Camden Property Trust

Good morning and thank you and welcome to the Camden Property Trust Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded I would now like to turn the conference over to Kim Callahan. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Camden's third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to advise everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and beliefs. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Further information about these risks can be found in our filings with the SEC, and we encourage you to review them. Any forward-looking statements made on today's call represent management's current opinions, and the company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements because of subsequent events. As a reminder, Camden's complete third quarter 2020 earnings release is available in the investor section of our website at camdenliving.com, and it includes reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures, which will be discussed on the call. Joining me today are Rick Campo, Camden's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Keith Oden, Executive Vice Chairman, and Alex Jessup, Chief Financial Officer. We will attempt to complete our call within one hour, as we know another multifamily company is holding their call right after us. We already have 15 analysts in the queue right now, so please limit your questions to two. If we are unable to speak with everyone in the queue today, we'd be happy to respond to additional questions by phone or email after the call concludes. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Rick Campo.

Thanks, Kim. Our on-hold music today was a tribute to Team Camden. We wanted to celebrate the incredible results of our on-site team supported by our regional and corporate staff that they have achieved throughout the COVID storm. Despite all the turmoil, Team Camden never stopped taking care of business. That's what you can expect from a team of all-stars. Instead of 1,000-yard stare, Team Camden showed up every day with the eye of the tiger, reminding us of what we know is true, you're simply the best. So this evening, we will join you in spirit as you all raise your glass to celebrate your remarkable performance. Cheers. Our performance for the third quarter was driven by our team but was also aided by our Camden brand equity, and our capital allocation and market selection. We've always believed that geographic and product diversification would lower the volatility of our earnings. We are in markets that are pro-business, have an educated workforce, low cost of housing, and high quality of life scores. These attributes drive population and employment growth, which drives housing demand. The only exception to this market generalization for us is Southern California. Compared to most other parts of California, however, Our properties are in the most business-friendly cities and areas in the state. Our markets have lost fewer high-paying jobs than other markets in the U.S. As a matter of fact, it's 5% losses for Camden markets versus 15% for the U.S. Overall, year-over-year employment losses through September have been less in our markets. Job losses in most of our markets have been in the range of down 2.5% to down 5%. the best being Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa, Atlanta, and Houston. Toughest markets have been Orlando, Los Angeles, and Orange County with job losses between 9.5% and 9.7%. Another key employment trend or other key employment trends that are supporting our residents' ability to stay in their apartments and pay rent is that When you think about the job losses that we lost at the beginning of the pandemic, there were 22 million jobs lost. 11 million have been added back. Of the jobs that have not been added back, 5.8 million are low-income workers making less than $46,000 a year. And another group, 4.1 million folks have not been added back that make between $46,000 and $71,000 a year. So the lion's share of the 11 million jobs that have not been added back are really not our residents. They're lower-income workers that do not live at Camden. Most of our residents have higher income than that, and it's unfortunate that we have that many job losses, and we obviously need to add those jobs back as soon as possible, but they aren't negatively impacting Camden's resident base anymore. Again, I want to thank our Team Camden for delivering living excellence to all of our residents, and I'll turn the call over to Keith Oden, our Executive Vice Chairman.