Q4 2024 Equity Residential Earnings Call
Good day and welcome to the Equity Residential Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast.
Today's conference is being recorded.
At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marty McKenna.
Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker Change: Good morning and thanks for joining us to discuss Equity Residential's fourth quarter 2024 results. Our featured speakers today are Mark Parrell, our President and CEO, Michael Manelis, our Chief Operating Officer, and Bob Garechana, our Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker Change: Alec Brackenridge, our Chief Investment Officer, is here with us as well for the Q&A.
Speaker Change: Our earnings release and management presentation are posted in the investor section of EquityApartments.com.
Speaker Change: Please be advised that certain matters discussed during this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws These forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risks and uncertainties
Speaker Change: The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. Now I will turn the call over to Mark Parrell.
Mark Parrell: Thank you, Marty. Good morning and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results and outlook for 2025.
Speaker Change: I will start us off, then Michael Manelis, our COO, will speak to our 2024 Operating Performance and 2025 Revenue Guidance. Then Bob Garechana, our Chief Financial Officer, will cover our 2025 Expense and NFFO Guidance. Then we'll go ahead and take your questions.
Mark Parrell: We also posted a management presentation on our website last night with some additional detail.
Mark Parrell: And before I get to the meat of my remarks, I want to spend a minute thanking my colleagues in the Los Angeles market for all they've done to support our residents and each other during this very difficult time.
Mark Parrell: We are fortunate to have not had any properties seriously impacted by the fires, but our teams and everyone else in LA has been through a lot.
Mark Parrell: A special shout out to all the firefighters, first responders, and everyone else who worked tirelessly to battle the blazes.
Mark Parrell: Now turning to 2024, we finished the year with solid same store revenue results that were a good bit better than the midpoint of what we'd expected at the beginning of the year, but with slowing bad debt improvement in the fourth quarter, leaving us at the lower end of our previously upwardly revised guidance expectations.
Mark Parrell: Demand remains very good across our portfolio, with levels of supply the main determinant of market performance.
Mark Parrell: Before putting 2024 in the rearview mirror, I want to thank my colleagues across our 300 plus properties.
Mark Parrell: and at corporate who once again did a great job managing expense growth while providing outstanding customer service.
Mark Parrell: We are very proud of delivering same-store expense growth in 2024 of 2.9% and delivering an average of only 3.2% same-store expense growth over the past five years. Well done, team.
Speaker Change: In both our earnings release and in the management presentation, we provided guidance for our 2025 operations. Michael and Bob are going to provide some color in that guidance in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to talk about the economic outlook that supports these guidance expectations.
Speaker Change: Based on the third party economic projections we use, we expect office using job growth, which we see is a key driver of our business to be higher in 2025 than in 2024, especially on the West Coast.
Speaker Change: The improvement we are seeing in our downtown Seattle operations and beginning to see in the San Francisco market, both downtown and on the peninsula, are consistent with that theme.
Speaker Change: Unemployment of college graduates, the bulk of our residents is currently very low at 2.4%. And we expect it to stay in that range in 2025.
Speaker Change: With the supply of housing already tight in most of our markets, we see this setup as very positive for our business.
Speaker Change: I also note that our current earnings guidance is driven by the positive signs we are seeing looking at our operating dashboards, as well as our deep knowledge of supply and demand dynamics in our markets, rather than by looking at the headlines.
Speaker Change: Well, we certainly acknowledge that there is a higher level of uncertainty in the forward path of the economy than usual, given various recent governmental actions relating to tariffs and other matters.
Speaker Change: The impact of these actions on the larger economy and our business is hard to estimate currently, will evolve over time, and is not included in our guidance expectations.
Speaker Change: That said, being a strong cash flow business without foreign operations and with a fortress balance sheet in times of heightened uncertainty is a definitive positive.
Speaker Change: We're looking at supply in our coastal established markets where we have 90% of our net operating income.
Speaker Change: We expect completions of competitive units to be similar in 2025 to 2024 but at a considerably lower level as a percentage of existing apartment inventory than in the Sunbelt markets.
Speaker Change: With some localized exceptions that Michael will discuss, we expect this coastal supply to be absorbed well in these housing starved markets.
Speaker Change: So, while 2025 will be similar to 2024 in terms of established market units delivered that are competitive with our properties, overall supply levels continue to be manageable.
Speaker Change: While there continues to be a lot of conversation about declines in Sunbelt starts, we think it is at least as notable that 2024 competitive starts and our coastal footprint were about half of normal levels, with 2025 starts likely to be similarly restrained.
Speaker Change: In fact, as a percentage of existing inventory, total starts in our established markets in 2024 were at rock-bottom levels last seen just after the Great Financial Crisis.
Speaker Change: As a result, we see 2026 total deliveries in our coastal markets around 30% lower than the pre-pandemic average. In sum, the supply versus demand setup is good in our coastal markets now and will likely trend even better later this year and into 2026.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Turning to our expansion markets of Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, and Denver, where we have about 10% of our net NOI, we expect 2025 deliveries to be lower than in 2024, but still at an elevated level.
Speaker Change: We also expect that in 2025 these markets will still be working off the supply delivered in 2024.
Speaker Change: Overall, demand remains good in our expansion markets and these high job growth markets will eventually absorb the current and incoming supply, but it'll take some time to do so and progress we think will be uneven. In a moment, Michael will go over what we are currently seeing in these markets.
Speaker Change: When we apply all this to our capital allocation strategy, it confirms to us again the wisdom of having a strategically diversified portfolio.
Michael Manelis: Our goal is to own an apartment portfolio that has the highest long-term total return in the sector with a focus on cash flow growth, taking account risk, and minimizing volatility.
Michael Manelis: We are achieving this goal by catering to well-earning renters in the 12 or so metro areas that we think have the most desirable lifestyles for this demographic.
Michael Manelis: and present the best balance of long-term demand, supply, regulatory, and resiliency opportunities and risks, and where we can efficiently operate our properties with our industry-leading people and systems.
Michael Manelis: We made substantial progress towards our goal of having 20% of our NOI in our expansion markets by investing almost $2 billion in acquisitions and delivered development projects.
Michael Manelis: in these markets during 2024 while disposing of about $1 billion of older assets located entirely in our coastal markets.
Michael Manelis: Our portfolios in the expansion markets feature newer, well-located properties with a healthy balance between suburban and urban.
Michael Manelis: We have given guidance for $1.5 billion of acquisitions and $1 billion of dispositions in 2025. As you can see, we expect to fund the bulk of our acquisition activity using proceeds from dispos. We are also assuming in our guidance that we will be a net acquirer and that we will fund that net acquisition activity using debt.
Michael Manelis: You should expect material net acquisition activity only if, like in 2024 where we acquired $600 million using debt, the numbers support that activity.
Speaker Change: Finally, I wish to thank Barry Altshuler, our Regulatory Affairs Guru, and others across the rental housing industry for doing an outstanding job advocating for pro-housing solutions like less regulation and better public-private partnerships to encourage more supply and against anti-housing ideas like rent control.
Speaker Change: We had great success in California and across the country last quarter. Equity Residential will continue to be a leader with its industry partners in advancing pro-housing policies.
Speaker Change: While political risk remains in our markets, we have definitively seen the tide turn towards more thoughtful housing policies and a focus on quality of life and public safety in our central cities. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Michael Manelis.
Thanks, Mark, and thanks to everyone for joining us today.
Michael Manelis: This morning, I will review our fourth quarter 2024 operating performance and our operating outlook for 2025. In addition to our earnings release published last night, we've also published a detailed management presentation that provides additional color on the drivers of our guidance that I will refer to.
Michael Manelis: We ended the year with continued healthy fundamentals and solid demand from a well-employed renter population, which drove strong occupancy of 96.1% and a blended rate growth of 1%, both of which met our forecast for the quarter.
Michael Manelis: I'd also like to highlight that our fourth quarter turnover was just 9%, bringing our full-year turnover to 42.5%, which is the lowest we have reported in our 30-year history as a public company.
Michael Manelis: This clearly demonstrates our success in creating remarkable resident experiences and reflects the favorable supply-demand dynamics in our portfolio.
Michael Manelis: On the expense side, for the full year, we have kept growth in same-store operating expenses below 3%, with a special call-out to the relatively flat payroll growth and 2% growth in repairs and maintenance, including a 5.5% reduction in turnover expense.
Michael Manelis: This again highlights our ability to share resources across properties and minimize reliance on outsourced labor.
Michael Manelis: We are pleased to report that two-thirds of our properties have a shared resource model in place, and we're excited about the additional opportunities that further automation and centralization provide.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Moving to 2025, our same-store revenue growth guidance range is 2.25% to 3.25%, with an expense rate growth range of 3.5% to 4.5%. Bob will provide color on the expense guidance in a moment, but let me focus your attention on the building blocks for revenue growth as detailed on page 6 of the management presentation.
Our revenue midpoint assumes the following.
Speaker Change: We start with embedded growth of 80 basis points in 2025. This is 40 basis points lower than our starting point in 2024, and at the lower end of the historical averages,
Speaker Change: But the gap is largely expected to be made up through stronger leasing activity during 2025.
Speaker Change: That strong leasing activity will be driven by continued strength and overall demand from better job growth forecasted in our markets and very manageable levels of competitive new supply, particularly in our established markets, which are 90% of the total portfolio.
Speaker Change: This is expected to yield blended rate growth between 2% and 3% for the full year, which is about 60 basis points better than what we delivered for the full year 2024, with a good portion of that improvement coming from the recovery of some of our West Coast markets that I will discuss later.
Speaker Change: We also expect continued strong resident retention as a result of both the benefits of a centralized renewal process, our enhanced data and analytics insights, and the high cost and low availability of owned housing in our markets.
Speaker Change: As I said earlier, turnover in the portfolio remains the lowest that we have seen in the history of our company, and we expect that trend to continue in 2025.
Speaker Change: This leads to approximately 3% residential same-store revenue growth, which is identical to 2024, which is then partially offset by declines in non-residential same-store revenue to get to the 2.75% midpoint of our guidance range as described on page 6 of the management presentation.
Speaker Change: Occupancy should hold at levels similar to last year, which at that strength will allow us to capture rates.
Speaker Change: Operating results will also benefit from our continued execution on innovation initiatives with the majority of it running through the other income line.
Speaker Change: This year, we will be focusing on our analytical efforts with data-driven pricing and retention strategies, expanding automation to drive additional operating efficiencies, and all the while endeavoring to ensure that we provide a great customer experience.
Speaker Change: In 2025, we expect about 70 basis points or nearly $20 million in other income growth, with a large majority of it coming from initiatives that we have discussed in the past and the further rollout of our internet connectivity and technology programs.
Speaker Change: Bob will walk through the associated expenses with that, but net-net, these will be additive to earnings overall.
Bob Garechana: In terms of the overall market performance, Seattle and D.C. should lead the pack with same-store revenue growth of approximately 4%, and New York and San Francisco will follow very closely behind.
Bob Garechana: And our expansion markets, which reflect only 10% of the total company NOI, we expect to produce negative same-store revenue growth, given the impact of elevated, albeit declining, levels of supply that need to work through the system.
Bob Garechana: As we look at the individual markets, let's start with Los Angeles, where I would like to echo Mark's comments with tremendous gratitude to our amazing team in this market.
Bob Garechana: Our guidance does not assume potential operational impacts in either revenues or in terms of cleanup expenses from the fires that I will discuss in a moment.
Here's what we have included.
Bob Garechana: So first, the market will see more supply than it did in 2024, but we expect the impact on our portfolio to be manageable and consistent with last year, with the mid-Wilshire Koreatown submarket feeling the most competitive pressure.
Bob Garechana: followed by the San Fernando Valley, which will see an increase but without significant impact to us.
Bob Garechana: As I'll discuss in a moment, depending on the regulatory actions taken in LA, this improvement may happen more slowly than what is now assumed in our guidance.
Bob Garechana: Physical occupancy and pricing trends started improving late last year, and we modeled a continued pace of improvement, which results in our full-year same-store market revenue projection for L.A. to be around 3%. But again, this may be impacted by any regulatory limits put in place in response to the fires.
Bob Garechana: Which brings us to the potential impact from the fires. While there has been a lot of speculation, we believe it is still too early to understand the full impact on operations. There will likely be more demand in the market as fire impacted residents seek new accommodations, especially in the two and three bedroom units, which comprise about 45% of our LA portfolio, which we have already seen in certain submarkets.
Bob Garechana: There will also likely be cleanup expenses the company incurs from the fires and various governmental actions that could negatively impact our operations.
Bob Garechana: There are also likely to be twists and turns in the recovery process and governmental response. For now, we feel like the base case we outlined is our best assumption. We'll keep you posted on what happens here and anticipate that we'll have a better color on our first quarter call in April.
Bob Garechana: Staying on the West Coast, San Diego and Orange County were some of the better performers last year. In 2025, we expect that these markets will continue to see good demand. Job growth in both markets is expected to exceed 2024 levels and there is a general lack of housing.
Bob Garechana: High homeownership costs make renting in these markets the most attractive option. Both markets are expected to see slightly more competitive new supply in 2025, but overall, we would expect good performance here.
Bob Garechana: Job growth expectations continue to improve, and demand in the downtown and peninsula submarkets are strong, which should lead to additional pricing power in 2025.
Bob Garechana: As I mentioned a moment ago, we have modeled some improvement in the operating conditions for the overall market of San Francisco, with growth primarily coming from both the peninsula and downtown submarkets.
Bob Garechana: A more robust recovery is certainly possible if demand and pricing improve early enough in the year.
Bob Garechana: Currently, concession use remains elevated in the San Francisco market, especially in the downtown sub-market, but overall improved significantly in 2024.
Bob Garechana: We expect with improving occupancy, we will begin to see net effective pricing improvements in the market as rents and occupancy are increasing, which will most likely lead to a further pullback and concessions if these occupancy gains hold.
Bob Garechana: New supply forecast for 2025 in San Francisco is very similar to 2024 quantities with almost no supply in downtown San Francisco and most of it concentrated in the South Bay where absorption has been strong.
We also are feeling really good about Seattle in 2025.
Bob Garechana: Despite heightened pockets of supply, particularly in the Urban Core and Redmond sub-market, we finished 24 in a strong position and look to have increasing pricing power resulting from continued demand as employers like Amazon bring their teams back to the office and supply begins to abate in the second half of this year.
Bob Garechana: Quality of life issues in the city continue to improve, and the city has a bounce in its step after a pretty good stretch in the doldrums.
Bob Garechana: Competitive deliveries with our portfolio peaked in the fourth quarter of 2024 and our pricing power held up during a period of time when it normally declines. We expect Seattle to be one of our strongest revenue growth markets in 2025.
Moving to the East Coast, starting in Boston.
Bob Garechana: With high occupancy and limited new competitive supply, this market should perform well in 2025. The market is supported by a strong employment base in finance, tech, life sciences, health, and education. Overall, new deliveries will be about the same in 2025 as last year, but the majority of the deliveries will be in the suburbs, which bodes well for us given 70% of our assets are located in the urban core of Boston.
Bob Garechana: Our urban assets outperformed suburban ones in 2024, and we expect that spread will be even greater in 2025.
Bob Garechana: New York was a top performer in 24 and we expect that to continue in 2025. The employment base is strong, market occupancy is high, and there's almost no new competitive supply being delivered in Manhattan where we have the majority of our portfolio.
Bob Garechana: Washington DC was our top performer last year and our expectations remain high for 2025. The absorption here has been very impressive considering that the market has been delivering more than 10,000 units a year and will do so again in 2025.
Bob Garechana: We're almost 97% occupied in the market, which is a good start to the year, and the wildcard here is what impact the new administration and its focus on both cost-cutting and a return to office policy for federal employees will have on the local job market.
Bob Garechana: In the expansion markets, our long-term outlook remains positive as we expect to continue to see higher-than-average job growth in those metro areas, but our near-term operating environment is challenging.
Bob Garechana: We have seen stability in new lease rates and occupancy in Atlanta and Dallas the last two months, and while volatility is possible, we currently expect that new lease rates will improve as they usually do in the busy spring leasing season in these markets.
Bob Garechana: In Denver, conditions today are challenging as we have some new deals in close proximity to our assets that could push the improvement to later in the year.
Bob Garechana: Even with these hoped-for improvements in operating conditions, we expect same-store revenue in our expansion markets to be lower in 2025 than it was in 2024.
Bob Garechana: Looking at the overall company level as we sit here today, we really like our position.
Bob Garechana: We're looking forward to capturing the opportunities the spring leasing season brings, which will help frame pricing power for the full year.
Bob Garechana: I want to give a shout out for our amazing teams across our platform for their continued dedication to our residents and focus on delivering these results. With that, I turn the call over to Bob to walk through the rest of our guidance expectations for 2025.
Bob Garechana: Thanks, Michael. With Michael having just walked through 2025 same-store revenue expectations, let me finish with same-store expenses, normalized FFO, and provide some color on anticipated capital markets activity for 2025.
Bob Garechana: Turning to expenses, expense management remains a core strength of EQR as demonstrated over the years and during 2024.
Bob Garechana: Our 2025 guidance of 3.5% to 4.5% implies somewhat higher growth in 2025 than 2024 as outlined on page 6 of the management presentation, but still reflects that strength.
Bob Garechana: As you can see, the incremental growth in expenses are stemming from a couple of items. First, connectivity expenses are adding approximately $5 million to expense growth as we deploy bulk Wi-Fi in the portfolio. As Michael mentioned, they are also adding new revenue, so we will be accretive to NOI for the full year.
Bob Garechana: Second, we have another year of 421A tax abatement step-ups in the New York portfolio.
Bob Garechana: We are down to only a handful of properties in step-up, with most nearing the end of the period. As we have mentioned in the past, once fully taxed, there is an incremental income opportunity as affordable units convert to market rate in the future.
Bob Garechana: Beyond those two items, same-store expense growth will look relatively similar to 2024, but with a little incremental growth from utilities and payroll given the low growth in 2024, setting up a tough comparable period.
Bob Garechana: Moving to NFFO. Page 8 provides some narrative around NFFO contributors outside of same store along with a bridge to the midpoint of our guidance range. This bridge can also be found in the earnings release.
Bob Garechana: Beyond residential same-store NOI, let me provide some color around a couple of the larger categories.
Bob Garechana: First, transaction NOI. The majority of this contribution is coming from 2024 transaction activity and our buys and sells last year. There is some impact from our assumptions in 2025, but as Mark mentioned, this will be continued upon what market conditions look like, so that could change.
Second, interest expense.
Bob Garechana: The majority of the increase in interest expense is coming from increases in anticipated balances from investment activity, mostly acquisitions, with about one cent of the increase also coming from refinancing of our 2025 maturity at what we expect to be a higher rate. More about that in a second.
Bob Garechana: And finally, LeaseUp NOI. The one-cent contribution from LeaseUp NOI is coming from our few consolidated lease-ups.
Bob Garechana: The majority of our lease-ups are from unconsolidated joint ventures in our expansion markets that are encumbered with project-level debt, and the net income from those projects runs through the income from investments in unconsolidated entities line.
Bob Garechana: Four of these unconsolidated JV development deals were completed late in 2024 and will be leasing up throughout the year.
Bob Garechana: Given current leasing velocity and the cessation of capitalized interest on the loans, we do not expect these joint venture assets to contribute to NFFO growth in 2025. We've added specific guidance on this income to the guidance page of the earnings release.
Bob Garechana: Finally, let me briefly mention our anticipated capital markets activity for 2025. We have one significant maturity, which is a $450 million, 3.375% note, due in June of this year.
Bob Garechana: We would expect to refinance this note at or near the maturity, most likely with unsecured debt. We have ample liquidity and capacity under our recently expanded commercial paper program to float this payoff and be opportunistic about when exactly we refinance the maturity.
Speaker Change: All other financing activities will be dependent upon transaction activity and conditions, as Mark mentioned. Our guidance assumes $500 million to $1 billion of debt issuance because we modeled being a net acquirer of $500 million in our guidance. Expected debt issuance, however, will adjust as that adjusts.
Speaker Change: With that, let me turn it over to the operator to begin Q&A.
Speaker Change: And if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach your equipment. Once again, that is star 1 if you would like to ask a question.
We'll take our first question from Eric Wolf with Citi.
Eric Wolf: Hey, thanks. You mentioned that same-store revenue should accelerate throughout the year. Can you just talk about how much of that is driven by other income versus improved fundamentals, and then what type of acceleration you're expecting in the second half versus first half, or where you expect to start the year versus end of year, or however you think we should think about it?
Eric Wolf: Yeah, hey Eric, it's Bob, but I'll start with that, kind of outlining the shape of what we expect revenue to be.
Eric Wolf: The shape should be such that, as you mentioned, that the acceleration or the year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter growth will be higher in the back end of the year than the front end of the year. And there's two main drivers associated with that.
Eric Wolf: The first driver is really that we're starting the year with lower embedded growth than historical. And a lot of the growth is coming from actual leasing activity in 2025. And so as you get to the second quarter and the third quarter, which are the prime leasing seasons, you start to see that contribution coming through the quarter over quarter. And so there's a good portion of growth associated in the back end quarters.
Eric Wolf: there relative to the front quarters which will be lower because of that lower embedded growth.
Eric Wolf: Additionally to that, you also have the other income, which has kind of got the same shape to it. So you have the other income is a lot of it, as Michael mentioned, is the connectivity.
Eric Wolf: So, you have that growth component also more weighted in the third and fourth quarter as you roll through the program of rolling out the Wi-Fi piece. So, from a kind of quarter-over-quarter perspective in same-store revenue, you should see the first quarter being the lowest and a little bit lower, and then it builds as you see the leasing activity and as you see the other income contribute overall, such that you get to a higher Q4 relative to Q1.
Thank you for watching. See you next time.
Speaker Change: That's helpful. And then you outline some markets that you expect to improve throughout the year. I think mainly SS and Sunbelt, at least from like a blended rent perspective, maybe not from a
Speaker Change: Same-store revenue for Sunbelt, but can you just talk about how much better the sort of second half blended rate growth might be versus the first half? I'm just trying to understand the degree of improvement you're expecting in those markets.
Michael Manelis: Yeah, Eric, this is Michael. So, I mean, I think you would follow a shape right now. We gave some guidance in the release for the first quarter as to how it blends.
Michael Manelis: And I'll tell you, in that equation, I mean, you've heard me talk before about the consistency in our renewal process.
Michael Manelis: So renewals are pretty much flat, you know, going month by month throughout these quarters.
Michael Manelis: So I think the build, as you see the year play out.
You would.
Michael Manelis: clearly start to accelerate in the second half of the year, which the third quarter probably having the strongest, but then you would expect moderation again in that fourth quarter. So the shape doesn't look materially different than other years. It's just, it's going to be elevated as you work your way through the middle of the year.
Got it. Thank you.
and others. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks. I know you're trying to get away from a ton of sort of KPIs on the leasing side, kind of month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, but could you just maybe provide some color on where renewal rates are going out? I guess we were pleasantly surprised that
Speaker Change: 5% renewal increase in the fourth quarter, but new leases did come in, I think, a touch weaker than we had expected. So where are you sending out renewals today across the portfolio in the first quarter?
Speaker Change: Yeah, hey Steve, this is Michael. So first, you know, I just want to remind you, we do have a centralized renewal team handling our entire renewal process, including all the negotiations.
Speaker Change: which has really allowed us to execute like various strategies across the markets as we see conditions changing. You know, right now we're in the process of tightening up negotiations as we start dealing with renewal months that, you know, are heading into that leasing season like March.
Speaker Change: You know, we have conditions that are improving in Seattle, San Francisco, L.A. We love the current occupancy position that the portfolio's in. So for the next several months right now, the quotes that are out there in the marketplace are about a 7%, and I'd say that we would expect to achieve increases somewhere right around that 5% kind of range. We've got good insights. We've got a lot of confidence in the stability of this renewal performance in the portfolio right now.
Speaker Change: Great, thanks. And then maybe on capital deployment, I know you've got, you know, a net acquisition volume of 500 million, but you do have a moderately active development pipeline. I'm just curious, you know, how does development sort of play into your thought process today?
Speaker Change: where are yields on new projects and how do those development yields stack up to the acquisition yields you're looking at.
Hey Steve, it's Alec.
Speaker Change: It's a pretty uncertain market right now just to be able to even start and peg a Acquisition cap rate but for the moment assume it's around a five I can't tell you that a lot of transactions right now because the markets pretty frozen
Speaker Change: Yeah, further, more suburban, even exurban, and not really the stuff we're crazy about. So we've been really patient. We have
Speaker Change: just three starts from last year and nothing geared up for this year. But we keep looking at if we can find the right location, which would be a place where we don't think we'll be able to buy.
Speaker Change: and the three starts last year as a reminder. We're in suburban Boston and suburban Seattle. You know, that's what we would pursue. But right now, it's really tough to make the numbers work on something that's appealing to us.
Great, thanks.
Speaker Change: Hey, good morning. I have a follow-up question on your comments around supply likely being down 30% in 2026 relative to pre-pandemic.
Speaker Change: pre-pandemic norms. I'm curious if you bifurcated that between urban and suburban. Is it fair to assume that urban is down significantly more than that 30 percent? And then if so, how are you thinking about your ideal market mix right now or sub-market mix between urban and suburban, given urban might have a longer runway of no supply than the suburbs?
Hey John, it's Mark Parrell. First off, go Eagles, right?
Speaker Change: Second, I'll say to you, we agree. I think with your comment, I think that's perceptive. On the urban side, we see a lot less being built. The high rise product you need to build to make those numbers work.
Speaker Change: frankly don't work at all those numbers at this point and we see a longer runway in some of the urban sub markets.
Speaker Change: And that's why we've talked a little bit about continuing to stay exposed.
in our legacy Established Markets to the Urban Core.
Speaker Change: and in our new markets of having a presence in urban areas as well.
Speaker Change: I mean, there's deeper pools of demand in urban areas. There's typically been more supply, but we think that dynamic's going to change. So we like being differentiated by continuing to think of the urban centers as worthy of investment, but every city varies, and Alec can amplify that. There's...
places that are less appealing, like frankly, Dallas.
Speaker Change: a central city. And there's places like, you know, Midtown Atlanta that do have a lot of supply, but are much more appealing to our demographics. So we're going to continue to balance that out. But we are investing in urban areas, both in our current
Speaker Change: you know, coastal markets as well as these newest, you know, kind of expansion markets that we've been focused on.
Speaker Change: Yeah, to Mark's point, so we do distinguish between, say, the CBD, which sometimes people think is the only urban area, with some neighborhoods that are closer in, still very dense, but offer a great quality of life without some of the legacy issues that we're seeing in CBDs throughout the country.
and many more. Thank you for watching. I'm Michael Manelis.
Speaker Change: Okay, I guess in terms of the capital allocation read-through, you know, relative to six or twelve months ago, are you guys becoming more open-minded that your urban concentration should be higher than you expected it to be, you know, six or twelve months ago moving forward?
Speaker Change: I'm not sure that's changed a great deal. I think it's just the balancing act. There are a few assets.
Speaker Change: in the urban centers on the West Coast that we probably will sell over time because, John, we're a little over-concentrated in certain sub-markets.
Speaker Change: But, I mean, we talked about the benefits of urban concentration even when things were difficult during COVID, so I don't think our opinions changed. We like the exposure to the urban areas. We like it.
Speaker Change: Now, I think you're going to see the benefit of it in our numbers in the next year or so.
Speaker Change: So I think having that diversification, not being all suburban or ex-urban or whatnot is a good thing for us. But there's going to be markets like Dallas, where, as Alex said, we're kind of a little more distant urban and a lot more suburban. And there's markets like New York where we're entirely urban. And I like having that toggle. I think markets have different
Speaker Change: best spots to invest in. And so yeah, we feel we feel good about our urban, but frankly, we felt good about it a year ago, too.
Speaker Change: Okay, my last question, Michael, just on the DC market. I know it's really early and the news flow changes by the hour. I'm just curious what your local team is seeing on the ground in terms of traffic, pricing power on existing tenants or new tenants, just given the uncertainty about potential layoffs and for federal employees.
Speaker Change: Yeah, it's a great question, John. So I mean, right now, I gotta tell you, the DC portfolio is occupied 97.1% today.
Speaker Change: We have a pricing curve that's on par to slightly better than what you would expect.
Speaker Change: you know, for the beginning of the year. In terms of like the feedback on on-site right now, we haven't really seen anything kind of flow through with renewals.
Speaker Change: I think everybody's still a little bit on edge, and I think, as I said in my prepared remarks,
Speaker Change: There's still a lot of uncertainty on the overall impact, I guess I would say, at the main, in terms of layoffs.
Speaker Change: versus this concept of bringing people back into the office, like, does that neutralize each other in the demand? So I think it's still a little bit too early, but I can tell you, I know there are people that
Speaker Change: are on angst right now in the market and we just kind of need to see how this plays out over the course of the next couple of months. But the positioning of the market and the portfolio today is really strong.
Speaker Change: And the diversification of employers is a lot better in DC, John, it's Mark, than it used to be. I mean, there are other employers there. There's a lot, by the way, of defense industry related stuff, which
Speaker Change: may not be subject to the same staffing restrictions. I know some of those people weren't sent the same email that I guess was sent to the general federal workforce. So I think there are definitely ups and downs there.
That's probably a smaller federal workforce going forward but
Speaker Change: In terms of the DC focused workforce, that number might end up being higher because of the defense
Speaker Change: concentration, and as Michael said, them just asking or demanding that people be in the office. Those people that are far away are not, you know, currently renters from us and may be new renters soon for a portfolio that has very little slack in it already.
Okay, thanks for the time.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: We'll now take our next question from Michael Goldsmith with UBS.
Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question.
Speaker Change: My first question is on seasonality. It seems like this is the second year in a row of maybe a weaker fourth quarter, but with expectations of a stronger first quarter. So can you talk a little bit about the factors that are influencing that? And then also within the comments that it seems like the momentum should be sustained through this year into the fourth quarter of 25. So what gives you confidence that the momentum can be sustained through this year, kind of like the trends in the last two years?
and others.
Michael Manelis: Yeah, hey Michael, this is Michael. So I think, you know, from a seasonality standpoint, I would tell you the fourth quarter kind of played out the way we expected it to play out.
I mean, you normally see deceleration.
Michael Manelis: in 24, because I just think the macro indicators for us tell us that we are in for a period of stronger pricing power this year than what we had last year, but that doesn't mean that we won't see deceleration in the fourth quarter of 2025. We would expect to see some deceleration at that time, just based on normal seasonality trends and the way these markets act, but the strength in the portfolio right now
Michael Manelis: gives us that confidence of having this pricing power build, and some of the recovery in these West Coast markets clearly are going to put us in a position to start having stronger blended rates than what we've seen in the past.
Speaker Change: Got it, helpful. Second question, you know, on the 420A, the expense component is pretty clear, but how should we be thinking about the potential benefit to these buildings in terms of revenue as restrictions burn off? And if I can squeeze one more in as well, you know, how much sunbelt is entering the same store pool this year? Thanks.
Michael, it's Alec, just on the 421A question.
Speaker Change: It's really hard to project that because they don't turn to market until they vacate. So if someone stays in the unit a longer time, you obviously can't get to that unit sooner. They could move out tomorrow and we get to it right away. So it's hard to peg, but the upside is high because a lot of these rents...
Speaker Change: are like, say, $1, $1.50 a foot, and they could go up to $6, $7 a foot. So there's some pretty dramatic increases that are potentially possible.
Michael: Hey Michael, and on the same store component with the Sunbelt, the 2025 same store set is not materially different than the 2024 same store set. There's a couple assets coming in.
Michael: to it from the Sunbelt. The majority of our transaction activity won't hit the full year annualized same store set until 2026, because recall that you might see it in Q3 and Q4 are the quarterly set.
Michael: because we bought the assets from the Blackstone portfolio, did most of our transaction activity in the back half of 2024. But until you enter the full year, same store set, it won't materially change until 26.
Speaker Change: And just to add a little more color, Michael had a good question. In 2026...
A lot of those units are going to be suburban.
Speaker Change: It just happens by coincidence as we built these balanced portfolios that we bought, for example, more in Denver.
Speaker Change: in urban areas initially. Those properties are in the same store. They did really, really well for us, and now they're getting hurt by the supply.
but the non-same-store pool, which is predominantly, almost entirely suburban.
Speaker Change: and those big three markets for us of Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver. When that rolls in the same store in 2026, I think that's going to be very helpful. And I think it's going to prove out the benefit of having a balanced portfolio in kind of both parts of a market, not just all suburban, not just all urban. We will have gotten benefit through the whole cycle.
And I thank you very much.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: We'll now take our next question from Anthony Pellum with J.P. Morgan.
Anthony Pellum: Yeah, thanks. I would like to shift over first to the acquisition market. Can you maybe give us a sense as to where, you know, private market is right now in terms of IRRs, you know, where thinking is for NOI growth the next few years and just how you're seeing liquidity out there?
Hi, it's Alec.
They're...
Anthony Pellum: is a lot of interest in the multifamily sector out at NMHC in Las Vegas.
and everyone's eager to buy, but...
Anthony Pellum: The market is really frozen right now, so people would like to buy it around a 5. I think they probably project that to be a 7.5 fish IRR on their numbers.
Anthony Pellum: but with a four and a half, 10 year, I'm not sure that they're ready to pull the trigger plus all the other uncertainty in the world. So right now the market's at a bit of a standstill, but with all this capital out there, plus a lot of these deals that aren't capitalized for the long run, and we're getting the sense that lenders are more likely to pull the plug on those and stop extending them, that there'll be more supply available and hopefully in a quarter or two, I'll be able to give you a...
Anthony Pellum: more fulsome answers would have some examples because we expect that to happen, the market to pick up. But as it stands today, it's really theoretical because there's very, very little activity.
Thank you for watching. See you next time.
Okay, thanks. And then...
Speaker Change: Just a question for Bob. You talked about the drag in JVFFO from the development stabilizing there. Can you give us some sense as to what the difference in FFO is likely to be when those projects stabilize versus what's in your 2025 guidance?
Speaker Change: Yeah, let me talk about kind of how to think about that as opposed to necessarily giving a specific 26 year over year. So there's two drivers, right? There's the quote unquote drag from just the lease up process. Number one is just the NOI, right? So when you're leasing up
Speaker Change: and you typically incur the operating expenses before you get the revenue as you build occupancy that I think we're familiar with. So by the end of this year, from an NOI perspective, these assets will be accretive, right? So they will have turned to be NOI positive. They will continue to be the ramp up. You'll be over that component.
Speaker Change: They may not be FFO accretive because they have construction loans on them, and those construction loans are at a 6 1⁄2% rate, so they won't have gotten to the yield there yet, right? And so that's where you're seeing that cessation of the cap interest and the NOI kind of two cash flow streams line up.
Speaker Change: When you think about getting to 2026, there's two things to keep in mind. Number one, you'll have the positive that they will have stabilized, and you'll have probably all four quarters being stabilized or close to stabilized from the NOI standpoint.
Number two, we're also at the bi-cell component.
Speaker Change: So we'll likely be able to exercise with our JV partners a recap of the ventures and put what I would say better debt on or no debt on for the acquirer in that process, and therefore they will be much more accretive than what they were this year.
Okay, thank you.
Speaker Change: We'll now take our question from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.
Jamie Feldman: Great, thank you. I just want to start with the same-store revenue bill. So the can you talk more about the non-residential?
Speaker Change: piece to the guidance. What's in there? And then I guess just bigger picture, what do you think, I guess for Bob, what do you think moves your guidance the most? I think you came out 2% below the midpoint of the street. Where's the most upside or downside or easiest upside or downside to your numbers on FFO?
Speaker Change: Yeah, so let me start on the non-residential piece. So just to remind everyone, non-residential is about 4% of the aggregate kind of portfolio from a revenue standpoint. So it's not a huge component of the business, and it mostly consists of half of it is, I'd call it, third-party parking, and the other half of it is street-level retail that acts as an amenity to the space.
Speaker Change: The 20 basis points drag, some of you may recall that in the first quarter of 2024
Speaker Change: Under the accounting rules, we recognize because the tenants became more collectible and we'd previously written off the straight line leases, we actually reinstated the straight line on a number of those assets.
Speaker Change: and therefore we got a four and a half million-ish kind of pickup overall to revenue. That is was a one-time item that happened in Q4 that's not going to happen or Q1 of 2024 that's not going to happen again and so that's that drag overall.
Speaker Change: as it relates to the non-residential piece. Otherwise, the business is largely performing the way you would expect those two lines of business to perform.
Speaker Change: As it relates to guidance, we give you a guidance range because there are a variable series of outcomes that could occur.
Speaker Change: obviously within the same store portfolio depending on how the leasing because we're so dependent on the leasing season this year.
Speaker Change: and our outlook looks like the leasing season. Michael mentioned some of the items that could put you on the higher end of the guidance range from same store. It's, you know, Seattle, San Francisco perform better.
Speaker Change: You know, if you get a bigger pickup, that could move Same Store. And Same Store is the largest driver to NFFO in the aggregate by far. It is the core business that makes up the vast majority of that.
Speaker Change: All the other items I would tell you are largely noise. You know, we could do a little better in refinancing. We could do a little bit, you know, better in overhead. But those are just marginal components. It really is the growth engine of the business really is the core portfolio.
Okay, thank you for that.
Speaker Change: And then, I mean, the headlines have been fast and furious since the inauguration. So, I guess just to get inside your boardroom and your B-suite, I mean, what is your team talking about the most in terms of, you know, what's good, what could be good for the business, what could be bad for the business over the next four years or maybe two years? And then, you know, if you could get more granular by market, that would be interesting too.
Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Well, it's Mark, I'm going to start and maybe others here will contribute to that.
Speaker Change: The new administration's in its very early innings. There's certainly been a lot going on, but we're only a few weeks into it. The Congress has only been convened for a little longer than that, so it is a little bit hard to tell. I want to make a comment, though, about how we think about it, because there's a little bit of a bifurcation here. We've been through these periods of heightened uncertainty.
Speaker Change: We have no idea, I'm not sure anyone knows for sure what all these actions are going to do to economic growth, what they're going to do to housing demand, and all that remains to be seen, but we need to focus on our dashboards. So we say it internally, focus on your dashboards, not on the headlines.
Speaker Change: Michael and his team's dashboards across our 300 properties are busy watching micro-demand trends, and they feel good. Those dashboards, by and large, are green.
That's the optimism you hear your management team reflect.
Speaker Change: and we're going to run the business based on what we see there.
Speaker Change: You know, on the capital allocation side, for me, Alec, the rest of us on the board, on the refinancing side, for Bob, I mean, I think this kind of situation bespeaks some caution. I certainly think there's a fair bit of uncertainty. Uncertainty can mean opportunity when you're one of the best capitalized guys in the space, like we are.
Speaker Change: So I would say, I'm not sure market by market is that helpful, but I would say as it relates to the federal government and whatever it ends up doing.
Speaker Change: You know, we're prepared for that, we think, as much as we can be. We are not directly impacted by things like tariffs because we aren't predominantly housing people in the manufacturing area or the foreign trade area. We are part of the bigger economy, for sure.
Speaker Change: to also make a comment, which I kind of alluded to in my remarks.
Speaker Change: You know, it's pretty good to be in a business that's fundamental, that has no foreign operations, that has got strong cash flow and a good dividend in a time of uncertainty. My guess is companies like ours will be better valued by the streets.
Speaker Change: in the next sort of uncertain period of time than maybe more speculative firms have of late.
Speaker Change: So again, we're looking at all those things, and like you, we'll see what happens.
Speaker Change: As for local government, I mean, the big win in California was great.
Speaker Change: And we think we did a great job there, as I said in our remarks, in making the case to the people. These other states are really important, regulatory-wise. Places like the state of Washington will be focus points. But policy-wise, I think it's the federal show, and we'll see what kind of comes next.
Speaker Change: and the rest of the team. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: We'll now move to our next caller who is Julian Blewin with Goldman Sachs.
Thank you very much.
Julian Blewin: Hi, thank you. Yeah, just wondering in L.A. how you're thinking about the probability of those rent freezes and eviction moratorium proposals passing. I don't know if there's sort of stuff you're hearing from your teams on the ground that can maybe sort of give us an indication.
Julian Blewin: Yeah, thanks for your question. Appreciate that. You got to start off whenever you talk about the L.A. fires by the huge level of empathy we have for our colleagues in that market, for our residents.
Julian Blewin: for the whole community. I mean, they've been through a lot. It's been a real tough process.
We think we've been really supportive.
Julian Blewin: and responsible corporate community participant. We've been supporting charities in that market that are working on relief efforts. We've been supporting our residents and our employees.
Julian Blewin: including being really thoughtful about rents even before the governor put his anti-gouging order, which by the way covers goods and services not just rent, into place.
Julian Blewin: So we think we've been very thoughtful about those sort of things.
Julian Blewin: We think these ideas, one of which is a sort of a pretty broad eviction moratorium that's being considered, are just terrible ideas.
Speaker Change: This market continues to recover from the three-year-plus COVID eviction moratorium, which was broad-based and not well-policed and really caused a lot of disruption. And even worse for LA, which
Speaker Change: desperately needs a ton of housing investment to rebuild and needs it to just, you know, house the people even before the fires.
Speaker Change: didn't have enough housing for. This is really discouraging. This is...
Speaker Change: the consideration of these sort of anti-housing measures like eviction moratoriums again.
you know, further the reputation L.A. has of being anti-business.
Speaker Change: and anti-housing and it pushes capital away. So that's the argument we're making with our local associations.
Speaker Change: Like I said, I think there's more effective ways to do this. There's a lot of relief money.
the federal government and state have, I understand.
Speaker Change: If there's folks that need help specifically on rent, I'm sure that mechanics can be created to be helpful there. But some sort of broad based
sort of rule in an area that large.
just makes very little sense to us.
Speaker Change: It's just, again, we and others have been pretty responsible. If you want to encourage housing production, you have to send the right price signals. And I think
Speaker Change: more and more regulation is not the signal. We're so encouraged about Seattle and San Francisco, they're doing so much better of being pro-business and pro-housing. And we just hope LA comes along. That market is still not there on the government side and we're gonna continue to advocate for it to turn.
Speaker Change: Thank you, that's really helpful. And I guess as a second one, sorry if I missed it, but did you provide January new lease rate growth and blends, or is there sort of, can you give us a sense of where they landed relative to the 1.4% to 2.2% range for the first quarter blends?
Michael Manelis: Hey Joyce, Michael. So, you know, I think I've explained this in the past that these metrics are best used like over a longer period of time.
Michael Manelis: versus these standalone months, especially given the small quantity. So you didn't miss it because I haven't said it. What I will tell you is that we are seeing sequential improvement, which is what you would expect in the month of January. And based on this four-year expectation of two to three percent blended rate growth, we anticipate the first quarter is going to come in between the 1.4 and 2.2 that we included in the press release.
Michael Manelis: You know, as I mentioned last quarter, these stats have a lot of variability in them and the quantity of transactions in either new lease or renewals can impact the reported blended rates.
in any given quarter or even a month.
Michael Manelis: So, we always have these various puts and takes in our revenue models.
Michael Manelis: and the new lease change is only one of these variables in the equation that happens to be very dependent upon who moves out, which is why you've seen a shift towards providing ranges of blended rate results by quarter. And I guess I would just stop. The fourth quarter came in exactly where we thought it would be, and I think right now when we're looking at the dashboards and seeing what we think, we have a lot of confidence in that first quarter range that we put out there.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
John Kent: We will now move on to John Kent with BMO Capital Markets.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
John Kent: Thank you. Back to LA, I know you want to be conservative and there's maybe it's too early to come up with any guidance impact, but you did mention that you expect occupancy or demand to increase for your larger units and I was wondering how much of that you've already seen in January, if you could provide possibly an occupancy number for LA and Orange County in January.
John Kent: Hey, John, this is Michael. So I guess I want to say to in the fourth quarter, right, we actually felt better. Like we heard me say that, even on the last call, that we started to see this improvement, we started to see the improvement in demand that allowed us to backfill. So the occupancy for the fourth quarter, and then kicked up to like 95.8. We originally modeled this market to have additional improvement, both with some rate recovery, and additional occupancy
John Kent: I would say we're seeing some of that incremental improvement specific to the fires and specific to my comment I had in the prepared remarks.
Forty-five percent of our portfolio is two- and three-bedrooms.
John Kent: We initially saw kind of that spike in demand for that type of unit.
John Kent: really hyper-focused in three sub-markets, Ventura County, Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A. And both Ventura and Glendale are very small. We only have a few assets in those sub-markets. So we did see some of this incremental demand, but it's not like you see this kind of widespread
John Kent: kind of increase coming across the entire broader market. So I think I just want to stand back and just say our base case still kind of holds. We do believe this market
John Kent: is ripe for improvement. We saw some of that happening in the fourth quarter. I think there'll be some incremental play with the occupancy in the market, but I'm not sure at this point we have enough confidence to say that it's like a significant shift to the underlying base case that we put out there.
Speaker Change: But, is it because people have been enslaved and went to temporary housing?
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I mean, I think part of this is geography, like where did they get displaced? Are these families that had children that were in schools that need to stay close? So I think a lot of this is the geography, which is if you think about the three sub markets I laid out, we're not surprised that we saw that initial demand. And there's no doubt in those three sub markets, we clearly saw an increase in demand for two and three bedrooms over the course of two to three weeks following these fires. So I just think right now, we're still trying to see how does all of this stuff settle out.
Speaker Change: and where do people really kind of want to live longer term. And that's kind of what we're focused on this broader demand in the market.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: I think it's really just I mean you're so you're not off with kind of that underlying assumption that's one way to get to that blended rate growth of two and a half percent yeah I think what you see is it's very common again we have these data points going all the way back to 2006
Speaker Change: We understand how these market seasonality components play into both new lease, renewals, and pricing trends.
Speaker Change: it is not uncommon for us to see negative new lease in the fourth quarter, negative new lease in the first quarter even, that then put some of that downward pressure into that blended. So you're right that at the end of the year, you may walk away and have a new lease rate kind of growth net effective at zero. But I think some of these markets are also positioned right now where you could see an additional pullback in concessions. So maybe some of that net effective ticks up a little bit,
to see normal seasonal trends play out.
Speaker Change: There was a prior question about where the opportunity lies in our numbers and I think you've done a good job of saying where it is. I mean, it's new lease growth. It won't totally defy seasonality, but you know, if we're reporting better numbers on new lease.
Speaker Change: through the year, even if the fourth quarter is negative, but the second and third are more positive than we think, that's gonna be the way early enough in the year where the numbers will move around to the good.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you
Speaker Change: We'll now take our next questions from Hendel St. Juice with Missoula.
Hey guys, good, I guess it's good afternoon.
Speaker Change: I guess most of us assume that East Coast blends should be better than West Coast and Sunbelt will lag, but I'm hoping to get a bit more color on perhaps the range or sense of the expectation for blends by region. Thanks.
Yeah
Speaker Change: I think what you should think about is the West Coast recovery is going to drive improving blends in the West Coast markets, all of the West Coast markets, even including the Southern California portfolio. I think we're going to continue to see strength in the East Coast markets, so maybe similar kind of blends than what you saw this year. And then in the expansion markets,
Speaker Change: You know, you kind of see a little bit of this stability right now for us in Atlanta and Dallas.
Speaker Change: and my hope is that as we kind of work our way towards the spring season, you start to see either rates improving or concessions falling back that then show you not only stability and blends but a little bit of this path of recovery of blends that sets you up great for 2026.
Speaker Change: Okay, that's helpful. And on the subject of concessions, can you talk a little bit about where concessions are today in your San Fran and Seattle portfolios and where we, or maybe where you'd expect them to trend over the next couple quarters and how much of a tailwind that could be into the back half of the year?
Speaker Change: Yeah, so I mean, I think on the concession use overall, right, the fourth quarter came in exactly kind of where we thought it would be we lean into this occupancy during the slower periods of time.
Speaker Change: You know, we saw significant reductions in San Francisco while holding a solid occupancy of 96%. And then Seattle saw a 100 basis point improvement in occupancy, but we had similar concessions there to the fourth quarter of 2023.
Speaker Change: So I think, as you think about concessions in the marketplace right now, specifically in those two markets,
Speaker Change: you could see base rents start ticking up in those markets, which is what we've kind of been doing.
Speaker Change: even though the concessions kind of stay neutral. Our expectations as we work through this year is that the concession use will start to kind of moderate.
Speaker Change: That's helpful. And if I could just ask about the SAMHSA Work Expense Guide. You put out the range out there, we appreciate that, but any details perhaps on the build-up for items including taxes, insurance, R&M, so maybe some color on the components. Thanks.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Bob Garechana: Yeah, hey Handel, it's Bob. Page 6 gives you a little bit of the contribution to growth overall, but...
Speaker Change: So, X kind of the two called out items, which are the connectivity expense and the real estate tax expense, I think the two biggest call outs, and I mentioned them in terms of like growth that is dissimilar or maybe greater than what you saw in 2024.
Speaker Change: mid-single digits than kind of lower single digits, so that'll contribute to growth more in 25 than it did in 2024.
Speaker Change: Same thing with repairs and maintenance. Repairs and maintenance, the headline number will look really big because the connectivity expense is mostly in that line item or is in that line item, but even outside of that, you just have some wage pressure and some typical stuff.
Speaker Change: and then payroll, you know, payroll we model to be more like a, you know, typical 3% range and, you know, we've had phenomenal payroll experience over multiple years, but last year, 24 in particular, where it was flat.
Speaker Change: Those are probably the main category line items. I know people are typically interested in insurance because insurance, although a small category, has been growing really fast.
Speaker Change: I'm just gonna add some color on insurance here for a minute because we have a unique perspective to share
Our risk management team just happened to be...
Speaker Change: in London meeting with our reinsurers and some of our insurance carriers.
Speaker Change: just after the worst of the fires in L.A. And so we had the opportunity to ask them, you know, how the market felt to them and what might happen with commercial renewals.
Speaker Change: and their response was they didn't expect much of an impact and that they had capacity.
Speaker Change: and they had had good financial results lately. And so we are feeling optimistic about where we may end up, including thinking you could get close to flat on this renewal or somewhere in that range.
Speaker Change: And I say all that because the fires appear not to have reached reinsurers at their level, and their experiences lately posts
Speaker Change: some of the earth the big increases after the hurricanes is that they've built up reserves and there is more capacity in the insurance market. So again we're feeling you know optimistic about that renewal as Bob said that occurs for property for us in March.
Speaker Change: but some early indications from our reinsurers and some of our primary insurers are they're in pretty good position that the fires in Los Angeles were terrible, but probably won't affect that part of the insurance market and us very much.
Great. Appreciate the call, guys.
Speaker Change: We will now take our questions from Brad Heffern with RBC.
Brad Heffern: Yeah. Hey, thanks, everybody. One thing that hasn't come up in the political discussion so far is immigration. Obviously, just as many unknowns there as in the other things. But how much of an impact do you think that could potentially have on the business? And how would you view it differently between the expansion markets and the legacy portfolio?
Brad Heffern: And honestly, right now, we haven't seen any of that. I mean, the absolute counts of transactions for us with foreign activity is really low in the fourth quarter, but both from the move-ins and the move-outs, they're trending in line with our historical norms.
Brad Heffern: The other part of the business that we're watching really closely, it relates to this contract service providers, and whether or not they're going to be put in a position where they're not going to be able to provide services to us or try to increase rates.
Brad Heffern: So right now we have not heard anything of any issues impacting our vendors or their ability to continue to provide services to us. So from the operations standpoint, it still feels like it's just too early to tell what impact.
that this could have.
Brad Heffern: you know, move-ins are like 2% to 3% of our move-ins. So it's just not a significant kind of quantity for us to be overly concerned about.
Speaker Change: Okay, got it. Thanks for that. And then on the West Coast tech markets, can you just give your base case for market rent growth in those markets for 25 and then you've talked about the potential for outperformance, any sort of scale as to what that outperformance could look like would be great as well.
saw in 2024.
So, in terms of, like, the outperformance...
Speaker Change: It really comes down to this strength that Mark just mentioned a little bit earlier. When do we see this pricing power strength? How early in the leasing season? How many leases can we capture at that?
Speaker Change: to have it translate into revenue growth for 2025. So there's two plays. The biggest drivers are occupancy and rate. And if you're gonna get the rate, it's gotta be early in the year for it to really make a big difference in the full year revenue guidance.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, appreciate it. Thanks.
We'll now move to Jeff Spector with Bank of America.
Jeff Spector: Great, thank you. Can you elaborate on your comment that you expect record retention to stay, record low turnover to stay in 25?
Speaker Change: Yeah, this is Michael Jeff. So thanks for that. We we have actually seen this now for two years in a row. And I think part of this is
Speaker Change: the housing equation or the, you know, move outs to buy home are at record lows. We don't really see anything kind of in the immediate future to suggest that that's going to be materially different for us in 2025.
Speaker Change: Even if you saw like mortgage rates contract a lot, that would probably mean that values and houses go up So we don't really see this being like a light switch impact that's going to change We also see this improvement in office using job growth. So therefore on the demand side of the equation We're not overly concerned about seeing lease breaks from people losing their jobs So all of the macro drivers in this reported turnover number the reasons for move out We just don't see anything telling us that to expect any
Speaker Change: significant changes this year, and we're really focused. We get so many great data points. It's like 200,000 data points from our customers every year. We're hyper-focused on making sure we are delivering a seamless, exceptional customer experience to our residents, and I think that's showing up in these turnover numbers.
Speaker Change: Great, thank you. And then one follow-up on the urban conversation. Are you looking into any of the office-to-residue conversions as an opportunity for your company?
Hey Jeff, it's Alec.
Jeff Spector: You know, we've got a lot of experience owning buildings that have been converted from office to residential and
Jeff Spector: also seen how other people have gone through that process. And it's a tough process. We wouldn't say no, for sure. You know, we'd look at any opportunity. But generally speaking, they take longer, cost more, and come out with a less attractive property project than people think they will. So, you know, we go in completely eyes wide open. I don't think it's going to be a huge part of our development pipeline. And I also think it's going to be hard in a lot of cases to have it be a meaningful contributor to supply. Even in New York, you know, they've got a specific
towards.
Jeff Spector: These conversions are really hard to make the numbers work and maybe there'll be a number of you know two three thousand over time that get developed and maybe that normalizes to that kind of
Jeff Spector: to 2,000 units a year over time. But in a big city like Manhattan, that's just not going to materially impact us. And most of the locations aren't competitive with us. They're either all the way downtown, where we only have one asset, or they're in parts of Midtown that just aren't competitive residential locations.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Jeff Spector: Great, thank you. Maybe if I could sneak in just one more. Can you provide a quick preview on what you plan to discuss at the Investor Day? Thank you.
Jeff, it's Mark.
Jeff Spector: Well, I don't want to ruin it. I think we'll ruin it. I think the focus is going to be on the strategy, both on the capital allocation and operations side. It also, frankly, gives us an opportunity to show off a broader array of folks that are on the team. We've got an exceptional team here at Equity. So, you know, you'll have to wait and see. But we're really looking forward to talking to everyone in a few weeks.
Great, thank you.
We'll now move to Rich Hightower with Barclays.
Hey, good afternoon, guys.
Speaker Change: I want to go back. I apologize. I want to go back to to get a clarifying response. I think Steve asked the question about renewals and asking rent kind of for the springtime. I think you said asking seven should achieve five. But did that apply just to San Francisco, Seattle and L.A. or was that for the whole portfolio?
Hey Rich, it's Michael. No, that's the whole portfolio.
Speaker Change: That's the whole portfolio, okay. Great. And then I guess my real question, I didn't want to waste one on that, but I think, you know, as you think about the progression of improvement in the Sunbelt, specifically, you know, your expansion markets over the course of the year, curious if you want to take a wager on when new lease growth inflects positive in those markets generally, at what point in the year, if it does?
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Well, I think that depends, Mark, as well on the lease that's being replaced.
We feel better about some parts of our portfolio.
Speaker Change: the three markets we're really in, the two big sunbelt markets of Atlanta and Dallas and Denver, so I don't really have an estimate. And by the way, it could go positive in the third quarter and go negative again and likely would in the fourth. So
Speaker Change: You know, I think the second derivative I know is really important to the street, but...
Speaker Change: It's just going to be uneven. It's going to get a little better and then it's going to get worse.
Speaker Change: If you have interruptions in job growth, it'll be really problematic.
I don't think this team's willing to put...
Speaker Change: I don't have real money on that bet, but I think...
Speaker Change: We'll all feel a little better about all the Sunbelt markets, particularly ours, in the second and third quarter. I think you're going to see good demand. You have a lot of supply. A lot of that supply happens to be front-end loaded. But that's okay, because there's a lot of demand in the middle of the year. So I think there'll be some better sentiment. I just don't think it's going to translate into better cash flow growth for quite some time, as we've talked on prior calls about how long it takes to redo the whole rent roll.
Speaker Change: take those numbers up, and that's why it's more of a 26, and even for some markets, it might be a 27 outcome in terms of having better same-store revenue growth.
All right. Very helpful. Thanks, Mark.
Thanks Rich.
We'll now move to Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler.
Speaker Change: Good morning, morning out there. I think you guys are still an hour behind. So two questions. First, Mark.
Speaker Change: the fee income, you know, just days before the inauguration, there's the continuing federal on real page.
Speaker Change: from a federal level. Do you guys have any sense, update on any shift in how DOJ or FTC is looking at these? Is it still continuing on or is there a sense that they may be more constructive and amenable on these? Any update?
Go to www.Flydreamers.com for more.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks, Alex. I'll start by saying we're not in that Graystar case. That's the FTC fee case that came out, you know, like you said, a couple of weeks ago just before the change in administration. So I don't really know anything about that case besides what's in the paper.
Speaker Change: You know, I certainly think the focus that the administration has said about supply, and maybe making federal land available, I'm not sure that's desirable, that land is to where people want to live. But those supply solutions, Alex, are much
Speaker Change: from our point of view, much more effective than some of the other regulatory efforts.
Speaker Change: But they just haven't done much and they obviously have a lot of things going on and I I'm not sure we're top of their list
Speaker Change: returning the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to more private ownership.
from their current, mostly federal, control.
Speaker Change: You know, I don't know how that would happen exactly. There's a lot of complexity to that, but I think there is some push.
I think that's worth watching at the federal level.
Speaker Change: To be honest, I think most of the regulatory issues and the opportunities we have are at the local level and at the state level. But the feds and their control of the real estate finance world through the GSEs is a pretty material thing, and we've got to all keep track of that and see how that unfolds.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: And then, Mark, that's a perfect segue to my second question. You guys were just at NMHC. And as the market, the transaction market continues to thaw.
Speaker Change: Are you seeing any pricing, you know, differences setting out, you know, Sunbelt versus Coastal Meeting as people understand the regulatory changes and some of these recent local, you know, regulatory litigation efforts?
Speaker Change: Is there pricing differences that you're now seeing markets trading, you have 50 bps wide or 75 bps wide or anything that's discernible that prices in some of these different risks that you guys have been articulating, and others in the industry as well? Or is pricing pretty tight regardless, and it's not really factoring in?
some of the issues that are out there.
Speaker Change: Hey Alex, it's Alec. There's such broad interest in multifamily housing that different investors are different interested in different parts of the country for different reasons and you certainly see even in a place like Austin which got all the supply there's still people are interested in paying what I think are very very aggressive cap rates.
Speaker Change: you know, that are being aggressive. But you also see it in the coastal markets, a return to interest in places like San Francisco, which, you know, last couple years, we just hadn't heard many people that wanted to buy there. And now we hear a lot. So the whole
market is benefiting from
The multifamily being a favorite asset class.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I'd say it's more like just, what markets are open for business, Alex?
Speaker Change: and as Alex said a moment ago, you know, we think San Francisco, but we're specifically talking about downtown and
Speaker Change: the more urbanized area of the peninsula we think is open business and there'll be transactions there.
Speaker Change: We think there'll be larger scale transactions in downtown central Seattle.
Speaker Change: I would call out Los Angeles is still a market that...
probably doesn't have that, especially central, downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker Change: that developed a level of interest institutionally. But again, we're hopeful some of this regulatory stuff. So as the mayor of San Francisco, boy, energetic guy is out there doing his thing. And you know, Seattle does some constructive stuff. We bet you those markets will continue to improve and will support, you know, better cap rates and more investor interest over time. They have probably more growth in them.
Speaker Change: So my guess is they should, at some point, have lower cap rates.
and our model for that is New York.
Speaker Change: New York was kind of given up for dead, then it came all the way back and...
Speaker Change: You know, I think we have record low cap rates in New York relative to anywhere else if we were willing to sell.
Speaker Change: any of our good Manhattan assets there, so you got to see that play through the year, but that's our general sense.
Thank you, Mark.
Thanks, Alex.
We'll now move to Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley.
Adam Kramer: Hey guys, I'll keep it quick here with just one. Just wanted to ask about the comments, I think, pretty early in the call around Office using job growth.
I think you're expecting to be higher in 25.
Adam Kramer: I know you kind of mentioned the West Coast as being a driver there, but just wondering if you could add any more detail. I think that may have come as a little bit of a surprise, maybe at least to me. Maybe just kind of what's driving that expectation from an office using job growth perspective, and I guess in the other markets, right, New York, Boston, D.C., what are the expectations there?
Adam Kramer: Yeah, so it's Mark. I'm going to start and maybe my colleagues will jump in here. So we generally use Moody's analytics. We look at it. And again, we also again look at our dashboards and see what our people feel.
Adam Kramer: and there was some terrific tech hiring, maybe over hiring during the pandemic. And then you saw that kind of turn negative because a lot of those.
Adam Kramer: employment clusters of higher wage jobs are related to the, you know, information services sector or professional and business services. But when we talk to economists, we talk to people on the ground, it feels better to us.
Adam Kramer: It feels like there will be good job growth and we just look at the job boards.
in those markets.
Adam Kramer: So that's what we're basing that assumption on in San Francisco and Seattle and elsewhere on the job side. I will point out in the December government numbers, you saw an improvement in professional and business services you hadn't seen in a while. You saw information.
Adam Kramer: sector go positive when it had been negative for a while. So you started to see in the numbers nationally some improvement in those office using jobs.
We'll now move to Alex Kim with Zellman & Associates.
Speaker Change: © 2014 University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences UGA Extension Office of Communications and Creative Services
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Hey, Alex. Yeah, we certainly want to be optimistic and hope so.
Speaker Change: I think we're really, really well positioned to move quickly, as we showed last year.
Speaker Change: The year started out slowly, but we did a billion and a half in the third quarter alone. So we have a machine here that can amp up very quickly, and we've showed that we will do what we say we're going to do and perform in a way that many others, frankly, can't because they don't have the same access to capital that we do. So we're excited to see those opportunities, and I did allude to that earlier. I think it is true what you heard, that these recently built assets were not financed for the long run, and we're excited to see them come to the market.
Speaker Change: Great, thanks. And I know the call is going along and I appreciate you all sticking around. The strategy so far has been rotating into newer vintage properties in your expansion markets. Are there any additional markets that you're looking into at the moment?
Speaker Change: Our focus is really on the three, Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver.
Speaker Change: There are other markets we'd consider that we've mentioned on occasion and we've talked to our board about.
Speaker Change: that share those same kind of attributes. But right now, the primary focus are those three markets. You know, Austin's on the list. We have three properties there. It's just the supply picture's really tough and there may be a year or so of delay before we kind of re-engage in that market. But no, there isn't another market for us to announce on this call.
Thanks for the time.
Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Linda Tite with Jeffreys.
Speaker Change: Hey Linda, it's Bob. I'll start and maybe Michael can add. Directionally, the embedded in DC is actually really strong. So you had a really strong leasing performance and you can see that from the funded rates. So it's probably a little bit higher than the 80 basis points.
Speaker Change: Rule of thumb I always think about is kind of taking your blends, this math doesn't perfectly work, but taking your blends from the prior year, dividing them by two, and that's kind of roughly your embedded. So that can give you a directional sense, but I'd say directionally starting with a really solid embedded
Speaker Change: That's the driver of growth in DC. The Seattle store is more starting with an okay embedded, but it's really more the leasing activity in the current year and the occupancy gain that's going to drive the revenue growth.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Could you expand that to New York and San Fran too?
Speaker Change: New York probably looks more similar to D.C. where you had the really strong leasing season and San Francisco probably looks more similar to Seattle. They probably align. They happen to be on the same coast, but they also fundamentally probably more align with what I talked about relatively.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: We'll now take a question from Tayo Okusanya with Deutsche Bank.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Tayo Okusanya: Yes, good afternoon. Just a quick one for me. In regards to the 2025 transaction assumption and the transaction dilution of negative 25 basis points, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit to that just around, you know, the comfort of doing diluted deals at least in the first year and how you should kind of think about the deals ultimately breaking even and actually adding shareholder value over time.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: I'm going to add a comment and Alec may add. So one of the things to think about here is we're trying to give you numbers for the model.
And NFFO is obviously before CAPEX.
Speaker Change: A lot of these deals that we're selling are, you know, as Alec has commented many a time, considerably older, and have a lot more capex, especially in the near term that we don't believe in, we'll get the return we need.
So, on an AFFO basis...
Speaker Change: or in any sort of adjusted IRR basis, you're doing better by selling these assets. That's how we pick them. You know, in terms of where those lines cross, you know, it could be a year or two, but I would say in a cash flow basis, you may be advantaged immediately.
Speaker Change: by selling an asset that really needs a renovation or a lot of common area work that we frankly don't believe in. Yeah, just to give an example, last year the average property that we bought was five years old and what we sold was 35 years old.
Speaker Change: and many more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Our next question will come from Nick Yolico with Scotiabank.
and many more. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Hey, it's Daniel Trucarico. Apologies if I miss this. I know we've already talked about LA, but curious if you could share the the same store revenue growth expectation for your LA portfolio this year. It would be useful for us to know what's in there given the moving pieces.
Speaker Change: Hey Daniel, it's Michael. Yeah I had that I think in the prepared remarks that we expect LA right now in our base case to deliver right around a 3% revenue growth and that's based on some momentum and trajectory we saw in the fourth quarter and continuing some marginal improvement to play out through 2025 but nothing kind of like an outsized recovery in that market.
Great, thanks. That's all for me.
Rich Anderson: And we'll now take our next question from Rich Anderson with Wetbush.
Rich Anderson: Thanks. About four hours ago, Mark, you said your target for expansion markets is 20%. I remember the number 25%. I don't know if you're just shorthanding it there, or are you walking back your ultimate landing point for expansion markets?
Rich Anderson: Hey, hey, Rich, thanks for sticking in there for the call. Yeah, no, it's it's 20 to 25%. That's what we talked to our board about. I was just shorthanding it. I think as you get to 20%, you may see us
Rich Anderson: be maybe a bit less purposeful in hitting those numbers and a bit more open to, you know, doing buys in other places.
Rich Anderson: like for example, our coastal, you know, existing markets. So 20 isn't magic, 25 isn't either, but you know, we'd expect to land in that range so that there is no change in approach.
But we could end up either place. Fair enough.
Rich Anderson: to my next quick question and like in August you did a billion dollar deal with Blackstone added two percentage points to your exposure expansion markets. I think I have that right.
Rich Anderson: coastal. Do you get 500 basis points upside? And do you think this by this time next year, you know, we'll be saying, well, you're you're at around 15%. Is that the cadence you guys are thinking about for the expansion markets? I think we all just want to get this kind of behind us and but also not rush it, of course. I'm just curious.
Rich Anderson: If you could sort of provide some timing ideas around finishing the job.
Yeah, I think you...
Rich Anderson: definitely restated exactly how management feels. We'd like to get this done.
Rich Anderson: provided there's good value to the shareholders and it's not diluted. So I tell you that your numbers are about right.
Rich Anderson: about every 350 million to 400 is a one percentage point.
Rich Anderson: if you move it all out of one and into the other. The other thing you got to think about is the denominator. So if we do grow the company,
Rich Anderson: and by debt issuance, which is what we put in there, I guess we could issue equity, but that's not being contemplated now given the share price. Then you're in a position where you're gonna accelerate that move a little bit. But I think you're give or take 15% if you do everything the way you said, and that's what we hope. So to be done in a couple of years would be fabulous.
Awesome. Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: And that concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back to our presenters for any additional or closing comments.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks to everyone for sticking around for the call, for this long call. I just wanna put a quick plug in for our upcoming Investor Day that Jeff Spector alluded to a minute ago. We're gonna host that on Tuesday, February 25th. We look forward to spending some time with all of you discussing top level strategy and a longer term outlook for the business. It'll be quite interesting and exciting. So we look forward to that. Thanks to everyone for joining us today.