Essex Property Trust Q2 2022 Earnings Report

Essex Property Trust EPS Results

• Actual EPS: N/A
• Consensus EPS: $3.53
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: $3.04

Essex Property Trust Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Essex Property Trust Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2022
• Date: 7/26/2022
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 4:06AM ET

Essex Property Trust (NYSE:ESS) (NYSE: ESS) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires, develops, owns and operates multifamily residential properties. The company focuses on market-rate apartment communities and delivers a full suite of property services including leasing, resident services, asset management, and capital improvement programs designed to preserve and enhance long‑term property values.

Essex concentrates its portfolio in West Coast markets, with a significant presence in California and the Pacific Northwest. Its holdings are concentrated in major coastal and high-demand metropolitan areas, where it pursues new development, selective acquisitions, and redevelopment or repositioning of existing communities. Typical property features include a range of unit types, on-site amenities such as fitness centers and common areas, and professional property management aimed at maintaining occupancy and resident satisfaction.

As a REIT listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ESS, Essex emphasizes long-term ownership and income-producing residential assets in supply-constrained, high-barrier-to-entry markets. The company’s operating approach combines development and acquisition activity with day-to-day property management to generate recurring rental revenue and to support portfolio growth over time.

Essex Property Trust Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Core FFO rose 21.1% year-over-year in Q2, beating the high end of guidance and marking the 2nd best quarterly growth since the company’s 1994 IPO.
• Net effective rents for new leases were up 20.6% year-over-year and 16% above pre-COVID levels, driven by strong demand in Northern California and Seattle.
• Essex raised full-year guidance, boosting same-property revenue growth to 10.3%, NOI growth to 13.5%, and core FFO per share to $14.45.
• Delinquencies improved substantially, with net delinquency at 0.6% of scheduled rents and gross delinquency down 20% sequentially, aided by $1.9 billion in new California rental assistance.
• Apartment transaction volume has slowed as buyers and sellers undergo price discovery, with implied cap rates rising to the high-3% to low-4% range.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the Essex Property Trust second quarter 2022 earnings call. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. Statements made on this conference call regarding expected operating results and other future events are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are made based on current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs, as well as information available to the company at this time. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Further information about these risks can be found on the company's filings with the SEC. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Michael Schall, President and Chief Executive Officer for Essex Property Trust. Thank you, Mr. Schall. You may begin.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our second quarter earnings conference call. Angela Kleiman and Barb Pak will follow me with prepared remarks, and Adam Berry is here for Q&A. I will start with a summary of our second quarter results and then highlight the strong underlying momentum in the Essex portfolio, especially in the markets benefiting from the return to office programs of large tech companies, and finish with a brief overview of the apartment transaction market. We are pleased to announce our fourth consecutive quarter of improving results with core FFO up 21.1% from the same quarter last year, exceeding the high end of our guidance range and achieving the second-best quarterly growth since the company's IPO in 1994.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Given our strong year-to-date results, we increased our guidance ranges for same property revenues, NOI, and core FFO for a third time in 2022, which Barb will discuss further in her commentary. Beginning with operating fundamentals, net effective rents for new leases are now 16% above pre-COVID levels and 20.6% higher year-over-year compared to the second quarter of 2021. Job growth remains robust at 5.6% for June year-over-year, substantially outperforming the U.S. and reflecting the ongoing recovery from the massive COVID-related job losses in 2020. Page S-17.1 of our earnings supplement demonstrates the surge in rents in the tech markets of Northern California and Seattle, the largest and last markets in our portfolio to fully recover from the pandemic.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Net effective rents have increased between 18% and 20% year to date, reflecting momentum from return to office programs and very strong job growth. Fundamental research from our data analytics team indicates job openings at the largest technology companies have moderated recently off the very high levels throughout the pandemic, with job openings now about 15% above pre-COVID levels compared to about 77% last quarter. Unlike other industries within our markets, the tech sector was better positioned to pivot to hybrid work in response to the pandemic and accelerated hiring. As a result, labor demand for the most highly skilled workers at the large technology companies remains solid, implying job formation in excess of the number of recently announced layoffs in our markets, which we highlight on page S-17.2 of our earnings supplement.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Given the focus on tech layoffs recently, it's relevant to note the definition of what constitutes a tech company has broadened to include businesses that have digitized a variety of analog processes and thereby represent a much broader umbrella of organizations not necessarily located in the Bay Area, including Peloton's fitness offerings, Carvana's auto sales process, and mortgage companies like Better.com. Likewise, the venture capital slowdown is now impacting companies across many industries and geographies consistent with this broader scope. Conversely, it's the largest tech companies that drive employment in our Nor Cal and Seattle markets, and they are more insulated from capital market fluctuations given their growth opportunities and extraordinary financial strength. Rounding out the overall employment picture in Northern California, we continue to see a recovery of jobs that were eliminated during the pandemic.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

COVID-related regulations were so stringent that much of the local service economy workforce had to be fundamentally rebuilt. For example, the Essex markets added 420,000 relatively low-paying jobs on a trailing three-month basis, including a 20%-25% increase in the leisure and hospitality sector, which supports returning tech workers and their demand for services. Our commentary usually focuses on high-paying jobs, but the service jobs are also important because most of their employees need to report to a physical location each day, and they support the ecosystem that creates livable and desirable communities. The strong demand for housing is supported by apartment affordability in our Northern California markets, which has improved sharply relative to long-term averages, reflecting a higher growth rate for median incomes relative to median rents.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

From a historical perspective, these markets scream affordable for the first time in the last decade, and rental housing is significantly more affordable versus homeownership. The value of the median-priced home in California is up about 13% year-over-year, and with higher mortgage interest rates, apartments are clearly the more affordable option. We estimate that it is now over 2x more expensive to buy than rent in the Essex markets. Affordability trends will be impacted by the apartment supply picture of moderating deliveries in the second half of 2022, and a further decline expected in 2023. Sharply lower rents in Northern California during the pandemic resulted in fewer apartment starts in 2020 and 2021, and therefore a significant drop in new Bay Area apartment deliveries into 2023.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Production levels of for sale housing is also muted on the West Coast, with only about 0.4% of existing stock being built annually, and production is difficult to increase given zoning restrictions and land availability. Looking ahead, we recognize that the Federal Reserve is working to fight inflation, which often leads to a recession. Our experience indicates that no two recessions are alike, and clearly the current situation is unique given West Coast remains in a recovery mode from the pandemic. Given this backdrop, we believe that the following factors will help moderate the impact to the West Coast rental markets in the event that economic conditions deteriorate later this year. First, large technology companies significantly accelerated hiring during the pandemic, largely because there were beneficiaries of the pandemic driven preference for touchless interaction.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Many newly hired employees were asked to work remotely until offices reopened, which is now occurring and is a key component of our recent market rent growth in Seattle and the Bay Area. Second, we have extremely tight labor markets and strong job growth on the West Coast, a significant portion of which relates to the recovery of jobs lost in the early part of the pandemic. Recovery of jobs, especially in leisure, hospitality and service sectors, has been resilient and should continue for the foreseeable future. Third, the normal migration pattern from the West Coast includes workers approaching retirement who plan to lower their cost of living and use the equity in their homes as part of their retirement plan.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

We believe that most of these workers left during the pandemic, given California's extraordinary lockdowns, and therefore it's likely that retirement-related migration will be muted for at least a few more years. Finally, foreign immigration was significantly slowed throughout the pandemic. In recent months, new visas for foreign workers are increasing, with the large tech companies being a primary beneficiary, restoring an important source of apartment demand. Before I turn the call over to Angela, let me quickly touch on apartment investment activity. The extraordinary uncertainty and volatility in the financial markets and higher interest rates have disrupted the apartment transaction markets, resulting in fewer closings given diverging buyer and seller expectations. We are in a period of price discovery for apartment transactions, and the absence of financial distress means that buyers and sellers are not forced to transact. Therefore, we expect fewer apartment transactions for the foreseeable future.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

It's difficult to pinpoint cap rates in this environment. Although limited recent activity indicates cap rates in the high 3% range to low 4% range. We have seen an increase in apartment development activity that was decimated in the pandemic, driven by the strong rent recovery in suburban areas, which should lead to more preferred equity investments going forward. With that, I will turn the call over to Angela Kleiman.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Thanks, Mike. First, I would like to express my appreciation for our operations and support teams for delivering some of our highest level of quarterly same store revenue growth. All this while we continue to roll out our property collections operating model throughout the portfolio. Great job, team, and thank you. Today, I'll start with key operational highlights in our major regions, discuss rent growth expectations for the remainder of 2022, and conclude with an update on the rollout of our transformational initiatives for the operating business. We are very pleased with our second quarter performance. With strong demand fundamentals and modest supply described by Mike earlier, we maximize revenues by favoring rent growth rather than occupancy.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

This resulted in same property revenue growth of 12.7% on a year-over-year basis and a 4.8% on a sequential basis, which are some of the highest growth rates achieved in the company's history. As we head into August, so far we are experiencing a normal leasing season with June and July loss to lease for the same store portfolio at 9.7% and 10.3% respectively. Turning to regional highlights, starting with our Washington portfolio. This region generated a 20.7% year-over-year net effective rent growth on new leases for the second quarter, which was led by Eastside Seattle, where the majority of our portfolio is located. Seattle continues to benefit from strong job growth, which is driving leasing momentum.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Our Seattle portfolio is well positioned and 9.7% loss to lease as of July. Onto Northern California. This region generated 17.5% year-over-year net effective rent growth on new leases for the second quarter, which was led by Santa Clara County at 24%, primarily driven by the robust demand from large tech employers in Silicon Valley. Northern California has demonstrated some of the strongest job growth this year, and despite the negative headlines on tech startups, we are not experiencing any softness in rent growth in July or in our third quarter renewals. We expect positive momentum to continue for Northern California, with demand from return to office, which may be further accelerated by incremental job growth throughout the second half of the year.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Loss to lease in this region continues to pick up and is at 8.7% in July. Moving on to Southern California, which has been a strong performer with 22.4% year-over-year net effective rent growth and new leases for the second quarter. Healthy job growth has continued to drive incremental demand in Southern California, which has built upon the significant rent growth achieved last year and resulted in our highest level of loss to lease at 12.1% in July. Turning to our expectations for the remainder of 2022. As you may recall, we had anticipated a deceleration in market rent growth in the second half of the year because of tougher year-over-year comps. As expected, we are seeing this deceleration show up on our new lease spreads on page S-16.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

However, as demonstrated by our current performance and the increase to same property growth expectations for the year, our fundamentals remain strong. It is with this backdrop that we continue to advance our company-wide implementation of our property collections operating model. By way of background, we have been transitioning from a dedicated team for each property to teams that cover a collection of around nine-12 properties, thereby transforming our business from a property-centric to a customer-centric operating model. As we have rolled out this model to our other regions, we've been able to replicate the improvements in cross-selling from 15% to 23% achieved at the first asset collection that was rolled out last year in San Diego. This demonstrates our sales team's ability to sell effectively across multiple properties, reducing customer acquisition costs and improving overall sales efficiency.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Lastly, we have been making good progress co-developing proprietary applications with partners from the RET Ventures, such as Funnel, to enhance our technology platform. We execute approximately 60,000 transactions a year, including move-in, move-outs, and renewals, and we are focused on automating all manual tasks. Following full deployment of the Funnel suite in late 2023, we anticipate this investment will be an important factor in the 200 basis points-300 basis points of margin improvements we expect to achieve over the next few years. With that, I'll turn the call over to Barb Pak.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Thanks, Angela. I'll start with a brief overview of our second quarter results, discuss changes to our full year guidance, followed by an update on investments and the balance sheet. We are pleased to report we achieved core FFO per share of $3.68 in the second quarter. The result exceeded the high end of our updated guidance range published in June. Of the $0.10 Beat to the midpoint, $0.03 Relates to better than expected revenues in June, and $0.06 Relates to lower property taxes, primarily from a combination of lower assessed values and millage rates at our Washington properties. For the full year, we are raising the midpoint of core FFO by $0.29 cents to $14.45. The revised midpoint equates to 15.7% year-over-year growth.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

The increase to our midpoint is primarily driven by better than expected operating fundamentals and an improved outlook on delinquency. As such, we are raising the midpoint of same property revenue growth by 70 basis points to 10.3% and NOI growth by 140 basis points to 13.5%. In addition, our full year guidance assumes a reduction in expense growth from 4% to 3.3% at the midpoint. Turning to delinquency. We are encouraged by the continued improvements we are seeing in our delinquency. For the quarter, net delinquency was 60 basis points of scheduled rents, a significant reduction from the first quarter. This was the result of many efforts by our operations team, which led to a 20% reduction in gross delinquency as compared to the first quarter.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

In addition, we received a higher level of government reimbursement in the second quarter. Also worth noting, in late June, there were a couple of key events that are positive for the future. First, the state of California allocated an additional $1.9 billion in emergency rental assistance for existing applications after exhausting its initial $5 billion allocation. This gives us more visibility on the remaining funds to be allocated, especially as it relates to our $34 million in outstanding applications. Second, on July 1, a California state law expired, which provides landlords additional rights to recapture delinquent units. Thus, outside of L.A. and Alameda counties, where eviction protections remain in place, we would expect to see a gradual improvement in gross delinquencies over the coming quarters. Moving to our stock buyback and investment goals.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

In the second quarter, we repurchased approximately $61 million of common stock at a significant discount to our internal NAV, using free cash flow and excess proceeds from year-to-date transactions. As for our investment goals this year, we have a strong pipeline of accretive preferred equity deals and remain on track to achieve our goal of $50 million-$150 million of new commitments. However, given the rapidly changing interest rate environment and the sharp increase in our cost of capital relative to cap rates in our markets, we are reducing our acquisition goals, which are outlined in the earnings release, to focus on share repurchases instead. This is consistent with our disciplined approach to capital allocation, whereby we will shift capital to what the best use is given changing market dynamics.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Lastly, I want to conclude my prepared remarks by highlighting the strength of the balance sheet. Over the past year, we have seen a continued reduction in leverage with our net debt to EBITDA ratio improving from 6.6x at the depths of the pandemic to 5.8x today. We are rapidly approaching our historical low for this ratio and believe we will see continued improvements in this metric over the next few quarters through growth in EBITDA. As it relates to upcoming capital needs, we are in an advantageous position. Our existing cash flow from operations covers our current dividend, all capital expenditures, and development funding needs. As such, our only known funding needs relate to debt maturities, which are minimal, given we proactively took advantage of the low interest rate environment over the last two years to further strengthen the balance sheet.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

As a result, we have only $300 million in debt maturing in mid-2023 and $400 million maturing in mid-2024. This equates to less than 6% of our debt maturing annually for the next two and half years. While interest rates have increased on new debt, capital markets remain open, and we have access to a variety of secured and unsecured debt sources. This affords us strong financial flexibility, which will enable us to be opportunistic as it relates to these upcoming maturities. With over $1.3 billion in liquidity, we are well-positioned. I will now turn the call back to the operator for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, you may press star one on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. Our first question comes from the line of Jeffrey Spector with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

[Jeffrey Spector, Managing Director and Head of United States REITs Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you. My first question is focused on hybrid working. You know, Mike, you said early on that return to work, but more hybrid working would benefit the company, and clearly it is. I guess, what is some of the latest comments you're hearing or you know, what are you hearing from the tech firms in your market on hybrid versus you know at this point, thinking about you know going remote fully? Obviously, there's an article out today about one company going remote. Like, what are you hearing in your markets?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Hey, Jeff. That's a great question. Thank you. I think what we're hearing is everyone is now pretty much committed to a hybrid working model, and they're trying to figure out what that means and some of the issues are being confronted that I think are embedded in that. I think that everyone's having trouble, and I would include us in that, in this case. People like the hybrid model, and they wanna stick with the hybrid model. Now it's up to the companies to try to figure out what they need to do to modify their offices to accommodate that model. You know, notably, Amazon paused some of the work they're doing in Bellevue to take another look at the office format.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

I think you're gonna see more of that activity going forward.

[Jeffrey Spector, Managing Director and Head of United States REITs Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the charts on, you know, the more detailed charts in the sup on open positions, I should say, in your markets. How do you track this data?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

We have a data analytics team that's run by Paul Morgan. They scrape that data off the various websites and then categorize it by, you know, what's in our markets versus other parts of the U.S. We've been doing this for, I'd say, what, the better part of 10 years now. It definitely tells the story. Our data analytics team basically is responsible for that data.

[Jeffrey Spector, Managing Director and Head of United States REITs Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Thanks. Can I just ask, can you say which markets you're seeing the most openings versus, I guess, ones towards the bottom?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

With the tech markets are continuing to lead in terms of those openings. That is not surprising. I think you know, some of the details in those top 10 techs, I think it's interesting that both Google or Alphabet and Apple have hit a new high in job openings, believe it or not, even though I made the broader comment that of the top 10 tech companies, they're off a little bit from their high. Still, the number of jobs they have open is pretty extraordinary, given the backdrop of what we've seen over the last several years. We're seeing a lot of strength there, ongoing and you know, almost as if all this economic turbulence wasn't such a big deal.

[Jeffrey Spector, Managing Director and Head of United States REITs Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Nick Joseph with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

[Nick Joseph, Director and Senior Analyst at Citi]

Thanks. Maybe just on capital allocation, you talked about the share repurchases. Curious, just given the transaction market and how historically you've sold assets to fund share repurchases, kind of the appetite today and how you would think about funding additional buybacks.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Hi, Nick. It's Barb. Yeah, that has been our strategy historically. In the second quarter, we did have excess cash flow, so we used that to buy back the stock. Going forward, though, we would look to sell assets to buy back the stock. We could do that. If we have an asset in contract, we might buy it back a little earlier than the sale. But for the most part, we're gonna maintain our disciplined approach to match funding any future buyback going forward.

[Nick Joseph, Director and Senior Analyst at Citi]

Thanks. Then maybe just on operations, you know, in terms of the blended rent growth, that decelerated a bit in July from the second quarter. I'm wondering, you know, how you kind of marry that with the strength in the chart, on Northern California and Seattle and the acceleration of the rent growth that you're seeing there, just the interplay between the two.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah, hi. It's Angela here. That's a good question. What we are expecting is, you know, the normal seasonality to play out. Having said that, we do have headwinds from tougher year-over-year comps that I described earlier. Just to give you a little more color, last year, in the first half, our blended lease rates was negative. It was negative, about negative 4%. In the second half, it surged to about 13.25%. That's the tough year-over-year comp. What we're seeing is, you know, with the strength in Northern California, it's a key reason for the shift of expecting SoCal to outperform in the first half, and now in the second half, we're expecting Seattle and North Cal to lead our growth going forward.

[Nick Joseph, Director and Senior Analyst at Citi]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Chandni Luthra with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

[Chandni Luthra, VP and Lead Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Could you talk about your tenant composition a little bit, please? What portion of your tenants, what mix is employed by big tech versus, say, other industries, and how has that composition changed during the pandemic or, you know, more recently?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

This is Mike, and that's another great question. Thank you. You know, we have a variety of price points in our portfolio. We cover, I'd say, from the B minus to the A plus category. Therefore, our tenant base is a reflection of the broader economy. You know, unless we have, in a few buildings that are adjacent, very close to the tech companies where we could have 90%+ of the tenants working in the tech industry, for the most part, we're much broader than that. Again, we reflect the broader economy, which includes policemen, firemen, teachers, all the hospitality and restaurant workers, et cetera. It has not changed a lot.

[Chandni Luthra, VP and Lead Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you for that. As we think about 2023, you know, some of your peers today talked about embedded rent growth. Could you perhaps give us more color in terms of, you know, given the rent roll that's already priced in right now, how should we think about the earn in going into 2023?

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Hi, it's Angela here. Another good question. You know, the embedded earn in for 2023 is really going to be a function of the seasonality curve. At this point, we are, you know, we have one of the strongest loss to lease in the company's history at 10.3%, and it continues to grow because we have not yet peaked. You add to that the tailwind from the job growth and modest supply, we feel good about our position. You know, to try to speculate at this point is probably not gonna be all that helpful because third quarter is when we tend to have the most transactions and so it's the most active quarter.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Once we see how that plays out, we'll be able to provide better visibility to the actual shape of that seasonal curve. We plan to have a, you know, more in-depth discussion on that topic on our October call.

[Chandni Luthra, VP and Lead Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Got it. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of John Pawlowski with Green Street. Please proceed with your question.

[John Pawlowski, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Green Street]

Thanks. Just one question from me. Adam, curious to get your thoughts on the level of distress you're seeing in the broader preferred equity and mezzanine lending markets. On a scale of 1 to 10 being the most dislocated, where are we on that barometer today?

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

John, I would put us at a one. We're seeing very little distress on the West side. We are seeing some opportunities where bridge lenders were able to loan on deals that are in lease-up. We've seen a definite pullback in that. We're seeing opportunities for us to come in in those types of cases. I'd say no distress at this point.

[John Pawlowski, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Green Street]

To be clear, I'm not talking about your PS-specific book, but just in terms of the broader market deals that are coming your way. Other people being in distress, not Essex.

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Understood. Yeah, no. Same answer. We're not seeing any-

[John Pawlowski, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Green Street]

1.

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah.

[John Pawlowski, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Green Street]

Okay. Thank you for the time.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Sakwa with Evercore. Please proceed with your question.

[Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Yes, thanks. Good morning. I was wondering if you could talk about the renewals that you're sending out, I guess, at this point for August or what you sent out for August, September and perhaps October. Can you talk about what's embedded in the full year guidance for the second half in terms of overall blended spreads? Thank you.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Sure. Happy to. It's Angela here. I'll talk about renewals, and I'll, you know, turn it over to Barb to talk about guidance. In terms of our third quarter renewals, we're coming in at close to 10%, and it's a pretty tight band within all our key markets. You know, Seattle leading the pack around 11%, Northern California in the 10% range, and of course, Southern California close to 9%.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Then Steve, as it relates to guidance, you know, and as what Angela said earlier, you know, the first half of the year we had much easier comps, but given the surge in rents we saw last year, we have much more difficult comps in the second half of the year, which, on new leases, we're assuming, you know, in the second half of the year, 7% new lease growth. It was 15% in the first half of the year, so a significant reduction just because of the comp issue.

[Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Great. That's very helpful. Thanks. Then just in terms of the bad debt, I know this is bouncing around quite a bit, based on what you're getting back from the government, and it sounds like you might get a little bit more in the second half. You know, how would you sort of think the second half shapes up in terms of the bad debt figure?

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. Our revised guidance assumes 1.5% for the full year as a % of our scheduled rent. That's how we've been talking about it since the start of the pandemic. We assume the first half and the second half are about the same now. Previously, we had assumed a worse second half, but now we've pulled that up now. That's really a function of the $1.9 billion in new emergency rental assistance that the state has allocated. It does give us more visibility on continued emergency rental assistance in the back half of the year that we were uncertain about going into this quarter. The other thing is we do have you know, we have seen improvements in our gross delinquency. They have started to come down.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

In June, they fell. July they fell. We do expect a continued moderation in the gross delinquency line, which gets us to the improved outlook on delinquency in the back half of the year.

[Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Great. Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Neil Malkin with Capital One. Please proceed with your question.

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

Hey, everyone. Good morning to you. First, question, I guess capital allocation or external growth kind of a thought here, but you know, you don't really have a land bank or predevelopment pipeline anymore. I think your last one finished leasing up this quarter. You know, just curious about your plans, you know, what you see maybe through the end of the year, you know, for potential growth, you know, given that. I mean, really, you've been mainly an acquirer. What are your priorities? I know you talked about share repurchases, but you know, are JVs an option? You know, are you looking at, you know, again, just dispositions to fund all those things?

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

You know, how do you know, plan on sourcing growth just outside of the organic, you know, picture over the next, you know, several quarters?

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Hi, Neil. This is Adam. There was lots of that question. Just kind of starting at the beginning. Historically, we haven't really been a land banking shop. When we develop, we tend to go after shovel-ready deals. We do have a couple of pre-entitlement deals that are in the pipeline, and potentially would build further out. Other than that, though, we've seen the most opportunity in our press book, and especially more recently, we've seen quite a bit of opportunity. As for acquisitions, we're always in the market, but highly dependent on where our cost of capital is and matching funds.

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

We have seen some opportunities on the development side where we can joint venture and usually couple that with a preferred equity piece as well. We're highly focused on turning those over as well. Lots of potential. On the development side, on the direct development side today, we're seeing cap rates probably in the mid-fours, and to us, that's just not enough spread to adjust for the risk associated with costs and the other challenges associated with development.

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for that. For Angela, you know, you guys have more recently started talking about the, or at least externally, the sort of operating enhancements, operating model, expense types of enhancements, about, you know, podding and, being more efficient, increasing the resident experience. I just wonder if you could, you know, maybe kind of put that into perspective, talk about that a little bit more, and then specifically on, you know, wage pressure you're seeing, just given, you know, the high cost of living there. You know, you talked about like again, improving the resident experience, by potentially having units that have no people on site.

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

How does that improve an experience if there's, you know, no one there to help, particularly with sort of like, you know, potential issues, lax DAs, et cetera, you know, things like that. If you can just walk through all those, that'd be great.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Sure. Happy to. You brought up a couple of points. I'll try to hit all of them, so if I miss anything, please chime in. In terms of wage pressure, I mean, we're experiencing that just like everybody else. However, I think you could see from our controllable expenses, especially in the admin line item, we've been able to find offsets and so have been able to manage through that. It's primarily because of how we have transformed our operating business model to, you know, this, I think you call it PODs, I call it collections, because that's been improved in efficiency. Ultimately what it means is, you know, it's allowing our people to take less time to get the tasks that they used to do.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

From a customer perspective, though, first of all, we've been contactless since COVID, so it's effectively no change for them in how they interact with us. As far as availability is concerned, although, you know, the office is not open, we do have by appointment available, and our-

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

Mm-hmm.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Customers can access us on a regular, you know, however they want. They can reach us via different, whether it's online or 800 number, they can make an appointment. They come see us, and every asset collection has a hub where it is always there. Sometimes, you know, if it's an immediate thing, they will get in a car and drive, you know, to a hub nearby. Once again, that has not been an issue either. When we look at our customer satisfaction survey, it actually has been better than pre-COVID.

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

Okay. Yeah. Basically, it sounds like just given the proximity of the PODs, it's, you know, a maintenance issue, a power, I don't know, leak issue, you know, payment, you know, whatever amenity issue could be a few minute drive away essentially is what you're saying.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Well, let me just clarify something. The maintenance team is on site, and so they are responding timely to any customer service request.

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, I guess I was just confused because a lot of other peers have mentioned like, you know, people-less, you know, buildings in terms of like servicing, but I guess that doesn't apply to maintenance, is what you're saying.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. What we're talking about is, you know, administration, bookkeeping, those type of activities. The maintenance is separate.

[Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One]

Got it. Okay. No, thank you for that. I appreciate it.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Richard Anderson with SMBC. Please proceed with your question.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Thanks. Good morning. Great quarter. I'm gonna go back to Angela on the earnings question. I understand you wanna keep that maybe close to the vest, but if you're providing guidance, you're implying you have some guidance about the third quarter in terms of leasing activity. That would suggest while you don't know what's gonna happen, you would have an assumption of what's gonna happen again. Based on that assumption, would you admit that you have an earnings number in mind, but you just don't wanna? You think it's just premature to share? Is that a fair statement?

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Well, it's a little bit more to it than that. I mean, it's you know, it's speculative, right? Because right now what we're saying is with 10.2% loss to lease, that's higher than our typical loss to lease in the past. Now, normal seasonality means that loss to lease will start to decline over time. What I don't know, and that's an honest statement, I don't know the rate of that decline or the steepness of that curve. All I can point to is from what we're seeing right now, the curve looks good. Having said that, there is the broad economy out there and we will need to see how that plays out, you know, get a better sense.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. Hey, Rich. I have my blue mood ring on now. I just wanna point that out. One additional comment is I think what Angela is saying is seasonality implies that, you know, rents peak in July. We don't know if rents are gonna peak in July, and so that inflection point, you know, once we see that inflection point, we have better visibility going forward about what's gonna happen for the rest of the year. You know, again, it's really a key time in terms of trying to determine, you know, where this is gonna go. You know, potentially rents could keep going up or it could follow the normal seasonality and, you know, we reach a peak in July, and we start, you know, going downhill for the rest of the year.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

You're right, Barb has built in an assumption into the guidance. Barb, you wanna just comment on that just to reiterate it?

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Well, like I said earlier, you know, we do assume rent growth year-over-year moderates in the second half of the year because of the more difficult comps. As Angela mentioned, we've assumed a normal seasonal curve. We will peak, you know, at the end of July, like Mike said. That is what's built into the guidance. But we do feel good about the tailwinds that are in front of us or behind us from where we are today.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Okay, fair enough. The second question is looking at S-17, the rent growth forecast. Last quarter, Northern California was the leader. All markets, you know, regions have grown, but Northern California by a lesser amount than the others now in the second quarter, actually the laggard, once the leader, even though 10.5% is nothing to sneeze at. I'm just curious, you know, you talked about tech layoffs that everyone's talking about. Is that intermingled in this forecast where Southern California and Seattle have leaped Northern California again, all growing. I'm not really. I don't mean to throw cold water on it, but Northern California is no longer the leader.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah, hi, Angela. Thanks for acknowledging that these are pretty darn strong numbers across the board.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Yeah.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

You know, just to give you a little more background, these, the revised forecast is really a reflection of how we perform in the first half. Because the first half was so strong in Southern California and in Seattle, that's the driver to the change in order. When we look at the second half, you know, the second half, let's say about 7% for the portfolio, we are seeing that Seattle and Northern California will be the pack in the second.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Southern California, right? Seattle and Southern California?

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

No, no. Seattle and Northern California in the second half.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. Okay.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Okay.

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. That 11.1% is 15% in the first half, which is big, and that's driven by SoCal and Seattle, and 7% approximately in the second half. That 7% average will be driven by, you know, Northern California and Seattle, higher than 7% and of course, Southern California lower than 7%. The average.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Okay.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Maybe one other final piece, Rich, and that is that, you know, Oakland is obviously lagging in the Northern California recovery as well. Oakland has, downtown Oakland has been slow to recover, and it's got quite a bit of development deliveries that are coming there, and that's the part that's holding them back.

[Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC]

Yeah, good point. Okay, thanks very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from m the line of Connor Mitchell with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

[Connor Mitchell, Research Associate at Piper Sandler]

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Just a couple on back rents. First, how much of the back rents do you guys anticipate receiving from the government or California programs? Then how much do you think you'll have to go directly to the tenants to collect? I know you guys discussed a little bit about the additional government funds to be allocated. I was wondering about how much more you'll have to go to the tenants to collect.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Hi, this is Barb. We have $34 million in open applications right now. And then, of our $78 million in cumulative delinquency. That's how you would compare those two, of which the $34 million, we've assumed some of that will occur this year. We don't know how quickly they're gonna disperse those funds. We've assumed about 50% of that we get this year in our guidance. It's not all same store, though, either. Keep that in mind. That's total for the whole portfolio. The other piece that we have to go after the tenants, we already started that process. We have various means we can do to hurt their credit or ding their credit to go after them in small claims court in order to try to recoup our back rent.

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

We're actively doing what we can, and abiding by the laws, obviously. In L.A., Alameda is where we're probably the most restricted, but outside of that, we have a lot more ability to go after the tenants.

[Connor Mitchell, Research Associate at Piper Sandler]

That's helpful. Thank you. Then, just to follow up on that, what % of the residents that owe the back rents are no longer within the Essex properties versus tenants that are paying current but still owe past rents?

[Barb Pak, EVP and CFO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think it's roughly 50/50 at this point. The $34 million in open applications does relate. Bulk of that relates to our current residents. Very little of that is for past due or past residents.

[Connor Mitchell, Research Associate at Piper Sandler]

All right. Very helpful. That's all for me. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

[Brad Heffern, VP and Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, everyone. I'm not sure if you track this or not, but do you track move-outs because of job loss? Has there been any sort of change in that statistic, if you do?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

We do track new jobs or job transfers and but not job losses exactly, per se. That number, new job or job transfer, is roughly 15.7% in our portfolio versus, let's say, which is down a little bit from the last couple of months. We don't actually track how many job losses, how many of these people actually lost their job. We just track jobs in general.

[Brad Heffern, VP and Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Got it. It was worth a shot. I guess on the other side, on the move-in data, you know, has there been data that suggests that, you know, tech workers coming back are indeed, what's driving a lot of this demand?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Not just tech workers, certainly, tech workers and, you know, the return to office people. You know, more broadly, we mentioned in the script that there are an awful lot of hospitality, leisure jobs, and all the service jobs that are coming back as we fundamentally rebuilt when California, you know, shut everything down and many of them left the state. It's really both components. Again, our portfolio is not comprised mostly of tech workers. It's intended to be a broad overview of the broader economy. You know, we don't target tech workers per se.

[Brad Heffern, VP and Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Thank you.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc. Please proceed with your question.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.]

Great. Thank you. Angela, you highlighted the strength in the loss to lease, you know, being above that 10% mark and that market rents are still growing at this point. The portfolio has seen new lease rates decelerate, you know, much more quickly than some of your peers. I certainly understand the difficult comps piece and some of the crosscurrents in the economy that are kind of blurring the next couple of months perhaps. I'm really trying to understand with that backdrop of strong job growth, growing market rents still, you know, through July and the healthy loss to lease in place, you know, why do we get to 7% new lease rate growth, you know, versus the 14% I think you achieved in July for the back half of the year?

[Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.]

Can you just put some additional detail in there, please?

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah, happy to. I think, you know, we try to provide a baseline, and so we don't tend to say forecast a recession or, you know, excessive growth, for example. Now, I do want to point you to the backdrop of the second half of last year. We grew our blended lease rates were 13.25%, and so the new lease rates were much higher. It truly is, you know, a function of a tougher year-over-year comp. To your point, is it possible that we perform better because of the fundamentals? Certainly, you know, that's on the table.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.]

What % of the rent roll has been addressed or what % do you have strong visibility into at this point for the year?

[Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO at Essex Property Trust]

Percent of the rent roll.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Well, certainly the renewal side, we have good visibility on. It's gonna be, you know, somewhere in the high single digit, you know, range. It's the new lease rate that we don't know, obviously, given, you know, all the turmoil in the financial markets, et cetera. So, again, as I think Angela mentioned earlier, you know, so far we're following a normal seasonal pattern, but typically that changes. You know, the weaker portion of the year begins in July and through the end of the year. We just don't know what that inflection point is gonna look like or when we're gonna attain it. It's a little bit difficult for us to predict the rest of the year, given that we don't know where that peak in rent is this year.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.]

Sure. No, I get it. I was more interested in, you know, if 75% of the leases have been addressed, you know, either signed or committed to at this point, or 85%, whatever that number is. Anyway, maybe Mike, on capital allocation, you know, admittedly, you know, the headlines haven't helped you guys given your footprint, but you guys have certainly executed, you know, three guidance increases through the year. And you stepped in and bought back stock as you historically have when you traded a wide enough discount to NAV.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.]

I guess if the market isn't willing to ascribe, you know, the value that you see in the portfolio versus the private market, aside from just selling assets and buying back a higher volume of shares, are there any other steps that you and the board are discussing or looking to, you know, further close that value gap?

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

I don't think so. I mean, you know, broader strategic issues are not things that you would, you know, implement, you know, quickly. They are, you know, thoughtful processes and, you know, just try to work through things. I think this is more tactical. We don't know what's gonna happen in the broader economy, going forward. That point was very well made by the investors at, Nareit certainly recently. Given that backdrop, we're gonna continue to lean toward a relatively conservative approach to capital allocation, and that's the one that Barb was outlining before, and Adam too. Maybe what I would add to what Adam said that, you know, trying to focus on the preferred equity book will be something that we're pretty focused on, the remainder of the year.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

In terms of, you know, broader choices, when you look at where the stock price is trading and, you know, we do our own fundamental research on the value of the company on a per share basis. When you look at those numbers, you know, it's not a time that we would be aggressively growing the company, let's say, just because the pieces are not as compelling as they have been certainly at different points of time. I think it's a time to just execute. You take what the market gives us and, you know, make thoughtful decisions and, you know, that's what we've done, that's what we're going to continue to do.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.]

Thanks for the comments.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

[Adam Kramer, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, guys. Thanks for the time for taking the question. Appreciate it. Yeah, look, I think just a quick one for me. I think you gave some kind of good color on kind of where, you know, where you see cap rates kind of high 3%-low 4% range. Wondering, I guess kind of how much wider is that, or how much has that kind of changed from, you know, maybe the all-time tights that you saw, you know, be it three months, six months ago? Then you also kind of mentioned about, you know, price discovery, right? So kind of wondering, you know, what is that gap now, I guess that bid-ask spread, right?

[Adam Kramer, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

That gap kind of between, you know, that's kind of causing, you know, kind of price discovery range and causing limited transactions at this point.

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. Hi, Adam. This is Adam. To go cover the back half of the question first. Transaction volume has actually been fairly consistent. Over the recent probably month to six weeks is where we've seen things slow down, a little bit. We've seen some deals drop out of the market, and we have seen that bid-ask spread. Depending on the market, depending on vintage, I'd say for our core plus within our kind of core markets, there's probably a 25-50 basis point bid-ask spread between where sellers are looking and buyers are willing. But again, that's not to be said that deals aren't happening because there are still transactions occurring in the market. Can you restate the first part of the question?

[Adam Kramer, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Yeah, just kind of how much wider, you know, that high 3%-low 4% range for cap rates. You know, how much wider has that been, kinda maybe, you know, maybe the all-time tights, you know, of three months-six months ago?

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. We don't know where cap rates are going. Based on today, what we're seeing today, we're seeing them in that kinda high 3s-low 4s. I might be

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

That's roughly 50 basis points higher than-

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

What we talked about too.

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. They were in the mid threes, what we talked about a few quarters ago. Yeah, they're up. I would say 50 basis points is probably on average.

[Adam Kramer, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Got it. That's really helpful, guys. Thanks. Thanks so much. Appreciate the time.

[Adam Berry, EVP and CIO at Essex Property Trust]

Thank you.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Thank you.

[Operator]

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.

[Michael Schall, President and CEO at Essex Property Trust]

Yeah. Thank you, operator. We would like to thank everyone for joining the call today. We feel good about our results, and we feel like we may have a little bit of wind to our back, so that's obviously great to see. We look forward to seeing many of you in the near future. Thank you and good day.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude.

[Operator]

Goodbye

[Operator]

Today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Adam Berry, EVP and CIO
• Angela Kleiman, SEVP and COO
• Barb Pak, EVP and CFO
• Michael Schall, President and CEO

Analysts

• Adam Kramer, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Austin Wurschmidt, Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
• Brad Heffern, VP and Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Chandni Luthra, VP and Lead Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Connor Mitchell, Research Associate at Piper Sandler
• Jeffrey Spector, Managing Director and Head of United States REITs Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
• John Pawlowski, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Green Street
• Neil Malkin, Senior Manager and REIT Equity Analyst at Capital One
• Nick Joseph, Director and Senior Analyst at Citi
• Richard Anderson, Managing Director and Senior REIT Analyst at SMBC
• Steve Sakwa, Senior Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Evercore ISI