Elme Communities - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 delivered solid operating performance: real estate rental revenue rose to $61.493M (+3.3% YoY), total NOI increased 4.5% YoY, and Core FFO/share was $0.24 (+$0.01 YoY) as same‑store multifamily NOI grew 5.5% on stronger DMV rent growth and favorable property tax appeals in Atlanta.
• Versus consensus, revenue modestly beat ($61.493M vs $61.310M*), Core FFO/share beat ($0.24 vs $0.23*), while GAAP EPS missed (−$0.05 vs −$0.0369*) due to non‑cash depreciation and $3.0M strategic review/legal costs included in GAAP.
• Guidance was reiterated: 2025 Core FFO/share $0.91–$0.97, same‑store revenue growth 2.1%–3.6%, NOI growth 1.5%–3.5%, Watergate 600 NOI $11.5–$12.25M, and interest expense $37.35–$38.35M; dividend maintained at $0.18/share.
• Near-term catalysts: managed Wi‑Fi ramp faster than expected, improving Atlanta bad debt, and an ongoing Board‑led strategic alternatives review that could re-rate shares if outcomes crystallize.

Note: Values with * retrieved from S&P Global.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Same‑store multifamily NOI +5.5% YoY driven by stronger rent growth and property tax appeals; average occupancy rose 50 bps to 94.8%.
• Fee income initiatives tracked ahead: managed Wi‑Fi rollout ramping faster than anticipated, expected to add $0.6–$0.8M NOI in 2025 and $1.5–$2.0M annually by mid‑2026 once Phases 1–2 are integrated.
• Management emphasized portfolio resilience in DMV: mid‑market rents historically outperform Class A during government austerity; Northern Virginia private‑sector job growth 2.5x broader DMV over four years, supporting demand.

What Went Wrong

• GAAP net loss widened to −$4.675M (−$0.05/share) largely on depreciation and $3.041M of advisory/legal costs tied to the strategic review/cooperation agreement (non‑operating).
• Watergate 600 (Other same‑store) NOI fell 5.5% YoY on lower occupancy; building ended Q1 at 82.3% leased, pressuring Other NOI.
• Georgia pressures remain: avg effective rent per home fell 4.4% YoY; while occupancy improved YoY, Atlanta markets still face elevated supply, though bad debt trends are improving.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the Elme Communities First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and at this time, I would like to turn the call over to Amy Hopkins, Vice President, Investor Relations. Amy, please go ahead.

Amy Hopkins (VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and thank you for joining our First Quarter earnings call. Today's call will be available for replay on the Investors section of our website. Statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially, and we undertake no duty to update them as actual events unfold. We refer to certain of these risks in our SEC filings. Reconciliations of the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call are available in our most recent earnings press release and financials supplement, which was distributed yesterday and can be found on the Investors page of our website. Presenting on the call today will be Paul McDermott, our CEO, Tiffany Butcher, our COO, and Steve Freishtat, our CFO. With that, I will turn the call over to Paul.

Paul McDermott (CEO)

Thanks, Amy. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. We kicked off the year with strong momentum as both same-store revenue and NOI came in ahead of our expectations, and the trends we are seeing as we enter peak leasing season are encouraging. I'll start today's call by highlighting what we're seeing on the ground here in the DMV and how we're positioned as regional employment trends evolve. Tiffany will provide a more detailed update on our operating trends, and Steve will discuss our outlook for 2025. While the new administration continues to work to streamline the federal workforce, the fundamentals that we are seeing across our Washington Metro portfolio remain solid and in line with seasonal norms. Looking forward, apartment tour volumes and renewal lease negotiations for June and July expirations remain strong and in line with our expectations.

While we acknowledge that the region could be impacted by employment losses and a slowdown in economic growth, our mid-market rent levels and geographic focus on Northern Virginia put us in a better position than higher-end rentals and the broader regional housing market overall. Mid-market rent levels are widely recognized for offering relative resilience during periods of economic volatility. Looking back at performance during sequestration in 2013 and 2014, Class B apartments outperformed Class A in effective rent growth by over 1.8%, according to data collected by RealPage. With regard to our geographic focus, nearly 75% of Elme's Washington Metro homes are located in Northern Virginia, which is known for having the strongest private sector employment growth in the Washington Metro region.

Over the past four years, Northern Virginia's private sector job growth was two and a half times the private sector job gains in the Washington Metro region, according to BLS data. Although Northern Virginia is known as a major hub for federal contractors, we believe Elme's exposure to government contractors is very low at approximately 5% of our Washington Metro resident base as of April. More details about our exposure to federal workforce reductions can be found on slide 11 of our latest investor presentation. Additionally, most federal employees fall outside the typical age range of apartment renters. As of September 2024, over 70% of federal government employees were over 40, per OPM data. In contrast, only 30% of Elme residents fall into that age group, suggesting a lower impact on apartments compared to the broader housing market overall.

Looking at supply, conditions are shaping up for a very positive trajectory in the Washington Metro. According to RealPage, annual supply peaked in Q1 2025 at 2.2% annual net inventory growth, below the national average of 2.9%. New construction starts in the Washington Metro are down over 70% from their peak, and supply is projected to decline steeply from here to 1.8% annual net inventory growth by the fourth quarter of this year, and still further to nearly half at 1.1% by the fourth quarter of 2026, which would be the lowest level reported since 2012. Beyond 2026, supply could drop even further depending on the effects of tariffs and increased construction costs, paving the way for additional favorable competitive dynamics in the region.

Turning to our strategic review, as announced on February 13, 2025, our Board of Trustees is overseeing a formal evaluation of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value. This process was initiated from a position of strength and having transformed Elme into a multi-family REIT while improving performance and profitability, and underscores our commitment to acting in the best interests of Elme and its shareholders. Despite the current volatility and uncertain capital markets environment, this evaluation remains ongoing. The Board is working with independent financial and legal advisors to assess alternatives and determine the best path forward for Elme.

As we said when we announced this formal evaluation, there can be no assurance that this process will result in Elme pursuing a transaction or any other strategic outcome, and we do not intend to provide further details on the process in connection with the discussion of our first quarter earnings results today. Thank you for your understanding and keeping your questions focused on our results and outlook. With that, I'll turn it over to Tiffany to discuss our operations.

Tiffany Butcher (COO)

Thanks, Paul. Looking at our operational highlights, we are off to a solid start to the year. Demand trends across our Washington Metro and Atlanta portfolios reflect typical seasonality against a backdrop of stable supply levels in the DMV and improving supply dynamics in Atlanta. Elme's same-store multi-family occupancy averaged 94.8% during the first quarter, in line with our targeted range and up 50 basis points year-over-year. We achieved 1.9% same-store blended lease rate growth during the quarter, and our initial estimated blended rate growth for April is 2.6%, reflecting a typical upswing heading into the spring leasing season. Within our DMV portfolio, forward occupancy trends remain in line with our expectations, and renewal rates remain strong. We are continuing to closely monitor our forward-looking demand indicators and plan to adjust our pricing strategies accordingly.

In Atlanta, we are experiencing stable rent and occupancy trends and better-than-expected bad debt performance. New delinquencies have declined since the second quarter of last year, supported by higher credit standards, process changes, and technology enhancements implemented last year. Eviction delays in Atlanta are steadily decreasing with the continued use of Georgia House Bill 1203, and improved processing efficiency is also helping to reduce bad debt. As Steve will discuss in a moment, we expect improvement in bad debt to be a larger contributor to revenue growth in 2025 than we had initially anticipated. Now, turning to renovations, we completed 88 renovations during the quarter at an ROI of approximately 18% and remain on track to complete over 500 full renovations in 2025.

We expect the pace of renovations to increase as expirations pick up during the summer leasing season, and we maintain flexibility to adjust the pace of renovations as market demand shifts. Moving on to operating initiatives, our managed Wi-Fi program is ramping up more quickly than anticipated, and we now expect to capture $600,000-$800,000 of additional NOI in 2025 from the seven communities that are part of phase one and the four communities that are part of phase two. Once phase one and phase two are fully integrated by mid-2026, we expect to capture $1.5 million-$2 million of additional NOI per year, with further upside from future phases. With that, I'll turn it over to Steve to cover our performance and outlook.

Steven Freishtat (CFO)

Thanks, Tiffany. Our first quarter results were very strong, with same-store revenue growth of 3.9% and NOI growth of 5.5% year-over-year. Our better-than-expected performance was driven primarily by stronger rent growth across our Washington Metro portfolio and two favorable real estate tax appeals in Atlanta. As Tiffany mentioned, our managed Wi-Fi rollout is going very well, and the associated income is ramping up more quickly than we had anticipated. Additionally, Atlanta bad debt continues to decline, and we expect improvement in bad debt to be a larger contributor to revenue growth in 2025 than we had initially anticipated.

Based on our year-to-date performance and updated projections for fee income and bad debt, we believe we only need an additional 50-60 basis points of revenue growth from rent and occupancy changes across the rest of the year to reach the midpoint of our revenue forecast, a target we consider highly attainable. Additionally, our balance sheet remains in very good shape. Annualized net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 5.6 times during the first quarter, and we have over 60% of our total capacity available on our line of credit and no secured debt. In closing, our revenue and NOI are ahead of expectations at this point in the year, and we are encouraged by the positive momentum heading into the peak leasing season.

Although the macro environment is in flux, the strong fundamentals of our portfolio and business, along with the ongoing success of our value-add renovation pipeline and platform initiatives, give us confidence in our ability to deliver resilient performance. Operator, I'd like to open it up for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. At this time, we will be conducting our question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you would wish to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Cooper Clark with Wells Fargo. Your line is live.

Cooper Clark (Analyst)

Hey, thank you for taking the question this morning. Paul, was wondering if you could talk about the multi-family transaction market in DC. Curious if you've seen any buyers taking contrarian bets on the Metro and where you're seeing deals, if any, get done today from a cap rate perspective.

Paul McDermott (CEO)

Sure, Cooper. Just stepping back for a second, my overall observation would be that the living sector is continuing to do well. We're seeing continual capital flows into it. We have the agencies here, so we see continued liquidity in the debt markets. All of the lenders are active. The agencies are fairly aggressive, and the debt funds are feeding kind of the higher LTV requirements and getting paid for it. The life companies are still playing well in that 50-55% loan-to-value. I think from the equity perspective, the change that we've seen probably this year are really the ODCEs. Is there queues coming down, reentering with strategic capital allocations, and really looking for AUM? The investors that we talked to in the DMV, Cooper, I think their perspective is they're looking at national construction starts down, as we said in our remarks, down 77%.

In 2026, we'll be over 80% down, as I mentioned in my remarks. You're balancing that with watching single-family mortgage originations at their lowest point in 30 years. I look at Washington, DC, for the fifth quarter in a row, we're one of the top three in rental growth. I think investors are concluding when they look at this region that when they look at 2026 through 2028, there's a nice runway for rental growth. The cap rates that we are seeing and that that's translated into the core buyer profile has, I think, gotten a little bit more competitive, and we've seen cap rates as low as 4.25% up to 5%, looking at levered IRRs between 9% and 11%.

The core plus buyers still solid in that 4.75-5.25% cap rate range, looking at 11-13% levered IRRs. Then value-add, I think that's kind of low to mid 5% range, depending on vintage and performance, but that levered IRR is really in the 13-15% range. I'd say the one thing that we've observed over the last 12-18 months is that discount to replacement cost is shrinking in some of our stronger sub-markets here. We feel pretty optimistic just about the continued investment sales activity that we're seeing in the region, Cooper.

Cooper Clark (Analyst)

Awesome. Thank you very much. Could you also just touch on the addition of Ron to your board from a high level and walk us through that process, specifically from a timing perspective as it relates to the announcement of your strategic review?

Paul McDermott (CEO)

Let's start there. The announcement for the strategic review, we made that decision last year coming out of our strategic retreat, and just the board felt it was necessary to look at options to maximize shareholder value. The process for Ron getting on our board was Ron is a well-known entity, and our board, as we've done over the last several years, our board continues to look at a refreshment process. I think Ron was just the appropriate candidate. We enjoy his skill sets and his operating history and really looking forward to working with him and gaining valuable insights from him.

Cooper Clark (Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much for taking the questions.

Paul McDermott (CEO)

Sure, Cooper.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Ann Chan with Green Street. Your line is live.

Ann Chan (Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Could you elaborate on what's driving the acceleration of the Wi-Fi initiative income? Does this imply a corresponding acceleration in the rollout-related expenses as well?

Tiffany Butcher (COO)

Sure. I can start with that. Obviously, Steve or others can feel free to chime in. We started rolling out our managed Wi-Fi initiative last year with the first seven communities. We are in the process of installing phase two, which is our next four communities. The installation process has gone a little faster than anticipated, particularly on phase two. We are able to get those projects live a little bit quicker. The timing is critical on that, given that we are entering our spring and summer leasing season when a lot of leases roll, and we have the ability to roll residents onto that.

The ability to get those systems live earlier and get more residents signed up quickly is allowing us to accelerate our expectations for achieving managed Wi-Fi income this year, which is what led us to increase the amount of revenue we're expecting to get in 2025 for managed Wi-Fi.

Steven Freishtat (CFO)

Anne, this is Steve. You're correct. There'll be an associated charge, so the expenses will see that, but to a lesser extent.

Ann Chan (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you. Just given that guidance is unchanged, but you're seeing some more contribution from the Wi-Fi income this year and also from bad debt recovery in Atlanta, should we assume that there's been a shift in revenue composition? In that context, are there any line items you see carrying potential downside in order to serve them the point of guidance?

Steven Freishtat (CFO)

Yeah, Anne. Obviously, as we talked about in the prepared remarks, we had a strong first quarter, a first quarter that was above our initial expectations coming into the year. We talked about how we're tracking post-quarter end in line with seasonal norms. When looking at the whole year and looking at the leasing that we need to get done, we're just getting into the busy spring and summer leasing season. We still have a lot of leases that will turn over the next few months. We feel good about the trends, but there is still in the next few months a lot to take care of. When looking at our guidance and the potential outcomes over the remainder of the year, we feel that keeping our guidance range unchanged at this point in time is appropriate.

We should know a lot more on our Q2 call, and we'll look to update the guidance at that point.

Ann Chan (Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If there are no further questions, I'd like to turn the floor back to management for any closing comments.

Paul McDermott (CEO)

Thank you very much, everybody. We appreciate your time today, and we're looking forward to talking to many of you in the coming weeks. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's call. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.