American Homes 4 Rent

Greetings. Welcome to the American Homeless for Rent fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Nicholas Fromm. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. With me today are David Singlin, Chief Executive Officer, Brian Smith, Chief Operating Officer, Jack Corrigan, Chief Investment 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 fact 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, February 25, 2022. 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'd find these documents as well as SEC reports in the audio webcast replay of this conference call on our website at www.americanhomesforrent.com. With that, I will turn the call over to our CEO, David Sinkland.

Thank you, Nick. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. During 2021, we again delivered consistent outsized earnings growth resulting in a record year headlined by sector leading core FFO growth of 17.4% per share. At the onset of the pandemic, it was hard to imagine how dramatic the world would change. The hybrid work model is likely here to stay and millions of people no longer need to live close to the office and now have the ability to relocate to more desirable locations. Our diversified footprint is positioned in high quality of life markets where long-term demographic shifts and changing preferences have been taking place. Simply put, the AMH portfolio is located where Americans want to live. Considering this and our country's housing shortage, the fundamental backdrop for our portfolio could not be better. Before we dive into our 2021 results and outlook for 2022, I want to take a moment to point out that this year marks the 10-year anniversary of the first home purchase by American Homes for Rent. During the past 10 years, AMH has demonstrated thought leadership that changed the SFR industry. With us at the forefront, renting has become more desirable and a home is no longer centered around ownership. Over the last decade, our dedicated team has strategically accumulated a portfolio of more than 57,000 homes in 30-plus markets, building a leading operational platform and pioneering an unrivaled growth engine. When you take a step back, the foundation this company has built is nothing short of remarkable. Upon this foundation, the real work now begins. Our focus is on what the next 10 years will look like. as we reinforce our position as the market leader in delivering consistent and outsized earnings growth. Strategically, we are focused on three areas that build upon our existing foundation. The first area is technology. As most of you know, we pioneered some of the earliest technology improvements in the single-family rental industry. Solutions such as Let Yourself In, and our proprietary inspection and maintenance apps have allowed us to scale an industry that many thought was unscalable. As we look forward, we will continue to optimize our operational infrastructure by investing in next-generation systems. Second, we remain committed to growth, specifically our internal development program. Our self-developed homes offer the best risk-adjusted returns across the SFR sector and will transform our portfolio over time by improving the quality of our asset base. Additionally, as the 45th largest home builder in the country, our internal development program now plays an important role in addressing the nation's housing shortage by contributing new, high-quality housing stock. Our last focus area is ESG. This year, we were honored to be named one of America's most responsible companies by Newsweek and a top ESG performer in the real estate sector by Sustainalytics. Our organization is continually focused on improving how we deliver sustained value to our residents, shareholders, and employees. Another example is that we were recently named a 2022 Great Places to Work company. This meaningful recognition represents our people first culture, and is instrumental in recruiting and retaining our valued employees. In closing, this is an exciting time at American Homes for Rent, as we expect our strong performance to continue in 2022 and beyond. We recently announced an 80% increase in our dividend rate and expect another year of double-digit core FFO growth per share. Through the combined efforts from our technology investments, growth initiatives, and ESG focus, this strong momentum should continue and further strengthen our position as the differentiated market leader in delivering consistent and outsized earnings growth. Now, I'll turn the call over to Brian Smith for more details on our operations.

Brian? Thank you, Dave. 2021 was an excellent year for American Homes for Rent. Occupancy gains and record rate growth drove same-home core revenue growth of 7.3%, and core NOI growth of 8.7% for the year, which was above the high end of our most recent guidance. Demand remained high, and solid execution drove strong leasing results across our entire portfolio. For the year, distinct shoppers per rent-ready home were up over 60%. Cash-to-cash turn times improved by 10 days, and new lease rate growth was 13%, up nearly 800 basis points from 2020. Fundamentally, the American Homes for Rent diversified portfolio is well positioned to continue delivering consistent outsized earnings growth. And our vertically integrated platform provides the foundation to create even more value over the coming years. Turning to the fourth quarter, we delivered a strong close to the year. Same home core NOI growth was 9.8%, driven by solid same home core revenue growth of 8.9%. On the expense side, same home core operating expenses were up 7.4% during the quarter. Despite elevated costs from COVID-related move outs and general inflation, our full year 2021 same home core operating expense growth came in as expected at 4.7%. Chris will lay out formal guidance shortly, but before that, I want to share operational updates for January and provide commentary on several drivers underlying our full year outlook. As expected, average occupancy for the same home portfolio came in at 97.5 percent during January, and new, renewal, and blended rate growth was 12.4 percent, 6.9 percent, and 8.3 percent, respectively. On a full year basis, we expect our 2022 same home core revenue growth to accelerate by nearly 100 basis points to 8.25% at the midpoint. Underlying expected growth next year is same home average occupancy in the low 97% range and blended rate growth in the high 7% area. For same home core operating expenses, we expect 5.75% growth at the midpoint. Growth drivers include higher property taxes, inflation, and modestly elevated COVID related move outs. Finally, please note that because of timing with prior year comps, same home expense growth will not be linear, and we expect to see a higher percentage increase during the first half of the year. Looking forward to 2023, one of our key areas of focus is on modernizing the resident experience through the expanded use of technology. Innovation has always been at the center of our strategy, and our next-generation services platform will drive additional efficiencies. This system will improve the logistics, scheduling, and communication functions of our maintenance platform. More importantly, it will provide our residents with a 360-degree view of their account and give them access to multi-channel, real-time communications. As an example, for a resident to connect with our maintenance diagnostics team or any of the 4,000 plus service providers across our internal and external networks, it will be as simple as using your favorite ride sharing app. We look forward to updating you on these innovations as we continue their development throughout 2022 and start to see the related benefits in 2023 and beyond. Overall, I'm proud of what we've been able to accomplish at American Homes for Rent. I would like to thank our team for continuing to do a great job delivering consistent, outsized earnings growth. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years will bring. Now I will turn the call over to Jack.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Consistent growth remains a strategic priority for us, and I am happy to report that 2021 was another strong year for American Homes for Rent. We added approximately 4,600 homes to our wholly owned and joint venture portfolios during the year, which was made possible by our three-pronged growth program and diversified footprint that enables us to cast a wider net than other single-family rental platforms. Including homes under construction and land purchases, we deployed an impressive $2 billion of total capital in 2021. As we've discussed many times before, one of the major benefits of our three-pronged approach to growth is that we have the ability to nimbly adjust our channels due to changes in the housing market. As an example, we finished the year with robust activity through our traditional acquisition channel. While competition is elevated, our platform gives us the ability to integrate homes onto our platform and capture efficiencies that many cannot. driving incremental value for shareholders even at today's prices. On the other hand, due to elevated prices and other market dynamics, we have scaled back commitments to the national builder pipeline. During 2021, we acquired 2,553 homes between our traditional and national builder channels for approximately $900 million. and we are targeting a similar capital investment through these acquisition channels in 2022. From a timing perspective, we expect our acquisition activity to be generally balanced throughout the year. Also, please keep in mind that average renovation times commonly run 90 days or longer when our platform is acquiring homes at these elevated volumes and may be subject to additional supply chain delays. Now turning to our one-of-a-kind internal AMH development program. Despite broad market challenges surrounding labor and supply chains, the team did a tremendous job meeting the expectations outlined at the start of the year and delivered 2,054 homes. While our commitment to scale this program remains unchanged, our deliveries in 2022 are likely to be impacted by inspection, supply chain, and labor delays. However, despite these broad market challenges, we expect to grow our annual deliveries by approximately 10% at the midpoint in 2022, delivering 2,100 to 2,400 homes. More importantly, future growth in our AMH development program will be made possible by continued investment in our high-quality land pipeline, consisting of Class A locations within our existing footprint. On that front, I'm happy to report that we successfully increased our land pipeline to approximately 18,000 lots owned or controlled via option or escrow contracts at the end of 2021. In summary, we remain in great position to capitalize on growth opportunities. American Homes for Rent has the unique ability to create consistent shareholder value in both open market acquisitions and through our one-of-a-kind development program. Our team executed at a high level in 2021, and we will keep our foot on the gas moving forward. Now I will turn the call over to Chris.

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. I'll cover three areas in my comments today. First, a quick review of our year-end results. Second, an update on our balance sheet and recent capital markets activity. And third, I'll close with an overview of our 2022 guidance. Starting off with our operating results, we delivered another quarter of consistent and outsized earnings growth with net income attributable to common shareholders of $48.1 million or 14 cents per diluted share. On an FFO sharing unit basis, we generated 37 cents of core FFO representing 20.4% year-over-year growth and 34 cents of adjusted FFO representing 20.9% year-over-year growth. And for full year 2021, we generated net income attributable to common shareholders of $135.3 million, or 41 cents per diluted share, and $1.36 of core FFO per share and unit, which was in line with our expectations, representing industry-leading earnings growth of 17.4%. Next, I'd like to turn to our balance sheet and share a few updates around our recent capital markets activity as we continue to fuel our robust external growth programs. During the quarter, we settled the remaining 1.8 million common equity forward shares from our May 2021 offering for net proceeds of approximately $65 million. And we also issued approximately 1.7 million shares under our APM program, raising over $70 million of net proceeds. At the end of the year, our net debt, including preferred shares to adjusted EBITDA, was 6.2 times, which is roughly in line with our targeted leverage level. We had $48 million of cash on the balance sheet, and our $1.25 billion revolving credit facility had a $350 million drawn balance. Subsequent to year end, and as we prepare to fund another year of outsized external growth, we raised $864 million of net proceeds in an oversubscribed common equity offering. Of the total net proceeds, $376 million was received during the first quarter, with the remaining $488 million being issued on a forward basis to minimize dilution as we match fund against capital deployment throughout the remainder of 2022. Next, I'd like to share an overview of our initial 2022 guidance, which reflects our expectation for another year of consistent and outsized earnings growth. For full year 2022, we expect core FFO per share unit of $1.53 to $1.59, which at the midpoint represents year-over-year growth of 14.7%. As some additional color, our expectations contemplate the following assumptions. For our same home pool, which will include between 48,000 and 49,000 properties at the midpoint of our ranges, we expect core revenues growth of 8.25%, which reflects the strong occupancy and rate growth environment that Brian discussed a few minutes ago, along with our expectation that bad debt continues its gradual return to normal over the course of 2022. On the expense side, we expect same-home core property operating expense growth of 5.75%, driven by property tax growth in the 5% area, which reflects our expectation for higher valuation increases compared to 2021, and a 6% to 7% combined increase on all other expense line items, which reflects Brian's earlier commentary surrounding the current inflationary environment and modestly elevated COVID-related move-outs. And to the bottom line, we expect 2022 same-home core NOI growth of 9.5%. It reflects an acceleration over our 2021 growth rate as well as continued core NOI margin expansion. From an investment standpoint, we expect to deploy $1.7 to $2.2 billion of total capital into our combined growth programs this year, adding over 4,400 homes to our wholly-owned and joint venture portfolios. Specifically, for our wholly-owned portfolio, At the midpoint of our ranges, we expect to invest approximately $1.8 billion of AMH capital, consisting of 1.35 billion, or 3,600 homes, added through our acquisition and development channels, along with $350 million of continued investment activity into our wholly-owned development pipeline, and $100 million of pro-rata investment into our JVs and property-enhancing CapEx programs. In addition to our external growth programs, we expect to redeem $270 million of preferred shares that become callable during the second and third quarters. This brings our total 2022 AMH capital needs to approximately $2.1 billion, which we expect to fund through a combination of retained cash flow, approximately $100 million of recycled capital from dispositions, the $864 million of attractive equity capital we already raised earlier this year, and leveraged capacity from our balance sheet. And that brings us to the end of our prepared remarks. But before we open the call to your questions, I'd like to reiterate that 2021 was undoubtedly a record-breaking year. But more importantly, it represented another year of consistent and outsized earnings growth from the AMH platform. And as we look forward to 2022, we expect the consistent AMH outperformance to continue with another year of double-digit core FFO growth, accelerating core NOI growth from our same home portfolio, continued expansion in AMH development deliveries, and an 80% increase in our distribution. And with that, thank you for your time, and we'll open the call to your questions. Operator?

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. The participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you limit yourselves to one question and one follow up per person. One moment, please. We'll be pulled for questions. Our first question is from Nicholas Joseph of Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. I think you mentioned a high 7% blended rent growth embedded in guidance. How does that break down between your assumptions around new and renewal lease rate growth and then maybe in the first half of the year versus the second half of the year?

Hi, Nick. Good morning. It's Brian. Good question. You saw that the increases that we got in January were consistent with Q4. We're feeling really good about the demand backdrop. The metrics that I spoke about in prepared remarks continue to hold very strong. So we're seeing excellent demand that gives us confidence that we're going to continue to be able to push new lease rate growth. The breakout for the year, think about in the high 9% for releasing growth. And then on the renewal side, somewhere in the sevens. If you look back at the history, we've had continued improvement in renewal rates over the past six quarters. coupled with really good turnover rates, reductions there of nearly 10 percentage points over the past four years. So everything is lining up very nicely to continue this really nice momentum that we have on the rate side.

Thank you. And then just, I guess, to follow up maybe just on the regulatory environment overall, it seems like there's increased scrutiny on single-family rentals broadly. So is there anything you're doing differently or that we should be mindful of just given the overall environment?

Yeah, Nick, this is Dave. Let me start by saying that our mission is to provide safe, quality housing in good school districts, and we're providing that housing where America wants to live. And as we have mentioned before, we operate in an industry that, because it's providing housing with a significant level of growth, as you just mentioned, we are garnering more regulatory attention in this industry. But also, as we previously discussed, during various federal hearings, both in the Senate as well as in the House, we've been called out a number of times as an example of how to be a single-family rental company that does the right thing. And so I can't specifically talk about other companies, but at this point, we don't have any regulatory matters that you know, we are, we're not in the same place as others.

Our next question is from Joshua Dennerlein of Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah. Hey, everyone. Everyone's doing well. I kind of wanted to touch base on that modernizing of the user experience. I mean, what kind of benefits should we expect to kind of see over the long term? Would it be better expense control from you guys or maybe higher revenue growth? Just a combination of both.

Yeah, thanks, Josh. It's a very good question. The modernizing of the resident experience has benefits really across our entire business. We're very focused on that experience contributing to extent stay, improvements on retention, our ability to continue to push renewal rates because of a very strong value proposition that people are realizing. So from the resident's perspective, it's going to change the way that they communicate with us. By modernizing, I'm talking about putting a premium on mobile, having all the information really available at their fingertips. What's the status of my maintenance request? What's the status of the technician? When are they going to arrive? Similar things that you'd see with a lot of the other modern companies. And then the other thing that we're doing, too, from the resident perspective, is we're working backwards from all the data and information that we have on the customer service side. What are they calling in and asking about? And how can we provide that information to them kind of ready real time so they don't have to make a phone call? All they need to do is open up their app to see exactly where that particular issue stands. From our perspective, the efficiencies that we'll gain outside of better retention and better customer service to the resident, there'll be improvements in our inventory management system, our scheduling system, the way that we communicate with our vendors, the way that we communicate with our residents. We're adding some pretty robust video diagnostic tools to the maintenance request side, which allows our internal teams to properly diagnose maintenance issues, as an example, and sends a single truck with the right equipment out to remediate that particular issue. So there are a lot of benefits. What we're really excited about is this platform we'll be able to build on it into perpetuity. It gives us great flexibility. But again, benefits to both the revenue side and to the cost control side as well.

Thanks for that, Collar. Kind of on a related topic, I guess how should we think about potential margin improvements in the years ahead? We've had some impressive margin growth in the past.

Sure. Morning, Josh. It's Chris here. I think our view on margin potential, quite frankly, remains exactly the same. We see nice potential with an extended runway on it. We've been capturing a portion of that in 21. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we're expecting to see more of that captured in 22 as well. We're really thinking about the drivers of it. You know, candidly, a lot of it is coming from the top line. We see a lot of opportunity from an outsized rate growth perspective for an extended runway. Think of everything that Brian's talking about from a strength of demand standpoint. That will contribute nicely. We see nice potential from ongoing fee and ancillary income programs. For 2022, that will be contributing, you know, caught about 20 basis points or so to same-store revenues. You know, for this year in particular, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, We're expecting to see gradual return to normal on bad debt. That will contribute back into margins as well. And then longer term, the investments that we're making now from a technology standpoint, everything Brian just walked through, will help us to become more and more efficient on the expense side, especially as the portfolio continues to grow and leverage those costs over a larger asset base also contributing to margins.

Thank you. Thanks, Josh.

Our next question is from Richard Hill of Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning. You have Adam Kramer on for Rich. Well, congrats on a good quarter and really strong guide here relative to kind of Morgan Stanley estimates. I wanted to just ask for a little bit more color, if you could, on kind of the 12-2 new lease rate growth in the quarter kind of versus that 15-9, you know, in 3Q and then kind of in line with or in light of kind of what you disclosed for January. Maybe just talk a little bit about kind of, you know, how much kind of you can push new lease rate growth kind of given where occupancy is. I think just a little bit more color there would be really helpful.

Yeah, thanks, Adam. This is Brian. We're looking, just to kind of step back for a second and just remind you of our revenue optimization strategy, we're looking at all the different components. New lease rate growth is one of them. Occupancy, obviously, is another. And when we got into the fourth quarter, we saw a little bit of seasonality like we have traditionally. The difference now is all of the seasons are good, but there is a difference that we saw coming into the fourth quarter, a little bit of a slowdown off the 15.9%. The other thing to consider, too, is look at the fantastic rate growth that we had in 2021, 13% new lease growth for the year. And then think forward to this year. And we're in a position now where because of that fantastic growth last year, we're not assuming that we're going to have 15% over 15%. What we're talking about now is still really strong growth that's made possible by this fantastic demand backdrop that we spoke of. But I don't see 12% as being anything other than positive.

And Adam, this is Chris. If I could just punctuate one point that Brian made, which is a really good one in terms of the holistic approach that we take to revenue optimization. The discussion around rate growth is a good one and very important, but that's only one variable. And we manage all the variables to what translates into the best outcome overall for the revenue line. And I would just remind you and everyone of what I and all of us mentioned in our prepared remarks. When you look at holistically the decisions that we're making to the top line, we're expecting to accelerate revenue growth by nearly 100 basis points off of what was already a really, really strong year in 2021.

That's really helpful. Thank you, guys, for that color. An interesting kind of similar question, kind of shifting to renewals. Are you able to give any further disclosure on whether it's February renewals or the renewals you're sending out for March or April?

Yeah. In our prepared remarks, I talked about the January results. February is not done yet. But again, what I was talking about before, you've seen six quarters of consecutive renewal rate growth acceleration, and we expect that to continue with through the first quarter and even into the second quarter of 22.

Yeah, congrats again on the great results, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Adam.

Our next question is from Brian Spim of Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, thank you. Chris, you talked about capital allocation a bit and the recent equity raise as well as the forward component. But could you talk a bit about the debt market and any appetite there to issue debt near term to keep that leverage ratio where it is now around that 6-2 that you talked about?

Yep. Morning. Great question. Appreciate that. The simple answer is yes. There's definitely debt needs as we think about capital plan for full year 2022. And just to walk through the components just so everyone has all of them. You're exactly right. For our capital plan of a total of $2.1 billion for this year, the equity component has been raised. That was at $864 million from the first quarter, a little over half of which was placed on a forward. So we can be very efficient with those proceeds and draw them down over the course of the year, matching that funding against the deployment into our investment programs. And then the balance of this year will come from a combination of retained cash flow and somewhere in the $250 to $300 million range, and that's even after our 80% increase to the distribution this year. You can find this on the balance sheet. We're coming into the year with about $50 million of cash on the balance sheet for this year. We'll probably recycle about another $100 million of proceeds from our disposition program that will be reinvested. And then the balance for this year will come from leverage capacity off of the balance sheet, which would be in the $800 million area or so that no different than the past couple of years will look to fund into the unsecured bond market over the course of the year.

Got it. And you've got a couple of preferreds that are callable this year. Could you maybe talk about your plans there? And does guidance currently assume any redemption of those?

Yes, it does. Great question. And I mentioned that in my prepared remarks as well. But the components of that $2.1 billion of total capital uses on the year is $1.8 billion of growth and then just about $300 million, the actual dollar amounts to $270 million of preferred redemptions where we've got a great opportunity there to refinance those which become due or callable in April and July. And just as a reminder, coupons on those are 5 and 7 eighths. which create a nice and attractive refinancing opportunity relative to current cost of capital, and that's included in our guidance and capital plan.

Great. Okay. Thanks for the clarity there.

Thanks, Brian.

Our next question is from Handel St. Juice of Mizuho. Please proceed with your question.

Hey. Good morning out there. Chris, appreciate the detail on sources and uses and how you're thinking about capital this year. I guess I'm curious, what's the capacity or equity left in your existing JVs and what's your view on using JVs versus on balance sheet here as you grow the development platform and pursue acquisitions?

Good question, Handel. Good morning, by the way. The way to think about it is that the JVs still have a decent amount of runway to them between, as a reminder, we have two of them both focused on internally AMH developed properties. Between the two, they're about just a little bit under 50% deployed or developed on their individual pipelines combined. So there's still some runway there. Development will likely take another year or two before those are fully deployed. In terms of broader joint venture considerations from an overall capital perspective, look, no different than some of my comments from past quarters, we've got two great joint venture partners that we're really proud to partner with. that have brought in great capital for us, enabling us to leverage the program even further. Longer term, we'll be providing some really interesting economic upsides, especially as we get into promoted interest earning periods and whatnot. But the other great value of them is, as we know, there's a lot of volatility to the public markets at large. We're seeing it right now, obviously, from a geopolitical standpoint. And having access to really high-quality, long-term forms of capital in the form of our JVs. I think it's very comforting and valuable from a longer-term perspective. As it stands right now, no different than we've shared the last couple of quarters, as we're thinking about incremental capital dollars, our objective and plan is to use the balance sheet and deploy AMH capital from the balance sheet on a wholly-owned basis.

Great. Thank you for that. Quick follow-up, I guess, on the development side, maybe for Jack. Can you talk more about the cost of inflation you're seeing in the development pipeline. I think you've mentioned, was it last quarter, that there is some degradation in development yields down the road. I think it was in 23, but curious if the timing or view there has changed at all. Are you still expecting rents to outpace costs near term and any incremental pressure on this yield? And then maybe how much of this year's development costs are locked in at this point? Thanks.

Thanks for that question, Handel. In terms of inflation, we've seen things spike and then come down. Lumber is a good example. Lumber got up to $1,200 per thousand linear board feet in the third quarter, came down to $650 in the fourth, and now is back up at $1,200, I think mostly related to the Canadian trucker. And we expect, at least the expectations of the experts are that it will come back down into the $600 range. So we're going to see fluctuations throughout the year. We haven't seen a degradation in yields due primarily to the demand out there for the new product and the accelerated rent that we have over what we proform it.

Our next question is from Jade Rahami of KBW.

Please proceed with your question.

Yes, thank you very much. Could you provide an update on 4 collections?

Oh, sure. Morning, Jay. Chris here. Yeah, I would say in general, I mentioned this a bit in my prepared remarks, we continue to see improvements overall from a collections perspective that you can see reflected in our bad debt. Just as a refresher for folks, you know, high watermark for us at the peak of the pandemic was bad debt kind of into the mid twos area. And we've started seeing improvement in that into the third quarter, third quarter improved into the one point six percent area or so fourth quarter came down to 1.3 percent uh and we see that trend line continuing into 2022 uh with a gradual return back to normal levels over the course of the year as a reminder for us you know regular way uh you know pre-pandemic bad debt is one percent you know sometimes a little bit less of revenues okay thanks very much uh just secondly on land

Have you looked at how your land underwriting compares with that of home builders? Specifically, are you underwriting land with a developer's cost of capital in mind, or are you underwriting to a single-family rental stabilized cap rate? Because that could potentially imply significant differences in the value of land to you versus to a developer, which could cause

differences in you know the way real estate assets are valued so curious if you could provide some color on that land underwriting thanks jade for that question uh we actually look at it both ways we our primary way that we look at it is is uh yield um of the property and uh and then secondarily we look at just to validate where we are what What the implied developer profit would be if we were building for building for sale, so I think we're right in line with where the national builders are in terms of. In terms of what they're underwriting for their profit. Hey, Jay, this is Dave. Let me add just a couple of things. You bring up that there is differences between us and national home builders, and I totally agree with that. And it's in a number of different areas. Our risk profile is very different than a national home builder. We don't have the market risk that a national home builder will have at the time the product is complete. We also have the ability to develop in a different way. We deliver to a cadence that we want to absorb homes. And lastly, the fact that we are building homes for ourselves and we're not building homes for sale where there is an owner that is going to make selections late in the development timeline or lifecycle. James Rattling Leafs- allows us a very, very different ability to manage the supply chain and I go jack mentioned this, I just want to reiterate it, I mean we started 2022 or 2021. James Rattling Leafs- With an expectation of delivering 2050 homes, we ended up delivering 2054 homes in a very difficult supply chain environment. And that's just a testament to, one, the team, but also the fact that we do have a different product that we build.

Thank you. And just the last clarification would be, in your underwriting, since you're paying today's prices for land, are you underwriting these deals based on in-place rents, or are you underwriting some inflation in the rents?

Yeah, we... start with today's rents and then we inflate the rents through the first delivery and then we don't inflate after that and we inflate the operating costs as well. So far we've been doing better on the rate than what we projected even with inflating it and the costs are coming in about where we expected Thank you very much.

Thanks, Jade.

Our next question is from John Pawlowski of Green Street. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks very much for the time. So you're about 10 years from acquiring homes. Just curious, Brian, for homes that you have a very long vintage curve on CapEx, how much higher is the CapEx burden as a percentage of rents or percentage of NOI? You can pick a metric, but how much higher is the CapEx burden versus the kind of portfolio average on those long-held homes?

Thanks, John. I don't have exact details on that, but what I can tell you, rather than the age, what's really important is what level of renovation went into these homes and at what time. So the older homes that were completely renovated might have a different profile than ones that we bought more recently that didn't have such a high level of renovation because they were in good shape. I don't have a breakdown. Obviously, age in terms of roofs and other mechanicals plays an effect on the CapEx expense. But we've been continually investing in our homes throughout the entire ownership cycle and have made replacements where necessary. So the average age of those homes, even though we've owned them for 10 years, might be very different.

Okay, last one for me, just curious if you can give us some type of quantification for the knock on benefits of the build for rent communities on the margins of the stabilized basis, stabilized portfolio. So you're in a lot of markets and you're dumping a lot of homes into each market and it's a meaningful expansion of the footprint within like a Vegas and Phoenix. So just curious what kind of knock on benefits you have on margins for your scattered site homes would be helpful.

Yeah, thanks for that question. We have a couple of benefits. One is that obviously the maintenance costs on a brand new home is going to be lower. Our underwriting in general will range based on where we're building because property taxes is a big factor in determining the margin. But in general, we're running in the mid 70s for for margin on the new build. John, just to basically tie the two questions that you had together. When we build homes, we have the ability to build them with long-term maintenance in mind. And so you're going to hear that we put in higher quality plumbing fixtures. We build the house slightly different. We put in hard surface flooring. All of that with maintenance, long-term maintenance in mind. And so the benefit of getting us from the 60s into the 70s in the margin on these new homes is intentionally through the design of the homes. And so there's a lot of benefits. When you can build the home yourself and you manage the home, you have that feedback loop. And I think we're the only ones that really can say that we have that feedback loop.

Sorry, I should have been more clear on my question. So take a Las Vegas or a Phoenix. I mean, you're going to have 1,000 lots to deliver in Vegas or last year, and once you deliver those lots, you're going to basically double your Vegas portfolio. So what I was asking is what's the knock-on benefit to the prior scattered site legacy Las Vegas portfolio in terms of margins?

Yeah, as we add to these portfolios, we have excellent operational infrastructure in place. We're going to be adding for field maintenance staff. Proportionally, there's not a lot of benefits to scale there. But there are benefits to scale at the centralized operations, leasing, the way that we're making our maintenance intake, and all the things that we're doing operationally at the headquarters in Las Vegas, not to mention the benefits overall to scale for corporate expenses, too.

The benefits of scale are really system-wide. So it's not necessarily market by market. It's just adding to your overall portfolio. But you still have to have X number of maintenance personnel for a given house. So in a particular market, there is a little bit of benefit, but it's really to the system.

Our next question is from Chandni Luthra of Goldman Sachs.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning, guys. Good afternoon, everyone, wherever you are. Thank you for taking my question. So on the 3Q call, you guys talked about looking into the Zillow portfolio, evaluating it. Could you perhaps give us more color in terms of what you found out and where you are with that. What are your thoughts, not just from a portfolio standpoint, but also from an employee-based standpoint?

Yeah. With respect to Zillow, as we indicated on our prior earnings call, we were in discussions with them, and we remain in discussions with them today. The number of homes that we've actually or will actually acquire is far less than the number of homes that we had an interest in. And while that process is still going on, we will not get a material number of homes out of it. Where the real benefit has been is we've been able to acquire or hire some of their personnel, their field personnel. And that's a big benefit in a tight labor market when we are trying to grow our operations. So we talked about labor a little bit earlier and the need to focus on labor in a tight market. And we've been able to hire people, and that's going to allow us to continue to grow, both in the renovation process when we acquire through the MLS, as well as in our everyday ongoing maintenance program.

And, and, you know, just to follow up on that. So what sort of changed, I mean, was it in terms of valuation or was it in terms of, you know, portfolio overlap and kind of, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the geographic placement of this homes or, you know, strategically, they were not fit, say from a CapEx needs standpoint, uh, what changed?

Well, nothing really changed what it is. It's a competitive environment. And we made bids at prices that we found, we believe, were very, very aggressive in light of our opportunities in other places. And a number of those homes went to other parties that are bidding at cap rates that are far below where we would be buying homes. And so it's not a change of strategy. We would love to have a lot of those homes. It's not a change of view on markets. It comes down to the competitive market that we operate in and pricing and the desire to take yields that are below our desired yield levels.

Gotcha. And, you know, speaking of the competitive market, so obviously, you know, the level of capital that's flowing into built-to-rent has been at massively elevated levels, right? So what are you seeing? Has anything tangible come on the ground yet? You know, obviously, supply chain affects everybody. How do you think about that dynamic developing trend? Are there, you know, portfolios coming around in your markets? Anything that you're seeing on the ground, it would be helpful for us to get some color on that.

Yeah, I think there's a number of, you know, things to unpack in that question. First of all, there is talk about a lot of capital chasing single-family rentals, specifically build-to-rent. And that's... I think that's just a validation of a concept that we started many years ago and how successful it's been. But keep in mind the amount of capital that is chasing it. If you break that down into the number of homes and you look at what that is as a percentage of existing single-family rentals, or another way to look at it is as a percentage of the shortfall in housing in the United States. that a number of different parties, it's anywhere from 4 to 8 million is the surveys that we see. It's a very, very small percentage. We're talking less than 1% of single family rentals, less than maybe 2, maybe 2.5% of the other side, of the shortage. But this is where our program of having three different ways that we can acquire homes, whether it is from the traditional acquisitions whether it's from national home builders, which is kind of a build-to-rent strategy, but with retail pricing attached to it, or it's our own building program. We have the ability to grow in every economic cycle as a result of having multiple channels to grow in. And the most consistent, the most predictable growth, which gives us the ability to have the stable growth growth in FFO that we have seen over the last three years is to have your own development program, especially a development program that has got a foundation of the amount of land that we have in inventory today. So we've spent a lot of effort over the last couple of years ensuring that foundation, and we're in a great place for the next three, four years, or even past that. And I would add one other advantage that we have is our diversified footprint. It allows us to, if one market is priced too high, we can still grow in the other 29 markets.

Our next question is from Sam Cho of Credit Suisse.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi, guys. Congrats on the great quarter. Just wanted to start with your non-stabilized properties. I'm just looking at the average occupied days of 80%. I think a year ago, you had 90%. Not saying it is low, but I just wanted to make sure that I'm reading this correctly. Is it because... You've been active with your acquisition volume that led to that decline as opposed to there being any changes in turn times leading up to your new property ads.

Sam, it's Chris. Great question. No, you hit it right on the head. It's a function of the ramp in the acquisition pace that we've seen. And keep in mind that we've been growing and ramping that acquisition volume over the course of 2021, adding far more properties in the back part of the year than the first part of the year. And so with that, you're going to see that flow through, you know, I would think of it from a total portfolio occupancy standpoint, really. And as those properties come online, work their way through the renovation process, and then get leased, they'll flow through, obviously, you know, the other categories stabilized and ultimately same home. And then from a turn time perspective, I guess Brian didn't comment on this yet, but generally speaking, on a year-over-year basis, we saw continued really strong and quick turn times in the fourth quarter, pretty similar with a year ago as well.

Got it. And with regards to the turnover rate, what have you guys assumed for the low and high end of guidance?

Generally speaking, we're expecting turnover to continue in the similar area that it's in right now. We've seen great improvements there for many, many quarters, actually years at this point. I'm sure you noticed that for full year 2021, we're now sub 30% on full year turnover rate, which implies a greater than three year length of stay there. So our general view is that we'll be in that area, recognize, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks and as contemplated in guidance, we are expecting to see, you know, some continued level of remaining COVID move outs that we're contemplating in occupancy and on the expense side as we progress throughout the year. But underlying turnover trends in the portfolio are continuing to remain really, really strong.

Got it. Thanks so much, Chris, for the color.

Thanks, Sam.

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

Hey, everyone. Thanks. As a follow up to the Zillow question earlier, what yields are you currently underwriting and then what are the implied yields that you're seeing from the more aggressive buyers?

Yeah, this is Jack. Thanks for that question. I'll tell you what we acquired at In the fourth quarter, we were on average in the 4.75 to 4.8 range. It's hard to tell what, I don't know exactly what they're accepting on the other side, but they're acquiring at probably below 4.5 and sometimes in the very low fourths. Yeah, this is Dave. With respect to the Zillow, we were more aggressive than normal. And again, as we talked about earlier, we found that the competitive bidding was even more aggressive than where we were. So we were more aggressive than our typical bids. So we were down in that mid to lower four range because of the assembled nature of that portfolio and still. It was a very competitive bid.

Okay, got it. Thanks for that. And then, Chris, I know you don't normally guide to this, but can you give any perspective on, you know, what the G&A number is that's included for 22? Oh, sure.

And you can get to it a little bit through the FFO bridge in the back of the supplemental slide. But generally speaking, you know, we're expecting to likely see a full year G&A increase and call it the 10% area or so, really reflecting two components, an inflationary piece that, you know, plus or minus call it the 7% area. And then this year, very importantly, we are planning to make some continued investments into a number of strategic areas, our technology platform. you know, supporting a lot of the great stuff that Brian's talking about and really preparing ourselves for more and more growth over time, investing into areas like our ESG efforts, government affairs, et cetera, just to name a few.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Brad.

Our next question is from Austin Werschmitt of KeyBank. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, great. Thanks, everyone. Should we read, Dave, should we read through from your Zillow comments there that it sounds like, you know, you'd be willing to pursue kind of the larger scale opportunities in that low 4% range versus just sticking with, you know, what you're achieving for yields on development and one-off acquisition opportunities?

Yeah, I think we have to be careful on how we interpret that. Assemble portfolios And the intangibles that come with an assembled portfolio are very different than acquiring homes one by one. And so at the end of the day, first and foremost, our primary way to grow is going to be development. And there's going to be a very limited number of assembled portfolios that you're going to have an opportunity to acquire. They're a little bit different. In addition to assembled portfolios, you also would be acquiring personnel and other things. We have been successful in acquiring personnel, but the character of an assembled portfolio is different than just acquiring homes one-off. And so where Jack indicated we are in acquiring through our traditional acquisition systems is where we are comfortable and where we'd like to keep that. And the fact that we have three prongs, we want to lean on our in-house developments, the best economics. So all these channels, bulk acquisitions are a little bit different than the other acquisitions, and they're all unique.

That's helpful. Thanks. And then in the prepared remarks, I think it was Jack that referenced several impacts to the timing and development deliveries. Um, so first I'm just curious, you know, how much cautiousness is embedded in your, you know, expected delivery pace this year versus maybe six to 12 months ago. And, um, you know, certainly recognize that it's, you know, up year over year. Um, but just relative to what you may have thought it would be at this point, um, in 2022 and any impact to the plan to achieve that 3000 plus home delivery target in 2023.

Thanks for that question. And before I get into that, I'd give a shout out to our development team for hitting the midpoint of our guidance this year in a very, very difficult supply chain market. But when it comes to predicting the next year's deliveries, it obviously becomes easier the closer you get to the next year. And one of the main drivers of that is opening up communities. Because when we open up a community, we know the cadence that we want to deliver at for good absorption, and then we can predict that out. What happened late in 2021, we started noticing it became more and more difficult to get inspectors from the various governmental entities to come out and clear, even though we were done with our horizontal development, to come out and clear us to start building houses. So we're kind of predicting a little more of that in 2022. If it doesn't happen, that'll pave the way for 2023. an increase in, a significant increase in 2023 deliveries, but we're not there yet, so I'm not right now prepared to give what we're going to deliver in 2023. Austin, it's Dave. The supply chain has been challenging, no doubt, but it was challenging in 2021, and our I mean, we've got individuals that manage our purchasing and supply chain that have done this for years and years. And as I indicated earlier, we have a kind of a unique program that we can order very early in the development process because we don't have to wait for owner decisions. But as Jack indicated, really the difference was is not in the supply chain, but in getting inspectors out on the land improvements. And If you go back one year ago today and asked us where we think we would be in 2022, it'd probably be about 10% higher. And it's not because we're not going to be able to build at the right cadence in 2022. It's the fact that the land getting it inspected and signed off so we can start that process has been delayed. And that, I would say, is truly a COVID impact. These city halls have been slowed down. as a result of COVID. And so I see it being temporary. And once that rights itself, I think we're still on track for all of the guidance that we've previously given.

Our next question is from Keegan Carl of Barenburg.

Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions. And I don't mean to harp on deliveries, but just one more point here kind of on the development side of things. I mean, how should we think about the cadence this year? I know in years past you've said that you kind of want to time out peak leasing season, but have you kind of felt any impact at all on the supply chain side of things? So maybe, you know, kind of push this, you know, for the second half of the year?

Thanks for the question. It's a fairly even cadence, particularly for the – delivery of the homes into the wholly owned REIT, maybe slightly towards the end of the year, but not significantly. So I would say a fairly even cadence.

Got it. Just for a follow-up then, do you guys have any color on the ?

Yeah. This is Dave. You know, that is a strategic investment for us, a strategic alliance or partnership. It's not a very large investment, but what it does is it gives us access to a number of prop tech companies, ESG-related companies that impact the single-family rental industry. Things such as pet screening, pet insurance, pet... solar programs that are unique to things that we want to co-develop with different partners. So it's basically a strategic alliance more than an economic investment. The investment's very small. It's $5 to $10 million. It's more putting us into a kind of a, well, a true strategic partnership is what it really is.

Our next question is from Anthony Powell of Barclays.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. One of your peers did an investment in a lease-to-own, I guess, platform. Is that something that you would consider expanding in that segment?

You know, that investment is kind of an investment also into third-party. It's a program into... providing additional housing into the marketplace for working families. And we are already in that program through our development program, and we are building communities. We've opened over 100 communities to date, and the housing is designed for working families. You probably noticed we're the 45th largest home builder. I think that will grow. And it's all designed to provide the type of product that others are looking for. Basically, the option to acquire homes. We have that program when we look to dispose of homes, but it's going to be our option. If we were looking to dispose of homes in our portfolio, then we look at who the occupants are. We also... look at the marketplace if the occupant's not interested in acquiring it. But it's going to be at our option. Just because somebody wants to own the home they're renting, no, we don't option that today. And that's a program that some of our peers are doing as well. And we just haven't branded it or really talked about it.

Thanks. And maybe one more on cap rates. It sounds like it's still a pretty competitive environment. Have you seen any, I guess, expansion of cap rates given the overall interest rate environment, or are they still kind of compressed here?

Yeah, what I've seen is they're still pretty compressed. If you look at HPA, last year was close to 20% nationally and probably a little higher in our markets, which are generally higher growth markets. So you're seeing high HPA, good rental growth, but the cap rates are pretty compressed. And I don't see any, I mean, I'm not expecting 20% in 2022, but I could see close to double digits coming up in 2022. Where we want to be is where all the people are moving to, where the employment is better. and where there is not enough housing. And that makes a very, very competitive marketplace. It's very good for the long-term health of our rental portfolio, but it continues to be a very competitive marketplace.

All right. Thank you.

Our next question is from Rich Hightower of Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in here. So this topic came up on a competitor's call last week, and I certainly don't expect you to comment on that situation specifically. But it is a question about permitting for renovation work. And I just want to know, it's kind of a basic question, but walk us through AMH's process for how that works, average time to retain permits, how do you ensure that everything's done properly? whether it's with your own vendors or outsourced or what have you. Walk us through that process and explain how it works, if you don't mind. Yeah.

Hi, Rich. It's Dave. And I'll start with, as you indicated, I really can't talk about other companies. I really don't know other than what I've read and probably you have read. With respect to us, what I consider... What I can do is I'll walk you through how our internal process works when we rehab homes. And first of all, that process is overseen from end to end by our own personnel. But that process starts not when we start renovating the homes. It starts in the vendor selection and onboarding process. During that process, we verify that all of our general contractors are properly licensed and have insurance, et cetera. And why that's important is is because most of all the renovation work that we do is done with third-party general contractors. And our standard contractual terms and conditions, and keep in mind that the GC also in their licensing requirements has obligations that require them to obtain permits on all the work that requires permits. I also would be mindful of the fact that permitting requirements are very, very different from one jurisdiction to another. But the other general comment, when you think of the work that we primarily do in renovation, it's going to be cosmetic. It's going to be painting. It's going to be flooring. And those don't generally require permits. I'd also add, I guess, one other thing. It's not necessarily... on the process. But we consider the regulatory environment in many ways. And we've talked about trying to be a company that does the right thing. We've talked about the fact that we've actually been called out in hearings about doing the right thing. But when we consider the regulatory environment, it starts when we look at what markets we want to go into. and in our market selection. Not all markets are equal. And when we're talking markets, sometimes it's states, sometimes it's very local jurisdictions. And we've avoided certain markets with significant regulatory headwinds. In fact, as we have discussed many times, the regulatory environment was one consideration that we had in our decision to exit California. And so to date, that's Well, that's the process of how we do it, and we don't have any knowledge of any place that we have an issue to date. It's a very manual process, but that's the process, Rich.

And maybe, thanks, Dave, and one quick follow-up, if you'll indulge me here. As far as the process generally being outsourced to non-AMH individuals, general contractors, is there an internal AMH team or group of employees who does, you know, does make sure that all the I's are dotted, the T's are crossed and so forth as far as what the GCs are supposed to be doing per the documentation between, you know, your company and theirs. But, you know, is there someone internally that checks that process every step of the way to make sure that everything is as it should be in the way you're describing?

Yeah, well, there's two pieces to that, Rich. One is in the field, we have a dedicated team that are the individuals that oversee all the renovations, and they are market by market. On a prior question, we talked about Zillow, and we talked about one of the benefits of Zillow is being able to supplement that team. They're the ones that have the day-to-day touch points with the general contractor, but behind them sits another group. And that's a group, uh, in our centralized office, uh, of a group of paralegals. And they're involved in many aspects of the real estate life cycle, um, from reviewing contracts of acquisitions to reviewing contracts, uh, with general contractors. Um, they're involved not only in the real estate contracting, but all contracting, whether it's it, et cetera. And so there's multiple touch points in that process.

Okay. And would you say AMH is sort of best in class in this regard, or would you say that the process you've just described is sort of generally what you see your competitors doing in the marketplace? Can you comment on that at all? And I'll stop at that.

Rich, I don't even know how to comment on that because I don't really know how the others do it. I'm not inside their shop. I know what we do. But it would be very, I mean, I don't know how to comment on that.

Okay. Appreciate the answer. Thank you very much. Yep.

Our next question is from Nicholas Joseph of Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for keeping it going. Just one quick question on traffic. Obviously occupancy is high, but internal is low. But as you look at leads or traffic currently, how does it compare to 2021 and then historical levels?

Thanks, Nick. This is Brian. As I said in my prepared remarks, measuring traffic by distinct choppers checking into rent-ready homes, that was up 60% year over year. The demand has just been fantastic. It continues to accelerate. There's a couple of notable points. We've talked in the past about interstate migration and the effect that people moving out of California and out of the East Coast into our markets had on demand. And there's been discussions about the consistency and trajectory of that. That's continued to be strong. In fact, even accelerating Q4 over Q4. If you look at the applications that we're getting out of people moving from California on a Q4 21 over Q4 20 basis, it's up almost 40%. Taking a look at the other side, applications from New York and New Jersey are up over 33%. And then I think a really key factor, if you look at the portfolio overall in these migratory patterns, is that our applications of people coming from non-AMH states into the portfolio was up over 12% in Q4 over Q4. Thank you. Thanks, Dick.

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you to all of you for your time today. As I indicated previously, we're really excited about our strong performance in 2021, but we are even more excited about the foundation we have built and the prospects for strong operational and growth performance in 2022, as well as all future years. Talk again with all of you next quarter. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.