Velocity Financial Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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March 6, 2025

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Velocity Financial Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Altman, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Asha. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the discussion of Velocity's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four results. Joining me today are Chris Farrar, Velocity's President and Chief Executive Officer and Mark Zapaniag, Velocity's Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this afternoon, we released our fourth quarter results and you can find the press release and accompanying presentation we will refer to during this call on our Investor Relations website at www.bellfinance.com. I'd like to remind everybody that today's call may include forward looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the company's control and actual results may differ materially.

Speaker 1

For a discussion of some of the risks and other factors that could affect results, please see the risk factors and other cautionary statements made in our communications with shareholders, including the risk factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please also note that the content of this conference call contains time sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, and we do not undertake any duty to update forward looking statements. We may also refer to certain non GAAP measures on this call. For reconciliations of these non GAAP measures, you should refer to the earnings materials on our Investor Relations website. And finally, today's call is being recorded and will be available on the company's website later today.

Speaker 1

And with that, I will now turn the call over to Chris Farrar.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Chris, and welcome everyone to our fourth quarter earnings call. Our team is proud to announce another record quarter and year end results for 2024. In short, the velocity engine was firing on all cylinders last year. We have strong tailwinds supporting our business and we're capitalizing on the unmet needs in our niche of the market. By lending to both residential and commercial real estate investors, we can serve a larger base of customers and provide capital to underserved people.

Speaker 2

Our customers tell us that banks are limiting their lending in our target niches and we believe that we will continue to allow that will allow us to capture market share. We saw very strong demand from our borrowers in 2024 as evidenced by our 64% increase in originations and that momentum is carried into the New Year. Importantly, we remain disciplined in our credit process while preserving our risk adjusted margins at lower loan to value. Our portfolio growth led to a 37% increase in net revenue and Q4 pretax ROE was an impressive 26.8%. In terms of our portfolio, our special servicing team did a great job resolving NPLs and REOs for net gains and our nimble hands on approach consistently contributes to our earnings.

Speaker 2

As most of you know, we prefer to lend in larger more liquid MSAs and we still see healthy demand for the types of real estate we lend on. On a more somber note, we recently experienced devastating wildfires in Southern California and all of us extend our deepest sympathies and concern for everyone impacted. From the business perspective, we were fortunate that only two of the properties backing our loans were destroyed and fully insured, velocity team members are safe and healthy and we will do our part to help those affected recover. From a capital markets perspective, we saw significant improvement post the presidential election as evidenced by tighter spreads for our securitizations and increased investor participation which enable us to achieve high ROEs on our invested capital. As we've explained before, our business is far less rate sensitive than other mortgage segments and while much energy is spent by others prognosticating future Fed moves, we simply continued differentiator as we successfully originated loans over the last twenty years in both higher and lower rate environments.

Speaker 2

Looking forward, we can expect another strong year of growth and our team is engaged and proud to provide solutions for real estate investors nationwide as we look to create long term shareholder value. With that, that concludes my prepared remarks and we'll turn over to the presentation materials starting with Page three. Obviously, from an earnings perspective, a fantastic year, $0.6 of core earnings in Q4 and a full year core earnings of $2.03 so fantastic earnings across all the different segments of the business. From production and portfolio perspective, another great quarter $563,000,000 PB, 18% increase sequentially over last quarter and 60% year over year. The portfolio is just over $5,000,000,000 now.

Speaker 2

Non performing loans is pretty steady with where it was from the last quarter. And impressively in the fourth quarter from an NPL resolution perspective, we had just over $5,500,000 of gains from resolved delinquent assets. On the financing and capital side, mentioned the securitization market and we did a couple of deals in the fourth quarter that went off extremely well. We also issued a little over $7,000,000 in new equity through the ATM program and the strategy there is really just to continue to increase float and broaden out our investor base as best we can. From a capital and liquidity perspective, really great at year end almost $96,000,000 of liquidity.

Speaker 2

So we've got plenty of capital to fund future growth. Turning to Page four, we outline our strategy here just of continuing to retain earnings and building book value and you can see the bridge from nine thirty to twelve thirty one there as we retain earnings and grow the book value. On the upper right hand corner, we have two bars that take our GAAP book value at twelve thirty one and adjust to what we call adjusted book value and that's simply to reflect all of the assets that are carried at amortized cost. If GAAP allowed us to mark those assets to fair value, we think that adjusted book value would be about $18.73 a share. So there's tremendous value, we think still in the platform that doesn't show up from a GAAP perspective.

Speaker 2

And with that, I will turn the presentation over to Mark on Page five.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Chris. Hi, everybody. Well, another year is in the books and velocity has really ended the year strong. We're also starting '25 kind of where we left off in '24. If we take a look at Page five, the total loan production for Q4, as Chris mentioned, was $563,500,000 in UPB.

Speaker 3

That's an 18.2% increase over Q3, which was $476,800,000 There were over 1,200 loans funded in the fourth quarter. The strong production growth during Q4 included the weighted average coupon, a new health and investment originations continuing strong at 10.8%. The WACC on HFI originations for the last five quarter average trend has been at 11%. So, some great weighted average coupons over the last five quarters. The growth in originations in Q4 also continued at tight credit levels with the weighted average loan to value for the quarter at just under 63% at 62.9%.

Speaker 3

The last five quarter average trend has been at 63.9% LTV. So the strong Q4 production growth at the healthy WACC, the low LTV type credit that still demonstrates, as Chris mentioned, the consistent borrower demand for our product in different market cycles and environments. And in 2025, so far 2025 year to date loan production through February was $429,400,000 again continuing where we left off in 2024. As a result of the continued strong growth in production, Page six shows a similar growth in Q4 for our overall loan portfolio. Total loan portfolio as of December 31 was $5,100,000,000 in UPB.

Speaker 3

That's a 6.4% increase in Q3 and over a 24% increase year over year. Weighted average coupon on our total portfolio at the end of the year was 9.53%. That's a 16 basis points increase from Q3 and a 65 basis point increase in yield year over year. And again, the total weighted average loan to value ratio on the portfolio at the end of the year remained low at 66.6%. On Page seven, our Q4 portfolio net interest margin was 3.7%, an increase of 10 basis points and then looking at Q3 and 18 basis points year over year.

Speaker 3

As our portfolio yield over to the right of the table, portfolio yield increased 16 basis points quarter over quarter, 64 basis points year over year, while our cost of funds actually decreased by one basis point quarter over quarter and increased only 39 basis points year over year, mainly due a lot to that tighter spreads that we're seeing in securitization market that Chris previously mentioned. The quarter over quarter increase in NIB was mainly driven by strong loan production in the quarter and healthy spreads, the higher loan coupons coupled with the continued favorable execution in the securitization market and debt financing side. Going over to Page eight, our non performing loan rate at the end of Q4 was 10.7%. It's relatively flat compared to 10.6% for Q3 and our non performing loan rate has remained consistent in the last five quarters at an average of about 10.3%. We continue to see very strong collection efforts by our Special Servicing department that have resulted in favorable gain resolutions for NPL loans.

Speaker 3

Table on Page nine highlights the NPL resolution efforts. In Q4, the NPL resolution gains were $5,600,000 or 7%, a little bit over $79,000,000 in UPB resolved. On a trend basis, we've been averaging 3.3% quarterly NPL resolution gains over the last five quarters. It's not here on this table, if you look at all of 2024, our NPL resolution gains were $10,200,000 for the year and over $283,000,000 of UPB results. Page 10 shows our CECL reserve and also our loan charge offs and our net gain loss in our activity.

Speaker 3

On the left hand corner, the CECL reserve at December 31 was $4,200,000 with 17 basis points of our outstanding non fair value HFI portfolio. Our CECL reserve remains within our expected range of between fifteen and twenty basis points. Keep in mind that CECL loan loss reserve does not include our loans being carried to fair value. Over to the right, the table shows our net gain loss from loan charge offs and also our related activities during the quarter. For Q4, we had a net gain on the combination of loan charge offs and REO related activities of $2,900,000 which is net of the $700,000 in charge offs you see in the table, netting with the $3,600,000 gain on REO activities.

Speaker 3

For full year 2024, the net charge offs between the net charge offs and the REO activity gain was $5,100,000 Page 11 shows our durable funding liquidity position. At the end of Q4, total liquidity was just under $96,000,000 comprised of almost $50,000,000 in actual cash and cash equivalents and another $46,000,000 and are available liquidity on unfinanced collateral. In addition, our available warehouse line capacity at the end of the year was $435,000,000 and we have a maximum line capacity of $785,000,000 In Q4, as Chris mentioned, in Q2 seconduritizations, we issued one in October, the twenty twenty four-five and one in December. Combined, those two securities had over $586,000,000 in securities issued. And then already in 2025, in February, we issued our first security with a little over three fifty one million dollars in securities issued.

Speaker 3

So with that, that concludes my 2024 financial recap. I'll now turn the presentation back to Chris for his overview on Velocity's twenty twenty five key business drivers. Chris?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mark. On Slide 12, you can see our outlook here from the market perspective. We still think everything remains healthy and very positive. On the credit side, we mentioned rates higher for longer is good for us and we expect to continue to resolve NPVLs favorably. So we're very positive there.

Speaker 2

From a capital perspective, the strong securitization market is definitely a tailwind for us and helping us execute on our plan. And then lastly, from an earnings perspective, we expect to grow not only production, but earnings as well and feel good about the future. So that wraps up our presentation and we will open it up for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from Stephen Laws with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, good

Speaker 5

afternoon. Wow, another fantastic quarter. Congrats on a really strong, I guess, close to 24%. And Mark, from your comments on January and February volumes, seems like 25% is off to a continued strong start. So So maybe on that point, can you talk about production expectations for this year?

Speaker 5

I think you said $430,000,000 through January and February. Kind of is there a stabilized run rate on the production front that you think you reach on a quarterly level or things plateau or how much incremental volumes on a quarterly basis do you think you can put through the system?

Speaker 2

Hi, Steven. Yes, thanks for the comments. We I would say the current run rate feels good to us as a forecast for the rest of the year. We are growing and we see increasing demand. So I don't we're not we don't formally forecast what that would look like and I don't want to put any sort of limits or bookends on it.

Speaker 2

I just think, current run rate is definitely a good, you know, forward forecast, but probably with a little bit of upward slope to that because we're seeing really good demand.

Speaker 5

Appreciate that. And maybe to try to not read too much into numbers on a one quarter basis, but certainly notice the average loan balance just shy of $450,000 a little bit bigger than kind of the $380,000 to $390,000 or $400,000 the last year. Is that due to doing market entering markets more traction with larger loans? Is it more of a due to the shift in mix with a higher commercial component if those carry higher balances? Can you talk about the mix of the production and impact that might be having on average loan size?

Speaker 2

Sure. Yes. I think it's the latter, not the former. I think that we definitely did see an uptick in the second half of the year in the commercial assets which as you mentioned rightfully that they have larger balances. Definitely still continue to see the banks being very tight there.

Speaker 2

So we see great opportunities come to us all the time with little bit larger balance there and that's really driven the average up.

Speaker 5

Appreciate those comments. And one last one if I may. From a capital standpoint, with retained earnings and then a little bit of proceeds from ATM issuance, is that enough capital to support and feed the growth of the business? Do you think you'll need to look for ways to tap bigger chunks of additional equity as you grow? Kind of how do you think about managing your capital base?

Speaker 2

Yes, that's a great question. Based on kind of current run rates, we're in good shape. If we really start to accelerate even more. I could see somewhere down the road where we might need additional growth capital. We have over $75,000,000 of retained bonds that we can sell at any time to fund some of that future growth.

Speaker 2

And then also as you mentioned some of the ATM issuance. So at current levels we're fine. It really is just going to depend on how much growth we experience and that could drive some marginal capital down the road. And our view is we would do it on a kind of a balanced level, meaning a little bit of equity, a little bit of debt, just to try to keep our debt to equity ratio in line with where it is right now.

Speaker 5

Great. Appreciate the comments this afternoon. And then again congrats on a very nice end of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Steven.

Operator

The next question comes from Steve Delaney with Sidison Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, Chris and everyone and congrats on the very close to the year.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Steve.

Speaker 6

Yes. So look, as you talk about your borrowers, when we think about this volatility and what's been going on in the ten year and what's been going on in mortgage rates, I guess I just naturally think of homebuyers and how they're so fickle and one month they're a buyer, one month they're not. Your borrowers and clients must have a much different mindset about what they're out there doing. Is it as simple as that they their focus is to buy and manage properties and the rates are just sort of something you deal with that's kind of like noise, but their focus is on the properties and acquiring and managing those properties kind of regardless of and across whatever the rate cycle is? I guess whenever we're talking to a mortgage company, it's so different, Chris, than what we normally hear about borrowers' sensitivity to rates.

Speaker 6

Yes. A little color would be helpful.

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. Yes, sure. No, it's a good question and it's definitely something that's unique to our business model. I think you summed it up well. These folks need access to capital and they're willing to pay for it.

Speaker 2

They're very smart and they're opportunistic and they're doing creative things and they need capital to manage their real estate portfolio and they come to us and we execute with certainty and we give them some duration. We write a thirty year fixed rate mortgage which is very unusual. So some of their alternatives might be very expensive shorter term capital that really is a bullet coming at them maybe in six or twelve months. So I think they like some of the optionality that they have with our product. But you're absolutely right.

Speaker 2

Unlike most mortgage lenders, the first question or the first concern is not rate with our borrowers, it's certainty of execution.

Speaker 6

Got it. Yes, because they're my property that has to close by a certain date. Yes. That's right.

Speaker 2

That's right. They need to access capital in their balance sheet for some other opportunity.

Speaker 6

Right. And they need a quick answer from you, right?

Speaker 2

Right. That's right.

Speaker 6

Not an extended got to loan committee three times over six to eight weeks. Right.

Speaker 2

That's right.

Speaker 6

The NPL resolutions are certainly remarkable. Let's just talk about that. When you're you have gains of $5,600,000 on $79,000,000 in 4Q. Are you in these cases, are you that's the resolutions in the fourth quarter, but is this a matter of you taking back, taking title to properties and then actually reselling them? Or in some cases, are you working with distressed debt buyers?

Speaker 6

Are you actually being able to are there buyers for your delinquent loans that you can offset your loans to another quote credit investor that's not a public company. Yes. I'm curious how what the resolutions look like. Is it foreclosure or is it note sale?

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean, all those resolutions that you see are either us taking back a property and selling it for a gain or delinquent loans resolving sort of at the foreclosure steps, if you will, maybe a different investor comes in and buys that. But we can only bid up to the total amount that we're due and all of the costs and fees associated with that. And so we get satisfied there oftentimes as well. But I'm sure there are probably distressed buyers out there.

Speaker 2

We've never sold assets to anyone like that. So I don't know, but that's not our strategy.

Speaker 3

Steve, this is Mark. I think Yes, hi, Mark. Hi, Steve. This is Mark. Hi.

Speaker 3

I think another thing to kind of keep in mind is, the resolutions are resolutions of our non performing loan UPB, right. So, in many cases, those never make it to the REO property to your point of selling REO. So, over 90% of all of our non performing loan resolutions, like that $79,000,000 you saw for Q4, probably over 90% of that are the borrowers either paying current, paying the loan current with default interest, which is part of the gain or they come they refinance, they have capital somewhere else and they pay off the loan and we get the default interest and depending on if it's still in the prepayment window, we get prepayment fees. So, two months or 90% of those MPL resolutions is the original borrower either paying current or paying off the loan. And then the other 8% to 10% of whatever that goes to foreclosure, to Chris' point, that can either get to the foreclosure or sale steps or we take possession of the REO and then sell the REO.

Speaker 3

But 90% of it is the borrower resolving it themselves.

Speaker 6

Oh, that's fabulous. Thank you both so much for the comments. And again, congrats on just a fantastic year.

Speaker 2

Thanks Steve. Appreciate it.

Operator

The next question comes from Eric Hagen with BTID. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, thanks. Hope you guys are well. Couple of follow ups here. Do you guys see any response in the CMBS market so far related to the broader market volatility recently? And maybe how does your expected ROE change if spreads were wider?

Speaker 4

And then a follow-up, just kind of like a follow-up on the NPL resolutions. I mean, how do you gain visibility into that pipeline? In other words, like how do you go about predicting the benchmark or the trajectory that you might see there under different scenarios? Like do you eventually not expect to have any gains or how does that even factor into the asset valuation and so forth? Thanks guys.

Speaker 2

Sure. Thanks, Eric. Appreciate it. So on the first question, we're not seeing the volatility on our securitizations that maybe you're referring to in larger CMBS. So no impact there.

Speaker 2

Our securitizations probably for most bond investors get comped more typically to like a non QM RMBS execution and we usually print a little wider there. So I think on a relative value basis, I think we represent a very good alternative for a lot of those investors. So we feel good about our execution there going forward. The second point, NPL resolutions are near impossible to predict. They're extremely lumpy.

Speaker 2

Obviously, we had a big resolution in Q4. One of those REOs happened to be a very large resolution, it was almost $2,500,000 a little over $2,500,000 So, we certainly don't expect to get $107,000,000 every quarter and you can see historically we haven't. But if you look back over the last fifteen years of us doing this, we think it's very fair to expect two to three point gain on an average basis and sometimes it will be higher, sometimes it will be lower. But because there is so much equity in the real estate here, we've just historically always seen positive resolutions there. So we think that's a durable source of part of our total overall return.

Speaker 4

Yes, that's helpful. Okay, great. All right, I realize the focus of the portfolio is the single family loan, but how about the other assets like the mixed use plus the retail is now 20% of the portfolio. Are those borrowers looking for valuation improvement? This is a shorter term leverage that they're sourcing?

Speaker 4

And then relatedly, I mean, is the REO mostly single family and how do we reserve for liquidity in the single family versus the commercial?

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. Absolutely. So on the first part, we did see an uptick in the commercial assets for sure. The portfolio is almost fifty-fifty between one to four rentals and then what we would call small commercial on the other side. There is a wide array of reasons why borrowers are coming to us.

Speaker 2

They are purchasing assets that maybe they are having a hard time financing for. They are refinancing other assets they own to buy something else. They are buying tenanting them there. I mean it's across the board. So I can't give you this sort of one little bucket there.

Speaker 2

But, these are all smart sophisticated small investors that know how to see opportunity in real estate and maximize it. And I think on a go forward basis when we in terms of the REO, we've gotten definitely more REO from the one to four side than the small commercial side. There's been, I would say, more delinquency in the one to four space and more REO there. That REO tends to be very, very liquid and relatively easy to sell because even though it's rented as an investment property, it could continue to be used that way, but it also could be occupied by an owner or a consumer that wants to live there. So those markets tend to be very deep and very liquid and they're relatively easy to liquidate and sell.

Speaker 2

We as you know all of the loans that are carried at fair value, we already mark those assets to what we believe would be some representation of the fair value. So there's no loss provisioning on any of those assets. So as we continue to morph the balance sheet into a completely fair value type of classification, I think you're going to continue to see that loan loss reserve shrink and runoff and a couple of years we won't even talk about CECL.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Chris Ferrer for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you all for taking the time to listen to our story. We appreciate your support and we'll speak

Speaker 3

Thank you, everybody. Appreciate your time.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Velocity Financial Q4 2024
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