American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 3, 2024

American Homes 4 Rent isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the American Homes 4 Rent First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Nicholas Fromm, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, you may begin.

Nicholas Fromm: Good morning, thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me today are David Singelyn, Chief Executive Officer; Bryan Smith, Chief Operating Officer; and Chris Lau, Chief Financial Officer. Please be advised that this call may include forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this conference call are forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these statements. These risks and other factors that could adversely affect our business and future results are described in our press releases and in our filings with the SEC.

All forward-looking statements speak only as of today, May 03, 2024. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings press release and supplemental information package. As a note, our operating and financial results including GAAP and non-GAAP measures are fully detailed in our earnings release and supplemental information package. You can find these documents, as well as SEC reports and the audio webcast replay of this conference call on our website at www.amh.com. With that, I will turn the call over to our CEO, David Singelyn.

David Singelyn: Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us today. 2024 is off to a good start. Demand for single-family rentals and more specifically AMH homes remains healthy. In the first quarter, we delivered $0.43 of core FFO per share, representing 5.8% year-over-year growth. As expected, the SFR normal seasonal curve is back and our property management team is doing a great job capturing accelerating demand heading into our spring leasing season. More broadly, the ongoing macro drivers, including the national housing shortage, aging millennial demographics and challenging home affordability dynamics, suggests steady demand into the foreseeable future for single-family rental homes. Additionally, the higher for longer interest rate scenario seems to be playing out, which may continue to pressure new housing supply.

With that in mind, our focus remains on the development program, where we continue to do our part in solving the housing shortage by providing new premium housing options in desirable family-friendly locations across the country. Turning to an update on sustainability, we published our 6th annual Sustainability Report last week, which includes updates on our progress and impact on environmental and social initiatives, such as the expansion of our solar pilot program to residents. As a reminder, whether solar enabled or not, our newly constructed homes are designed with sustainability in mind. In fact, our 2023 deliveries on average are 54% more energy efficient than the typical American home. Additionally, our corporate headquarters in Las Vegas was recently awarded LEED Gold certification for the building green design, construction and use practices.

This represents another milestone in the company’s sustainability journey, affirming AMH’s continued commitment to responsible environmental practices. In closing, AMH is in a great position starting out the new year. Long-term business fundamentals are strong, leasing momentum continues to build into the second quarter and our development program continues to deliver new, high quality homes into the portfolio. Now I’ll turn the call over to Bryan for an update on our operations and investment programs.

Bryan Smith: Thank you and good morning everyone. As Dave mentioned, 2024 is off to a great start with demand accelerating into the spring leasing season. Website activity is up double digits year-over-year and inbound inquiries saw strong sequential pickup to support the occupancy levels and leasing spreads that remain well above long-term historical averages. Further, the kickoff of our seasonal curve is evident in our sequential occupancy metrics with March occupancy increasing over that of January and February. Turning to first quarter Same-Home results, rate growth was healthy with new, renewal and blended rental rate spreads of 4.8%, 5.9% and 5.6%, respectively and with Same-Home average occupied days of 96.2%, this drove Same-Home core revenue growth of 5.3%.

Core operating expense growth was 5.9%, also in line with our expectations. All of this resulted in Same-Home core NOI growth of 4.9% for the quarter. First quarter operating momentum has continued into April, demonstrating the strength of the spring leasing season with Same-Home average occupied days of 96.6% and new, renewal, and blended spreads of 5.1%, 5.2% and 5.2%, respectively. While strong, these results are within our range of expectations and our guide remains unchanged with the bulk of the prime leasing season still ahead. Lastly, expanding more on our investment programs, our strategy, driven by prudent decision-making and consistent execution, remains unchanged. Internally developed homes continue to be our primary method of growth.

For the year, we expect the AMH Development Program to deliver between 2,200 and 2,400 homes at average economic yields in the high 5% area after a reserve for CapEx. In closing, operations are off to a strong start as we enter our busiest period of the year, and our investment programs remain in great shape. As I travel to our field offices across the country, I continue to be impressed with the hard work and dedication of our team members and providing the best resident experience in our space. Thank you for setting us up for another strong year. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris for the financial update.

Chris Lau: Thanks, Bryan. And good morning, everyone. I will cover three areas in my comments today: first, a review of our solid quarterly results; second, an update on our balance sheet through recent capital activity; and third, I will close with a brief update around our unchanged 2024 guidance. Starting off with our operating results, we delivered another consistent and solid quarter with net income attributable to common shareholders of $109.3 million or $0.30 per diluted share. On an FFO share and unit basis, we generated $0.43 of core FFO, representing 5.8% year-over-year growth and $0.40 of adjusted FFO, representing 6.5% year-over-year growth. From an investment standpoint, our development program continues to perform right on track and delivered a total of 469 homes to our wholly-owned and joint-venture portfolios during the quarter.

Specifically, for our wholly-owned portfolio, we delivered 441 homes for a total investment cost of approximately $171 million. Additionally, during the quarter, we sold 471 properties, generating approximately $145 million of net proceeds at an average economic disposition yield in the high 3% to 4% area. Next, I would like to turn to our balance sheet and recent capital activity. At the end of the quarter, our net debt, including preferred shares to adjusted EBITDA, was 5.3 time. We had $125 million of cash available on the balance sheet and our $1.25 billion revolving credit facility was fully undrawn. Additionally, following the successful green bond offering that we discussed on our last call, we fully repaid our 2014-SFR2 securitization during the quarter.

As a reminder, the 2014-SFR2 securitization had an outstanding principal balance of $461 million with an expiring interest rate of 4.4% and was collateralized by approximately 4,500 properties that can now be freely reviewed by our asset management and disposition programs. And finally, I am happy to share that AMH was added to the S&P 400 Index on March 1. This created an opportunistic window to sell approximately three million Class A common shares under our ATM program at an average sales price of $37.03. Given the opportunistic nature, these shares were sold on a 100% forward basis and represent future gross proceeds of $110.6 million that will be used to expand our future growth capacity. Lastly, before we open the call to your questions, I wanted to briefly touch on our 2024 guidance.

As expected, the year is off to a strong start with robust demand and leasing activity. However, given that the bulk of the spring leasing season is still ahead of us, we are currently maintaining our previously provided full year 2021 earnings guidance and look forward to providing another update on this front next quarter. And with that, thank you again for your time, and we’ll open the call to your questions. Operator?

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Juan Sanabria with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Juan Sanabria: Hi, good morning. And thanks for the time. Just wanted to ask about external growth and opportunities for portfolio acquisitions. If there’s anything out there that would be of interest? And if so, where do you think yields are? And as a subset of that question, could you give us a sense of where your development yields are on a nominal basis pre-CapEx just so we can comp it apples-to-apples or some of your peers are quoting cap rates at. Thank you.

David Singelyn: Good morning, Juan, it’s Dave. Let me start with the acquisition landscape as we see it. We – in the first quarter, underwrote or received tapes. And I’m going to break this down into two components, that the national builder and existing homes. So starting with the national builder side, we received tapes in the first quarter contained more than 35,000 homes about 15,000 or a little over 15,000 of those are in our markets. We analyzed those. And we analyze them based on location, quality, what the type of asset is. We’re looking for detached homes. And then obviously get down to price and yield. What we were seeing in the national builder side is those that would be in the location and quality that we desire.

They’re in the high 4s, maybe some in the low 5s on an economic yield. On a nominal accounting yield, probably add 10, 20 basis points to it. We would need 15% plus or minus decline in the transaction price at the current landscape of rents, et cetera, to make those deals work. Moving over to the acquisition. We are seeing a significant reduction in the supply of new homes in our markets. This is not a new story. This is a story that’s really been playing out since COVID started. So we’re about half – in our top 20 markets, we see about half of the number of homes that we saw pre-pandemic. Pricing, we haven’t seen any significant reduction in pricing, a little bit in a couple of our markets, mainly Midwest. And again, the way we underwrite on economic yield, those are in the high 4s, low 5s.

We might have ability to sharpshoot a property here and there. We’re seeing a little bit of opportunity coming into the 5. So we’ll see how that plays out. Portfolios, again, on the portfolio side, it’s kind of the same as the acquisition of the existing homes. On development, high 5s on economic yields add 10, 20 basis points, gets you around 6, in that 6 area, on a nominal NOI basis.

Operator: Our next question is from Eric Wolfe with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Eric Wolfe: Hey, thanks. It looks like the reduced bad debt and higher fees added 50 bps to your same-store revenue this quarter. So I was just curious whether you think that’s sustainable going forward and whether you’ve seen a step down in bad debt recently?

Chris Lau: Yes. Eric, Chris here. Good morning. Look, on bad debt, why don’t we just kind of take a step back a little bit and talk about collections more broadly. Look, like we talked about on our last call, coming into 2024, collections and bad debt really continue to run pretty consistent with what we were seeing last year in the low 1% bad debt area. And then as we got into March, we saw some really great execution from our teams across a number of our markets that brought overall first quarter bad debt just under 1% that you pointed out. And while we’re optimistic, we know that there are still – as we’re talking or thinking about local municipal and court system processing times that we’ve been talking about over the course of the last year, not a lot has really changed there yet.

So until we see more data or tangible evidence of things improving at the municipal and court system level. It still feels a little bit too premature to change our outlook on a full year basis. But again – but March is a good data point, and as I mentioned, we’re optimistic.

Operator: Our next question is from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie Feldman: Great. Thanks for taking my question. So maybe just shifting over to the expense side, as you – I know you maintained your guidance, but as you think about some of the moving pieces, anything you think that may be trending higher or lower than your original expectations? And then I know we’re a ways out from November, but as you think about property taxes, millage rates, any early thoughts you can provide on how this year may play out based on conversations with your team?

Chris Lau: Sure. Good morning, Jamie, Chris here. On expenses overall, really no different from the start of the year. Recall that overall expense growth outlook is 6.25% at the mid-point for this year. Major components being property taxes in the low 7% area, which as expected is beginning to show some moderation compared to the last couple of years. We talked about this on our last call, but insurance growth, we’re expecting to be in the high-single digits. That’s based on our renewal that is done at this point. And then about 5% inflationary growth on our controllable. So as I mentioned, outlook on all of that is unchanged from the start of the year. And then just on property taxes, I think you hit it on the head. We’re early in the property tax year just as a reminder for folks in terms of how things play out over the course of the year.

Keep in mind, majority of property tax values are received over the summer months. That then kicks off appeals season, which typically runs until the fall or so. And then as you pointed out, tax rates and actual property tax bills are received typically out in the fourth quarter. So we’re still early. But to answer your question specifically, at this point, our full year outlook of property tax growth in the low 7s, still feels good, and it’s unchanged.

Jamie Feldman: Okay. Thanks for that. And I guess along those lines, I mean, it sounds like your development yields have remained relatively sticky in the high 5%, low 6% range. Other than a low-cost basis on land, are there any expense drivers that could take those yields even higher? Or it’s pretty much just focused on the revenue side?

David Singelyn: Yes. No, I think that there’s a couple of things. One is, as you point out, the land. The other is we are seeing the income side accelerating or growing a little bit faster than the input side. We’ve seen other than land. Land has been going up over the past year, but a lot of the input costs have been relatively flat in aggregate, some up, some down, but in aggregate, it’s kind of flat. So think we can grow into some better yields later in the next couple of years.

Operator: Our next question comes from Keegan Carl with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.

Keegan Carl: Yes. Thanks, guys. Maybe first, this seems a little technical, but I saw you reclassified 139 homes from the Seattle market to the Portland market. I guess just given the cities over three hours apart. What drove that? And should we be aware of any other markets where the MSA if they’re classified as a bit of a stretch?

Bryan Smith: Yes, Keegan, this is Bryan. I think the easiest way to look at it is we have some homes that are in the Portland MSA, but are actually in Vancouver, Washington. And there’s just a movement of those. But we’re still managing that entire area with the same group. There’s really no change, nothing to note.

Keegan Carl: Got it. And then just maybe on renewal spreads. Just curious if you guys would have sent out for May and June?

Bryan Smith: Yes. So we mailed in the 5 to 6 range similar to what I talked about on the last call for April. We saw nice pickup at 5.2% for April. And I would expect May and June to be similar for around 5% for the quarter.

Operator: Our next question comes from Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Adam Kramer: Hey, thanks for the time. Wanted to ask about your views on new and renewal growth for the full year. I think you guys provided a really helpful kind of full year outlook last quarter. I think it was renewal in the 5% area and new in the low 4%s. Just kind of given the results year-to-date, I think especially on the new size trending a little bit better, even some of the seasonally softer periods. Just wondering if there’s any change in the full year outlook that you could share?

Bryan Smith: Yes. Thanks, Adam. This is Bryan. Our expectations for the full year are pretty similar. We’re really pleased with how new lease rate growth has played out. Demand is fantastic. April was strong at 5.1%, and we’re expecting pickup into May, at least the early indications show that. So the team is going to try and capture as much of that growth as we possibly can. We are mindful of the seasonality that we saw last year, and that’s kind of factored into the – no major change in the full year expectation yet. We still have the bulk of our expirations to come and we’re managing those as well. On the renewal side, the renewals tend to be more tightly banded. We started the year in the high 5%s. Now we’re around 5%, and our expectation for the full year remains in the 5% area.

Chris Lau: Adam, it’s Chris here. And if I could just hop in a little bit more to your question around kind of changing of the outlook. As we’re thinking about the outlook and the guide, I would just remind. Look, it’s early, right? We just initiated the guide two months ago, as Bryan pointed out, we still have a lot of work to do, right? The belly of the leasing season is still ahead of us. . But with that said, as we’ve been talking about and mentioned in prepared remarks, we really like what we’re seeing. In particular, if you recall some of my comments from the start of the year. Two of the main areas that we’re really focused on when it comes to the shape of the guide over the course of the year, come down to one Newbie spreads heading into the front end of the seasonal curve.

And as you just heard from Bryan, those are tracking really nicely through March and April and with the opportunity that he was talking about to push even further into the pie for the balance of the second quarter. And then the other area that we’re very focused on in the context of the guide is bad debt. And like we were just talking about – we’re not out of the woods there yet, but we did see a nice data point in March. So again, we really like what we’re seeing. It’s early and the right time for us to be talking about recalibration of the guide is at the second quarter after we’re through peak leasing season.

Adam Kramer: Great. Thanks, Chris, Bryan. Maybe just a quick follow-up, if I could, and a little bit more of a higher level industry question. Look, I think we, and I’m sure others out there have a little bit of a hard time finding data or seeing data on what the mom-and-pop in our industry are up to in terms of pricing, in terms of supply and look, we’re a number of years out of COVID already. And I think certainly, this industry has changed through COVID, coming out of COVID. And so I’m just wondering from a supply perspective, from a pricing perspective. Maybe just what’s the latest view on kind of how pricing shapes up relative to the mom-and-pop kind of competitors of yours who, of course, make up the vast majority of this industry?

Bryan Smith: Yes, thank you. This is Bryan. That’s a very good question. In that early on, we had – when we started this business, we saw some resistance because mom-and-pop traditionally hadn’t raised rents as an example or weren’t out kind of pricing directly to market. Over time, I think they’ve migrated into a strategy that’s closer to ours. The main difference, though, that I see is the value proposition that the institutional managers provide in terms of a really good underlying services platform, a lot of investment into the homes, both aesthetically and functionally with flooring and upgraded appliances and so forth has been recognized, and we do have some pricing power on that side. Data is difficult with single-family rentals as compared to other asset classes like multifamily, but it has gotten better, and there’s a lot of transparency on sites like Zullow and the mom-and-pop are really following seat.

So the gap isn’t as great as it was before, but it does allow the institutions to kind of lead that charge.

Operator: Our next question is from Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Brad Heffern: Yes. Thanks. Bryan, occupancy by quite a bit in March, it looks like it stayed there in April. Was that an intentional decision to try and gain some occupancy where you gave back something on the pricing side? And then are you expecting to get back some of that occupancy as peak leasing season picks up?

Bryan Smith: Thank you, Brad. We were really pleased with how the first quarter played out. I’ve talked about it in the past, our expectation of a really nice spike in demand in January. That demand starts electronically on the website and then in the tours and there’s a timing effect before we start to pick up occupancy. You can see the real pick up into March. We’re very pleased with that because we did it in the context of really strong new and renewal rate growth, all the while not offering concessions either on our lease-up in our new communities or in our scattered site. So there’s a lot of strength coming into March and into April. We’re hopeful that that demand continues to look really good into May, strong occupancy through the second quarter.