and a little bit faster than what people might have initially anticipated. How do you think about these announcements and how it could reflect demand for self-storage and moving and displacement as part of your portfolio right now?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

I believe the strength of our business is evident when considering the pressures we've faced in recent years on some of our demand drivers, yet we have achieved solid results in the sector. This demonstrates that we meet a need for our customers, regardless of whether the circumstances are favorable or not. While I certainly don't want anyone to lose their job and I prefer a thriving economy with abundant job opportunities and career growth—factors that have contributed to our long-term success—the reality is that in cases of displacement, we provide solutions to help address the associated challenges.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Griffin from Evercore ISI.

Michael Griffin, Analyst

Maybe on the revenue side to start, I appreciate kind of the commentary as we've been through about 2 months of the year so far. But as you think about the interplay of rate versus occupancy, clearly, move-in rates are improving, but your occupancy is still kind of below your historical levels even pre-COVID. Give me a sense, does it make sense to maybe push on one of those levers over the other? I realize you're solving for revenue maximization at the end of the day. But in today's environment, does one feel more opportunistic or applicable to drive relative to the other?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

I believe that in the current environment, especially considering our recent experiences, we have had the opportunity to concentrate on maximizing the value of each customer rather than solely focusing on increasing the number of customers. This has been our priority. As an industry, it is essential for us to maintain the positive growth momentum in rates to achieve the historic levels of overall revenue growth we have seen in the past. That's where our mindset is right now. However, as Tim mentioned, these decisions are made regularly, and we are consistently assessing the balance between volume and rate.

Michael Griffin, Analyst

Thanks, Chris, that's certainly some helpful context. And Tim, I know you touched in the prepared remarks on some debt market activity. Curious what's contemplated in the guide as it relates to interest expense. And if you were to go out and refi those '26 maturities, what you think the interest rate on that would be?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, the guidance is provided with a range for a reason, as it's somewhat complex. The current market conditions are not the most relevant factor for our guidance since it depends on the timing of our actions, the duration we consider, and the overall market conditions at that time. Currently, our plan includes potentially acting in the first half of the year, using the proceeds to reduce our line of credit. This would enhance our flexibility for the latter part of the year, allowing us to take advantage of any favorable market conditions if we choose to issue again, which is our preference to just extend the maturity. By freeing up the capacity under the line of credit when our bonds mature in September, we would be in a position to utilize that line if we believe the market for new issuance isn't favorable at that time. The range we provided takes into account various scenarios regarding timing, frequency, term, and market conditions at that moment.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Juan Sanabria from BMO Capital Markets.

Juan Sanabria, Analyst

Chris or Tim, maybe just hoping you guys could expand a little bit on dispositions. You mentioned maybe pruning some noncore assets or markets presumably. So just curious on how you think about that if the eventuality were to come to pass, would you want to sell out of kind of the current underperformers, whether it's certain Sunbelt or Southwest markets? Just curious on how you're thinking about that, recognizing it's kind of a fluid discussion or thought exercise.

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, it is a dynamic conversation and process. It could take many forms. The truth is we are satisfied with our portfolio and do not have many assets that we are eager to sell. As I mentioned, if there continues to be a significant gap in valuations, our opportunity to implement our strategic plan and enhance shareholder value might involve trading assets and repurchasing stock. The reason I didn’t specifically mention selling assets or pursuing joint ventures is that the joint venture approach is appealing; it allows us to keep ownership in some assets we prefer not to sell while potentially gaining additional financial benefits through management fees and similar arrangements. So, it is a dynamic discussion, and we are not just waiting and hoping for a better situation.

Juan Sanabria, Analyst

Understood. I appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up on the ECRIs. Just kind of curious on the expectation built into '26 guidance and/or the kind of recent history. Has there been any change in cadence and/or the percent increases you're passing through and/or customers' acceptance of those?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, not much of a change in the contribution that we're expecting going forward is very consistent with the contribution that we've been receiving. So nothing really from a modeling standpoint or an expectation standpoint that it's going to have a meaningful impact from ECRIs one way or the other.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Spenser Glimcher from Green Street.

Spenser Allaway, Analyst

Yes. Sorry not to beat a dead horse here, but maybe just a follow-up on the share buyback discussion. So I appreciate the rationale you shared regarding your view of the disadvantaged cost of equity. But given you did buy 2 assets in the quarter and while I realize that the purchase price is only $50 million, what is it you're looking for in acquisition opportunities that would sway you to invest versus that simultaneous desire to shrink the asset base and buy back shares?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, that's a great question. The situation is still evolving, and we believe there is potential in the two assets we acquired. We had them under contract at a reasonable valuation, and they present growth opportunities that will benefit our platform. We remain optimistic about these prospects as the year and quarter unfold. However, as we noticed the increasing disconnect in valuations, we prioritized the share buyback. There have been numerous appealing assets available this year that would fit well with our platform, but the current valuations did not align with our strategy. The market can change rapidly. Reflecting on our year-end call from a year ago, we discussed selling shares at an average price of $51, which shows how quickly circumstances can shift. Next quarter or the one after, we could explore contributing to a joint venture or acquiring a significant portfolio while issuing shares. We must remain adaptable to various scenarios. Our investment team is actively seeking opportunities, and we also have options like co-investment strategies. We are still open for business and are rigorously evaluating a range of opportunities. If we identify something on our balance sheet that offers a compelling return and enhances shareholder value, we will pursue that.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brendan Lynch from Barclays.

Brendan Lynch, Analyst

The commentary around 19% of markets facing new supply in 2026 was really helpful. If the pace of new starts doesn't accelerate, what percent of your portfolio do you think would be facing new deliveries in 2027?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

One point of clarification is that it's not about markets; it's about 19% of our assets. Within a market, some assets compete with new supply while others do not. We disclosed the 19%, and now you're asking what it will be next year. We're not always certain, but if you consider the three-year rolling period for this year, it includes deliveries in 2024, 2025, and 2026. Next year, when we share this number, it will reflect deliveries in 2025, 2026, and 2027. You'll include 2027 deliveries and remove 2024 deliveries. I would expect that across our markets and portfolio, deliveries in 2027 will be somewhat lower than those in 2024. Therefore, my expectation is that the 19% will trend downward slightly.

Brendan Lynch, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful commentary. And then just on the CBRE joint venture, you mentioned that some value-added assets might be contributed as well. My sense is that value-added assets were something that you wanted to kind of hold on balance sheet for the upside that you get as you improve those assets relative to maybe some more stabilized assets being better candidates for joint ventures. Can you just walk us through the kind of the nuances of how you think about which assets are good candidates versus not with your JV partners?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I apologize for covering multiple topics. It seems we may have combined two different subjects. The venture with CBRE is focused solely on external opportunities that we won't be contributing to. The value-add opportunities that this venture is pursuing are those we can identify that may be in earlier stages on our third-party management platform. These opportunities would be external and range across value-add, core, and core plus categories. The idea of contributing assets is entirely separate and is less actionable in the near term compared to the venture we announced with CBRE.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Luebchow from Wells Fargo.

Eric Luebchow, Analyst

So maybe you could touch on the New York MSA a little more. It had some nice acceleration in the quarter. Could you kind of disaggregate where that strength is coming from between the boroughs, North Jersey, Long Island or anywhere else?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Sure. So really, the acceleration was across the board in each of those contexts. I think when you think about it by borough, Queens has been pretty consistent Q2, Q3, Q4 in terms of its revenue growth, in terms of its occupancy stability, a little bit of supply. One or two stores, I think, have opened there over the last year or two, but really not that impactful, seeing good growth in asking rent there. There has been a little pressure in Long Island City when I mentioned supply because we've had some competitors open some very large stores in the last two or three years, and they're very close by to the cubes. Brooklyn has been the leader through the year, putting up overall same-store revenue growth quarter in and quarter out north of 5% occupancies there, also pretty steady. So a good driver is good length of stay. So able to continue to focus on the existing customer and then seeing some good move-in rate growth there as well. And that's pretty much across the board with the neighborhoods in Brooklyn from East New York through Quantas. Bronx saw pretty nice acceleration there throughout the year. That's somewhat going to be just a year-over-year comp. Occupancies there have been pretty steady, growing a little bit in the back half of the year. And when looking at that again by area, saw some strength throughout the year in getting better quarter in Riverdale, also the same a little bit in that Bronx River area. South Bronx, Calo City have stayed pretty consistent. And then I think, as I said, in our store in Manhattan continues to perform consistently and well. Staten Island recovering a bit from supply, which is the same story for the rest of the MSA, which would be that Westchester, Long Island, North Jersey, where new supply has become much less of a headwind than it was certainly in '24 and the first couple of months of '25. So hopefully, that color is helpful.

Eric Luebchow, Analyst

Yes. Very comprehensive. I guess just one for Tim. I know you called out some tough comps and expenses this year. Maybe could you provide us a little more color on some of the expense growth you expect across some of the key line items like real estate taxes, personnel, anything else to call out that we should keep in mind for this year?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

No, I called out the big ones. Those are the ones that were notable that I've discussed a couple of times here.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Wolfe from Citigroup.

Eric Wolfe, Analyst

You mentioned that your solutions of a displacement can occur during periods of job losses. So I was just curious if when you see accelerated layoffs or job losses in a certain market, how long that increased demand tends to last? And along with that, D.C. has definitely been one of your strong markets the last year, but I did notice that it decelerated a bit this quarter. So I was curious if that was just noise in the numbers, tough comps or maybe the lower employment is catching up there a bit.

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Thank you for the great question. When discussing storage, we operate as a small neighborhood business. Regarding displacement, it's often quite widespread concerning where displaced employees come from. For instance, in Washington, D.C., there are individuals working in federal government positions in Bethesda at NIH and other agencies, residing as far away as Culpeper, Virginia, Frederick, Maryland, or even parts of West Virginia and Prince George's County. Our general managers consistently engage with customers to understand their circumstances, but the distribution is so varied that we don't typically notice significant impacts on any specific store. Overall, the performance in D.C. has been strong for many consecutive quarters, but we did experience a challenging comparison in Q4. We anticipate that D.C. will continue to lead the market in '26, remaining a strong area for us. Additionally, we observed variations in supply due to the extensive nature of that market. In contrast, if layoffs occur at a specific plant or business where workers are concentrated within a small geographic area, demand for self-storage opportunities there would likely be more closely related. However, I don't have any historical trends at the moment that would provide additional insights on this matter.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Samir Khanal from Bank of America.

Samir Khanal, Analyst

Chris, I wanted you to elaborate on your previous comments regarding the transaction market, particularly about pricing. I'm asking this because there was a significant portfolio that was sold in New York. I'm curious about how this relates to Carlyle's storage. How should we compare that portfolio to yours in New York? If it complements your portfolio, how should we view the difference between private market valuations and your current stock price?

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Yes. Thanks for the question. So the portfolio that you're referencing, we were a manager of some of those assets. So we're a very good partner. And therefore, we don't talk about transactions that we weren't involved in; you can certainly get more take on pricing, etc., from the buyer. New York is a great market. We continue to look for good opportunities there in that particular instance. There just wasn't a transaction that made sense for CubeSmart, but it made sense for another operator there, and I'm sure they'd be happy to give you insight as to how they thought about what that pricing was, whatever in their mind they think it was.

Operator, Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Mike Mueller from JPMorgan.

Michael Mueller, Analyst

Sorry to drag it out. Most stuff has been answered, but just a quick one. Are you likely to only sell assets if you see an opportunity with the stock being cheap or if there is something to buy? Or are there likely some assets you're just going to cycle out of no matter what?

Timothy Martin, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I believe the last part of that asset cycle is what I was trying to address earlier. Our list of assets we would consider selling is very short because we value our current portfolio. Our main challenge is the timing aspect. It’s not feasible to sell an asset quickly, and market valuations can change rapidly before any sale or contribution to a venture could take place. Our goal is to advance our strategic objectives, enhance the quality of our portfolio, and do so in a value-accretive manner, which might involve selling some assets or contributing them to boost capital and buy back shares. The challenge lies in executing this under timing constraints. Referring back to Spenser's earlier question, we indeed purchased properties and bought back shares in the same quarter, although not in the same week. Conditions can shift unexpectedly, so if prolonged disconnections occur, we believe executing on our plans would be beneficial.

Operator, Operator

And that concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Chris Marr for closing remarks.

Christopher Marr, President and CEO

Thank you, everyone, for your insightful questions. We've enjoyed the dialogue here this morning. We certainly are looking forward to the upcoming seasonal busy season for our industry. We've been off to a very solid start here in January and February notwithstanding the unappetizing weather that we've seen here on the East Coast, but spring is strong and sun is coming, and the busy season for storage will be here before you know it, and we look forward to continuing our dialogue after we report first quarter earnings. Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's meeting. You may now disconnect.