COUSINS PROPERTIES INC (CUZ): what the price requires

At today's price, COUSINS PROPERTIES INC (CUZ) is priced for -3.3% FFO growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-19 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CUZ

Headline

FieldValue
TickerCUZ
CompanyCOUSINS PROPERTIES INC
Current price$30.46/sh
CompositionAustin 37% / Atlanta 34% / Charlotte 9% / Tampa 9% / Phoenix 7% / Dallas 3% / Non-Office Properties 1%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basisreit
Implied FFO growth-3.3%
Price-to-FFO10.7x
FFO yield9.4%

Solve inputs: computed at a 10.6% cost of equity with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of equity moves the implied growth ~3.3pp.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

ReferenceValue
vs own history-0.29σ
cohort percentile (of 88 peers)16
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and relative-multiple value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset1.19x4expensive
Earnings1.49x4expensive
Relative0.80x6justifies
Growth1.50x4expensive

Families that justify the price: Asset, Relative

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.7%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=18)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth——no—
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$34.140.89xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 6.0x / 8.0x / 10.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative ValuationRelative$75.010.41xyesP/E 25.32x (blended: static sector reference 35x + trailing (TTM) 11x), scenarios: 21.0x / 25.3x / 29.6x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 15.18x
Simple DDMGrowth$14.182.15xyesDPS $1.33, g=-0.1% (sustainable: ROE (TTM) × retention; not the terminal-growth assumption), ke=9.3%
Two-Stage DDMGrowth$23.511.30xyesStage 1: 3% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$27.111.12xyesReference only (book value floor): BV/sh $27.11, ROE negative
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$24.401.25xyesReference only (book value with convergence): BV/sh $27.11, ROE converges to ke
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$17.951.70xyesRev $1.0B, growth 12% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 4.2x / 5.0x / 5.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$33.840.90xyesFFO/share $2.82, growth 3% (input: historical FFO/share growth, 10y median), PEG=0.00 (Undervalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$15.441.97xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.57B × (1−21%) / WACC 5.7% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset——no—
Graham NumberAsset$41.470.73xyes√(22.5 × FFO/share $2.82 × BVPS $27.11) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$110.760.27xyesEBITDA $1.11B × sector EV/EBITDA 20.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$3.229.46xyesFCF $398.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings——no—
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$34.690.88xyesFFO/share $2.82 × (8.5 + 2×3.1%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$8.173.73xyesBV $27.11 × (ROIC 1.7% / WACC 5.7%)
P/Sales SectorRelative$36.300.84xyesRevenue $1.01B × sector P/S 6.0x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$14.102.16xyesFFO/share $2.82 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 3.1% (input: historical FFO/share growth, 10y median)) → PE 4.6x
Earnings YieldEarnings$30.491.00xyesFFO/share $2.82 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative$39.970.76xyesFFO/share $2.82 × 14.2x P/FFO (route cohort median, n=85); FFO $0.47B (FFO incl. D&A + impairments, FY2025, companyfacts), shares 166M
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt (REIT basis)$3.8b
Net debt / FFO8.03x
Fixed-charge coverage (FFO basis)3.9x
Funds from operations (trailing)$469.1m
Share count CAGR (dilution)2.8%
Burning cashno

REIT basis: leverage is read against funds from operations (FFO), not depreciation-gutted operating income. The header's implied growth runs on ADJUSTED FFO — FFO minus recurring maintenance capex — so the header's multiple and this leverage ratio use bases that differ by that capex; neither substitutes for the other.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Flight to quality is not a slogan at Cousins; it is the leasing tape. The first quarter brought 932,000 square feet of office leases signed, the highest first-quarter volume in more than a decade, and more than half of it came from new and expansion deals rather than renewals. That distinction matters. Renewals hold a portfolio steady; new and expansion leases grow it. Tenants consolidating out of older, cheaper buildings into newer trophy towers is exactly the dynamic that separates the office that survives this cycle from the office that does not, and Cousins owns the kind of buildings on the winning side of that move. Weighted-average occupancy climbed to 88.9% and the leased percentage reached 91.8%, the spread between them representing signed leases not yet paying rent, which is forward revenue already on the books.

The pricing power underneath that demand is the part the market keeps underrating. Second-generation cash rents rolled up 15.2% in the quarter, and the company has now posted positive cash rent growth for 48 consecutive quarters across all of its active markets. Twelve straight years of landlords raising rents on renewing tenants is not what a structurally dying asset class looks like. It is what a concentrated, well-located portfolio in markets that keep adding jobs looks like. The Sun Belt focus is the lever: Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa, the cities still gaining the office-using employment the coastal markets are losing.

The numbers are moving the right way at the corporate level too. First-quarter funds from operations came in at $0.73 a share, two cents ahead of consensus, and management raised full-year 2026 FFO guidance to a $2.94 midpoint, implying roughly 3.5% growth. A REIT raising its FFO guide while its leasing volume hits a decade high is compounding cash earnings, not defending them. For the bull, Cousins is the cleanest way to own the Sun Belt office recovery: the right buildings, in the right cities, leasing at the fastest pace in years, while the stock still carries the discount the market reflexively applies to the word "office."

Bear Case

Leverage is where the office discount stops being abstract. Cousins carries net debt of about $3.8 billion against funds from operations near $470 million, roughly eight times, and fixed-charge coverage of about 3.8 times. That coverage is adequate but not generous, and it is the thinnest cushion among the Sun Belt office names. In a sector where the cost of debt has reset higher and lenders have grown selective about office collateral, eight-times leverage means refinancing terms do real work on the bottom line. Every tranche of maturing debt rolls at a higher coupon than it carried, and the gap between the old rate and the new one comes straight out of funds from operations. The leasing momentum is real, but it has to outrun a rising interest bill, and at this leverage the race is closer than the top-line growth suggests.

This is why the price embeds shrinkage rather than growth. At roughly 11 times adjusted funds from operations, the multiple the market assigns is consistent with cash earnings drifting modestly lower over time, not compounding. The asset-value, peer-multiple, and growth lenses all land at or above the current price, so this is not a stock the static methods call expensive. The bear case is the one the methods cannot see: whether the structural haircut the market applies to office is a permanent repricing rather than a temporary overcorrection. If hybrid work has permanently lowered the office footprint corporate America needs, then even trophy buildings face a smaller total pie, and the flight-to-quality gains Cousins is capturing today come partly at the expense of demand that does not come back.

The shares outstanding tell a quieter part of the story. The count has grown at roughly 2.8% a year over the trailing window, meaning the FFO growth has to be split across more shares before it reaches the per-share line. A REIT funding acquisitions with equity at a discounted price is buying growth at a cost to existing holders, and the offsetting buyback management has run does not fully neutralize the issuance. The bull owns the best office portfolio in the best markets. The bear's question is whether "best office" is still a category worth paying for if the office itself is structurally smaller, and whether eight-times leverage leaves enough room to be wrong about the timing.

Valuation

Start with what the price is actually betting, because for an office REIT it is unusual. At $28.29 Cousins trades near 11 times adjusted funds from operations, the cash earnings left after the maintenance capital the buildings require, a roughly 9.4% cash-earnings yield. Inverted, that multiple does not require the portfolio to grow. It requires only that adjusted funds from operations decline modestly, on the order of a few percent a year, and the price is already paid. That is the office discount expressed as math: the market is pricing Cousins as if its cash earnings will slowly erode, even though the company just raised its FFO guide and posted its strongest leasing quarter in a decade. The gross funds-from-operations multiple sits a touch lower, near 10 times, but the adjusted figure is the one that nets out real spending and the one the price has to answer to.

The methods we use to triangulate line up behind that read. The asset-value lens, the peer-multiple lens, and the forward-growth methods all support the current price or land above it; the discount to the value of the underlying real estate is the central feature, not a warning. Only the trailing earnings-power lens calls the stock expensive, and by a wide margin, because that lens reads depreciation-gutted operating income and depreciation makes a property REIT's reported earnings the wrong number to capitalize. When the value families say cheap and only the GAAP-earnings family says expensive, the signal is a value-and-asset-supported name, not a growth bet the price has gotten ahead of. The question the methods cannot settle is whether the asset-value support is real or whether office collateral deserves a permanently lower mark.

Solvency is where the discount earns part of its keep. Net debt of about $3.8 billion against funds from operations near $470 million is roughly eight times, and fixed-charge coverage runs about 3.8 times, both tighter than the residential and industrial REITs that trade at premium multiples. That leverage is serviceable while occupancy and rents climb, but it leaves less room for error than a lower-levered balance sheet, and it is part of why the market discounts the asset value rather than paying for it. The Street's average target sits roughly at the current price, with Truist recently lifting its target to $30 while holding its rating; that mild premium is the recovery the leasing tape supports but the discount has not yet conceded. What a buyer underwrites at $28 is a wager that the gap between Cousins' improving cash flow and the price the market pays for it is an overcorrection rather than a permanent repricing of office.

Catalysts

The first quarter was a guidance-raising quarter, which is rare in office. Cousins posted funds from operations of $0.73 a share, two cents above consensus, and lifted its full-year 2026 FFO midpoint to $2.94, implying about 3.5% growth. The leasing detail behind the raise was the standout: 932,000 square feet signed, the highest first-quarter volume in over a decade, with second-generation cash rents up 15.2% and occupancy rising to 88.9%. The quarter did carry an impairment charge that pushed GAAP results to a loss, a reminder that office asset marks remain under pressure even as the cash earnings improve.

Capital allocation is where the next moves cluster. The board declared a second-quarter dividend of $0.32 per share, payable in July, and management has continued to fund Sun Belt acquisitions while recycling capital out of older assets. The Street has warmed to the story, with Truist raising its price target to $30 in late June while keeping a Hold rating. The key upcoming read is the second-quarter print, expected around July 30, 2026, where investors will watch whether the leasing pace held through the spring and whether management nudges the FFO guide higher again. Given the leverage, any commentary on refinancing terms for maturing debt will matter as much as the leasing numbers.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Austin / Atlanta +6 more (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

CUZ Q1 2026 earnings release · CUZ Q1 2026 earnings release / earnings calendar · CUZ Q1 2026 earnings call · Truist Securities, June 2026 · CUZ Q1 2026 8-K · CUZ Q2 2026 dividend declaration

View the full interactive CUZ report on boothcheck