黑石抵押贷款信托 (BXMT) 2026年第三季度业绩电话会议：股息重置与贷款出售

核心要点

• 黑石房屋抵押信托（Blackstone Mortgage Trust，NYSE: BXMT）公布2026年第三季度GAAP每股净亏损为1.95美元。可分派收益为每股0.38美元，未计已实现利得和损失的可分派收益为每股0.42美元。
• 每股账面价值环比下降12%至17.06美元，主要反映了预期信用损失（CECL）储备金增加、拟售贷款估值调整以及自持地产减值的影响。
• 董事会将季度股息从第三季度的每股0.47美元调整为第四季度的每股0.30美元。管理层预计新股息标准将在2026年第四季度及2027全年得到覆盖，并可在各种信贷和利率环境下保持可持续性。
• 自上一季度以来，BXMT以相对于账面价值0.93的加权平均价格出售了近10亿美元的贷款。其密切关注名单（watchlist）环比下降近60%，降至2019年以来的最低水平。
• 公司在本季度收到的还款额达23亿美元，创2021年第四季度以来最高水平。其中近90%来自存量贷款，加速了脱离2023年之前投资的转型。
• BXMT在第三季度回购了3600万美元的股票，剩余回购额度为1.1亿美元。管理层将股票回购和多元化新投资视为留存资金的主要用途。

核心财务数据

业务与运营业绩

BXMT继续减少对2023年之前存量贷款的风险敞口。自上一季度以来，公司出售了近10亿美元的贷款，包括6笔总额近5亿美元的存量写字楼贷款和2笔总额约2亿美元的存量多家庭住宅贷款。其中大多数此前处于密切关注名单中。

截至本季度末，在170亿美元的投资组合中，约50%由评级为1至3级的2023年后贷款，以及在净出租、银行贷款和房屋建造商融资组合中的近期投资组成。这一比例高于2026年初的不足三分之一。

减值贷款和自持地产约占投资组合的14%。其账面价值平均比原贷款基准低近30%，管理层表示这意味着抵押品价值下降了约55%。另有5%的投资组合处于密切关注名单中，较第二季度下降56%。

评级为3级或更好的2023年前存量贷款总计约57亿美元，占投资组合的三分之一。今年迄今，BXMT已从该部分资产收回近40亿美元的还款。

写字楼、多家庭住宅及酒店物业

截至第三季度末，BXMT拥有20亿美元评级为3级或更好的存量写字楼贷款。其中，3.40亿美元在第四季度初提前还清，另有5亿美元处于再融资市场。剩余的12亿美元占总投资组合的7%，平均在收债务收益率为12%。

评级为3级或更好的存量多家庭住宅贷款总额为14亿美元，比年初余额下降了近50%。今年迄今还款额达11亿美元，其中包括第三季度5笔贷款共计5亿美元的还款。扣除债务收益率低于6%的2笔总计2亿美元贷款后，其余贷款的加权平均在收债务收益率为6.6%。

评级为3级或更好的2023年前酒店贷款总额为13亿美元，平均在收债务收益率高于9%。

新投资策略

BXMT在第三季度完成了约5亿美元的新投资。其中包括约3亿美元的多家庭住宅和工业贷款发放，以及按BXMT持股比例计算的约1.5亿美元净出租和房屋建造商融资策略投资。

净出租、房屋建造商融资及银行贷款组合投资目前占整体投资组合的近10%，而2025年初该比例为零。平均投资规模从几年前的1.3亿多美元降至1800万美元，反映出投资组合分散度的提升。

管理层业绩指引

管理层预计每股0.30美元的季度股息将在2026年第四季度及2027全年得到覆盖。该展望已计入减值贷款、投资组合收缩以及收益率较低的自持地产所带来的近期盈利压力。

预计第四季度的可分派收益将受到第三季度贷款减值（此前每季度贡献超850万美元利息收入）以及还款额超过新投资的影响。酒店资产积极的季节性表现预计将提供部分抵消。

根据截至10月的贷款出售和还款情况，管理层表示BXMT有望实现甚至超越其年终将写字楼及存量贷款减少40%的目标。

公司预计将利用现有流动资金偿还2027年第一季度到期的公司债务。偿还后，BXMT在2029年之前将没有公司债务到期，加权平均剩余公司债务期限近四年。

风险与关注事项

• 高利率继续对估值及部分2023年前的投资构成压力。截至业绩会举行时，美国10年期国债收益率自2026年初以来已上升80个基点。
• 由于商业计划推进放缓且借款人不愿意追加注入资金，BXMT在第三季度对约8亿美元的贷款进行了减值计提，主要为存量写字楼贷款和1笔酒店贷款。
• 每股账面价值吸收了每股1.59美元的CECL储备金增加、每股0.38美元的转入拟售贷款调整，以及每股0.22美元的自持地产减值。
• 投资组合自然到期减少、不计息贷款以及收益不足的房地产资产预计将拖累近期的可分派收益。
• 管理层承认高利率对房屋销售形成阻力，但表示其房屋建造商融资贷款的平均贷款价值比（LTV）低于65%，且普遍获得交叉抵押和公司追索权的支持。

分析师问答环节亮点

管理层将2025年底以来部分存量资产的恶化归因于利率上升以及物业商业计划执行慢于预期。管理层表示，引发BXMT绝大部分历史准备金的写字楼相关挑战现已基本反映在账面价值中，同时也承认在此类规模的投资组合中风险依然存在。

在资本分配方面，管理层表示降低股息为股票回购和新投资保留了灵活性。BXMT在第三季度回购了3600万美元的股票，管理层将股票回购描述为其资金部署选项的重要组成部分。

关于杠杆率，管理层表示负债权益比在季度末贷款出售和还款后略有下降。BXMT可能会允许投资组合在未来一到两个季度内出现适度进一步缩减，但认为其当前的流动性和融资结构具有支撑力。

管理层表示，公司将把出售减值贷款的收益率与接管抵押品作为自持地产的潜在收益率进行对比。出售贷款提供了更早的退出途径，但管理层认为在某些情况下，寻求自持地产解决方案可能会产生最高的回报。

对于多家庭住宅，管理层指出今年迄今存量贷款还款额已超10亿美元，并表示公司三分之二的多家庭住宅投资组合是在2023年之后发行的。在房屋建造商融资方面，管理层强调了经验丰富的区域借款人、低于65%的平均贷款价值比以及组合层面的结构性保护措施。

业绩电话会议完整文字记录

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完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Blackstone Mortgage Trust Third Quarter 2026 Investor Call. Today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Tim Hayes, Vice President, Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.

Timothy Hayes

Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to Blackstone Mortgage Trust's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Tim Johnson, Chief Executive Officer; Austin Pena, President; and Marcin Urbaszek, Chief Financial Officer.

This morning, we filed our 10-Q and issued a press release with a presentation of our results, which are available on our website and have been filed with the SEC.

I'd like to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. For a discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the Risk Factors section of our most recent 10-K. We do not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements.

We will also refer to certain non-GAAP measures on this call. And for reconciliations, you should refer to the press release and 10-Q.

This audiocast is copyrighted material of Blackstone Mortgage Trust and may not be duplicated without our consent.

For the third quarter, we reported a GAAP net loss of $1.95 per share, while distributable earnings were $0.38 per share and distributable earnings prior to realized gains and losses were $0.42 per share. A few weeks ago, we paid a dividend of $0.47 per share with respect to the third quarter. Additionally, our Board of Directors declared a dividend of $0.30 per share with respect to the fourth quarter. The dividend is payable on January 15, 2027, to stockholders of record as of December 31, 2026.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Tim.

Timothy Johnson

Thanks, Tim. Interest rates continue to be the headline in our world. The 10-year treasury is up 80 basis points since the beginning of the year, briefly reaching a 25-year high earlier this month. The market is clearly focused on the potential impacts to our sector. But importantly, we believe the setup is quite different today versus the last time rates rose significantly.

Capital markets are functioning well, with CMBS issuance on track for a post-GFC record this year. Spreads are effectively unchanged from where we started the year and approximately 40% lower than their peak in 2023. As it relates to real estate values, elevated rates are a headwind, but strong fundamentals supported by continued demand and the collapse in new supply are a tailwind. This is evidenced by REIT same-store NOI growth reaching a 3-year high and reflected in performance with the REIT sector achieving a total return of approximately 12% year-to-date and 50% from the 2023 lows when the 10-year last touched 5%. These are all encouraging signs for continued liquidity in both real estate debt and equity markets.

Where we see rates having more of an impact is on certain investments made prior to 2023. Last quarter, we outlined a path to accelerate portfolio turnover and reduce our exposure to these legacy pre-2023 investments. Since then, we've made significant progress, proactively selling select loans more exposed to higher rates, harvesting repayments and reducing our watchlist. And while this has had a significant impact on our third quarter CECL reserves, we believe the impact of the recent rise in rates on our legacy loan portfolio is largely reflected in our third quarter book value.

To provide more detail on our progress this quarter, I'll start with loan sales. Since last quarter, we sold nearly $1 billion of loans at a weighted average price of $0.93 on the dollar, capitalizing on strong market liquidity even as interest rates moved higher. This included 6 legacy office loans totaling nearly $500 million and 2 legacy multifamily loans totaling approximately $200 million. Importantly, most of these loans were on our watchlist, driving a near 60% reduction in our watchlist quarter-over-quarter to its lowest level since 2019.

We're very pleased with this outcome, proactively reducing higher risk rated and office loans in our portfolio. Including $250 million of these sales that closed in the quarter, we received a total of $2.3 billion of repayments, our highest level since the fourth quarter 2021. Nearly 90% of these repayments consisted of legacy loans. This momentum has continued with the repayment of a $300 million legacy office loan that priced in the CMBS market earlier this week, real-time evidence of liquidity for high-quality assets in the current rate environment. Reflecting the loan sales and repayment activity so far through October, we are well on our way to meet or potentially exceed the 40% year-end reduction in both office and legacy loans that we referenced on our last earnings call.

Turning to book value. The largest driver of the decline was the impairment of approximately $800 million of loans in the quarter, mostly legacy office and one hotel loan. We identified these loans on our last earnings call as part of $1 billion on our watchlist where we observed slower business plan progress and increasing pressure from higher rates. All of these loans were pre-2023 originations, and in many cases, sponsors had injected meaningful equity. But as we anticipated could be the case, those borrowers are now unwilling to commit additional capital to further support their assets. As a result, we took significant reserves against these loans.

It's important to point out that we now have only one $57 million watchlist loan in the office sector that has not been previously impaired and reserved for. We believe that the secular change challenges in office that have caused the majority of BXMT's impairments are substantially reflected in our book value.

Turning to earnings. While we reported $0.42 of distributable earnings prior to realized gains and losses in the third quarter, we expect to see pressure on go-forward earnings as we reduce the size of our portfolio to account for the book value impact of these new impairments and as we work through resolving legacy investments. As has always been a priority for BXMT, we are committed to generating an attractive, sustainable dividend. and the capital allocation decisions we make today directly influence book value and long-term earnings power, both key components of total stockholder return.

With all of this in mind, our Board has declared a $0.30 per share dividend for the fourth quarter. Based on what we see today, we expect to be able to cover this dividend next quarter and in full year 2027, even considering the near-term earnings pressure from impaired loans and our lower-yielding owned real estate assets. Importantly, we believe this dividend can be sustained through a range of credit and rate environments.

A key component of this decision is the ability to preserve capital that can be allocated towards attractive new investments and accretive debt or share repurchases. And with a stable, well-structured balance sheet and a reset dividend, we believe BXMT has ample flexibility to dynamically allocate capital and deliver strong risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. To that end, we bought back $36 million of stock in the third quarter and have $110 million of remaining capacity under our current authorization.

We continue to view buybacks as an attractive allocation of capital, especially given the progress we've made in repositioning our portfolio. First, we carry our owned real estate and impaired loans at nearly 30% below our prior loan basis, reflecting an approximate 55% decline in asset value. Second, our watchlist now stands at its lowest level since before COVID. And third, the remainder of the portfolio is well performing. As Austin will walk through in more detail, this includes legacy office, which is shrinking rapidly through repayments. Despite all of this, the market is pricing in significant downside from here with BXMT shares trading at an additional $1 billion discount to our book value. We believe this offers an attractive entry point while delivering an 11% current yield to investors.

I'll now pass it to Austin to unpack our portfolio and investment strategy in greater detail.

Austin Pena

Thanks, Tim. I'll start by providing some additional detail on our portfolio before touching on Q3 investment activity. At the end of the quarter, we had a $17 billion portfolio. About 50% of our portfolio is post 2023 loan originations rated 1 through 3 and recent investments in net lease bank loan portfolios and homebuilder finance. This is up from less than 1/3 at the beginning of the year, demonstrating the significant progress we've made turning over our portfolio and diversifying into new more granular strategies. About 14% of our portfolio comprises our impaired loans and owned real estate, which, on average, reflect carrying values nearly 30% below our prior loan basis, implying collateral value declines of approximately 55%. We continue to work diligently to resolve and exit these investments.

Another 5% of our portfolio consists of our watchlist, which declined 56% from last quarter and is now at the lowest level since COVID. Importantly, over half of the balance consists of loans that were previously impaired and reserved for with meaningful new equity commitments from sponsors. Finally, about 1/3 of our portfolio or approximately $5.7 billion consists of legacy pre-2023 loans with a risk rating of 3 or better. These loans, mostly office, multifamily and hospitality are more seasoned and were originated in a different market environment.

However, we continue to see good liquidity for these assets with nearly $4 billion of repayments collected in this segment so far this year and with many more currently in the market to repay. While there will always be some risk across a portfolio of this size, based on what we see today, we have good reasons to be confident in their performance.

To dive a bit deeper, starting with office. We ended the quarter with $2 billion of legacy office loans with a risk rating of 3 or better. So far in Q4, $340 million of these loans have repaid, and we are tracking another $500 million currently in the market for refinancing, representing nearly half of this pool in aggregate. The remaining $1.2 billion, which represents just 7% of our total investment portfolio has an average in-place debt yield of 12% and is benefiting from the office recovery we are seeing broadly across markets. Across the U.S., net absorption was positive for the fifth straight quarter, reflecting the near 75% decline in new supply from peak.

In multifamily, we had $1.4 billion of legacy loans rated 3 or better. This is down almost 50% from the beginning of the year, driven by $1.1 billion of repayments, including $500 million across 5 loans this quarter. Importantly, only $200 million of our legacy multifamily or just 2 loans have in-place debt yields below 6%. One is a new build asset in Miami with a basis approximately 40% below replacement cost and the other was recently modified with significant new equity commitment from the borrower. The rest of these loans have a weighted average in-place debt yield of 6.6%. While higher rates are putting pressure on valuations in this sector, the positive fundamental outlook continues to be supported by resilient demand amid a steep decline in new supply with year-to-date national net absorption at its highest level since 2021.

In hospitality, we had $1.3 billion of pre-2023 loans rated 3 or better, which had an average in-place debt yield of over 9% Fundamentals in this sector are underpinned by strong economic growth and resilient consumer spending as well as limited new supply. And finally, the remaining $1.1 billion of our legacy loans includes our $450 million Spanish mixed-use loan, which we modified and extended last quarter, with the rest primarily consisting of cash flowing industrial, storage and retail.

So in summary, despite the fact that these legacy loans were originated in a lower rate environment, the strong underlying cash flow performance in these assets is driving continued liquidity in this segment of our portfolio.

Turning to Q3 investments. BXMT closed approximately $500 million of new investments this quarter, which primarily included $300 million of loan originations, all newer vintage multifamily or industrial and approximately $150 million of investments at share across our net lease and homebuilder finance strategies, which we believe continue to offer highly attractive relative value and advance our goal of increasing diversification and granularity in our portfolio.

Our net lease, homebuilder finance and bank loan portfolio investments now comprise nearly 10% of our portfolio, up from 0 at the beginning of last year. And our average investment size across our total portfolio is now $18 million, down meaningfully from over $130 million just a few years ago.

Looking ahead, while we are mindful of potential impacts from elevated rates, we believe we are well positioned. We have significantly repositioned our portfolio and our investment channels are more diversified than ever. And of course, the proprietary data and insights gathered across our global real estate platform will continue to guide BXMT through a dynamic market environment and support our top priority of delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders.

With that, I'll turn it over to Marcin.

Marcin Urbaszek

Thank you, Austin, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, BXMT reported a GAAP net loss of $1.95 per share and distributable earnings or DE of $0.38 per share. DE included $7 million of realized losses, primarily related to the resolution of an impaired Bay Area mixed-use asset after closing on a deed in lieu of foreclosure of the collateral property during the quarter. We now hold the asset on the balance sheet as owned real estate.

DE prior to realized gains and losses was $0.42 per share, which was down $0.06 from the prior quarter, mainly due to loan repayments and impact from the loans we put on nonaccrual last quarter. DE prior to realized gains and losses also benefited by about $0.04 per share from a tax benefit related to one of our owned real estate assets.

We continue to deploy capital in our unconsolidated joint ventures, mainly across our net lease and single-family homebuilder finance businesses. Altogether, we had $371 million of our equity invested in our JVs at quarter end up from $322 million as of Q2, and $217 million at the end of last year, representing a 70% increase year-to-date. Our earnings continue to benefit from these investments, which contributed over $12 million to our DE this quarter and over $29 million since the beginning of the year.

Our owned real estate portfolio ended the quarter with carrying value of $1.5 billion across 15 assets. The portfolio contributed about $19 million of NOI, inclusive of a $6 million tax benefit. Looking ahead to Q4, we expect DE to be impacted by a few factors, including new loan impairments recognized in Q3, which contributed over $8.5 million of interest income in the quarter, Q3 repayments exceeding the volume of Q3 investments, partially offset by anticipated positive seasonality of our hospitality assets, which account for about 1/3 of our owned real estate portfolio.

Book value ended Q3 at $17.06 per share, down by 12% from Q2, primarily due to $1.59 per share increase in CECL reserves, $0.38 per share valuation adjustment on loans transferred to held for sale, $0.22 per share impairment of owned real estate and $0.13 per share of depreciation and amortization. These impacts were partially offset by accretive share buybacks, which benefited book value by $0.08 per share in the third quarter.

Most of the net increase in the CECL reserve this quarter was related to the impairment of 6 watchlist loans Tim discussed earlier. The ending balance of our specific CECL reserve also reflects a transfer to held for sale of $62 million of reserves recorded in prior periods related to 2 previously impaired subordinated notes that were included in loan sales that closed in October.

The modest decline in our Q3 general reserve balance reflects a smaller loan portfolio and risk rating movements resulting in a lower balance of watchlist loans, driven in part by loans transferred to held for sale, which are not included in the CECL population but are carried at fair value. In total, our third quarter book value includes $3.64 per share of total CECL reserves, of which $0.97 per share is the general reserve and $2.67 per share are asset-specific reserves. For further discussion of our CECL reserves, please refer to our Form 10-Q.

The $64 million valuation adjustment on loans held for sale relates to the sale of 8 whole loans that were under contract to sell at the end of the quarter. The $615 million balance of these loans reflects anticipated net proceeds from the sale, which closed in October, in line with our carrying value.

During the quarter, we also impaired 3 of our owned real estate assets by a total of $36 million. The valuation adjustment reflects our estimated fair value of these properties, which we anticipate bringing to market in the coming quarters as we continue to focus on turning over our portfolio and recapturing capital supporting our under-earning investments.

Turning to BXMT's capitalization. We ended the quarter with $1.3 billion of liquidity. Our Q3 debt-to-equity ratio was unchanged at 3.9x as the impact of higher CECL reserves was largely offset by the repayments realized during the quarter. Our upcoming corporate debt maturities in the first quarter of 2027 have been largely prefunded, and we anticipate repaying them with liquidity on hand. Upon repayment of the 2027 notes, we will have nearly 4 years of weighted average remaining term on our corporate debt and no maturities until 2029.

Our business remains well capitalized with strong liquidity and a funding mix diversified across multiple sources, which have remained stable through the recent market volatility. Our balance sheet continues to be very well positioned with non-mark-to-market borrowings now representing about 89% of our total debt.

Thank you again for joining us today, and I will now ask the operator to open the call to questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Tom Catherwood with BTIG.

分析师问答

William Catherwood

Maybe, Tim, starting with you, a simple question, but effectively, what's next? Did you get to everything you wanted to in 3Q? Or is there more to go with sales and resolutions and modifications? And then where do you go from here?

Timothy Johnson

Thanks, Tom. So I'd say, first of all, we're in a higher rate environment. So we, of course, need to be mindful of that. But as mentioned in the prepared remarks, we do feel good about where our portfolio stands today. We reduced our watchlist by nearly 60% this quarter. And as we said, it's now at the lowest level since pre-COVID. And in aggregate, our impaired loans and owned real estate have been marked down by 30%.

And when you take a step back, really almost all of the reserves we've taken in the history of the company have been driven by legacy office. And today, we believe those significant challenges that we've seen over the past several years are largely reflected. And as Austin mentioned, half of our 1 through 3 risk-rated offices in the market to refinance. The other half has a 12% weighted average debt yield. And the rest of our legacy loan portfolio, generally high cash flowing assets where we're seeing strong liquidity. You saw the $4 billion of repayments year-to-date. And so while there's always some risk in a portfolio of our size, we do feel really good about where we're positioned today.

William Catherwood

Got it. Appreciate that. And then as a follow-up, in terms of the loan sales, so I think you mentioned $250 million in the quarter. There's the $615 million that's sitting in the held-for-sale bucket. So could you provide a little bit more color on what was sold on 3Q? And then how you're getting to the $0.93 of recovery? Because if we look at the held-for-sale bucket, it looks like recovery is 81% of principal balance. So can you walk us kind of through what exactly is out? And then what's the math on those recoveries?

Marcin Urbaszek

Sure. Tom, it's Marcin. Happy to take this one. Look, when we sort of look at the $0.93, it's essentially we're looking at versus where we're carrying the assets at the time of sale and at the end of the quarter. So we had about $250 million that's sold during the quarter. And then when we moved the rest, the other 8 loans to held for sale, we took that $64 million mark on them vis-a-vis our carrying value. So when we sort of look at the nearly $1 billion of sales and that $64 million mark, that's sort of the low 90s price that we're referencing, that's how we sort of thinking about it.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Rick Shane with JPMorgan.

Richard Shane

Look, obviously, a lot going on here. And I guess I have really 2 questions. One is that it felt like at the end of '25, you guys were sort of comfortable that you had identified the bulk of the issues within the portfolio and we're sort of moving into the heavy resolution stage. Fine, you resolved a lot of loans this year, but the reality is the identification stage of problems within the portfolio has persisted. Is this purely a function of the movement in rates? Or are there other fundamental factors that we need to think about that have really contributed to this?

And then the second is when we look at the dividend cut and the savings associated with that, it represents a significant savings. Is a lot of that going to be redeployed into repurchases given -- does this give you more flexibility to buy back a lot more stock given what's going to be a very steep discount when the stock opens this morning?

Timothy Johnson

Yes. Thanks, Rick. I'd say on your first question, rates have certainly been a material impact. And as we mentioned last quarter, the challenges that that has created have really been in this kind of legacy portion of our loan portfolio, which had previously been on our watchlist, which borrowers had been previously supporting. And I think the combination of the increased pressure in rates and some of those business plans lagging behind what we expected them to be at this point really contributed to that sort of change in outlook from what you're describing as where we were at the end of 2025.

As it relates to the dividend, really, ultimately, yes, this is a capital allocation decision and it's focused on long-term earnings power. And a part of that is balancing payout with capital preservation, which does, as you said, give us a ton of flexibility to deploy dry powder accretively through share buybacks and other attractive new investments. And we set it to a level that we expect to cover in the fourth quarter and the full year 2027 despite the near-term earnings pressure from impaired loans and lower-yielding assets.

So -- and we set it to a level that we think can be sustained through a range of rate and credit environment. So we did all that to give ourselves maximum flexibility. And as we noted in the script, buybacks are a big component of that.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Jade Rahmani with KBW.

Jade Rahmani

I wanted to start with multifamily, and I appreciate you taking the time to go through the legacy portfolio, debt yields and your comments there. Just high level, how are borrowers who own these assets thinking about the outlook because fundamentals do finally seem to be nearing a trough. They may not be fully at a trough, but you can see that concessions are declining and the magnitude of negative rent growth is reaching close to flattish. We'll see what the rest of the multifamily REITs say. So that's a bright spot.

And then starts are down, as you've noted previously, but then rates are much higher, which could pressure values by 5% to 10%. So putting those things together, are they going to take a glass half full approach? Or do you expect there to be some pressure on performance? Or maybe opportunistically, would you look to even own some of these assets to play for the future upside?

Austin Pena

Yes. Jade, this is Austin. Thanks. I can take that one. When we look at multifamily broadly, I think as you pointed out, we do see the sector continue to be supported by solid underlying fundamentals. So as you mentioned, we are starting to see rent growth turn around. When you look nationally, I think we've seen 4 consecutive months of positive rent growth. I think September was the best month we've seen in over 3 years. And that's underpinned by new supply, which is down nearly 60% from peak.

And so when we think about our portfolio, we think it's pretty well positioned. It's obviously still early, but 2/3 of our multifamily portfolio was originated post 2023 when rates were more elevated. And as I described earlier, we feel pretty good about our legacy multifamily loans with most of those -- a very small amount of those with a debt yield less than 6% and the rest with an average debt yield of 6.6%. And we're seeing good liquidity in the space. We got over $1 billion of legacy multifamily loans repaid year-to-date and $500 million of that just this past quarter. And so overall, we feel pretty good about how we're positioned in multifamily.

Jade Rahmani

And then I wanted to ask about the homebuilding JVs. D.R. Horton, the largest homebuilder reported today and trends are very soft. There's also been scrutiny on land banking arrangements driven by another one of the large builders in their land banking spin-off. So just curious about how you're thinking about the risks of entering this business and it will have a lot of different dynamics from commercial real estate.

Austin Pena

Yes. Thank you. I would just say we're really excited about this adventure in this sector long term. The overall housing supply in the United States is still structurally undersupplied. And we think we have a platform here that is really a critical advantage in this space. This is obviously a very small part of our portfolio today. Our existing portfolio is performing well. And we think there's a big opportunity for us to deploy into the space, which adds diversification and granularity to our portfolio and sets up to really what we think are compelling returns.

I will say, obviously, higher rates are a headwind to home sales. But ultimately, our borrowers are very experienced regional developers. The loans themselves are very well structured. They're less than 65% LTV on average, and they're generally secured by cross-collateralized portfolios with recourse to corporate entities in most cases. So we feel good about what we have today, and we're excited about the opportunity going forward.

Operator

We will take our next question from Marissa Lobo with UBS.

Ameeta Lobo Nelson

On the $0.42 of distributable earnings that you generated this quarter, and we expect pressure on earnings from smaller portfolio nonaccrual assets. But thinking about the cushion versus the new dividend, what level of distributable earnings are you underwriting against the $0.30 dividend in 2027?

Timothy Johnson

Sure. I'll take that. Thanks, Marissa. Really, I think as I said before, this is a capital allocation decision, and we are focused on long-term earnings power, but we do also expect to be able to cover the dividend in the fourth quarter of this year and in 2027, despite that near-term earnings pressure from impaired loans and lower-yielding assets. So we took the perspective -- the Board took the perspective of looking at this both from a short-term and long-term standpoint and believe it can be sustained in a range of different scenarios from here on out.

Ameeta Lobo Nelson

Okay. And could you give us an update on the Chicago office loan and the expected resolution or any developments you last updated us?

Austin Pena

Yes. Marissa, this is Austin. I can take that. As we mentioned last quarter, that loan, we've reached an agreement and are in discussions with the borrower to resolve that. It hasn't closed yet, but hopefully, we'll have more to talk about next quarter.

Operator

We will take our next question from Harsh Hemnani with Green Street.

Harsh Hemnani

I guess thinking maybe this time last quarter, the commentary was roughly that leverage is high, but that might be temporary as you collect a lot of repayments in 3Q. But of course, given the sales and the impact that had on book value, I feel like that somewhat offset the impact of all the repayments. I guess on a look-forward basis, how are you feeling about leverage at current levels? Is this a place where you feel comfortable? Should we expect it to maybe take down some of the savings from the dividend cut being attributable to paying down financing? Any color on that would be helpful.

Marcin Urbaszek

It's Marcin. Thank you for the question. Look, so as you mentioned, we finished the quarter at 3.9x debt to equity largely sort of unchanged quarter-over-quarter, we obviously had 2 sort of major drivers during the quarter that impacted leverage. One is CECL and then some timing of the loan sales, but also the repayment. So that sort of kept the leverage as to where it is quarter-over-quarter. I will mention that there's a little bit of a timing difference as well on the loan sales, which we transferred them to held for sale and took the mark on them in Q3, but the loans and the associated borrowings are still on the balance sheet. That transaction has since closed.

And so with some of the additional repayments that the Tim referenced earlier, leverage is modestly down quarter-over-quarter. So I think as we're sort of thinking about it, we're probably -- we want to be within the range, but probably somewhere in the middle of the range. So there may be some modest portfolio runoff in the coming quarter or 2. But we feel given our liquidity and structure of our borrowings, we feel pretty good about where we are at the moment.

Harsh Hemnani

That's helpful. And then maybe on the asset side, right, it feels like there's 2 pools of suboptimally cash flowing assets on the balance sheet right now. The first is the REO portfolio and the second being the impaired loans. And this is one of those rare periods where it feels like given what's happened with rates, real estate transaction markets seem to be slowing in real time, but there still seems to be like some liquidity on the loan trading side -- I would say, better liquidity on the loan trading side. So, I guess, in terms of resolutions, could we expect to see more loan sales to start to resolve the impaired loan portfolio before the REO assets? Is that something we should be considering?

Timothy Johnson

Thanks, Harsh. This is Tim. I'd say the loan sales, we thought, as you said, we did achieve good liquidity this quarter. We were pleased with the outcome. And it's worth pointing out again that these loans were mostly legacy loans, and we sold them opportunistically. We sold them at $0.93 relative to carrying value. And when you -- it really was -- the majority of those loans were also on our watchlist. So it is a good tool for sort of reducing exposure. And we look at that in combination with also looking at the go-forward return possibility of owning the assets as REO.

And so it's basically going to be sort of a return of holding as REO versus selling assets, and it's just a really positive tool in the toolkit to have the loan portfolio sale optionality to sort of like do it earlier if we choose to. But in many cases, we think the ultimate resolution of moving through REO is going to be the thing that achieves the highest return on the investment. So it's really just a comparison of the 2 things. But as you noted, there's good liquidity in that market. And so it's a tool that we have at our fingertips if we need it.

Operator

We will take our next question from Gabe Poggi with Raymond James.

Gabriel Poggi

I want to ask a go-forward kind of front -- looking through the front windshield question. In regards to capital allocation, your capital allocation this quarter was pretty diversified across business lines. If I think forward, is that something that you want to do going forward, more diverse allocation across net lease, bank loan portfolios, homebuilder finance, et cetera? And then can you talk about what you're seeing today for return on equity profile of each of those buckets?

Austin Pena

Thanks, Gabe. This is Austin. I can take that. I would say, definitely, yes. I mean it's been a very intentional move to look at diversifying our portfolio. And some of the things that you mentioned, we think are quite differentiated where we have platforms that really create a really competitive advantage for us and adds a lot of granularity to our portfolio. So if you look at the investment activity that we've been doing post -- over the last few quarters, I think that's where you'll continue to see us primarily lean in going forward with certainly a focus on diversification.

I think the other thing to point out, as we mentioned earlier, is the stock buybacks is part of that deployment opportunity, we think, today, and we did a little bit this quarter, and we have a lot of capacity to do that going forward as well.

Gabriel Poggi

One follow-up, Austin. Any changes to kind of how you're looking at return profiles across those buckets today versus 90 days ago? Obviously, the world has changed dramatically. But there's anything more attractive today than it was prior? Or is it everything kind of still makes sense depending on what opportunities you're able to unearth.

Austin Pena

Yes. I think it's a fair question, Gabe. I think we are seeing interesting opportunities. We obviously deployed a little bit of capital in things this quarter. When you look at the levered ROEs, I think they're fairly consistent and in line. But when we think about the diversity of where we're achieving that and the risk we're taking, we feel really good about that. I think that's what markets like this sometimes create is the opportunity to really find some really interesting credits that generate a really attractive return.

And so I think when we think about kind of go-forward ROEs on investments, I think it will be probably pretty consistent with what we've generated historically. But we're certainly going to do that, as I said earlier, with a mind towards diversification.

Operator

We will take our final question from Chris Muller with Citizens Capital Markets.

Christopher Muller

Apologies, I was bouncing around calls this morning. So sorry if you hit on this already. But CECL reserves are up a decent amount despite the decline in watchlist loans. Can you just talk me through the main drivers behind it? Is it all coming from lower property valuations given the macro backdrop? Or is there other things kind of rolling through there?

Marcin Urbaszek

Chris, it's Marcin. So on CECL, I would point to 2 things. The overall CECL was up mainly because of the asset-specific reserves. The general reserve is actually down on a dollar basis, again, because portfolio is small and watchlist is down by half. So that's -- those are sort of like the main movements within the balance of the CECL reserves.

Christopher Muller

Got it. And then should we be reading into the lighter origination volumes as you guys taking a more cautious or defensive stance? Or was that more driven by the volatility in the quarter kind of broadly slowing activity?

Austin Pena

Yes. Thanks, Chris. This is Austin. I would say it's a little bit of both. I think it's fair to say when rates are volatile, transaction volumes can be impacted. But that said, sitting here today, we do see a broad, really interesting pipeline of opportunities. We executed on some of that this quarter.

But as I said earlier, we're also looking at buybacks and other ways to deploy our capital accretively. So I think we'll continue to look at all of that. I think given our platform and the team we have here and the global scale of the credit business we have, we really have an opportunity to be really selective in terms of where we invest and look for where we can deploy capital at the best relative value.

Christopher Muller

Got it. And it's good to have that optionality at your fingertips. I appreciate that.

Operator

With no additional questions in queue at this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Tim Hayes for any additional or closing remarks.

Timothy Hayes

Yes. Thanks so much. Really appreciate everyone's time. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Operator

Goodbye.