Essex Property Trust, Inc. (NYSE:ESS) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Barb Pak: Hi, Rich, it’s Barb. It is very important for us to stay on the dividend aristocrat list and maintain the dividend and continue to increase it. We do like free cash flow, but we also have a lot of planning that goes on behind the scenes in terms of how we do raise our dividend. And we do target a certain percent of our FFO and our AFFO yield to go out as a percent of the dividend payment. So all that gets factored into how much we increase the dividend annually. And it won’t be 6% every year. It just does depend on a variety of things behind the scenes that are going on. But maintaining the dividend and keeping our long history of increasing it every year is something that’s very important to the company.

Richard Anderson: Okay. And my second question is understanding the makeup of job growth has not been your sweet spot yet to this point. But I’m wondering when you think of the jobs that are being created, do they have no shot to being a resident with you guys? Or could there be a situation where they would qualify in a doubling up scenario? I’m just curious to the extent there is some areas of the job growth market that don’t immediately look great to Essex, but is there a path to them becoming residents nonetheless because of some sort of set up like that? Thanks.

Angela Kleiman: Hey Rich, it’s Angela here. That’s a good question because when we look at the median income, it actually is pretty darn good, and it matches the profile of our property quite well. And so we’re — it’s my way of saying we don’t have an issue with the demographics in that they can’t qualify for our properties because within a market, we have a diversified pool. So even though we’re solely in the West Coast, within each submarket, we do have different levels of properties where tenants can qualify. And the quality of jobs I’m speaking to really more relates to our ability to accelerate rent growth. And that’s the key when I’m talking about the high paying jobs.

Richard Anderson: Yep. Fair enough. Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. And with that, this will conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Goodbye.