Q1 2023 Apartment Income REIT Corp Earnings Call
Speaker 1: I I much TR.
Speaker 2: Welcome, and thank you for attending today's AIR Communities First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Cierra and I will be your moderator for today's call.
Speaker 2: All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.
Speaker 2: If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key.
Speaker 2: I would now like to pass the conference over to Lisa Combs, President and General Counsel of AIR Communities. You may proceed.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Sierra, and good day.
Speaker 4: My name is Lisa Cohen and I am President and General Counsel of Air Communities.
Speaker 4: During this conference call, the forward-looking statements we make are based on management's judgment of current market conditions, macroeconomic trends, socioeconomic drivers, and other factors, including projections related to our 2023 performance expectations.
Speaker 4: These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, a description of which can be found in our FCC filings.
Speaker 4: Actual results may differ materially from what may be discussed today.
Speaker 4: We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures such as FFO.
Speaker 4: These are defined and are reconciled to the most comparable GAAP measures in the supplemental information that is part of the full earnings release published on AER's website.
Speaker 4: Prepared remarks today come from Terry Considine, our CEO .
Speaker 4: Keith Kimmel, President of Property Operations.
Speaker 4: Donna Graff, Chairman of our Investment Committee.
Speaker 4: and Paul Belden, our Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker 4: Other members of management are also present. All of us will be available during the question and answer session, which will follow our prepared remarks. I will now turn the call to Terri Considine. Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri? Terri?
Speaker 5: Thank you, Lisa, and my thanks to each of you on this call for your interest in air communities.
Speaker 5: My comments will be brief.
Speaker 5: Here's first quarter results. We're on track with our plans.
Speaker 5: Air operations led all piers with the lowest expense growth, the highest margins,
Speaker 5: the most year-over-year growth in net operating income, the highest rental rate increases,
Speaker 5: the highest rate of conversion of top-line revenue
Speaker 5: to bottom line free cash flow measured after all corporate expenses.
Speaker 5: Air is consistently the most efficient and effective way to invest in multifamily with public market liquidity.
Speaker 5: Air culture emphasizes teamwork and Keith leads a veteran team who know the Air Edge Playbook.
Speaker 5: Lead Stable Site Teams.
Speaker 5: are committed to continuous improvement, and who consistently raise air as the best place to work.
Speaker 5: Two important explanations of air's low controllable expenses.
Speaker 5: are the high productivity of air service managers.
Speaker 5: service managers and their long tenure.
Speaker 5: Air values technological efficiency.
Speaker 5: who gives a higher priority to a sense of mission and a commitment to the personal respect and relationship that bind together teams and customers.
Speaker 5: Taken together, the results of sector leading customer satisfaction.
Speaker 5: together the results of sector leading customer satisfaction, sector leading customer retention.
Speaker 5: 62% in the last 12 months, and sector low rate of growth in operating costs.
Speaker 5: In a moment, John will comment on the quality of the Air Portfolio.
Speaker 5: In the top three of apartment rates, when measured by average rents,
Speaker 5: and number one in red rose.
Speaker 5: Paul will follow to comment on the safety of the air balance sheet.
Speaker 5: No refunding required for two years.
Speaker 5: Little re-pricing risk.
Speaker 5: risk, almost $2 billion in liquidity.
Speaker 5: enough to refund all maturities until 2030.
Speaker 5: Looking ahead to this quarter and to the rest of 2023, shareholders should expect more of the same.
Speaker 5: Solid execution, grounded in a strong culture.
Speaker 5: execution grounded in a strong culture, aggressive portfolio management.
Speaker 5: A safe balance sheet. But thanks to the entire Air Team, including my helpful and engaged colleagues on the Air Board.
Speaker 5: I'll turn the call to Keith Edder-Veropsky. Thanks, Jerry.
Speaker 6: The first quarter was a good quarter and on plan.
Speaker 6: Results like these are a team effort.
Speaker 6: like these are a team effort. Our success is not so much to John .
Speaker 6: who has led the charge to transform our portfolio over the past two years.
Speaker 6: placing us in the right markets.
Speaker 6: and with communities that residents find appealing.
Speaker 6: We also owe much to Paul and his disciplined approach during the pandemic accounting for past due rent.
Speaker 6: It puts us in a good position now that restrictions on rent collections are winding down.
Speaker 6: Eric gets two benefits from Paul's approach.
Speaker 6: from Paul's approach. First,
Speaker 6: We do not have to make provisions today for rent not received two and three years ago.
Speaker 6: In fact, we have upsides when previously reserved rent is collected.
We have upsides when previously reserved rent is collected. Second.
as non-paying residents move out of their apartments.
We were able to re-rent those apartments and to add positive income.
The number of residents two or more months delinquent in normal times is quite low.
It ballooned during government restrictions, during the pandemic, and now is steadily decreasing.
From 1000 to begin 2022.
to 250 in January to 130 today.
And when these residents moved out...
We re-rented to customers who are now paying rent.
and doing so with leases that are actually 10% higher than the previous resident.
Most impactful is the operations team.
We worked hard to develop a business playbook, what we call the air edge.
and our first quarter performance is further evidence that our platform is impactful and leads to a different result.
The AirEdge is a combination of process, technology, analytics, and engineering.
and most importantly, people. We begin with an approach tuned to attract high quality residents that want to stay with us long term.
This is the core of creating a community where relationships matter and make our residents stickier.
We're diligently provide world-class customer service with our residents scoring us 4.3 out of 5 on 10,000 surveys during the first quarter.
That customer service is made possible by our onsite teams.
We're committed to not only maintaining our properties,
but building the sense of community and taking care of residents. As a result, our residents stay put, leading to our retention of 61.9% over the past year, or a turnover of just 38.1%.
To put that in context, we had 110 fewer move outs in the first quarter compared with 2022.
And that lower turnover is one of the key drivers of AER's decade-long decreases in personnel, marketing, and turnover costs.
Fewer units to lease drives higher pricing power.
So too does the stable community created by friends and neighbors when turnover is so low.
Not only that, our experienced and motivated leasing team supports applicants throughout the process.
matching their needs with available product, and selling the value of the community, not just the commodity.
This isn't just a philosophical stance, it translates into results.
Let me walk you through our first quarter.
rate growth remained robust with new leases up 8.7 percent, renewals up 8.4 percent, and blended average lease rate growth of 8.6 percent.
Occupancy was strong at 97.5% for the quarter.
which translated into revenue growth up 10.1% from the prior year.
Controllable operating expenses were down 20 basis points.
expenses were down 20 basis points due to the lower turnover I mentioned.
which allows us to be more efficient in our staffing and marketing efforts. Total expenses were up 3.3%.
And as a result, net operating income growth was 12.7%.
This culminated in a peer-leading net operating margin of 73.9%, an increase of 170 basis points from last year.
Adding the Air Edge to acquisitions is a predictable engine that drives above market growth.
as demonstrated by our first quarter results. Our class of 2021 in Washington, D.C. and Fort Lauderdale, now in the same store portfolio, and revenue growth 50% higher than the rest of our same store communities.
contributing 60 basis points to same store growth.
Controllable operating expenses at these acquisition communities were down 10% year over year.
The efficiencies inherent in the air platform continue to earn in.
Our class of 2022 is on track with the stabilized performance after the Air Edge implementation expected to be similar with revenue growth roughly 50% above same store with decreases in COE.
Our 2023 acquisition of Southgate in Miami Beach is in the very early days, but is on a similar trajectory.
April is our trend and our plan.
bringing the typical spring acceleration and the expected seasonal frictional vacancy.
Rates continue to be strong with signed leases up 8.1% above the prior lease.
renewals up 7.8% and blended average lease rates up 8%.
Looking forward at rates, we see blends in the range of 8% throughout the second quarter.
Leasing is accelerating in line with seasonal expectations with April ending 45% up from March volume.
And as expected, average daily occupancy has declined sequentially to 96.4% as we are beginning to see the planned churn of move-outs associated with peak season expirations.
We anticipate an occupancy rebound during the third quarter similar to our performance in years past. We anticipate an occupancy rebound during the third quarter similar to our performance
It remains early days. We're roughly a third through our leasing for the year. And even so, everything I see gives me confidence.
The demand is strong, rates are solid, our customer service remains world class, turnover is low, residents are paying rent, and the air edge will continue to drive above trend results for the balance of 2023.
My thanks to all the AIR team members for a great start to the year. Your consistent energy each and every day inspires me. I look forward to a successful peak season with you.
And with that, I'll now turn the call over to John McGrath, the Chairman of our Investment Committee, John . Thank you, Keith. We remain focused on repositioning the AIR portfolio through disciplined portfolio management and a creative capital allocation. Keith and his team's extraordinary work has made AIR the best operator.
multi-family reach.
This coupled with an improved capital allocation, including diversification by market and price point.
has enabled us to take a portfolio that was already quite good and make it even better. Our improved portfolio quality is evident in average rents, where we rank number three among our peers, and in rental growth rate, where we rank number one.
And that's in our same store portfolio.
Our acquisition portfolio is growing even faster, thanks to Keith's team and the Air Edge. While we are proud of the results, there is still work to do.
Looking ahead, I expect business as usual. HEAP will focus on operational excellence, and I will work to improve portfolio quality by recycling capital into well-located, high-quality properties that will benefit from the air edge sufficiently to generate enhanced returns with limited business risk and no increase in financial leverage.
Although we have no fixed goal for additional acquisitions in 2023, Josh and I are busy discussing possible transactions.
I am confident in our ability to source and execute trades, which will continue to improve the quality of the air portfolio and whose returns will be highly accretive to our cost of capital.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul Belden.
Chief Financial Officer. Paul. Thank you, John . Today I will discuss your high quality balance sheet, report first quarter results and our expectations for the full year, and conclude with a brief comment on our dividend.
The air balance sheet is well positioned for the uncertainties of today's capital markets. I'd like to spend a moment today addressing this liquidity, repayment risk, interest rate risk, and leverage relative to EBITDA.
First, air available liquidity is approximately 1.8 billion. For size, this is about three times the pure average.
To put this in context, current committed sources are sufficient to repay all of our debt that comes due for the next six years. In April , we established a secured credit facility to complement our existing revolving credit facility. The stability and benefits of the reverse credit charity, they Spongebob Group, they vary almost all the time and income while introducing the appropriate star sign from the Ghostbusters' Eye journal. Most like legally negotiated money, lowerTHR are not committed at all. In Japan, financial institutions have a limited and limited period of
The new facility currently provides...
for up to $1 billion of committed financing on an as-needed basis for the next 10 years.
Properties can be added and removed from the structure quickly and with minimal cost.
The pricing is based on the Fannie Mae grid, which today is lower than bond financing by 50 to 75 basis points.
While we have no current plans to access the new secured facility, it provides inexpensive insurance. Second, AER has no debt maturities for the next 24 months and as noted previously, we have committed financing available at our option for $2.5 million.
sufficient to refinance all debt maturing before 2030. Third, the rate risk is limited to our floating rate debt, which approximates 4% of net leverage. A 1% change in rate would affect earning by less than a penny per share per year.
Fourth, our leverage is elevated today by the acquisition of Southgate Towers in January . We expect that the amount borrowed will be reduced with proceeds from property sales and that EBITDA will increase from the earning of existing leases plus new and renewal leasing that captures our current 4.5% loss to lease.
We expect to finish the year with leverage to EBITDA of 5.9 to 1. Turning to first quarter results.
First quarter FFO was $0.55 per share, equal to the midpoint of guidance. Game store NLI growth slightly exceeded our expectations, but is recurring positive.
was offset by the non-recurring negative of higher than anticipated casualty losses. Looking forward, we anticipate second quarter FFO between 55 and 59 cents per share, driven by sequential NOI growth in our same store and acquisition portfolios.
And, we anticipate the second half FFO at the midpoint of $1.29 per share, a 17 cent acceleration from what we expect in the first half. We anticipate that roughly two-thirds, or approximately 11 cents, will come from the earn-in of today's rent roll in the same store and acquisition portfolios.
Another three cents or so is likely to be achieved through future leasing at today's Los Feliz.
The remaining three cents may be achieved through a variety of sources.
including future market rate growth at levels consistent with typical peak season results.
and or lower offsite costs, collection reserve past due grant, or the successful resolution to a long-running real estate tax appeal at Lincoln Place.
Last, the Air Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 45 cents per share.
On an annualized basis, the dividend reflects a yield of over 5% based on the current share price. Additionally, the tax-efficient nature of AER's dividend allows taxable investors to retain 40% more of its dividend as compared to pure average.
With that, we will now open the call for questions.
Let me hear questions to do for time in the queue. Ciara, I'll turn it over to you for the first question. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad.
Our first question today comes from Eric Wolf, Wolf saying the line is now open. Hey, thanks for taking my questions. First question just on market rent growth. Just curious how it's grown so far this year, whether it's in line with the expectations or whether you still think that there's at least some guidance that there's not going to be any market rent growth for the year.
Hey Eric, it's Keith. I would say that as we've started out the year, we've seen a little bit of market rent growth, about 2% that has been built in so far. Now of course, we're only a third, a little over a third of the way into it. What I would tell you that we're seeing is that our blends at 8% are
And then your release highlighted the upside from implementing your system on new acquisitions. But just curious, for SAP Carrot Power specifically, could you just help us understand what kind of Y upside you see there, where it's coming from, when do you think you'll achieve it?
Eric, can you repeat it? The question came in a little bit. It was hard to hear. Eric, can you repeat it? The question came in a little bit.
I understand, yeah. I think you really did a good job highlighting the upside from...
from implementing your system. So just curious for Southgate Towers, typically whether you would expect a sort of similar 20% increase in NOI and sort of where that's coming from.
Hi Eric, this is John . On Southgate, when we underwrote the opportunity, we were looking at the fact that we had a wonderful acquisition that we had the ability to implement the Air Edge, specifically looking at opportunities to
Capture the loss of lease, reduce cost due to Keith's operating platform and performance. And we're seeing that, although early days, we're seeing it actually coming to fruition today. I'll pass it over to Keith to give more specifics, but that's how we underwrote it.
So Eric, when we first took a look at Southgate, one of the things we went and looked at is we saw that we believe there was about a 30% loss to lease opportunity. Now of course that has to become realized and takes a couple of cycles to actually work its way through. But it was one of the greatest upsides that we saw in taking that one over.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Hendale Cinco. This needs a little. Your line is now open.
Hey, I guess good morning to you guys out there.
Great, great, thanks. First question is on the new billion dollar secured credit line. I was hoping you guys could expand a bit on the decision to pursue a secured line here. What's the pricing? Why secured? Why now? And beyond the incremental liquidity, are there any other messages that we should...
be taking away from this decision. Thanks. Well, let's take them in reverse order. There's no particular message, except that the world's unpredictable and the...
There are various extreme possibilities inside the current economy and it's good to have ready cash. So we want to be sure that we've got lots of liquidity.
Paul has done a great job in arranging this facility, which is very low cost, very long-term, and gives us lots of optionality. Can you share the term and the pricing? I didn't notice the pricing in the release.
So the facility has a duration of up to 15 years where new loans can be originated during the first 10 years. So you can think of that as a 10-year facility. And then pricing for the loans will be based upon market at the time a loan is desired. So at the point at today's rate that would be probably around the 5%...
and 5.1% level, but today we don't have a need or an intent to access the facility. As I mentioned in my remarks...
is viewed from our perspective as insurance because, as Terry said, the future is uncertain. Great, thank you for that, Connor. Keith, quick one for you. Maybe you can touch on a little bit on the deceleration and renewal in the quarter. Is that an intentional decision on your part, perhaps, to moderate turnover or are you sensing any pushback here? I'm curious on the, again, the renewal trend in the quarter. Thanks.
And I'll take the question. No, absolutely not. It's really just what becomes the take rate. So when we send them out, they'll have a range of possibilities that could be from 8 to 10%. What will happen is some folks will take some of the increases, those that are at the higher levels and lower levels, get a different blend and a different mix.
But no particular strategy. We ultimately always solve to total revenues at the bottom line. So we want residents to stay with us longer. That gives us pricing power, but not anything here that was intentional.
no particular strategy. We ultimately always solve to total revenues at the bottom line. So we want residents to stay with us longer that gives us pricing power but not anything here that was intentional. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
I wanted to ask about occupancy. Your lease growth rates are healthy and sector leading, but it seems to be at the expense of occupancy, which declined 90 basis points in April versus March. And Keith, you mentioned last year that during the second quarter occupancy trended down. I think it was down to 120.
There's two factors that really play into it. The first one is that by design, we had 60 basis points that came down through seasonal frictional vacancy. And that's just additional lease expirations that are going through the process of moving out and moving in. And then the second piece to that would be the impact of the 200 additional skips and evicts that happened in the first quarter that were reoccupying through the balance So, let's see…
point that we'll hit in the 95s and then it will bounce back and will grow back and we ultimately will finish up the year at 97 in that range.
Okay, just to clarify, in July it would be in the 95% range or it would drop down to the 95%.
It will be in the range of 90, in the 95s. Okay. My second question was on insurance. You noted in your press release a 40% increase in your same store pool and that was $1 million above budget. I was wondering if you could comment on how the insurance came in on your overall portfolio.
and color. Our overall increase is 40%. About 10% of that is due to increased TIV or increased value of the properties and the remaining 30% is due to premium increases. But I think the most important thing that I don't want anybody to miss is the fact that as we went through the renewal process, Patty Schwader and our team did a wonderful job of negotiating our policy for this upcoming year at levels and risks.
consistent with what we've had in the past. When we executed this renewal, we did not take on any additional risks. We're not self-insuring more. We have very high quality carriers and we feel quite good about it, although the costs are higher than we would like.
That's great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Sean Nien with Raul with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning, good afternoon everyone. Guys, could you talk about non-same store expense that rose substantially in the quarter? Was we point a
What was the biggest driver and you know was this all insurance? It's just a different way of asking the question that was just asked on the conference call just moments ago Shiny and our supplemental as you know we report two different portfolios one is our same store the second is is other What's in other is our couple of assets in New York City
And so if you look at our first quarter property revenue and property expenses from 2022, you'll see about a million, million and a half of each. That's the New York City portfolio. But then if you look at that in the first quarter of 23, you'll see that that has increased substantially. And that's just due to the acquisitions that we've completed in 2022 and 23. So
Are there any markets where you are using concessions at the moment, house supply tracking? Any general geographic market color would be very appreciated. Thank you.
Well, let me walk you through a few things that I think about. The first one is that...
In DC we're seeing just a market that just has been extremely strong and stable. I'd say that not only has the occupancy been incredibly good, but we've seen the ability to be able to continue to press rents there, and I'd say that that stands out. Los Angeles is a standout because we have good bad news going on there. One of the biggest questions that came up was, how do you get the most out of the market?
part of the occupancy trade. Well, those evictions, skips, and evicts that have occurred, those really have multiple benefits to come back to us. The first one is that what we're seeing is that those late visas are trading out at 10% plus.
The addition to that is that we have residents who are paying rent compared to those that weren't. And then the third piece is the great work that Paul has done reserving gives us the opportunity to have further collections for past due balances from previous periods. So we see LA as one that we have a lot of optimism around while there's a short-term transition and occupancy.
There's an upside that comes with that. And then I would just point out, of course, Miami and San Diego have been top winners for us. Denver is showing acceleration in a variety of places. So those are the way I'd walk you through the markets. Thank you so much for that detail.
Thank you for your question. Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad.
Our next question comes from John Polosky with Green Street. Your line is now open.
Thanks for the time. A question for Paul or Keith. I'm looking at the components of same show revenue growth in the table you guys put at the bottom of page 4 in the sub. The 80-bit sequential increase in residential rental income struck me as...
It's quite low relative to the really high blended lease spreads you achieved. Was there anything unusual, unusual drags in the first quarter outside of the late fees that would have suppressed sequential revenue?
This is Paul. I'll start and see if Keith would like to add anything. There's nothing unusual about that. I guess what I would probably have you think about is the timing of expirations and how those roll through the rent roll. But the business, as Keith has mentioned, has proceeded consistent with what we expected.
John , I was just going to add it's playing out as we would expect. So maybe some timing in there, but nothing to point out.
Okay, was there an unusually low percentage of leases that actually expired outside of the normal seasonally low period?
No, nothing unusual outside of our norms. What I would tell you is our turnover was low and we had a low number of move outs.
Okay, last one for me. Paul, just in terms of the trajectory of deleveraging you're trying to get to by the end of the year, can you just clarify for me, I'm unclear, what type of dispositions are contemplated through the balance of the year? I know you only have $50 million outlined on page 10 of this up. I have to go through that, okay? Be silent.
It feels like you need more in disposition if they get to deleveraging. How much are you looking to sell this year? I think you're correct in our supplemental. We got it to $50 million of dispositions. That's the plan. John and Tim are working on that, and we expect that will get executed. We also expect the benefit of EBITDA growth. If you think about the cadence of our FFO.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Terry Kossa-Dine with any additional remarks.
Well, I just thank each of you for your interest in care. If we left you with any questions, please call Paul or Matt or Brady or myself. We'll do our best to answer them. And we look forward to seeing many of you next month at NARIE. Be well. That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line.