Mid-America Apartment Communities - Q4 2023

Transcript

Andrew Schaeffer (Treasurer and Director of Capital Markets)

Good morning, everyone. This is Andrew Schaeffer, Treasurer and Director of Capital Markets for MAA. Members of the management team participating on the call this morning with prepared comments are Eric Bolton, Brad Hill, Tim Argo, and Clay Holder. Al Campbell, Rob DelPriore, and Joe Fracchia are also participating and available for questions as well. Before we begin with prepared comments this morning, I want to point out that as part of this discussion, company management will be making forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from our projections. We encourage you to refer to the forward-looking statements section in yesterday's earnings release and our '34 Act filings with the SEC, which describe risk factors that may impact future results. During this call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures.

A presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, as well as reconciliations of the differences between non-GAAP and comparable GAAP financial measures, can be found in our earnings release and supplemental financial data. Our earnings release and supplement are currently available on the For Investors page of our website at www.maac.com. A copy of our prepared comments and an audio recording of this call will also be available on our website later today. After some brief prepared comments, the management team will be available to answer questions. I will now turn the call over to Eric.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

Thanks, Andrew, and good morning. Core FFO results for the fourth quarter were ahead of our expectations. Higher non-same store NOI performance and lower interest expense drove the outperformance. As expected, during the fourth quarter, a combination of higher new supply and a seasonal slowdown in leasing traffic increasingly weighed on new resident lease pricing during the quarter. Encouragingly, we did see some of this pressure moderate in January, with blended pricing improving 130 basis points from the fourth quarter performance, led by improvement in new lease pricing. Stable employment conditions, continued positive migration trends, a higher propensity of new households to rent apartments, and continued low resident turnover are all combining to support steady demand for apartment housing.

We continue to believe that late this year, new lease pricing performance will improve, and we will begin to capture recovery in that component of our revenue performance. In addition, with the pressure surrounding higher new supply deliveries likely to moderate later this year, we continue to believe the conditions are coming together for overall pricing recovery to begin late this year and into 2025. As you may have seen, last week, MAA crossed a significant milestone, marking the 30-year anniversary since our IPO. Over the past 30 years, MAA has delivered an annual compounded investment return to shareholders of 12.6%, with about half of that return comprised of the cash dividends paid.

Through numerous new supply cycles and various stresses associated with the broader economy, MAA has never suspended or reduced our quarterly dividend over the past 30 years, which, of course, is a key component of delivering superior long-term investment returns to REIT shareholders. Today, I'm more positive about our outlook than I was this time last year. Today, as compared to a year ago, we have more clarity about the outlook for interest rates, with downward movement likely later in the year. Worries associated with material economic slowdown or recession are dissipating. Inflation pressures on operating expenses are declining. The demand for apartment housing and absorption remains steady, and with clearly declining permits and new construction starts, we have increasing visibility that competing new supply is poised to moderate.

With a 30-year track record of focus on high-growth markets, successfully working through several economic cycles, an experienced team and proven operating platform, a strong balance sheet, and long-term shareholder performance among the top tier of all REITs, we're confident about our ability to execute on the growing opportunities in the coming year and beyond. Before turning the call over to Brad, I do want to take a moment to just say a big thank you to Al Campbell, who will be officially retiring, effective March 31. Al has been with our team for the past 26 years and has served as our Chief Financial Officer for the past 14 years. Al has been instrumental in the growth of our company, transitioning us to the investment grade debt capital markets, and has built a strong finance, accounting, tax, and internal audit platform for MAA.

Al leaves our company and finance operation in strong hands with Clay and his team, and we're all grateful for Al's service and tremendous accomplishments. Thank you, Al, for all you've done for MAA. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Brad.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. As mentioned in our earnings release, we successfully closed on two compelling acquisitions during the fourth quarter at pricing 15% below current replacement costs. Both properties fit the profile of the type of properties we expect to continue to emerge throughout 2024. Properties in their initial lease-up, with sellers focused on certainty of execution, with a need to transact prior to a definitive deadline. Our relationships with the sellers and our ability to move quickly and execute on the transactions utilizing the available capacity on our line of credit without a financing contingency, were key components of MAA being chosen as the buyer for these properties.

MAA Central Avenue, a 323-unit mid-rise property in the midtown area of Phoenix, and MAA Optimist Park, a 352-unit mid-rise property in the Optimist Park area of Charlotte, are expected to deliver initial stabilized NOI yields of 5.5% and 5.9%, respectively. We expect both properties to achieve further yield and margin expansion as a result of adopting MAA's more sophisticated revenue management, marketing, and lead generation practices, as well as our technology platform. Additionally, we expect to achieve operational synergies by combining certain functions with other area MAA properties as part of our new property podding initiative. Due to continued interest rate volatility and tight credit conditions, transaction volume remains tepid, down 50% year-over-year and 16% from the third quarter's pace.

We continue to believe that transaction volumes will pick up later in 2024, providing visibility into cap rates and market values. For deals we tracked in the fourth quarter, we saw cap rates move up by roughly 35 basis points from the third quarter. Our transaction team is very active in evaluating additional acquisition opportunities across our footprint, with our balance sheet in great position to be able to take advantage of more compelling opportunities as they continue to materialize later this year. Our forecast for the year includes $400 million of new acquisitions, likely in lease-up, and therefore dilutive until stabilization is reached. Despite pressure from elevated new supply, our two stabilized new developments, as well as our development projects currently leasing, continue to deliver good performance, producing higher NOIs and earnings than forecasted in our original pro formas, creating additional long-term value.

New lease rates are facing more pressure at the moment, but these properties have captured asking rents on average, approximately 20% above our original expectations. Our four developments that are currently leasing are estimated to produce an average stabilized NOI yield of 6.5%. We continue to advance pre-development work on several projects, but due to permitting and approval delays, as well as an expectation that construction costs are likely to come down, we have pushed the three projects that we planned to start in 2023 into 2024. We now expect to start between three to four projects this year, with two starts in the first half of the year and two starts late in the year. Encouragingly, we have seen some recent success in getting our construction costs down on new projects that we're currently repricing.

As we have seen a meaningful decline in construction starts in our region, we're hopeful to see continued decline in construction costs as we progress through the year. Our team has done a tremendous job building out our future development pipeline, and today, we own or control 13 well-located sites, representing a growth opportunity of nearly 3,700 units. We have optionality on when we start these projects, allowing us to remain patient and disciplined. Any project we start this year will deliver first units in 2026, aligning with a likely stronger leasing environment supported by significantly lower supply. Our development team continues to evaluate land sites as well as additional pre-purchase development opportunities. In this constrained liquidity environment, it's possible we could add additional development opportunities to our future pipeline. The team has our portfolio in good position.

Our broad diversification provides support during times of higher supply, with a number of our mid-tier markets outperforming. As we ramp up activities in 2024, we're excited about the coming year. Beyond the new external growth opportunities just covered, and as Tim will outline further, we continue to see solid demand and steady absorption of the new supply delivering across our markets, and remain convinced that pricing trends will begin to improve late this year and into 2025. In addition, we continue to make progress on several new initiatives aimed at further enhancing our leasing platform to further position us to outperform local market leasing metrics during this supply cycle.

Before I turn the call over to Tim, to all of our associates at the properties and our corporate and regional offices, I want to say thank you for coming to work every day, focused on improving our business, serving our residents, and exceeding the expectations of those that depend on us. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tim.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. Same-Store NOI growth for the quarter was right in line with our expectations, with slightly lower operating expenses, offsetting slightly lower blended lease-over-lease pricing growth. Expanding on Eric's earlier comment on new lease pricing, developers looking to gain occupancy ahead of the holiday season and the end of the year did put further pressure on new lease pricing, particularly in November and December. However, because traffic tends to decline in the fourth quarter, again, particularly in November and December, we intentionally reprice only 16% of our leases in the fourth quarter and only about 9% in November and December. This resulted in blended lease-over-lease pricing of minus 1.6% for the quarter, comprised of new lease rates declining 7% and renewal rates increasing 4.8%.

Average physical occupancy was 95.5%, and collections remain strong, with delinquency representing less than 0.5% of billings. These key components drove the resulting revenue growth of 2.1%. From a market perspective in the fourth quarter, many of our mid-tier metros performed well. Being invested in a broad number of markets, submarkets, asset types, and price points is a key part of our strategy to capture growth throughout the cycle. Savannah, Richmond, Charleston, and Greenville are examples of markets that led the portfolio in lease and renewal lease pricing performance. The Washington, D.C. metro area, Houston, and to a lesser extent, Dallas-Fort Worth, were larger metros that held up well. Austin and Jacksonville are two markets that continue to be more negatively impacted by the level of supply being delivered into those markets.

Touching on some other highlights during the quarter, we continued our various product upgrade and redevelopment initiatives in the fourth quarter. For the quarter, we completed nearly 1,400 interior unit upgrades, bringing our full-year total to just under 6,900 units. We completed over 21,000 smart home upgrades in 2023 and now have over 93,000 units with this technology, and we expect to complete the remaining few properties in 2024. For our repositioning program, we have 5 active projects that are in the repricing phase with expected yields in the 8% range. We have targeted an additional 6 projects to begin in 2024, with a plan to complete construction and begin repricing in 2025. Now, looking forward to 2024, we're encouraged by the relative pricing trends we are seeing thus far.

As noted by Eric, blended pricing in January was 130 basis points better than the fourth quarter. This is comprised of new lease pricing of -6.2% and 80 basis points improvement from the fourth quarter, and notably, a 150 basis points improvement from December. At renewal pricing of 5.1%, an improvement of 30 basis points from the fourth quarter, while maintaining stable occupancy of 95.4%. Similarly, renewal increases achieved thus far in February and March average around 5%. As noted, new supply being delivered continues to be a headwind in many of our markets.

While we do expect this new supply will continue to pressure pricing for much of 2024, we believe we have likely already seen the maximum impact to new lease pricing and that the outlook is better for late 2024 and into 2025. It varies by market, but on average, new construction starts in our portfolio footprint peaked in the second quarter of 2022. Based on typical delivery timelines, this suggests peak delivery is likely in the middle of this year, with some positive impact to pricing power soon thereafter. While increasing supply is impactful, the strength of demand is more indicative of pricing power in a particular market. Job growth is expected to moderate some in 2024 as compared to 2023, but growth is still expected to be strongest in the Sun Belt markets.

Job growth, combined with continued in-migration, accelerates the key demand factor of household formation. Separately, the cost gap between owning and renting gapped out considerably in the back half of 2023, even before considering the impact of higher mortgage rates. Move-outs to buy a home dropped 20% in the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis, and we expect a continued low number of move-outs due to home buying to contribute to low turnover overall in 2024. That's all I have in the way of prepared comments. Now I'll turn the call over to Clay.

Clay Holder (SVP and Chief Accounting Officer)

Thank you, Tim, and good morning, everyone. Reported Core FFO for the quarter of $2.32 per share was $0.03 per share above the midpoint of our quarterly guidance and contributed to Core FFO for the full year of $9.17 per share, representing an approximate 8% increase over the prior year. The outperformance for the quarter was primarily driven by favorable interest and the performance of our recent acquisitions and lease-ups during the quarter. Overall, Same-Store operating performance for the quarter was essentially in line with expectation. Same-Store revenues were slightly below our expectations for the quarter, as effective rent growth was impacted by lower new lease pricing that Tim mentioned. Same-Store operating expenses were slightly favorable to our fourth quarter guidance, primarily from lower than expected personnel costs and property taxes.

During the quarter, we invested a total of $20.7 million of capital through our redevelopment, repositioning, and SmartRent installation programs, producing solid returns and adding to the quality of our portfolio. We also funded $48 million of development costs during the quarter toward the completion of the current $647 million pipeline, leaving nearly $256 million remaining to be funded on this pipeline over the next two years. As Brad mentioned, we also expect to start two, three to four projects over the course of 2024, which would keep our development pipeline at a level consistent with where we ended 2023, in which our balance sheet remains well positioned to support.

We ended the year with nearly $792 million in combined cash and borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility, providing significant opportunity to fund potential investment opportunities. Our leverage remains low, with debt to EBITDA at 3.6 times, and at year-end, our outstanding debt was approximately 90% fixed, with an average of 6.8 years at an effective rate of 3.6%. Shortly after year-end, we issued $350 million of 10-year public bonds at an effective rate of 5.1%, using the proceeds to pay down our outstanding commercial paper. Finally, we did provide initial earnings guidance for 2024 with our release, which is detailed in the supplemental information package.

Core FFO for the year is projected to be $8.68-$9.08, or $8.88 at the midpoint. The projected 2024 Same-Store revenue growth midpoint of 0.9% results from rental pricing earn-in of 0.5%, combined with rental-blended rental pricing expectation of 1% for the year. We expect blended rental pricing is to be comprised of lower new lease pricing, impacted by elevated supply levels and renewal pricing in line with historical levels. Effective rent growth for the year is projected to be approximately 0.9% at the midpoint of our range. We expect occupancy to average between 95.4% and 96% for the year, and other revenue items, primarily reimbursement and fee income, to grow in line with effective rent.

Same-Store operating expenses are projected to grow at a midpoint of 4.85% for the year, with real estate taxes and insurance producing most of the growth pressure. Combined, these two items are expected to grow almost 6% for 2024, with the remaining controllable operating items expected to grow just over 4%. These expense projections, combined with the revenue growth of 0.9%, results in projected decline in Same-Store NOI of 1.3% at the midpoint. We have a recently completed development community in lease-up, along with an additional three development communities actively leasing. As these four communities are not fully leased-up and stabilized, and given the interest carry associated with these projects, we anticipate our development pipeline being diluted to Core FFO by about $0.05 in 2024 and turning accretive to Core FFO upon later stabilization.

We are expecting continued external growth in 2024, both through acquisitions and development opportunities. We anticipate a range of $350 million-$450 million in acquisitions, all likely to be in lease-up and not yet stabilized, and a range of $250 million-$350 million in development investments for the year. This growth will be partially funded by asset sales, which we expect dispositions of approximately $100 million, with the remainder to be funded by debt financing and internal cash flow. This external growth is expected to be slightly dilutive to Core FFO in 2024, and then again, turning accretive to Core FFO after stabilizing.

We project total overhead expenses, a combination of property management expenses and G&A expenses, to be $132.5 million at the midpoint, a 4.9% increase over 2023 results. We expect to refinance $400 million in bonds maturing in June 2024. These bonds currently have a rate of 4%, and we forecast to refinance north of 5%. This expected refinance, coupled with the recently completed refinancing activity, activities mentioned previously, will result in $0.04 of dilution to Core FFO as compared to prior year. That is all that we have in the way of prepared comments. So Carrie, we will now turn the call back to you for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now open the call up for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star, then one on your touch tone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star two. We will pause for a moment to allow questions to queue. One moment, please. We will take our first question from the line of Josh Dennerlein with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Josh Dennerlein (Senior Equity Research Analyst of REITs)

Yeah. Hey, guys. Appreciate all the color you provided on guidance. My first question would just be on the Same-Store revenue growth outlook. Can you provide us maybe more details on what will get you to the high and low end of guidance? And I guess I'm really curious about, what you would assume for the blended rate growth at the high and low end.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Hey, this is Tim. So I think, you know, as far as the high end and the low end, I think, you know, we feel pretty comfortable with the renewal rates, and they've been steady for the last few months. And what we're seeing, as I noted, the next few months, is being in that 5% range. I think that the new lease rates are what could, you know, certainly determine whether we get more toward the high and the low end, which is gonna be a function of the demand side. We expect to see steady job growth, steady demand, immigration, all those factors. So that's a little bit better. You know, I think it obviously pushes new lease rates higher, and then the opposite is true.

But if you think about our full year guide, it's built on new lease rates for the year, and this will be seasonal, you know, starting a little bit lower in Q1, accelerating to Q2 and Q3, and then declining a little bit in Q4. But somewhere in the -3% to -3.25% range on new lease for the year, and expectations of the 4.5%-5% range on renewals, which blends out to the 1% blended, is what we're assuming for the full year.

Josh Dennerlein (Senior Equity Research Analyst of REITs)

Okay, I appreciate that. And then for the drag that you're assuming on the $400 million of acquisitions, is there a way to quantify that?

Clay Holder (SVP and Chief Accounting Officer)

Yeah, I think you can think through, you know, what we're projecting, new rates to come in this next year and kind of the timing of those acquisitions. You know, from a standpoint of just the timing of it, we're assuming that those start in second quarter and then play out over the remainder of the year. And we think about it maybe in the range of, call it four acquisitions at roughly $100 million each. And I think they'll look similar to what these other two acquisitions that we just completed in 2023, as far as how they will lease up, and how they'll, you know, the drag that we'll see on earnings over 2024.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

And Josh, this is Brad. Just, just to add to that, our assumption on the acquisitions is that, you know, obviously, they're, as Clay mentioned, they're very similar to the ones we purchased last year. They're in lease-up. We're assuming about a 4.5% NOI yield contribution at the time of closing, given that those are, are in lease-up, and, and given the comments that Clay made about where our, our current commercial paper is and where our, our cost of debt is, you know, you can kind of do the math on, on what the dilution there is.

Josh Dennerlein (Senior Equity Research Analyst of REITs)

Okay. Well, thanks, guys. I yield the floor.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Eric, you remain confident that new lease pricing is going to improve through this year, but, you know, it really sounds like peak delivery don't hit until around, you know, mid-year. And we've really yet to see, I guess, leasing volume pick up. So with kind of that expectation of, you know, the improvement in new lease rates for the year, do you think that lease rates get better in the back half of this year versus last year on sort of a lease-weighted basis? I know things deteriorated late in the year, but more interested in sort of that period of, you know, July through, you know, October.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

Well, I'll answer your question, and Tim, you can jump in here with. But broadly speaking, yeah, we do think that as you get into the summer leasing season, we've always traditionally seen leasing traffic pick up. And as commented in our prepared comments, I mean, we just see no evidence of demand really deteriorating. And we do think that normal seasonal patterns will continue to play out.

So, as we think about, you know, supply delivery, and we see it as pretty, you know, elevated at this point. And, I mean, does it go up another 10%? I don't think so. I think that, you know, kind of we're in sort of the peak of the storm from a supply perspective. I feel like right now, in a weak demand quarter, and we think that supply now it stays high, you know, certainly in Q1 and Q2, and probably even early Q3. You know, it's hard to peg it by month, but we do think that there is a lot of reasons to believe that supply starts to peter out or starts to moderate a little bit as you get into, particularly into Q4.

So we do think that the pressure surrounding supply that will persist will be met with even stronger, you know, leasing traffic and demand patterns as we get into the summer, as a function of normal lease, normal seasonal patterns. And therefore, it does lead us to believe that new lease pricing performs better in Q2 and Q3. And as Tim alluded to, we expect, again, as a function of normal seasonal patterns, that begins to moderate a little bit in Q4. And the other thing that I would just point out, of course, is that, I mean, we began to see early effects of supply pressure really in 2023, and particularly in the latter part of 2023.

So in some ways, you know, you could also suggest that the prior year comparisons in terms of new lease or lease performance starts to get a little bit easier, if you will, in the back half of 2024. So, you know, collectively, that's what leads us to the consensus of where we think things are headed. I mean, Tim, what would you add to that?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah. I'll add on to what Eric was saying. If you go back to last year, I mean, we, our new lease pricing went slightly negative starting in July, and then kind of progressively got more so throughout the year. So there is a comp component that plays into this as well. So I do think, to answer one of your questions, Austin, that new lease pricing does look better in the end of 2024 as compared to the end of 2023, with those comps, with supply getting a little bit better.

Now, I think, you know, the improvement won't be as clear to see because it is a lower demand time of the year when you get into November and December, but I think the trends will be positive and really start to play out in 2025.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

When do you guys think new lease rate growth could turn positive? And then just my second question is, you know, I'm just curious how... What underlying assumptions in Same-Store revenue guidance changed the most relative to what you published in November of last year?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

I think likely new lease pricing probably doesn't go positive until 2025. I think it will get close to flat, probably in the middle of this year, in the highest demand part of the year. But, you know, even in a quote, "normal year" or a good year, we typically see new lease pricing is negative in the back part of the year. So I think likely it's, you know, early 2025 as we see the supply pressure start to moderate more. So I think that's probably the most likely scenario for new lease pricing. As far as what changed, I mean, it was really the earn-in, which is based on what we saw in November and December.

As I mentioned in my comments, new lease pricing really, really moderated quite a bit, particularly in November and December, which, you know, the way we calculate our earn-in is just basically saying, all right, all the places, all the leases that were in place at the end of December 31, if they all priced at zero for the rest of the year, what would our rent growth be? And that's, so the earn-in is more in the 0.5 range, a little bit lower than that range we talked about at Nareit, but really driven by the new lease pricing in November and December, and the pressure we saw from developers and, again, looking for occupancy and that sort of thing.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thanks, everybody.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital. Please go ahead.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to follow up on that comment you just made on just the earn-in that basically half of what you expected in November. I realize the blended rates probably came in lower than expected, but you also mentioned, Tim, in your prepared remarks, that the leasing volume was very light fourth quarter, it was only 16% of leases overall. I'm just trying to understand that impact of the fourth quarter leases and why earn-in had come down so much in just a month.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, I mean, it's based exactly on that. I mean, I think the other component that played into it is we saw turnover for the year down, but November and December, we had a little bit higher weighting on new lease pricing as compared to renewals. So more new leases in November and December than renewals, which obviously, with the new lease pricing was a bigger impact on the blended. Now, we've seen that shift more so to what we think will happen throughout the course of 2024, which is where we're weighting. We think turnover will remain down and be weighted a little more towards renewals. So while we have seen new lease pricing improve in January, the blended improved even more as we've seen more what we think will be the lower turnover component.

So it's really just that. Like I said, you know, that's comparing at the, at the lowest part or lowest demand part of the year. We do expect blended to be positive in 2024. So I think that's, you know, calculating loss-to-lease, earn-in, whatever you want to call it, at the end of December, certainly the most pessimistic time to look at it, but it was that pricing that drove it.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

But when you calculate earn-in, do you just take the blended lease pricing for your entire portfolio and just not weighted by number of transactions, so just the cap rate would basically?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

No, we just said, when we talk about earn-In, we're just saying, okay, if our total rents were $2 billion at the end of December, and/or if we take just December, whatever that number was for rent, and apply that all the way through 2024, what is the full year growth over 2023? And so that, you know, where that ends up can affect that number a fair amount.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

Okay. My second question is on acquisition yields, which your last two were at 5.5% and 5.9%. How do you see that move towards the end of this year when you see more acquisition activity occur? And your recent bond raise done at 5.1%, how does that change your view on initial yields that are acceptable to you?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, John, this is Brad. I'll start off with that. Well, you know, certainly we were fortunate with the two acquisitions that we executed in the fourth quarter. And we felt like we got really good pricing on those for the reasons I mentioned really in my comments. But, you know, we haven't seen a lot of activity in that area. And so, you know, even in the first quarter here in January, we've seen a little bit of an uptick in terms of the deals coming out. You know, we were at NMHC last week, and certainly think that that volume picks up a little bit as we go through the year. You know, but we haven't seen a lot of opportunities coming that way.

Now, we do think as we continue to get further into the year that pressure, given where interest costs are for the developers, given the supply pressures, that they're likely to feel that, you know, the urgency from some of these developers to execute on transactions will continue to increase, and we're certainly hopeful that that yields additional opportunities. The other thing that we are watching, frankly, is some of the larger equity sponsors and what their exposure is to other sectors, whether that's retail or office. And some of them have big exposures to multifamily development, and some of them have liquidity needs which necessitates that they execute transactions in some of the multifamily space. So we're having some discussions with folks like that.

We're certainly hopeful that that will yield some opportunities. But I do think that the pricing expectations on the seller side is still a bit lower than where we think pricing needs to be. You know, pricing expectations are still low fives. So we still need to see some movement up in cap rates from where those expectations are for the market to really pick up. So it's an area that we continue to work on, and we do think that there'll be more opportunities as we get through this year.

John Kim (Managing Director of US Real Estate)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Great, thank you. Appreciate all the color on rents and, you know, how you think it can inflect more positive. But I guess just as like a case study, if you think about your weakest market, your deepest supply challenged market, and what do you think the pace of rents look like in that market for the kind of the, you know, quarterly improvement, or is it still weak into 2025? I think just looking for, like, the worst-case scenario here so we can build on the better.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Well, I mean, I will say when we talked about, you know, construction starts that peaked somewhere around the middle of 2022, that is pretty consistent across our markets. There are a few that were a little bit later than that, a few that were a little bit earlier than that. So it is a relatively consistent supply wave in terms of the timing. Now, obviously, some markets are getting a lot more supply than others, which drives under or overperformance. I mean, Austin is the market we talked about forever. That is our weakest one right now. I mean, it's just getting a ton of supply, and it's very widespread throughout the market, whereas some other markets, it's a little more targeted.

So that's one that has probably been the worst new lease performance right now. So, I mean, I think a market like that will continue to struggle through most of 2024, probably be 2025, before it starts to see a little bit of improvement. But, you know, the... I would say that, again, sort of the cadence of supply is relatively consistent across most of our markets.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

And, yeah, just to add to what Tim's saying, while the cadence of supply is fairly consistent, where you do see a lot of differences on occasion is the, you know, by market, the percent of new supply coming to the market as a percent of the existing stock will vary a bit. And then also you see, of course, market differences in terms of, you know, demand and demand drivers. And so in a market like Austin, where it's probably one of our, if not the most oversupplied market that we have, or supply high relative to a percent of existing stock, it also happens to be one of the strongest job growth markets that we have.

And probably, as a consequence of that, we're seeing absorption rates, if you will, probably, you know, running higher in Austin than we would in a market like, you know, Dallas or some of the others that are also getting a lot of supply, but, you know, maybe not quite the level. I mean, you know, Dallas obviously is getting a lot of job growth, but a market like Jacksonville, where you're not getting quite the level of job growth as you get in a market like Austin. So I think you have to be careful with trying to, you know, extrapolate one market to the whole portfolio, in terms of performance expectations, because it will vary quite a bit, and that's obviously why we diversify the way we do. As Tim and Brad alluded to in their comments.

You know, this is why we also have a mid-tier market component to our portfolio, where we're seeing some of these mid-tier markets holding up in a much more steady fashion than than some of the others. So I think that the question about, you know, how quickly any given market snaps through the, or snaps back through the supply pipeline, if you will, is gonna largely be a function of the, you know, the demand factors and that we see in those markets. And you know, a market like Austin, you know, we think has huge potential long term for us and snaps back pretty strong, probably late this year and more likely into early 2025.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay, no, that's helpful. Yeah, I mean, the question is coming from, I think most of you and most of your peers are thinking that, you know, by the end of the year, a lot of these markets are much better. So, you know, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Like, what, like, so maybe if you guys pick the market, like, what do you think is gonna be the market that has the most pain for the longest period, combining both job growth projections and supply, just so we can at least keep our eyes on that to see, like, this is the worst case?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, I would put Austin in that group for sure.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, I would agree with Austin. I mean, it just, it's getting a lot of supply, and frankly, without, you know, the level of job growth, it would be worse off than it is. Still getting a ton of jobs, but that one's gonna take some time to work through.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. All right, great. That's helpful. And then, you know, thinking about the acquisition opportunities, I mean, you currently have very low leverage versus your peers. How high would you be willing to take that leverage, if you found the right opportunities? And then what do you view as your buying, or your absolute buying power right now?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, I think just from a leverage standpoint, Tim, we would be comfortable with moving it up to 4.5 to, you know, to, you know, close to five. And of course, that would take a lot of time at this, you know, at the rate that we're looking at these coming through to get to that point, but we would be comfortable taking our leverage up to, up to that point.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

So do you have a sense of total—like, dollar amount? I know it's a-

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah. I think that gets to roughly $1.5 billion.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of Nick Yulico with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Daniel Tricarico (Asscociate Director of Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. It's Daniel Tricarico with Nick. Brad, you talked about the improving absorption in the back half of the year. Can you comment on what you're seeing on the demand side, you know, job growth, migration, that gives you this confidence, maybe the general economic outlook embedded in the guide? And, you know, maybe said another way, you know, what household formation or job growth scenario gets you to the low end of guidance?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, well, I'll start out. Tim can certainly jump in here, but, you know, a couple of points I'll make here on the demand side is, you know, definitely the traditional demand drivers that we see, whether it's, you know, job growth, population growth, migration trends, all of those are still very, very positive and steady within our region of the country. And those will continue to be significant drivers over the long term for us. But, you know, we also see another dynamic that's kind of at play here, and a big part of that has to do with the single-family market, and really has to do with the affordability and the availability that we see there.

As Tim mentioned in his opening comments, you know, we've seen a significant decline in the move-outs to buy a home. That's down 20% year-over-year with us. If you look at the cost of buying a home in our region of the country, it's up significantly over the last couple of years. The monthly cost of homeownership is about 50%-60% higher than the rents are within our region of the country. So that's a significant hurdle for most people. We've also seen the construction starts in the single-family sector continue to decline. The inventory level of available single-family continues to decline.

And so we think that's pushing a segment of demand into multifamily, and it's also pushing folks to stay longer in multifamily. We've seen the average tenure of our residents up to almost two years now, so that's got a demand component to it, as well. And then we've also seen some preference shift within the demographics that are, you know, our rental demographics, honestly, and that is a preference to, you know, to live alone. And so that also is extending the household formation numbers that we're seeing. And so all of that really combines to point to a point that Eric made in his comments, which is that, you know, apartment rental continues to make up a higher percentage of the occupied housing.

So as we look out and see demand in our region of the country, those traditional drivers continue to be important, but there's also this other component that is really adding to the demand component that we see in our region of the country. Tim, what would you add?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, and I'll add a couple points there. I mean, I think the job growth component and how much there is will be probably more likely the factor that determines, to your original question, kind of high and low end, that sort of thing. I mean, I think we expect the in-migration and all things Brad just noted to be there and that component of demand to be pretty consistent with what we've seen in the last couple of years. We've dialed in about 400,000 new jobs into our expectations for our markets for 2024. That's, you know, down certainly from 2023, but still, you know, net positive and still expect job growth highest in the Sun Belt markets.

Encouragingly, if you look at the national job growth numbers for January, added, I think, about 350,000 new jobs in January. You compare that back to 2023, the average is about 250,000 a month. So while we do expect job growth to be down some to 2023, the early indications are that it's still holding up pretty well.

Daniel Tricarico (Asscociate Director of Equity Research)

No, that's great color. Thanks, guys. Follow up on development. You have three or four developments start this year, development starts. You know, what markets are those in? And what are underwritten stabilized yields on those? And I guess along the same line, you talked about Austin being the weakest. You stabilized Windmill Hill in Austin in the fourth quarter. You know, can you give us a sense of how that asset leased up versus your expectations? And obviously, a little bit more suburban, but how do you expect that asset to perform within the Austin market this year, given you know, it's expected to be one of the weaker markets?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, Nick, or this is Brad. A couple of comments. On the development side, yeah, we do have three to four starts that we expect this year, two in the first half. One of those is in Charlotte. The other one is in the Phoenix, Chandler submarket of Phoenix. We've got two other ones that we're working on. One's a phase II in Denver, the other one's a phase II in Atlanta. And in terms of the yields we're seeing there, you know, we are pushing those at the moment to... We're repricing all of those, trying to get the construction costs down to really get to a yield, call it mid-sixes. That's really what our goal is. We have had some success on the project in Charlotte.

We've been able to get between 5% and 6% reduction in the construction cost, which really helps support our ability to get that yield. So we feel really good about where we are with those developments. And then, you know, the two that are late in the year are phase two projects, so we're hopeful that the yields there continue to increase as we get further construction costs out of those as well. And, I'm sorry, the second part of your question, Nick?

Daniel Tricarico (Asscociate Director of Equity Research)

The, you know, Windmill Hill in Austin in fourth Q.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yep.

Daniel Tricarico (Asscociate Director of Equity Research)

Yeah, how-

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah.

Daniel Tricarico (Asscociate Director of Equity Research)

How does that... Go ahead.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, that asset performed extremely well for us. The average rents that we achieved on that asset were almost 24% higher than what we expected. So from a yield perspective, significantly outperformed what we expected. And, you know, part of that was, you mentioned it's a suburban asset in, in Austin. Great execution on the property. Had two adjacent lease-ups going on at the same time as it, but we were very patient in how we leased that asset up. We didn't have to offer concessions to meet the market, and really performed extremely well there.

So I think, you know, given the execution on the construction side, as well as the leasing side, you know, we did not have to compete quite as much head-to-head with some of the competition that was in that market, and we've got pretty good results there.

Daniel Tricarico (Asscociate Director of Equity Research)

Thanks for the time.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Eric Wolfe with Citi. Please go ahead.

Eric Wolfe (Director of Equity Research)

Hey, thanks. So I understand your point on comps getting easier through the year, especially in the fourth quarter, but if the largest amount of supply is delivering in the middle of this year, and it takes, like, a year to lease up, I guess, why would rents start recovering sort of later this year before the developments are fully leased? Isn't there typically, like, a compounding effect to the supply?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Well, I think, you know, one is the... While we're talking about completions or starts peaked in the middle of 2022, it has been pretty steady. So I think we've seen a relatively steady level of supply being delivered over the last several quarters, and then we have the steady level of demand as well. I mean, we have seen absorption keep up pretty well, even though supply kind of compounded, as you said. Certainly, certain markets are a little bit different. But the other thing is, you know, middle of the year, obviously, is the strongest demand component. And so I think the timing of that with the timing of most of our traffic and most of the demand coming in is what we believe helps keep it from...

You know, we talked about, we think new lease pricing is kind of bottom, helps keep it from getting worse than where it is now, just sort of that normal seasonality and all the different demand factors that we've talked about. And then, you know, you'll have a few months after the middle, after its peak, where there's still pressure, but we typically see it start to drop a few months after those final deliveries, which is what gives us some confidence in the back half of the year that we start to see some improvement.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

And as Tim mentioned, I mean, we also—I mean, we assume that new lease pricing moderates in the fourth quarter, and that's also what's important to remember. That's also why we stagger our lease expirations the way we do, such that we're repricing a smaller percent of leases of the portfolio in that holiday period of November and December. So, I understand the point that you're making, but you know, we feel like we've accounted for that, both in terms of our new lease or lease pricing performance expectations, comparable seasonal patterns, if you will, but also just the way we manage lease expirations over the course of the year. So, you know, we think that we've got it dialed in appropriately, and we do think that as we get into...

Again, it varies by market so much, so it's hard to make, you know, any real conclusive, broad observations as it relates to the point that you're making. But, we do think that there are certain markets for sure, that we begin to see the supply pressures meaningfully, you know, moderate, in terms of new coming in, late in the year, and that begins to, you know, establish some early signs of recovery in that new lease pricing performance as we head into 2025. But I think one more point I'll add, just back to the kind of the middle of the year. I mean, we're still dialing in, you know, somewhere in the -2.5% range during that strongest period of 2024 for new lease pricing.

So, you know, we certainly don't see it getting positive yet. But, you know, I think with the demand components that, you know, it'll be a little bit better than what we're seeing right now.

Eric Wolfe (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks. And then just maybe a quick clarification on the earn-in. Does that include your sort of loss or gain to lease real-time changes in market rents? Or is it based purely off the leases signed at one point in time? Just trying to understand if, like, real-time moves in market rents ends up impacting that earn-in, such that it's always going to end up being lower at the year-end.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. Well, for the earn-in, like I said, it's basically just saying, you know, all the leases that were in place at the end of 2023, so call it all the December leases, if those just held steady for all of 2024, that's the earn-in. I mean, loss to lease, how we think about that, if you look at all of the leases that went effective in January compared to our in-place, it's about a negative 1% loss to lease, looking at it that way. But we are dialing in, as we said, +1% blended, for the course of 2024.

Eric Wolfe (Director of Equity Research)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of Rich Anderson with Wedbush. Please go ahead.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So what do you make of this January effect that's happening? Like, you guys have seen this sort of, you know, recovery in January. Some of your peers, many of your peers have seen the same thing. It's still, you know, freaking cold outside. Why, why, why do you think January is recovering the way it is for you and others at this point?

Eric Bolton (CEO)

Two reasons. One, you don't have the holidays in January. I think nobody likes to move during Christmas and, or Thanksgiving. I think the holiday effect is real, and I think it weighs on people's, you know, interest in moving. Secondly, I think that there are - and we have seen some evidence to suggest that, you know, some developers were facing kind of a calendar year-end pressure point. And I think that we - as we started to see in the early part of the fourth quarter, as we were approaching year-end, developer lease-up practices were getting increasingly aggressive, as we're headed towards the holidays and I think a calendar year-end. And so I just think that developer practices got a little bit more aggressive in the holidays and approaching the year-end.

I think that, to some degree, there was some moderation on that. Certainly, you know, absent the holidays, even though it is cold and so forth, I think people's capacity to deal with the hassle of moving just improves a little bit better once you get past the holidays, and therefore, you know, traffic picked up.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Do you think this holiday factor moderates in February, you know, when it's still sort of seasonally slow period of time, sort of the January pickup, and then you kind of get back to normal course sequential business? Is that fair?

Eric Bolton (CEO)

Yeah, I think that's reasonable.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. And then second question is, you know, someone asked about how much you'd lever up and appreciate that color. And I know you're sort of waiting for transaction market to be sort of more attractive to you to execute at with still low cap rates. But you have this sort of development opportunity sitting. I don't remember what the number was, but you got a lot that you can do right now. Why wouldn't you if you're going to deliver into 2026, which is likely to be a very good year to deliver, why not really you know, accelerate development right now and have that be, you know, a part of the a bigger part of the external growth story? You seem to be slowing it down more than speeding it up at this point.

Just curious on that. Thanks.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. Hey, Rich, this is Brad. Well, you're right. We do have a pretty big pipeline of projects that are ready that we could execute on. And, and really, it's just a matter of, you know, working the costs on those projects right now. I mean, you know, as I mentioned, we are seeing early signs of costs coming down on the project in Charlotte, call it 5%-6%. We do think we'll continue to see costs come down as we get later into this year. So while we do expect to start three or four projects this year, we have another four to five that are approved, where plans are nearly ready, and if costs came in, we could certainly pull the trigger on those.

So we have the optionality to be able to do that, but we think it's prudent to, you know, to be sure that the costs are in line. You know, we do also agree with you that these line up very, very well from a delivery perspective into 2026. The other area where we are seeing opportunity that I think could yield itself more immediately is in our pre-purchase area. So we are talking with developers on a number of opportunities where the projects are approved, entitled, plans are complete. In some instances, GMPs are already in place. But given some of the other liquidity constraints out there that I was talking about earlier, and pressures in other sectors, you know, the equity or even the debt has pulled out of the project.

We are evaluating projects in that way, and if we can find well-located opportunities with good partners that meet our return requirements, we'll definitely lean into that area a little bit more.

Rich Anderson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

And we'll take our next question from the line of Alexander Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Morning down there.

So two questions, and apologies about the clock in the background. The first one is, can you just talk a little bit about renewals? I think you said you expect them to be sort of 5%, but new rent's down 3%, so an 8% spread. Can you just walk us through why that - That seems a rather wide spread, but in your comments, you said that's, you know, sort of consistent with historic. So maybe you just talk about that and why existing residents would accept an 8% spread versus new residents.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, this is Tim Argo. The... I mean, the gap is a little bit wider than historical. If we look at January, for example, it's about 1,100 basis point gap for the month. But if you look at last year at this time, it was about 900. And even if you look at over the last several year, really, as long as we've been tracking it, Q1 runs about an 800 basis point gap. And even as you get into the spring and summer, there's typically always a gap where we see renewal pricing outperforming new lease pricing. But I mean, I think there's a few reasons for that, frankly. It's, you know, one, there is a real cost, both a hassle cost and a financial cost to moving.

There is, you know, there's a customer service component. You know, when we have someone that's lived with us and knows kind of what to expect and knows what kind of service they're gonna get. If you look at our Google star ratings, we average 4.4 Google star rating in 2023, which is highest in the sector. 80% of our ratings were five-star, and that is a component that plays out, and it manifests itself in this way with our renewal pricing. And then we just, we do dedicate a lot of time and resources to this renewal process, both in our corporate office and on the on-site teams. There's a lot of thought, there's a lot of factors considered. There's a lot of...

There's a level of buy-in that we get from our teams that get them comfortable with the rates we're sending out at. And again, that manifests itself well. So it'll narrow, and as we see new lease pricing, we expect to accelerate. As we get into the spring and summer, that gap will narrow. But you know, and as I made in the prepared comments, you look at February, March, and even April, we're averaging right around that 5%. So I think that can hang in there, particularly as new lease rates start to accelerate around that same time frame.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. And then the second question is, on the supply front, it only seems like a handful of your markets have supply issues, but, you know, pressure on new rent seems to be broad, crushed. And yet, you know, Sun Belt still has good economy, good jobs, good in-migration. So how do you-- Like, we understand weakness in new rents in markets that have a lot of supply, but how do we interpret rent softness sort of portfolio-wide, especially in the markets that aren't beset by supply? And, you know, clearly, your price point seems to be, you know, res, you know, affordable for the community. So just want to understand the non-supply markets, why there's rent pressure there as well.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Well, we are seeing pretty good strength, and as I've commented on some of the mid-tier markets, if you think about Greenville and Savannah and Richmond and Charleston, in those markets, we are seeing, you know, pretty good relative performance. Now, I mean, the supply is... It obviously varies by market, and we're seeing it a lot more in some of the larger markets. And I think frankly, we're seeing it in some of our higher concentration markets. If you think about Austin and Charlotte and Dallas, some of our higher concentration markets, is where there's more supply, which is, you know, not surprising. Those are good markets to be in. Those are good long-term demand markets, so that's not really a surprise.

So I think there's some of that market concentration factor that's weighing into it, where those obviously have an outsized impact on, on what you see at the portfolio level overall. But if you look at, you know, 2023, for example, across all of our markets, deliveries were about 4%-4.5% of inventory across the portfolio. So while it varies pretty wildly by market, you know, we did see pretty good. You know, historical average is probably 3-3.5. So even for some of the ones that weren't getting ton of supply, they were still higher than average.

Alexander Goldfarb (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. That's, that's helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. We'll take our next question from the line of Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Goldsmith (US REITs Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. My first question's on the expense, on expenses. Can you kind of walk through where, which line items you're seeing particular pressure and how you envision expense trending through the year? Thanks.

Clay Holder (SVP and Chief Accounting Officer)

Yeah, just a couple things around expenses. What I'd point to is one, our uncontrollable expenses are really what's driving some of that expense growth. Whenever you kind of break that down, real estate taxes are projected to grow at roughly 4.8% for the year. I think you saw that in our guidance. And then you have insurance that's growing at roughly 16%, 15%, 16% for the year. So that continues to be a bit of a headwind for us as we go into 2024 and for all the same reasons that we've seen in previous years, just as the market is trying to catch up there.

Then when you get into some of our controllable expenses, really the biggest driver there is probably repair and maintenance, while the other items around expenses are pretty much, you know, right there at that overall growth rate of 4.1%, or actually slightly lower than that.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

And I'll add just a couple points there on the controllable. I mean, we do expect that if you look back to 2023, that all of those controllable line items will moderate in 2024 as compared to 2023 pretty significantly. And you can see that in the guide that we have. I think marketing is the one that's a little bit variable, may not. You know, we had pretty reasonable marketing costs in 2023, and certainly in the environment we're in, that's something we wanna make sure we're careful about and make sure we're properly spending there. So that may be the one where you don't see a significant decrease, but I think the others will see some pretty good moderation.

Michael Goldsmith (US REITs Analyst)

Thanks for that. My follow-up is on concessions. How have concessions and competing lease-up properties trended, and are you offering any concessions at your stabilized properties?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

I mean, concessions for us at stabilized is pretty minimal. I think across the portfolio, we're about 0.5% or so of rents and concessions. And, you know, with the way we price, there's a lot of net pricing. We don't do a ton of concessions. We do see it more in some of the lease-ups that we're competing against. I would say in general, concessions in the market and what we're competing against went up a little bit in Q4, probably where we saw the biggest gains. Some of our Carolina markets, Charlotte, Raleigh, were ones where we saw concessions pick up a little bit, but still in terms of lease-up and areas of a lot of development, the concession practices is still pretty strong, kind of that one month to two month range.

Michael Goldsmith (US REITs Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

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

Hey there. Appreciate the time here. Going back to your comments on your 5% renewal rate, I guess I'm curious if that 5% renewal pricing does hold, but market rate growth is just 1%, aren't you creating a gain to lease? And how do you feel about that going into next year in line of either outlook for rental rates to recover?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

You cut out there a little bit, Haendel. You said a gain to lease. Is that what you, is that what you were saying?

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

Sorry about that. Yes, I was saying that if the 5% renewal rate forecast that you're expecting this year does hold, and market rate growth is just 1%, aren't you creating a gain to lease? And then how would that impact your outlook for next year when you're expecting market rates to recover or your rental, your rental rates in your portfolio to recover?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, the gap is a little wider right now, but I expect it to come in. We haven't seen any signs. Like I said, going all the way out to April, we're still kind of in that 5% range. And obviously, depends on the mix, you know, and who's renewing, who's new lease. You know, we typically, our average stay is somewhere in the 20-month range. Some money, some money leases, and then they do one renewal, then typically moving out. So all that is... You're not renewing on top of renewing on top of renewing, where that gap continues to get larger and larger.

But as I said, we've always seen a gap there and a little bit wider right now, but I expect it to narrow as we get into the spring. But you know, no concerns with where we sit here right now.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

And I'll just add, Haendel, that, I mean, over time, you know, to the extent that obviously, we, you know, the, the new lease pricing pressure we're seeing right now is obviously largely a function of supply coming into the market. As that begins to moderate late this year into 2025, you know, in the event that we do see renewal pricing need to moderate a little bit more next year, call it instead of 5%, we're in the 3%-4% range. We also, though, expect new lease pricing to start to show some improvement next year, such that we probably continue to get, you know, the, the, the blended performance that, that we need and that we're after. So it's, it's a give and take back and forth.

We've always historically seen new lease pricing in that kind of, you know, 4%-5% range. I, I don't recall it ever really materially getting a lot lower than that. Maybe, maybe there was a year, back years ago, where it got to 3%, but generally, when that's happening, and certainly we think that will be the scenario this time, by that point, you know, renewal or new lease pricing has started to show some improvement such that the overall blended performance continues to hang in there pretty well.

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

Yeah, I appreciate that, Eric. I guess I'm just thinking ahead and thinking potentially that renewal rates would need to drop next year. How much, you know, CBD, unless market rate growth does improve, and increase maybe into the, you know, mid- to upper-single-digit rate growth.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah. Yeah.

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

Okay, one more. I appreciate the color you guys gave on the building blocks of same store revenue, but could you give us some color on what you're assuming for bad debt, ancillary, and for turnover?

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Haendel, on bad debt, you know, I would. The way that we're thinking about that is it'll remain pretty consistent with where it's run here recently. I mean, we'd probably run around that half a percentage point range. Turnover staying low, at least for our guidance, we're staying low around that 45% range. And then, what was the last one that you asked about?

Eric Bolton (CEO)

The income.

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

Ancillary.

Tim Argo (Chief Strategy and Analysis Officer)

Yeah, the ancillary income, it would grow in line. We're assuming it'll grow pretty much in line with, with our overall effective rent growth, so right around that 1% level.

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

Got it. Got it. Okay. And then one last one. I think it was last quarter, there was a lot of chat around A versus B rental pricing and the impact that the new supply was having on that dynamic. Curious if there's any updated perspective, anything that you've seen in this past quarter or any updated views on how the performance of A versus Bs in your portfolio is or has changed over the last quarter or so?

Eric Bolton (CEO)

.Yeah, I mean, we've, we've probably seen it gap a little bit. I mean, our, our Bs, you know, whether you would call it Bs or even if you wanna think about suburban versus urban, suburban is, is outperforming urban, kind of the, the CBD and the, and the inner loop. If you, if you think about suburban, we're probably about 80 basis points better in, in Q4 in January on a blended lease or renewal basis from what we're seeing in the secondary A versus B, and the way we, we think about our portfolio, it's about 55% A, 45% B. A little bit tighter there, probably about a 30 basis point gap, with the Bs doing a little bit better.

I can see pretty consistent for both, but I would say the biggest notable thing there is certainly suburban assets are outperforming, and you know, there's a little bit less supply in those areas as well.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from the line of Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, everybody. Thanks. First, I just wanted to say congratulations to Al. Hope you enjoy your retirement. On your lease-ups, can you talk about how those are going in terms of pace? Obviously, you're outperforming on the rent side, but I'm just curious if they're taking longer than normal, just given the supply backdrop.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. Hey, this is Brad. You know, those are pretty much in line with our expectations. Certainly, there's been a slowdown in the velocity, in line with our overall portfolio, kind of over the holidays and the winter months, but there's nothing material in terms of difference there versus what we expected. You know, our Daybreak asset is, you know, leasing up a little bit slower and has been, but in general, all of our assets, and that's the one in Salt Lake City, but in general, all of our assets are leasing up pretty much in line with our expectations in terms of velocity, given the slowdown here over the winter season.

Clay Holder (SVP and Chief Accounting Officer)

Okay. Got it. And maybe I missed it, but can you give your expectation for market rent growth that's underlying the guide? Obviously, you gave the blend assumption, but just looking specifically for the market piece.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

So our blended, as we talked about, is about 1%, and really, we expect market rent, if you will, to be pretty consistent from with where it is right now.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Sorry, consistent as in flat or consistent as in similar to the 1% number?

Eric Bolton (CEO)

Yeah, flat.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Okay.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

One-

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Got it.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

1%, 1% is what we're expecting in terms of our blended growth.

Brad Heffern (Director and REIT Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Adam Kramer (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. I just wanted to... You know, I think we talked a little bit about capital allocation and potential opportunities with acquisitions or developments. Maybe a similar question, and again, recognizing where the balance sheet leverage is, but just wondering about the opportunity or maybe the appetite for share buybacks here. If that's something you'd consider, and maybe kind of what it would take for that to be under greater consideration?

Eric Bolton (CEO)

Well, I mean, you know, as you point out, I mean, we do think that attractive acquisition opportunities are going to start emerging later this year into 2025, as the merchant builders continue to struggle with their lease-up, more likely than not, below what they underwrote. And so we believe for the moment that at current pricing, the longer term yield performance that we can pick up on acquiring these lease-up properties provides a more attractive, you know, long-term investment return, especially on the after CapEx basis, as compared to investing in our existing, you know, portfolio or earnings stream.

We also see it providing a better ability to continue investing in our new tech initiatives that we think offer the opportunity for meaningful margin expansion over the entire portfolio over the next few years, creating significant amounts of value. And then, you know, as you know, I mean, as a REIT, you know, we've long oriented our thinking around the idea that, you know, the best way for us to reward shareholders over a long period of time is through the dividend and through earnings growth.

And we think that, you know, continuing to find ways to put capital to work that supports those first two agenda items I just mentioned, and supporting our ability to continue to push dividend growth through all phases of the cycle over time is the best way to reward, you know, REIT capital. But, you know, having said all that, I mean, we obviously continue to monitor the public pricing of our existing portfolio and the company, and, you know, obviously, interested in continuing to maintain a strong balance sheet. I mean, if we continue to see dislocation or even, you know, more dislocation in terms of public versus private pricing of the real estate, I mean, we do have a buyback program in place, authorization in place.

We've done it before, and we wouldn't hesitate to do it again if conditions warranted it. But for right now, given the outlook and the opportunity we think we have in front of us, we think better to sort of hold on to our powder, and we think the long-term value proposition is likely better with the focus that we have.

Adam Kramer (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. And you mentioned some of the tech investments and kind of the opportunities that there. Maybe just, you know, I don't know, one or two there that you're most excited about, you know, you're kind of able to share with the public?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

.Yeah, I mean, you, this is Brad. You've definitely heard of these in the past, but I'd say number one is our continued investment in our CRM platform. And we rolled this out a couple of quarters back, but we continue to update and refine that platform, which really allows, you know, better management of our prospects and our leasing process. And, you know, this is also really an enabler to a number of other things that we're working on, our centralization, our specialization, our podding. All of those things have kind of our CRM platform at the center of those. We continue to focus on our podding of properties. We're up to 27 podded properties today. You know, and we'll continue to look to expand that when opportunities present themselves.

We're also investing right now in updating our website. We're hopeful that we'll be able to roll this out later this month. Really, our goal there is to be able to drive more leasing traffic through our website, which is the most cost-effective way for us to do that. We get a large portion of our traffic now through our website, and we're looking to continue to improve that. We're also really working to optimize our website for mobile use, which will support our online leasing and our self-touring. The last one that I'll mention is we're rolling out right now property-wide Wi-Fi on some select properties this year. We're also adding this on some of our new developments.

And this is really an opportunity for our residents to have really seamless Wi-Fi across our property, whether it's in the unit, common areas, amenities, and really provides a better opportunity and service for our residents, and that has a really big revenue component to it as well, that we're testing at the moment.

Adam Kramer (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for the time.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our last question from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Thanks for taking the follow-up, and sorry to extend an already long call. But you had mentioned an expectation you think rents will decline. You've a decent amount of exposure to floating rate debt. Can you talk about, you know, your what's in your guidance in terms of rates this year? And then as of the year-end, you had $500 million on the commercial paper facility. Do you expect to keep that in place all year, or do you think you pay that down, or is that already paid down?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, Jamie, we paid that down in the first week of January with the bond issuance that we completed, and that effective rate on that issuance was right just north of 5%. You know, our placeable, you know, the place we look to next for the next dollar is our commercial paper program, and right now it's at roughly 5.5%. So, you know, we'll keep an eye on that, and as rates are expected to decrease over the back half over the year, you know, we expect that number to maybe come down a bit.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

So what's your assumption in your guidance for where rates go?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, we've got it dropping down 25 basis points through halfway through the year, and then another 25 basis points on the very back end of the year.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay, so you're down 75 basis points by year end?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

No, just, just 50.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Oh, just 50. Okay.

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

25 and then 25 at the end of the year.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. And then you had mentioned a $0.05 drag from developments that are not stabilized yet. Is there any variability to that? Is any of that being capitalized that-

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, there is-

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

shouldn't be so much of a hit to earnings?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah, there is some capitalization there, and if you look at our capital, interest capitalized year-over-year, a slight increase, but pretty steady. But what really comes into play there is just the timing of the developments. And, you know, in 2023, we delivered and leased up two developments. In 2024, we're gonna be delivering and leasing up four developments. And so you got a bit of a play there that's creating some headwind. And then just in general, just the overall, the rate at which we're capping that interest comes into play.

You're looking at an effective rate, you know, of roughly 3.5 that we're capping, and then we're borrowing, you know, at a higher rate today than what we've capped at previously.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. So I guess, like, even if you have an aggressive lease up or a lease up better than expectations, do you think that $0.05 is still locked in, or there's a way that could go away?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

I mean, it would have to be pretty meaningful change in how that would lease up to really move the needle on that $0.05.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. And then finally, just a clarification. I think you had mentioned 0.85% as your blend assumption, and then you answered the last question with 1%. I know we're splitting hairs here, but is 0.85% still the right number, or is it 1%?

Brad Hill (President and Chief Investment Officer)

Yeah. So our blended number is 1%. So that's the blended pricing we've got built into our revenue guidance, but our overall effective rent growth is the 0.85%. So that 0.85% includes the earn-in that we've got for from 2023 plus the 1% of the blended that we're looking at for 2024.

Jamie Feldman (Managing Director and Head of REIT Research)

Okay. All right. Thanks for taking the question.

Operator (participant)

We have no further questions at this time. I will return the call to MAA for closing remarks.

Eric Bolton (CEO)

All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining us this morning, and we'll, I'm sure, speak to many of you over the spring. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's program. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.