Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions.) Our first question comes from Anthony Paolone – JP Morgan.
Joe Dossier for Anthony Paolone – JP Morgan
It's Joe Dossier, here with Tony. Question on the 2% decline in the rents of the legacy portfolio. Was that dragged down by a couple specific assets or was that more broad-based?
Craig Cardwell
Joe, this is Craig Cardwell. It was all related to a couple of assets. Overall, we outperformed the market. We do a lot of market research and we outperformed the market in all but three of our markets in terms of occupancy and rent. So it was drug down specifically by a very few assets and so you're dead-on in that assumption.
Joe Dossier for Anthony Paolone – JP Morgan
As you look at those assets, I guess there's a couple that you could pick out where there's occupancy in the 70s. Are there any of those where you view as an opportunity to push occupancy next year, or do you think there's some where the market's just going to be fundamentally tough for awhile and it's going to be tough to get that bump into next year?
Craig Cardwell
This is Craig. I think there's a great opportunity to move those back up. Frankly, while we're disappointed in how things kind of ended up, we're pretty excited about the future because we think we have still a very, very solid portfolio fundamentally.
It's an absolute fact that where we were harmed the most was actually less by the economy and more by over building. Frankly, desperate developers that were getting their last shovel in the ground in the last year that pushed properties into the market that probably wouldn't have been developed at any other time. So as that supply gets absorbed we'll move right back up to where we ought to be. But there's good upside potential for them.
Joe Dossier for Anthony Paolone – JP Morgan
Similar question, I guess, in the Place portfolio it looks like three that had pretty low occupancy and then two of them, I guess Clayton Place and Macon Place, they were low both last year and this year. Again, are those assets where you think you can push occupancy or is it just going to be tough in those markets to do that?
Craig Cardwell
In those specific markets, we think that there's going to have to be probably another solution, a different kind of repositioning solution. So we'll talk about that in the future.
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