Camden Property Trust (NYSE:CPT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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We are good at it. We have a very seasoned team in California that knows how to navigate their way through normal — the normal regulatory morass in California. The last two years have been an exception to that for sure. But I do believe and we believe as a team that at the end of the — at least the eviction moratorium and the ability to get control of our real estate is coming to an end. And they — I know that they said, I swear to God, this is the last time we are going to extend it. But I do believe that the LA County extension for this last two months came with a very public announcement supported by virtually the entire council that said, we are going to do this and then really and truly no kidding, this is the last one. So whether it is or it isn’t and whether it goes on for another two months beyond that, and the big picture of having operated out there for almost 20 — over 20 years, I don’t think you can — in a business like ours, given the nature of our assets and the long-term commitments that we make.

I don’t think you can kind of just get emotionally wound up about what craziness the last two years have been. I think if you look beyond that, California is actually a really good story in terms of being a landlord, because it’s just as difficult as it is to run properties, it’s 3x difficult to build properties in California. So it’s kind of like you — the new supply challenge is not going to be what it is that we have to deal with in our other markets. So California will — I guess I am a little more optimistic than most people that will reach a tipping point in some of these places where sanity has to prevail and maybe we don’t end up with the continued hemorrhage of out migration from California and things get more on a normal track. If that were to happen, you would get a great return in demand.

You haven’t had any meaningful amount of replacement or new product built in the last four years in terms of new starts. I think it could end up being a really good operating environment once we get past this two and half years of crisis.

Alexander Goldfarb: Okay. Second question is and Ric, you guys are always sort of the speaker on regulatory policy, obviously, we all know what the White House put out. In your view, does this make Fannie, Freddie debt less attractive if borrowers think that the government is going to use them to effect change? And second, the CFPB and FTC obviously have broader regulatory powers to go after all apartments do you fear that this is going to be some sort of overreach or your view is there are local regulations that already regulated apartments are already so tough that it’s really hard to really sort of up the ante, if you will?

Ric Campo: Yeah. So on the first question with Freddie and Fannie, I don’t think it’s going to affect it that much, because when you look at those guidelines it’s — they are really targeting lower income and trying to help there. I mean one of the things that people don’t realize is when you think about the attacks that the multifamily business are getting, you have to think about who the largest entities or that evict people or public housing agencies, right, federal government and so not market rate companies like Camden. Just to give people a sense to, by the way, in a normal time, where we try to keep our residents as long as we can. We work with them to create value for them and we work on payment plans. In a normal time, out of 60,000 apartments, we may be evict 600 people a year.

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