American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joshua Dennerlein: Okay. Appreciate that, Chris. And then the Resident 360 that you guys are rolling out, just kind of what should we look for as outsiders, as far as, like, its impact to the platform? Like, is there any kind of metrics we should focus in on over the next kind of 12 months?

Bryan Smith: Yes, Josh, this is Bryan. The Resident 360 program is really all-encompassing focus on the resident experience. So we expect to see, over time, improvements in retention, better ability to control costs, and most importantly, improvements in the resident experience that will help us differentiate ourselves from others. The early indications are that the program is working very well. One of the measures that we follow are Google review scores, and we’ve seen improvements across the board to industry-leading levels for those scores. So early indications are that it’s working well. We’re looking forward to seeing the impact on retention and cost control in the future, but we’re real happy with the current progress.

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

Eric Wolfe: Hey, thanks for taking my question. Just curious, based on your guidance, any sense for where your lost lease and earn-in will be at year-end?

Bryan Smith: Yes, Eric, this is Bryan. Currently, our loss to lease is sitting in the 4% area and we expect 2024 earn-in to be in the low threes.

Eric Wolfe: Okay, and so the loss to lease by the end of year will probably just be a little bit lower than that low 4%. Just historically probably coming down like a 3% or something by the end of the year, so you’ll be like close to 3%.

Bryan Smith: Yes, I think I had a little trouble hearing you there, but I think you were talking about the direction of the loss to lease. We saw a slight reduction off of the last quarter and that’s compressed a little bit because of the success that we’ve had on the renewals, really. So if it continues the strength, it’ll be nominal, but we’re looking forward to really good momentum into next year.

Operator: Our next question is from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.

Steve Sakwa: Great. First one, Bryan, I just couldn’t write all the numbers down quickly. Could you just repeat the October new renewal blended and then could you just give us a sense for where you’re sending out renewal notices for say November, where renewals went out for say November, December?

Bryan Smith: Sure, sure. Thanks, Steve. So the October numbers, new spreads were 5%, renewal leases 6.1%, and blended was 5.8%. And then in regards to what we’ve sent for November and December, we’ve mailed in the sixes and we’re expecting the final results to be similar to what we saw in October.

Steve Sakwa: Okay, and then maybe just on the development program as you kind of look into next year, I know it’s early to think about full guidance, but would you expect that program to ramp and where would you be pegging, I guess, development yields today on things that you’d be starting for next year?

David Singelyn: Steve, it’s Dave. Good morning. So on the first part of that question, which is sizing, we have capacity and we have a pipeline that we can significantly grow the development program. The moderator is going to be capital and so we will size the program appropriately against the capital that is available. We want to be prudent capital allocators in that program. As it sits today, I would expect that program to be somewhere in the same area as where it is today, funding it primarily through retained cash flow and recycled capital from our dispositions. When you talk about yields, we talked about this in the prior quarters. We had talked about moving to the sixth area. We already had cost in a number of the properties.