Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the NexPoint Real Estate Financial First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. I will now hand today’s call over to Kristen Griffith, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good day, everyone and welcome to NexPoint Real Estate Finance conference call to review the company’s results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025. On the call today are Paul Richards, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Matt McGraner, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. As a reminder, this call is being webcast to the company’s website at nref.nexpoint.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on management’s current expectations, assumptions and beliefs. Listeners should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review the company’s annual report on Form 10-K and the company’s other filings with the SEC for a more complete discussion of risks and other factors that could affect forward-looking statements. The statements made during this conference call speak only as of today’s date, and except as required by law, NREF does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. The conference call also includes an analysis of non-GAAP financial measures. For a more complete discussion of these non-GAAP financial measures, see the company’s presentation that was filed earlier today. I would now like to turn the call over to Paul Richards. Please go ahead, Paul.

Thank you, Kristen, and welcome everyone joining us this morning. I am going to briefly discuss our quarterly results, move to our balance sheet and lastly, provide guidance for the next quarter before turning it over to Matt for a detailed commentary on the portfolio and the macro lending environment. Q1 results are as follows. For the first quarter, we reported net income of $0.70 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $0.83 per diluted share for the first quarter 2024. The increase in net income for the quarter was due to an increase in interest income between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter 2024. Interest income increased $23.6 million to $22 million in the first quarter of 2025 from a net loss of $1.6 million in the first quarter of 2024. The increase was driven by an uptick in interest income driven by higher rates. Interest expense decreased $0.7 million in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in the prior year from the deleveraging that occurred in the first quarter of 2024. Earnings available for distribution was $0.41 per diluted common share in Q1 compared to negative $0.46 per diluted share in the same period of 2024. Cash available for distribution was $0.45 per diluted common share in Q1 compared to $0.60 per diluted common share in the same period of 2024. The increase in earnings available for distribution was driven by an increase in net income for the quarter. We paid a regular dividend of $0.50 per share in the first quarter, and the Board has declared a dividend of $0.50 per share payable for the second quarter of 2025. Our dividend in the first quarter was 0.9x covered by cash available for distribution. Book value per share increased…

Thank you, Paul. And as he just mentioned, we’re pleased to report another strong quarter amidst the challenging macro backdrop. I’d like to spend a few minutes this morning here discussing our verticals and what we’re seeing. On the life science front, lab leasing generally continues to be challenging, particularly given the tariff and NIH funding uncertainty under the new administration. This uncertainty has, in our view, delayed capital allocation decisions temporarily, but we do expect those decisions to eventually be made in the near-term. Even amidst this uncertainty, we still see green shoots, including at our own projects, most notably our Alewife project. The sponsor is negotiating leases now on two-thirds of the project, which they’re optimistic will be inked in the second quarter. These leases would result in a 10-plus percent debt yield for again just two-thirds of the project. We also remain bullish on CGMP and advanced manufacturing assets as the reshoring of supply chain wave accelerates. Indeed, contrary to what has happened in the lab market, the new administration and its policies have catalyzed many high-profile announcements to build manufacturing plants on U.S. soil, most recently by Apple, Roche, Novartis, Intel and Lilly to name a few. We are seeing an uptick in build-to-suit requirements across the board from semiconductors, nutrition and pharmaceutical manufacturing and expect this trend to continue over the near-term. On the resi front, after a record year of absorption in 2024 of 667,000 multifamily units, we saw continued strong demand in the first quarter. Nationally over 138,000 units were absorbed, another record first quarter of leasing and demand performance. There was strength across the Board, even – with even Sunbelt markets capturing a vast majority of the top 10 markets for Q1 absorption. And with tepid new starts and worsening housing affordability…

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Jade Rahmani with KBW.

Thank you very much. Can you comment as to what you are seeing on the credit side? There was a notable credit loss provision. Wondering if that pertains to specific assets. And more broadly, have you seen any impact from macro uncertainty?

Hey Jade. Yes, great question. This is Paul. So, for the last quarter, we implemented a weighted average base case and downside scenario for CECL reserve that was part of it. And then there was also a private preferred that we have had our eye on that we decided to be proactive and apply a reserve for. So, that’s where you see the uptick. Overall, still a very low seasonal reserve amongst our peers, just given our credit profile and multifamily as a foreign storage in our life science, but overall – I will let Matt speak after me, but it’s been a very sturdy portfolio with – we have seen great performance overall.

On the broader question, Jade, I think the – as I have said in the prepared remarks, the life science sector and other, I would say, tariff-based. Portions of the economy are seeing, I think a temporary halt. We don’t expect that to continue beyond. I think the latest resolutions are planned June or July, but yes, there is liquidity for most assets or most property types including and especially on the residential front. We have seen probably only increased interest. Tariffs aren’t really pausing anything on the residential sector. In fact, they are just making housing affordability decisions either be delayed causing the rental sector to be stronger. And we do really believe this setup for residential assets over the next – in 2 years, 3 years, this is going to be pretty special, so short-term blip, but overall, no real impact.

And what was the breakout between the weighted average base case downside scenario and the private preferred. Was it evenly split between the two, or was it more weighted to one or the other?

It was about 50-50.

Okay. And then in terms of the life science, after the leasing – the positive leasing momentum you cited, what percentage leased will that project be or pre-leased? Will it be – is it a multi-tenant project, or is it single tenant? Can you give any more color on that?

Yes, it will be two-thirds leased. And then that income from the two – those leases for the two-thirds of the project would be results in a 10 – almost 11% debt yield, and it’s across two tenants.

And how much is there left to be funded?

Left to be funded on that project…

About $40 million.

Okay. That’s NREF’s commitment?

Yes, this is correct.

Wow, so that’s really good news because life science leasing has been extremely weak, including in that market. So, it sounds like it’s a pretty special asset.

It is. Yes, we agree.

And then just broadly in the environment, what are you seeing in terms of interesting opportunities? Are you going to be focused on the residential space during preferreds, or will you be ramping up CMBS B-pieces? What’s going to be the plan going forward?

I think the latter two. We are going to participate and have been actively participating in the K-deals with Freddie. And then on the – some of this uncertainty and delay has caused some stretch senior opportunities in the – and what I would describe as the CFO or the multifamily pre-leasing deals that have come out of the ground. They have gotten a certificate of occupancy, but they are not prime for agency financing, but they are past their bank life, so to speak, or their construction loan life. So, we think there is a lot of interesting opportunities that we are underwriting in that kind of shorter term stretch senior to get these assets stabilized and to facilitate the lease-up on the resi front. We think that you can earn a 250 to 350 spread on those assets at a reasonable detachment point. So, spending a lot of time there and hope to transact on, like I have said, after re-leverage $150-ish million of those opportunities. Along with those four developments of self-storage, which will take longer to materialize, but there are still really good investments.

Thanks very much.

Thanks Jade.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, there are no further questions. I will now hand the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you very much. I appreciate everyone’s time this morning and look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Thanks again. Goodbye.

This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.