EQUITY RESIDENTIAL (EQR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Transcript

Marty McKenna (VP, Investor and Public Relations)

Good morning, and thanks for joining us to discuss Equity Residential's Fourth Quarter 2023 Results and Outlook for 2024. Our featured speakers today are Mark Parrell, our President and CEO; Michael Manelis, our Chief Operating Officer; Alec Brackenridge, our Chief Investment Officer; and Bob Garechana, our CFO. Our earnings release is posted in the Investors section of equityapartments.com. 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. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. Now I'll turn the call over to Mark Parrell.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Thank you, Marty. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our Fourth Quarter 2023 Results and the Outlook for 2024. I will start us off, then Michael Manelis, our COO, will speak to our operating performance in 2024 operating expectations, and followed by Alec Brackenridge, our Chief Investment Officer, will give some color on our capital allocation activities in the transactions markets. Then finally, Bob Garechana, our CFO, will review our 2024 guidance and our balance sheet, and then we'll take your questions. We are pleased with our fourth quarter performance, which was in line with our October expectations. Our performance in 2023 was supported by a strong employment situation, more than 2.7 million new jobs created.

While the 2024 outlook for overall jobs is more muted, we should benefit from a continued low unemployment rate for the college-educated, which currently sits around 2.1%, as well as continued good real wage growth. We will also benefit in 2024 from having low exposure to new supply in the vast majority of our markets, particularly when compared to the Sun Belt markets, as well as the customer comfortably able to pay our rents, with current rent income levels at about 20%. Overall, with low unemployment and rising real wages, our target renter demographic remains in good shape. They are likely to rent with us longer, as the prospect of homeownership in the near term seems less likely, with scarce inventory and relatively high mortgage rates.

Less than 8% of our residents who moved out gave Bought Home as a reason to depart in 2023, which is the lowest we have seen since we started tracking the number. Over the next decade, the significant net deficit of housing across our country sets us up for good long-term demand. Drilling down on the West Coast, we do see clear signs of improvement in quality of life and energy on the street in the urban centers of Seattle and San Francisco. We continue to believe a recovery in rental rates in the downtown submarkets of these metros is coming, and expect our shareholders will benefit from catch-up rental growth in these places, where rents are still at or a fair bit below 2019 levels, and where incomes, both on a nominal and real basis, have risen substantially since 2019.

So while we have not baked the material improvement in Seattle and San Francisco performance into our 2024 guidance expectations, we do note that other urban centers damaged by the pandemic and other negative trends, for example, New York City, reignited quickly and sharply off of depressed rent levels once quality of life and employment conditions improved. Switching to the cost side of the equation, our consistent ability to grow expenses and overhead more slowly than our competitors will preserve cash flow for our shareholders as rent growth slows across the country and positions us well once growth picks back up. As it relates to capital allocation, before Alec goes through the details of our recent transaction activities and our view of forward market conditions, I do want to highlight that we bought back some of our stock in the fourth quarter for the first time in many years.

We bought back a little more than 864,000 EQR common shares for a total of about $49 million spent at about $57 per share. We funded this repurchase activity with proceeds from sales during January of less desirable assets that were on average 40 years old and were sold at a 5.6% disposition yield, and believe that at this stock price and funded with these disposition proceeds, buying our shares makes a very good investment, especially given the lack of available assets to acquire at reasonable prices. Before I turn the call over, I want to thank our teams across the company for their continued hard work and dedication to serving our customers and producing strong results for our shareholders. Now I'll turn the call over to Michael Manelis.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Thanks, Mark. This morning, I will review our fourth quarter 2023 operating performance and our outlook for 2024. We produced same-store revenue growth of 3.9% and same-store expense growth of only 1.3% in the fourth quarter, both of which were in line with our expectations. On the expense side, our low growth in the quarter and full year 4.3% growth were helped by modest property tax costs, as well as the savings produced as we continue to roll out initiatives focused on creating operating efficiencies and a seamless customer experience. On the revenue side, the momentum in December was a little better than we thought, as sequentially, we grew revenue in the fourth quarter by holding on to more occupancy while maintaining positive blended rate growth. This set us up for a good start in 2024.

Demand was solid across our markets and consistent with seasonal expectations. We finished the year with same-store physical occupancy at 96%. As we focused on building up occupancy in the slower part of our leasing cycle, today, the portfolio is above 96%. As expected, we saw new lease rates go negative in the quarter, as they typically do. Meanwhile, renewal rates for the quarter came in at 5.1%, which was slightly above our expectations. Together, this resulted in a fourth quarter blended rate growth of positive 80 basis points. These healthy fundamentals led to outstanding revenue growth in our East Coast markets and good growth in Southern California. As has been the case all year, the East Coast markets outperformed the West Coast and by and large, will likely continue to do so in 2024.

As you saw in our earnings release, we have provided 2024 same-store revenue guidance range of up 2%-3%. The building blocks for this growth starts with embedded growth of 1.4% and a midpoint assumption that both physical occupancy and cash concessions remain consistent with that of 2023. We expect the year to follow the traditional pre-COVID historical patterns, with rent growth sequentially picking up in the spring and likely peaking in August. Our midpoint assumes renewals for the year average just over 4%. New lease change is relatively flat, which together produces blended rate growth of about 2%.

This is more modest growth than the 2023 full year blended rate growth of 3.1%, and is reflective of a slowing job growth environment, offset by a mostly positive supply situation in our coastal markets, where we have about 95% of our NOI. As you can see from the stats in the release, January is starting out the way we would expect, with new lease change improving, a strong percent of residents renewing, and a renewal rate achieved that is healthy, albeit moderating a bit. While still early, all of these January trends support our outlook for the year, which includes a view that resident retention remains very good 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.

Turnover in the portfolio remains some of the lowest that we have seen in the history of our company, and we expect that trend to continue in 2024. Orange County, San Diego, Boston, and Washington, D.C., will lead the pack with expected revenue growth of approximately 4%. New York and L.A. will follow closely behind. At the moment, we expect slightly positive same-store revenue growth in San Francisco and Seattle, and in our expansion markets, which reflect only about 5.5% of the total company NOI, we expect to produce negative same-store revenue growth, given the unprecedented levels of supply being delivered. As we look to the individual markets, starting with Boston, with high occupancy and limited new competitive supply, this market should continue to perform well in 2024.

The market is supported by a strong employment base in finance, tech, life science, health, and education. New supply deliveries will be about the same this year as they were in 2023, and this is a market where our urban assets have outperformed suburban ones lately, and we expect that trend to continue in 2024. New York should continue to perform well this year, but won't reach the high rate growth achieved over the last few years. Occupancies remain high and competitive new supply is limited, which led to record high market rents, causing some rate fatigue to be observed in late 2023. New supply deliveries will be similar to last year, with very little being delivered in Manhattan, where a large part of our portfolio is located. Washington, D.C., continues to outperform our expectations, despite the delivery of a good amount of new supply.

The market delivered over 13,000 units in 2023 and saw the great majority of those units absorbed. This year, the market will see a similar amount of deliveries, but demand has been strong, and we expect this good performance to continue. We are starting the year with occupancies above 97%, which is a great position to be in. In Los Angeles, we expect a tailwind to growth as we work through the delinquency and bad debt issues that have been concentrated here. We continue to make progress, although the court system remains slow, taking at least six months from our court filing to being able to get the unit back. Bob will give some more color on the impact of bad debt net on our 2024 earnings expectations.

New supply deliveries will be slightly higher this year, with our Mid-Wilshire, Koreatown, and San Fernando Valley portfolios seeing the largest impact from this new supply. Strong retention and solid demand will continue to aid our ability to fill vacant units with paying residents in this market. Rounding out Southern California, San Diego and Orange County should be some of our highest growth markets this year, driven by high occupancies and a general lack of housing. High homeownership costs make renting in these markets a more attractive option. San Diego will see more competitive new supply in 2024, while Orange County will see similar amounts to last year. In San Francisco and Seattle, we had little to no pricing power throughout 2023, and our base case expectations for this year assume that situation continues. We have seen periods of stability and then pullbacks.

Concession use in both markets is widespread. We have strong physical occupancy, with both markets being above 96%, which tells us there is demand, although it is very price sensitive. As Mark mentioned, the downtown areas of both markets continue to see improvement in the quality of life, but are still lacking the catalyst of return to office and/or job growth. New supply in San Francisco this year will be up from last year levels, mostly due to an increase in the South Bay, although continued healthy demand in this sub-market should aid the absorption. Seattle is likely to be the most impacted of any of our established markets when it comes to new supply deliveries, with increases in both the City of Seattle and the East Side.

The lack of expected job growth, combined with this new supply, have driven our low expectations in Seattle for 2024. Both Seattle and San Francisco continue to see less than normal inbound migration. Seattle, in the fourth quarter, however, did see some relative improvement with new residents coming to us from out of state. This positive trend is something that we will keep an eye on as we move through the spring leasing season. Drawing new residents back to the MSAs in both Seattle and San Francisco would be a catalyst for these markets to outperform our expectations. In the expansion markets, our long-term outlook remains positive. That said, high levels of new supply are already pressuring rents, and is likely to continue throughout 2024.

At present, we are operating from a defensive position and starting the year with occupancies that are 2-3 percentage points above the market averages. Denver has demonstrated the most stability, despite having limited pricing power in the portfolio, and we expect the market to produce slightly positive same-store revenue growth in 2024. Currently, Atlanta is using the least amount of concessions, but we expect a few of our assets to be very challenged due to the sheer number of lease-ups in close proximity, which will likely lead to negative revenue growth for the year. In Texas, Dallas and Austin have widespread concession use, and we expect all of our assets to experience direct pressure from new deliveries all year long, resulting in negative same-store revenue growth in these markets.

So putting all of these factors together, our overall same-store revenue outlook for 2024 right now anticipates solid growth led by the East Coast markets and Southern California, which collectively is almost 70% of our NOI. We expect our coastal existing markets to outperform our expansion markets, where unprecedented supply will impact operations near term. On the initiative side, in 2024, we will continue to focus on producing operating efficiencies and driving other income with projects tied to flexible living options, parking, renter's insurance, and monetizing technology deployed for the benefits of our residents. We are almost complete with the rollout of smart home technology across our portfolio, which will create further opportunities to share teams across properties and enable additional self-service options for residents. This, along with other ancillary income, should lead to total other income growth of 30 basis points, excluding bad debt.

As we sit here today, we like our positioning and look forward to capturing the opportunities the spring leasing season brings, which will help frame pricing power for the full year. I want to give a shout-out for our amazing teams across our platform for their continued dedication to their residents and focus on delivering these results. With that, I will turn the call over to Alec to walk through our capital allocation activities and the transaction market.

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Thank you, Michael. Despite an unsettled transactions market, we remain steadfast in our efforts to continue to reposition our portfolio by increasing our presence in markets like Dallas, Fort Worth, Atlanta, Austin, and Denver, and expect to see more opportunities to do so as the year progresses.

As we underwrite potential acquisitions, we are always mindful of heightened levels of supply, pressuring rents in our expansion markets, and reflect tempered rent growth and concessions as needed in our projections. Currently, the transaction market remains unusually choppy, with volumes down 60%-70% compared to 2022, and down 40%-50% compared to a more typical year, like 2019. Nonetheless, pressures on sellers to transact continue to mount, as does the volume of new developments being delivered in these markets. New developments, in particular, are often not capitalized to be held for the long term, and even with rates decreasing over the last few months, carry costs are high. Owners of stabilized assets will also see pressure to transact as loans mature and extensions that were agreed to with lenders last year expire.

Despite the short-term operating challenges in our expansion markets, we remain committed to broadening our footprint in markets that will see strong job growth and household formations over time and lower regulatory risks. As regards our own transactions activity, we didn't acquire any assets in the fourth quarter, but we did sell three: a small property in Seattle, one in the Bay Area, and one in LA. On average, the properties were 40 years old, and total sales proceeds were $185 million at an average 5.8% disposition yield. While transaction volume overall is very light, we're seeing some opportunities to lighten the load of non-core older assets, primarily in our West Coast markets.

Since the beginning of 2024, we've sold two additional properties, one in Southern California and a small deal in Boston, for a total of $189 million at an average 5.6% disposition yield. We've allocated a portion of the capital from these sales to the share buyback activity Mark just mentioned. With ample access to capital, either through asset sales or debt issuance and a property management presence in our expansion markets, we are well positioned to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. In terms of anticipated volume, our guidance for 2024 is $1 billion for both acquisitions and dispositions, but market conditions will dictate whether we can hit or even exceed these goals.

Turning to development, in 2024, we'll complete six new apartment properties with a total cost expected to be $624 million and consisting of 1,982 units, with lease-ups commencing for two of those projects in Q1 and four in Q2. Three of those lease-ups, all through our joint venture program with Toll Brothers, are in Dallas, while the remaining three, two in Denver and one in suburban New York City, are JVs with other developers. Given the timing for completion and lease-up, we don't expect meaningful contribution to NFFO growth in 2024, but would expect these projects to contribute more to 2025 growth. While our suburban New York project will see limited competition from new supply, not unexpectedly, our lease-ups in Dallas and Denver will see substantial new competition.

We acknowledge that the competition may be challenging and anticipate that as we may have to adjust pricing and concessions to meet the market, our projected stabilized yields, which at initial underwriting were on average a mid-six, may be closer to six. We believe these lease-ups, once stabilized and past the current supply glut, will provide good cash flow growth and be solid long-term investments. Beyond these deliveries, we will be very selective about starting any new projects, with a primary focus on locations where it's hard to buy, such as suburban Boston. I'll now turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Thanks, Alec. As Michael and Mark mentioned, 2023 ended up right in line with our forecast last quarter, so let's get right to guidance. Michael gave you most of the building blocks for same-store revenue, but I'll finish up with bad debt, walk through drivers of same-store expenses and normalized FFO, and conclude with the balance sheet. In 2023, we were able to reduce bad debt significantly once the regulatory environment became more constructive. While we continue to work with non-paying residents, as we have during and after the pandemic, ultimately, we still ended up processing a high volume of skips and evicts.

In fact, about 1.5 times pre-pandemic activity levels, which, coupled with not adding significant amounts of new non-paying residents, helped us reduce bad debt as a percentage of same-store revenue from well over 2% to just under 1.5%. So great progress overall, but still a long way from the 50 basis points we were accustomed to pre-pandemic. Much like last year, we expect 2024 to continue to show improvement. We also expect the pace of this improvement to be dependent on the speed of the court systems, primarily in Southern California, where delinquency remains highest, to quickly process evictions, which is a hard thing to predict. As a result, our guidance assumes that 2024 remains another transition year for bad debt, and that we don't get all the way back to pre-pandemic levels.

Instead, our guidance midpoint assumes that full year bad debt, as a percentage of same-store residential revenue, is slightly above 1% or a 30 basis point contribution to 2024 growth overall. If that plays out, by the end of 2024, we would expect to be a little under two times pre-pandemic levels. Turning to expenses. Expense management is a core strength at Equity Residential, as evidenced by the historical performance Mark referenced. Our same-store expense guidance of 4% is also reflective of that discipline. This year, the individual drivers of growth are a little different than those from 2023. So let me give you a high level assessment, and we can get into more detail in Q&A, if required.

In 2024, we expect real estate taxes and utilities to grow faster than they did in 2023, in part due to some 421-a step-ups and commodity prices, while payroll and repairs and maintenance should be slower due to various initiatives and an expected normalization of inflationary pressures. Insurance, a small category at less than 5% of total expenses, but a topic often discussed, should grow more slowly than last year, but remain above the long-term trend, with growth in the low double digits. Turning to normalized FFO, page two of the release provides a detailed reconciliation of our forecasted contributors to NFFO growth. As is typical, same-store NOI performance is the primary driver of growth, but let me provide some color on transaction activity.

We are assuming $1 billion in both acquisitions and dispositions for 2024, with limited dilution, yet we show a $0.03 reduction in normalized FFO growth there. This is due to our assumption that our acquisition activity mostly occurs later in the year than our dispositions. This is also partially offset in interest expense and interest income, as disposition proceeds are used to pay down debt or invested in interest-bearing 1031 accounts while we await acquisitions. Now, a very brief comment on the balance sheet, because we're in really great shape here. We have no debt maturities until the middle of 2025, modest outstanding balances on our commercial paper program, and less than 10% floating rate debt. So we're very well positioned. In fact, over 50% of our existing debt doesn't mature until after 2030.

The work we've done over the last number of years has reduced our interest rate exposure and allows us for ample debt capacity to run and grow our business. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one 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 our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. Our first question is going to come from Steve Sakwa from Evercore. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great, thanks. Good morning. I guess, you know, wanted to just maybe go through some of the building blocks of growth in 2024, either for Michael or Bob. But, you know, as you kind of look through the moving pieces here, you know, it seemed like maybe the new rate growth at kind of flattish might be one that could pose maybe a bit more of a challenge here if job growth slows. So just curious how you sort of sized all up those components and, you know, how did you think about the new lease component with the fact that you kept occupancy flat, I guess, within the guidance?

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. Hey, Steve, this is Michael. I'll start, maybe Bob can come over the top. So I think when you look at the building blocks for the guidance, you need to realize, one, we're giving you a range, and there's a lot of different ways you can get there, but it's really the top-level themes that underline and pin those midpoint assumptions.

So when we thought about new lease change, we started with the fact that we know that job growth is moderating this year, and therefore, we would expect market rents or asking rents, just to be kind of less than normal across the large majority of our markets. So we kind of model a normal seasonal slope for our kind of rent trend to build, and then we plug that in, and we say, okay, what does that equate to? And right now, across our market, it's balancing out to basically be about flat on new lease change for the full year. Some of our markets are still positive, some of our markets are still positive three, and some of the markets are still coming in at a negative growth through the year.

But I think when you start to pull on any one of those, you need to go back to the top-level themes and ask yourself, okay, what's really changing? So if there's a material shift in job growth, sure, I think we would experience more pressure than we underlined and pinned at the midpoint of our range. But again, it's when does that happen in the year? And where are we? Because today, I'll tell you, we have taken a defensive position. We're starting the year with pretty strong occupancy that really gives us some confidence heading into the spring leasing season, and we'll just see kind of what pricing power emerges from that.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. And then just maybe one question on the transaction market. And I know it's not been terribly robust, but maybe, Alec, can you just speak to where you think, you know, maybe IRR hurdles are today? The 10-year sort of ±4% come down way off the high. I realize NOI and rent growth is slowing, but, you know, where do you think investment hurdles are today, either for EQR or for the market, broadly speaking?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Hey, Steve, it is Alec. Thanks for the question. Well, as you stated, it's a pretty choppy market right now, and there aren't a whole lot of data points. As you know, the NMHC conference is going on in San Diego right now, so I have some pretty current time information, which is really a reiteration of what we've been experiencing in the last few months, which is a standoff between buyers and sellers. You know, buyers generally, you know, looking for a 5.5-ish cap, and sellers generally looking for something closer to 5. So not an insurmountable gap at some point, but right now it's hard to peg things. But assuming things kind of land somewhere in between there, at a 5.25, I think most people are shooting for an eight-ish IRR.

Obviously, it depends on the rent growth assumptions and the residual cap rate, but somewhere in that range, maybe a little bit less, if they're gonna be more aggressive.

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great, thanks. That's it for me.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is gonna come from Eric Wolfe from Citi. Please go ahead.

Nick Joseph (Managing Director and Head of US Real Estate Research)

Thanks. It's Nick here with Eric. Maybe just following up on that, so eight-ish or so IRR. I guess more specifically, you talked about obviously the Sun Belt supply and the impact that has on your underwriting on those deals, at least initially. So when you're underwriting deals, both on the buy and sell side today, you know, what are you underwriting for IRRs in the Sun Belt? And then what are the IRRs look like for the assets you're planning to sell more coastal?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

I'm sorry, it's not Eric, it's-

Nick Joseph (Managing Director and Head of US Real Estate Research)

It's Nick.

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Nick. Sorry. It's, it's Alec. And, the IRRs don't end up being that different if you assume that, sure, there's a lot of apartments in the Sun Belt right now, so the next couple of years are gonna be tough. But after that, the starts are already down a lot. The demand story hasn't changed. I think there's still these cities that we're interested in, that some of which are Sun Belt cities, like Dallas, like Atlanta, like Denver and Austin, you know, still are great job growth generators, still have a great long-term demand side story. So, you know, I think you see a couple of years that are tough, but then you have a pretty good few years after that, and I think you run that through your pro forma, and you're roughly the same.

The difference we're seeing on a lot of the things that we're selling right now and why the IRR for us is lower in terms of the hold scenario and why we choose to sell is a lot of it's older stuff. You saw that, you know, we're selling 40-year-old property and that have very high capital needs. Some of that has their ROI on it, some of it, you know, is just preserving the asset. You know, there may be a buyer that sees things differently, sees a little more upside, but in our case, we think the capital is better used elsewhere. You know, in our eyes, it's probably a seven-ish something or other, and we think that money can be redeployed better elsewhere.

Eric Wolfe (Director and REIT Equity Analyst)

Hey, it's Eric. Sorry to keep switching people on you, but you know, maybe just talking about coastal rent growth for a second. You talked about supply being in check, homeownership very unaffordable, solid real wage growth, job growth, okay, maybe getting a little slower. But I guess the question is, why aren't we seeing stronger rent growth today, just given all of those positive dynamics? And is there anything that you think in the future would turn it around, since you see that sort of more than 3% type rent growth in those coastal markets?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Hey, Eric, it's Mark. Just to start, and the others can contribute. I mean, you look at the numbers in D.C. and Boston and New York last year were outstanding. So we're being thoughtful, we're being a little cautious going into a volatile year, but your restatement of the setup is correct. I mean, those Northeast markets have steady demand, by and large, minimal supply, or in D.C.'s case, strong absorption characteristics. I mean, we're optimistic those markets can continue to do well. In some cases, like New York, and Michael alluded to that, they're coming off really big rent growth years. In some cases, there's a little bit of a pause to catch your breath and you know, let resident incomes grow to catch up to rental growth.

But, I mean, if you didn't get that message, we're super optimistic about the Northeast markets and think they will do very well. It's just trying to handicap all the various, you know, crosscurrents in the economy that are challenging for us.

Eric Wolfe (Director and REIT Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from Jeff Spector from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Jeff Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Great, thank you. My first question is a follow-up. I heard a comment, and I think it was on the Sun Belt, you know, "it could be a couple tough years." I guess, can you expand on that? And then, maybe most important is talk about when you expect supply pressure to peak, let's say, in Seattle. And I know, again, Sun Belt is smaller markets for you, but if you have a view on the Sun Belt, it would be appreciated. Thank you.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. Hey, Jeff, this is Michael, so I'll start. Just specific to the Seattle and the supply that we see, it is back half loaded for us in the market, with basically a lot of concentration in Redmond as well as the city of Seattle. So for us, like, the peak is what we expect to experience is going to be somewhere in that back half of this year, and you could already see the starts coming way down. So I think the level of competitive pressure that we face in 2025 in Seattle will be less than what we're facing in 2024. Relative to the Sun Belt, I mean, this is a great question because it's going to take a while to absorb the units that are coming to this market.

The supply that we look at is fairly constant across many of these submarkets of many of the Sun Belt markets all year long by quarter, which tells us that, and why I said in the prepared remarks, that we expect to feel this pressure at our assets all year long. I think as you turn the corner and you get into 2025, you're going to start to see that supply number slow down, but you are still going to have a little bit of the overhang of the pressure from the units that were delivered to the market in 2024.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Yeah, I'm just going to add a little bit to that. If you look at 2025 expected deliveries, and some stuff from 2024 will definitely slip, I mean, it's about as big as 2023's delivery. So it's not like 2025 is an incredible decline. So what we really see, Jeff, as we look at this, is still good demand in those markets. That's why we like Dallas, Fort Worth, Denver, Austin, and Atlanta. But the supply picture, in our experience, we'll spend this whole year with declining new lease rates, occupancy pressure, all of those things. And you, as an investor and an analyst, may start to see improvement in that so-called second derivative of rent growth late this year, beginning of 2025.

But same-store revenue growth, in our experience, will be worse in 2025, not in 2024, because all those leases that are being rewritten will go through the rent roll. And so you may be more optimistic in 2025, but your numbers actually likely will be worse. So that's what we've seen with supply in our history across our markets, and then we don't really see why it'd be any different here. And I think the wild card is if you have incredible job growth in these markets, you may be able to absorb some of this supply more efficiently and get through it more quickly. But the idea that 2024 is the only oversupplied year is kind of a tough one for us to accept.

Jeff Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Thank you. That, that's very helpful. And is that why you're assuming acquisitions in the second half, or is that just conservative, you know, conservative approach, I guess, to the guidance on acquisitions? Or to your point, you know, are you really expecting these opportunities to arise more second half 2025 in your expansion markets?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Well, the guidance is just to help you model. If Alec can buy things in his team earlier at good prices, we'll buy them earlier. The relationship I think you're going to see here is that prices now seem okay, maybe not quite good enough, but the discount to basis, to replacement cost, pardon me, is very good. It's the cap rate, and when you look at, like, two years of declining rental growth, you buy in Dallas, your year two number might be lower, your cap rate, than your year one. But on the other hand, later this year, you'll be past some of that, and your year two number will look a little better, but you're likely paying a higher price. So that's what you're going to see us navigate. We like these markets long term.

We think owning the four markets that we've tabbed as our expansion markets, say 25% of the company, will create more balance and drive growth better and reduce volatility over time, Jeff. But getting into them is a little bit of an art. You know, there's going to be a little bit that we probably do sooner, a little bit we do later, and you may feel better about the price in one and not as good about the revenue growth in the other, and vice versa. But, you know, we're prepared to do that. And again, the number you see there is just sort of the guidance assumption. We'd be happy to do more if we can find more.

Jeff Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from Robin Lu from Green Street. Please go ahead.

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Good morning. Just want to touch on taxes. From your conversations with cities, are you hearing any markets where lower values are starting to flow through to tax assessments?

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Robin, it's Bob. Thanks for the question. We are seeing lower values in some markets. In fact, we've gotten some assessed values, actually back already, as we look at 2024. And on the margin, you are seeing some decreases. So for instance, in Washington State, we saw about a 1% decrease, and we've got most of the values back there, and we're seeing it in other places. Obviously, the income. You know, as assessors look at values, you know, the income production in 2023 was really quite good. But the offset there was really the cap rate change, just given risk-free rates and other things. And so we are seeing some acknowledgment by assessors that values are, in fact, lower than what they had initially assessed at.

Hey, hey, Michael, it's Mark, and I think Michael Manelis may have something to add here. So we talked a lot about San Francisco on the call, the last one, and why we like the market long term. Feel the same way. The management team thinks there's gonna be elongated recovery in that market. Conditions on the ground are a lot better. You know, the mayor put out some information about crime reductions. They have the biggest class of police cadets at the police academy in San Francisco they've had since before the pandemic. So there's some good things going on. But until, as Michael said, we get a little more tech job growth, which talking to the team and talking to others in the Bay Area and in the city of San Francisco, is probably a more later 2024, 2025 thing.

That's probably where you get rent to take off. But the thing I want you to think about is, you've had spectacular growth in incomes in the Bay Area since 2019, you know, over 30% nominal and 12% or 13% on a, on a real basis. Yet our rents are down in the city of San Francisco, 20% since 2019, and they're kind of flattish to up marginally in the Bay Area. So this is a market that, like New York, can really take off once you get some job growth, because there isn't a lot of new supply. Housing costs are pretty high, so the management team's optimistic about the recovery. The timing is kind of tough. I don't know, Michael, if you've got anything you want to add.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah, I mean, I think we expect these markets to be volatile this year. Just starting off the year right now, I got both markets at 96%. You know, we issued a lot of concessions in the fourth quarter to get there, but the fact that we got there shows us there is demand in the marketplace. As we think about even, like, the new lease change, so both of those markets reported in December about a -8% new lease change. When you look at the January results, they're now both at about a -3.5%. So it's a pretty material shift. The setup heading into the spring leasing season is really good, but we've been there before, and we've seen those markets kind of hit a pause and then kind of retrench a little bit.

So that's why we're just being a little cautious. We're gonna wait till we see probably a couple consecutive quarters of improving fundamentals before we kind of change some of our long-term kind of modeling on those markets. The other thing I would just add, besides the value proposition of San Francisco, is Seattle benefits from having, like, the lowest rent-to-income ratios out of all of our coastal markets. So we just see this opportunity in the fundamentals for those markets to recover. It's just like Mark said, it's hard to pinpoint when.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Yeah. You know, I forgot to mention something on Seattle I just want to throw out there. Seattle's nominal wage growth since 2019 is 40%, right? Yet our rents in that market are up 7%, and downtown they're flat. So again, these markets have the ability to pay more for great quality housing. And again, Seattle is a supply push this year, but after that, it gets a lot lighter. So, you know, that's about a third of our portfolio, Seattle and San Francisco. And I, I hope, Michael, we're talking about that second derivative towards the end of this year for you, but we haven't embedded that into our guidance.

Michael Goldsmith (US REIT Analyst)

Got it. Very helpful, guys. And then my second question is just related to bad debt as a percentage of revenue; it was flat sequentially. I think there's an expectation that it could be choppy but continue to trend down. So what's assumed in guidance for 2024? And do you expect a continued slow and steady pace of improvement, or should we expect that to kind of get better in a specific quarter, or just any sort of visibility around the pacing of improvement? Thank you.

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Yeah, I'll grab that. Michael, it's Bob. So to start with what's assumed in guidance, we do assume that we will get—we will improve. So we ended the year at, call it, 1.4% of bad debt as a percentage of same-store revenue. I think I said in my remarks, we expect to get to 1%, a little over 1% for the full year. That means that by the fourth quarter, we're assuming that we're sub 1%. You're correct in the kind of 3Q to 4Q in 2023 it being flattish. And what I would caution is that it is—this is a thing that is very hard to predict because of the court systems. It has puts and takes.

It has more of a step function than a linear kind of improvement function associated with it. So our expectations and guidance is that, you know, Q1, which we're in right now, is more flattish, and that you start to see improvement later in Q2, Q3, and Q4, because of that kind of pace of the court system, and because there's always been a little bit of seasonality in this number, as you think about, like, post-holiday bad debt in the first quarter is always, or typically a little bit higher anyways. So expect it, a little bit of a choppy step function, but expect improvement overall.

Michael Goldsmith (US REIT Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you have a question, please press star one. Our next question is going to come from Jamie Feldman from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Great. Thank you, and, thanks for taking the question. So I guess just thinking about your comments on Sun Belt versus Coastal, you know, you think about the assets you bought, last quarter, you know, 1-year-old, selling assets that are 40 years old. How much of your view on, on those markets is, is tied to just the types of assets you own? You know, are these—if they're newer assets, are they in lease-up, where you mean it means you have more concessions, more challenging to get, you know, to get leased up. Is there some of that bias in, in the numbers you're putting out, or would you say, you know, your view of, of what you're seeing in Coastal is truly, you know, a view across the markets?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks for that question, Jamie. I guess I'd attack it another way by certainly lease-ups are different, but remember, the numbers we're telling you are same-store numbers, so they won't include lease-up conversations. But I would say we have relatively small portfolios in those markets, so if one property is being hit hard, it could be one out of eight of our same-store assets in, you know, Denver. So I think that is it. I think different people, obviously, different parts of the, of the market feel it differently. So, that would be my comment. We have relatively small portfolios. I mean, Austin, we have three same-store assets, so.

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

And Jamie, this is Alec. I would just add, though, when you're in a market, though, that's got so much supply, and these are historic amounts, where concession levels start to get more than two months or, you know, really excessive, I think everyone gets impacted, whether you're a B property or an A property. I can't see how you're immune from some of that pressure.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Okay, that's very helpful. And then, as we think about the investment market, I mean, clearly, the debt markets are coming back pretty quickly. You know, we've now seen some real estate M&A. You know, so I assume competition's gonna get harder for the types of assets you'd like to acquire in 2024 and beyond. You know, how do you think about the importance of just transitioning the portfolio, you know, as soon as you can, versus, you know, really hitting that right number? You know, do you think maybe your underwriting assumptions have to loosen up a little bit, just so you can achieve some of your strategic goals, over the next couple of years, if the market gets more competitive?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

We'd love to move more quickly in completing our, you know, repositioning. I don't feel any need to do that by selling assets cheap. I think you'll continue to see us, pardon me, sell assets that are a little bit less desirable from our point of view. It's more about the difference, Jamie, between the sale and the buy. If we can sell things well, you know, we can pay up a little bit on the buy side. And again, we're creating that diversification we value. So it's a little bit about if we're doing trading like that, it's going to depend on both the sale price and the buy price.

To the extent we try and expand the company through debt activities, then the interest rate that Bob's borrowing at is gonna become more relevant, which I think right now would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% for 10-year money. So, well, that's helpful, but we'd like to move faster. We point out that since 2019, when we started this, we've moved billions of dollars of capital into those markets, but the transaction markets have been closed for half of the last four and a half years... because of COVID and because of the Fed. So we're hopeful that in a wide open year, I mean, we did, I think, $1.7 billion back in 2022. We're capable of doing $2 billion plus a year for sure, if the opportunities present themselves, and we push the gas hard. It's got to make some sense.

De minimis dilution is one thing. Wholesale dilution would require some sort of justification that, you know, we could get on this call and you all would feel was compelling.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Okay, so it sounds like it's, it's more about the dilution than it is the, the absolute cap rate or the absolute IRR.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

We would accept some dilution to complete our strategic repositioning. The IRR matters. I mean, these deals got to make sense. We like owning newer assets because we'll have less capital. At the end of the day, the portfolios we'll own in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Austin will be the youngest portfolios of our REIT competitors. We think that's beneficial to our shareholders on the IRR CapEx side, not just on the NOI side. So yeah, we want to push the gas on this. We want to move this along. The IRR matters, the cap rate matters, dilution matters, but, you know, getting it done matters a lot.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from Brad Heffern from RBC. Please go ahead.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hey, everybody. In the prepared comments, you mentioned some increased price sensitivity in New York late in the year. Can you add some color on that and talk about what gives you confidence to rank that market relatively high for 2024?

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. Hey, Brad, this is Michael. So I think in the prepared remarks, I was saying we saw just that the overall market level, there was what I would describe as just like rent fatigue, where you started to see, you know, certain types of units, one-bedrooms, all of a sudden hit a price point at, like, $4,000, and it just kind of the activity level slowed, the renewal conversations became a little bit, you know, more challenging. So I would say we still expect pretty good growth out of New York in 2024. We're just saying we're tempering those expectations a little bit. The fundamentals there would all suggest that you have pretty good pricing power all year long because you have almost little to no competitive supply in Manhattan.

You've got good demand drivers in those markets, but I just think we're realistic that we've had two really good years of rent growth, of rate growth, that we're just kind of saying, okay, let's just take a pause on that, and let's wait till the spring leasing season shows us exactly what the market's willing to absorb.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, got it. Thanks for that. And as a follow-on to your earlier comments about wage growth on the West Coast versus where rent has gone, I guess, how much of that opens up an opportunity for future rent growth, versus how much of that just reflects that those markets have become unaffordable before the downturn, and they've been, you know, semi-permanently repriced?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

I guess we'll see. Our sense, again, from all our comments on San Francisco and Seattle, is that they still are appealing places for our demographic to live, that people will want to live in the center of those cities and the whole market, and that, I don't know about, some sort of wholesale repricing. You saw New York recover smartly on the rent side, and there's some deals going on in the investment sales market that would support New York trading at a lower cap rate as it historically has than the national average. So I think the story is yet to be told on the West Coast markets because there's just no one selling, in the, in the urban centers. But, I don't think, there's an, there's an answer to that.

I think the appeal of those centers is true and obvious and will come, and we've kind of given you our view of that.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from Alexander Goldfarb from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yes. Hey, good morning. So two questions here. First, on the renewals. You know, in addition to jobs, I guess renewals also seem to be a wild card. I realize there's a frictional cost to moving, you know, especially in urban assets, but can you just walk through, you know, your views on renewal activity for this year? And, you know, it seems that you guys think it will hold up much better than new rents, and I'm sort of curious. I would think, you know, those same existing residents would see the new rates that, you know, newcomers are getting and would want a rent reduction, not a rent increase.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah, Alex, this is Michael. So, you know, I think it's a great question, and what I could tell you right now is that the quotes for the next 90 days have already been issued. We do expect to continue to renew about 55%-60% of our residents and achieve approximately anywhere between a 4%-4.5% growth, off of about 6% quotes that are out in the marketplace. You got to remember, in the last couple of years, I mean, we put a lot of effort into this renewal process. We've centralized our renewal negotiations. That's really helped us navigate the negotiation conversations with residents. We're leveraging all new processes in both the quote generation as well as the negotiations. We're layering in data science to help enhance some of these results.

Right now, we do expect renewal performance to be fairly stable, but we have modeled for further deceleration, like, later in the year. So the full year is expected to come in just over 4%, which is still a pretty solid growth. But we do expect to see some deceleration. And I think when you look at the spreads right now that you see in the markets with new lease change or market pricing and renewals, sure, there's more stickiness when it comes to the renewals. And we have a lot of great rich history and data going all the way back to, like, 2006.

That shows us that even when markets are dislocating, and I could use a San Francisco back in, like, 2016, where it was just getting a lot of new supply right on top of us, that market held up pretty well from the renewal standpoint and landed somewhere in that back half of the year with about 2% averages. So it's not uncommon to see these spreads in the marketplaces. The other thing I guess I would point out, as we start getting into 2024, our concession use was elevated back in 2023, so I can renew a lot of these residents flat in some of these expansion markets, or Seattle and San Francisco, and still walk away with a 6%-8% increase on renewals.

So it kind of takes away some of the spread that you're looking at and why we have so much confidence in that renewal number being right around 4%.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, the second question sort of dovetails on the rent fatigue comments. It seems, I mean, using New York as an example, you know, no new supply, people wanna be back in the city, and, you know, we don't really hear stories anymore about doubling up or, you know, even moving to New Jersey is still an expensive proposition. So from a pricing perspective, do you feel more comfortable today, you know, sort of across your, your portfolio, especially markets like New York, in pushing pricing versus years ago when renters... I'm not just talking about new supply, but where doubling up or maybe moving to, you know, you know, New Jersey or outer boroughs or something was more of an option. Do you feel like you have more pricing power today to push rents more than, you know, historically?

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah, Alex, this is Michael. I'll start, maybe somebody can layer on top of that. You know, I think this is really a market and submarket kind of look. So it really just depends is what is the spread? How much is Brooklyn's rent compared to Manhattan? What is that trade-off, you know, decision to happen? So I don't know that I'd say I have more pricing power today than I have had historically. I would say we have really good processes in place today that help us navigate through these situations, and each market is going to deliver different rate growth based on a whole lot of factors that go into the strengths of markets. And as we look for, you know, 2024, all I can say is that the setup feels pretty good. It's like normal.

The rents are doing what they seasonally should be doing, sequentially building each week. Our application volume is sequentially building each week. I think we need to see that momentum in that early part of the spring leasing season to really be able to answer that question and tell you, you know, do I feel like I got more pricing power or less than historical times?

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is gonna come from Rich Anderson from Wedbush. Please go ahead.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. So, on the topic of expansion markets, is it absolutely a fee simple type of investment, or would you be open, given the sort of the complexities of all the lending, lending environment and all that sort of stuff, and some... and distress, balance sheet distress and whatnot, would you be willing to invest, you know, in different areas of the capital stack and with an intention to ultimately own? Or is, are you gonna have enough opportunity to keep it simple and, and, and just go, you know, through equity channels?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Hey, Rich, it's Alec. Well, we prefer simple if it's available, but if there's a good opportunity that would require us to participate elsewhere in the capital stack, that would lead to us likely owning the property, we're wide open for that as well. So I do think there's gonna be a lot of fee simple stuff out there, though, so we'll balance that out. But we're happy to talk to anyone that owns a well-located apartment in the expansion markets about any structure that they have.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Okay, great. And then, if I could just sort of, ask the, sort of a different question about, what you said, Mark, earlier about 2025 being a, a tougher year in the Sun Belt versus 2024. But then you said something like, "But the second derivative might be thought to be better." I, I, I didn't quite understand that, so maybe you can clarify that. But, but would you, would you say, you know, generally speaking, that the Sun Belt sort of recovery process is maybe a year behind San Francisco and Seattle? Is that, like-- Does that sort of help define the, the condition-

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Mm-hmm

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

... as you see it today?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Yeah, what I'm gonna say is just how we've seen things play out in our market. So the first thing that you see is you start to see a decline in occupancy when you get a lot of supply or a big demand drop or both. So the markets you've seen, competitors in the RealPage numbers sort of show declines in occupancy. That pressures owners to give concessions and lower face rate, and then that, in turn, eventually affects same-store revenue, which is, of course, the interplay between occupancy, rate, renewals, and the whole nine yards. And so when it reverses, the exact opposite happens. First, you start to see, "I'm building my occupancy a little." As Michael spoke to Seattle and San Francisco, that gives you a little bit of confidence.

So now you're gonna take away some of your concessions, and you're gonna try to move rate up a little, especially in the spring leasing season. You're gonna test that. As that improves, then eventually that'll flow through to your Same-Store Revenue number. So that's what I mean by that comment, so that this year, Same-Store Revenue might hold up better in a heavily supplied market or a demand-challenged market because you're looking at a situation where your rents, you haven't rewritten every lease down yet.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Right.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

But over the course of two years, you will. And in that process, that second year same-store revenue number is often lower. But we're often telling you, "Hey, you know what? New lease is going up. We're feeling better in a market." And that's what I'm sort of expecting. We'll see how it goes, but my expectation is sometime in 2025, folks will be talking about an improvement in some of those, I call it second derivative, but new lease rates, street rent numbers, and it isn't gonna be dramatic right away, but it's sort of some solidification of that, that's really built on occupancy starting to improve. So again, you got all this supply. Our experience is it compounds. It gets worse before it gets better, and it just takes a little while to run through the entire P&L. Is that helpful, Rich?

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Yeah, that's really helpful. Thanks. And, and then would you then sort of characterize Sun Belt as being X money months behind San Francisco, Seattle? Would you— Is it a year in your mind, if you were to just sort of simplify it?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

I don't have a prediction on that. We told you we didn't put San Francisco and Seattle in this year's improvement bucket. I have high hopes, but it feels like because of supply in Seattle and just job conditions in San Francisco, it could take a little longer, and I think the Sun Belt is just starting its challenges. So I think both market areas will be a little challenged in 2024.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Okay, fair enough. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Our next caller is going to be John Kim from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

Thank you. On your blended lease growth, improvement in January, can you comment on how you think this trends for the remainder of the quarter? I realize, you expect it to improve in the second quarter. If there's any discrepancies in the market performance versus what you had in the fourth quarter, as shown on page 17 of your supplement.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. Hey, John, this is Michael. I could start with that. So I mean, I think as you look at this, and I cited before just the improvement that we saw in San Francisco and Seattle coming off of December and into January with the new lease trends going from, like, a -8% in December down to, like, the -3.5%. The portfolio itself was at -5.7% for new lease change in December and is now in January, that we put in the release, at a -3.7%. The expectations clearly is that you can see with sequential rents improving each week, that number is gonna continue to drop, as you work your way through the quarter. So on the renewal side, it's a little bit of the opposite story.

You saw renewals were 5.2% in the month of December, and in the release, we have January at 4.9%. The quotes are out there, but we do expect this renewal number to keep trending down as we work our way through. Somewhere in that 4%-4.5% range is what we expect to achieve off the quotes that are in the marketplace. So I think you're gonna have the interplay between these two shift a little bit, where you're gonna have strength because you're gonna have new lease change starting to recover and hopefully turning positive as we start off the spring leasing season.

We'll see if we keep this kind of momentum in place to do that, and you'll see the moderation of renewals, but still at a really strong number if we come in anywhere between that 4% and 4.5% growth.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

Okay, and my second question is on your development yields. Like you said, we're trending closer to 6%, given higher concessions. Can you comment on the level of concessions that you're providing today? And if this is really driven by your Texas and Denver developments, or is this broad-based?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Hey, John, it's Alec. Well, we are literally just starting up our lease-ups right now, so we don't have a lot of data yet. We are assuming a month right now, but that could be flexible over time. You know, those lease-ups are three in Texas, one in suburban New York, which will probably see very little of that kind of concessions, and then two in Denver.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from Adam Kramer from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Adam Kramer (VP of Equity Research)

Hey. Yeah, it may be a little bit more of a conceptual question, and I guess also kind of in line with Alex Goldfarb's question earlier. But just looking at kind of the new lease change by market, comparing that to the renewal change by market, it's kind of interesting that new lease, you know, can vary pretty significantly by some of these markets, but renewals are in a pretty tight band, you know, call it 200 basis point band, give or take. And so I guess the question is kind of twofold, right?

Is there an ability to maybe push renewals even more in, you know, in, say, a market like D.C., where new lease is holding in a lot better, you know, versus kind of expansion markets, right, or San Francisco, where I guess I'm kind of surprised by that, you know, historically widespread between the new and the renewal rate. And should I be maybe a little bit worried about renewals kind of falling a little bit, getting closer to that, to that kind of deeply negative or somewhat negative new lease change? Again, a little bit more of a conceptual question, so apologies, but hopefully, hopefully that makes sense.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. Hey, Adam, it's Michael. So, I mean, I think there's just more stickiness into the renewal stats as you look at this, and you're also coming off of a period of time, which is low transactions. So there is a little bit of that in these numbers. I think as we think about this, I mean, like I said, we have this data going all the way back in time. It's just not uncommon in the fourth quarter to see new lease change goes negative. Even in a pretty good year with rate growth happening in the marketplace, that new lease change goes negative and renewals stay positive. So it is a really uncommon situation for our renewal growth to go flat or even think that it's gonna be negative. And like I said, we've just put so much into our processes.

We have so much good information and insights to it. We've got a high degree of confidence. That being said, if there's a big dislocation in the market, right, even the deceleration that I mentioned before, could be more robust than what we've modeled.

Adam Kramer (VP of Equity Research)

Great. Great, thanks. That's, that's really helpful, and, and I appreciate that color and, and all of kind of the building blocks earlier on the call, too. Just maybe on, on concession use, I know you've talked about it a little bit on the call thus far. Maybe just, if you don't mind, just some of your expansion markets, kind of the, the level of concessions in terms of number of weeks that are being offered.

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. So I think I would just start by just saying that the concession use right now remains concentrated in the Seattle and San Francisco portfolio for us, with about 70% of all the concessions being issued. When you drill into the expansion markets, I mean, it's such a small percent of the absolute portfolio, but right now, when you go across them, it's running between, like, 30% and 45% of applications receiving about a month. I'd say Dallas right now is the one market where we're up closer to about six weeks worth of concessions being issued. And like I said, we would expect that to kind of continue at that level in those expansion markets.

And we're watching what's going to be happening with the new lease-ups and how competitive are they, so that we know where we need to play. The fact that these markets are now, like, 96% or even some of them over 96%, with that concession use that we did in the fourth quarter, is really a good sign. Because the last thing you want to do is turn on concessions, do leasing, and still land at an occupancy, like, where you started with. That would not be a good situation. So we feel like the setup right now is defensive. These occupancies are 2%-3% above. We expect to issue 30%-40% of our applications, receiving concessions of a month to a month and a half in those markets.

Adam Kramer (VP of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks so much for the time.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from Haendel St. Juste. Please go ahead.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst)

Hey, I guess good morning out there to you guys. Mark, I guess the first question for you, following up on Rich's question earlier about your, your potential interest in stepping in and participating in other parts of the capital stack. Seems a bit of a departure from how you've responded to this question of mezz investments in the past. So I guess first, is, is that fair? And why the change of heart? I'm assuming perhaps it's reflective of the opportunities. But second, I'm assuming, or is it fair to assume that you'd be solely focused on the Sun Belt? And then third, what level of return or premium to acquisition cap rates would you seek there? Thanks.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Okay, I want to start with some of that, and then Alec may answer parts of it as well, Haendel. But on the mezz investment side, I think the part that Alec emphasized was the path to ownership. So what we've been more hesitant to participate in is to just create a book where we are consistently making mezzanine loans or preferred equity investments in deals where it's improbable that we would end up being the owner. When we're working with the lender and the owner, and we get in the capital structure, and there's a good chance we're going to end up with the deal, that, to us, is very different. That is stuff we did do back in 2008 or 2009 through 2010. So that is a familiar thing for me and Alec and a lot of folks on the team to do.

So that's how I would distinguish the two of those. I don't know if there was anything else in that question you wanted to answer, Alec? No?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

No, I think we're good. I mean, we will be opportunistic, though. That's, the history of our company, and we'll keep looking for, chances to buy great real estate.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

I, I guess I will add, you asked about acquiring assets in one form or another in our established coastal markets. We're certainly open to that. We've got some development deals we're likely to start in some of those established markets that are in areas really hard to build, but the primary focus is to get into these expansion markets and add capital there.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst)

Gotcha. Gotcha, that's helpful. But, follow-up, what level of return potentially would you... or premium, to acquisitions would you seek, were you to get involved in, some of these mezz or path to ownership type opportunities?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Hey, Haendel, it's Alec. It's really impossible to peg that without knowing the specifics of the deal and the circumstances around it. But obviously we're very focused on getting compensated for any risk we would take beyond a typical transaction.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst)

Okay, fair enough. One more on the expense side. I was hoping for a bit more detail on the key components. Appreciate the overall high-level thoughts you provided there earlier, but maybe some specifics on the key components, like what you're embedding in your guide for specifically taxes, insurance, R&M, and also for the ongoing tech initiatives. I think last year you outlined $10 million or so of savings via that. Just curious what level perhaps we could see from tech initiative savings this year. Thanks.

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Haendel, it's Bob. I'll start with some detail on the expenses and then maybe pass it to Michael on the initiatives. I will caveat on the initiative side. Most of our initiatives, as Michael mentioned, are more revenue focused this year than expense focused, but he can, he can touch on initiatives if I don't cover something. So on specifics related to some of the categories, we are expecting, as I kind of mentioned, utilities and real estate tax to grow higher than what they did in 2023. That implies or means that at the midpoint, we'd have real estate taxes around, call it a 3%, and utilities more around a 6% growth rate, relative to what were lower growth rates in 2023.

On the other side of the equation, on the big categories, you have R&M, which experienced a lot of inflationary pressure in 2023. We expect that to normalize, so we expect R&M to grow something more like 4%. That is where we are realizing some of the opportunities and work that we've done on the initiative front to reduce our dependency on contract labor and places where there's wage pressure. So that's helping us get to that 4% anticipated growth. And payroll, we think, we're not anticipating as much challenges on the medical benefits side, and we're just yielding some of the payroll optimization we did was back-end loaded in 2023, so we'll realize more of that benefit in 2024. Does that help you on the color side? Is there any categories I missed?

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst)

No, that's helpful. But in relation to, I believe it was $10 million that you outlined last year from tech-driven efficiencies. First, is that accurate? And second, do you have a comparable figure expectation for this year?

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Yeah. Hey, Haendel, it's Michael. So let me just start by saying, you know, that really the entire company has been focused around these innovation initiatives for the last several years, and we now have created this foundation that really is going to deliver long-term value creation to the portfolio for many years to come. With the materials that we put in that November investor presentation, highlights this technology evolution of this platform, really has been focused on creating the mobility and efficiency in the operating model, while this seamless experience to our customer improves. All in, we've identified about $60 million in NOI improvements, with about $35 million of that already achieved over the past several years.

The early stages of this was clearly more expense-focused, and that shows up in our numbers when you look at the low, low expense growth, and that's mostly in the payroll and some of the R&M accounts over the last couple of years. Going forward, we've identified, and we expect about another $25 million. In 2023, we delivered about $10 million in NOI improvement, and about 2/3 of that was on the expense categories, primarily in the payroll accounts, and $2 million of that was in the revenue front. Specific to 2024, we've layered in another $10 million included in guidance, with about $7.5 million in other income accounts.

This is realized growth, as the annualized number from all of these initiatives is greater because some of these are back-half loaded, meaning I only get about half of the benefit this year. So overall, I guess I would just say is this operating foundation is almost in place, and you really should expect that the future years are gonna continue to have more revenue enhancement opportunities. The reality is, I mean, we're never really done with this pursuit of operational excellence. It's something that's wired into the DNA of our company, and I'm sure as this year goes on, we're gonna identify new things for future years as well.

Haendel St. Juste (Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst)

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is gonna come from Rob Stevenson from Janney. Please go ahead.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Research)

Good morning, guys. Alec, can you talk about how robust the market is for dispositions in quality of life areas like urban Seattle, San Francisco, or markets with ongoing bad debt issues like LA? Are things trading, and where are they pricing versus a few years ago if they are?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Yeah. Thanks, Rob. It's Alec. There's almost no activity in the markets you listed. I mean, we test from time to time. Not saying we wouldn't sell something, but right now I couldn't tell you what market cap rates are because they just haven't been traded, so it is really frozen there. So frankly, we've concentrated our efforts elsewhere.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Research)

I mean, is that just a hold on for a couple of years, hope that the cities get their act together, or is there something else, just simply buy lower priced capital that'll allow that to sort of come back, or are there... You're anticipating some sort of level of permanent impairment on some of those, markets and submarkets?

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

No, I think all of the things that you mentioned are likely to happen. There's a tremendous amount of capital on the sidelines. These cities are still great cities. They're the cities themselves are doing a lot, particularly in San Francisco and Seattle, to improve the quality of life. I mean, they're making some really serious headways. And as Mark talked about, we expect them to recover as the jobs recover. But even absent that, we're at 96% occupancy. It's just investor sentiment's really negative right now, and we think that there are better opportunities elsewhere, and we're, frankly, a buyer of what it sounds like people would transact right now.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

And Rob, just to add to that, I mean, these markets, you know, Seattle and San Francisco, particularly, though, you could think about downtown LA, too, I mean, they have powerful drivers. For us, it's like we talked about New York when everyone was down on New York City, and we were positive on it still, that recovery has been vibrant. I think it's the same pattern here. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and I think these markets will recover greatly on the rental side over the next few years. What we shied away from on this call is excessive enthusiasm too early in the year when you're not really into the leasing season yet in markets that do have volatility associated with them. So I don't feel any sense of permanent impairment in these markets at all.

I think that you're gonna have great rental growth, you're gonna have a recovery that's pretty strong in these markets, and you are likely, but not certain, to follow a pattern like in New York, where, again, the investment sales market has some deals in it, in New York, and they're trading really well. And so I'm not sure why, in a few years, San Francisco and Seattle wouldn't trade very well, as well. You know, but it's just gonna take some time, and again, our hesitancy here is really around the timeline for this, not the occurrence of it. And I think it's a catalyst for our investors.

I think having, you know, a portion of the portfolio in unrecovered markets with rents lower than they were in 2019 and incomes a lot higher, is a huge potential piece of kindling wood to our earnings in future years.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Research)

Okay, that's helpful. And then, lastly for me, Bob, what's the $0.06 difference between Nareit and normalized FFO guidance? Is that one or two large items that you're expecting, or a bunch of small ones, given what you know today?

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Yeah, there's one larger contributor, which I'll talk about, which is advocacy costs. So we are forecasting higher levels of advocacy costs in 2024, given that it's an election year and some of the ballot initiatives, sorry, that we are facing, which is not atypical as in other election years. Then the remaining pieces are typical forecasts for pursuit costs and other items.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Research)

Is that advocacy in California, or is there other markets as well, or is that entire spend out there?

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

It's predominantly California.

Rob Stevenson (Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Research)

Okay. And is there anything, I guess, related to that, that you're especially worried about this cycle? I mean, I know that a lot of this stuff keeps being put on every other ballot or every ballot, but, I mean, is there anything that's looking like this year or 2024, is the chance that it really passes, it would wind up being a negative for you guys?

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Rob, it's Mark. I mean, there's negatives and there's positives in the regulatory area. The ballot measure is by far the biggest point of focus for the industry. Just to remind everyone, this has been on the ballot twice before. The citizens of California rejected it by 20 percentage points each time. The industry is well organized. We're gonna make the same good arguments about supply being the solution, more rental voucher funding being the solution. To be honest, the Governor Newsom and the legislature have done a lot of supply things with the accessory dwelling unit legislation, with some of the zoning reforms. So, to be honest, when I turn to the positive on the regulatory side, people hear us. They hear the industry's point about supply, about zoning reform. Governor DeSantis obviously couldn't be more different than Governor Newsom.

I still think some of that exists in the marketplace today, but what we did see, and what we see right now, is that the setup in both of those markets has positioned us with good occupancy. We are starting to pull back concessions. The marketplace still has concessions in them, and we'll just watch and see that build as we get in towards March and April to see what pricing power really looks like. But there's a lot of factors that are going into why a market all of a sudden kind of stalls out and whether or not it shows you sustained momentum more in line with seasonal trends.

Linda Tsai (Senior VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

I have no further questions left in the queue. I'll turn it back over to Mark Parrell for closing comments.

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Thank you all for hanging in there on this long call. We appreciate your interest and your time today. Good day.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Equity Residential - Q4 2023

Transcript

Marty McKenna (VP, Investor and Public Relations)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Operator (participant)

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Steve Sakwa (Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Operator (participant)

Nick Joseph (Managing Director and Head of US Real Estate Research)

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Nick Joseph (Managing Director and Head of US Real Estate Research)

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Eric Wolfe (Director and REIT Equity Analyst)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Eric Wolfe (Director and REIT Equity Analyst)

Operator (participant)

Jeff Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Jeff Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Jeff Spector (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Operator (participant)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Robin Lu (Analyst)

Operator (participant)

Michael Goldsmith (US REIT Analyst)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Michael Goldsmith (US REIT Analyst)

Bob Garechana (EVP & CFO)

Michael Goldsmith (US REIT Analyst)

Operator (participant)

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of US REIT Research)

Operator (participant)

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Operator (participant)

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Michael Manelis (EVP & COO)

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Operator (participant)

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Alec Brackenridge (EVP & CIO)

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)

Rich Anderson (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Mark Parrell (President and CEO)