Camden Property Trust

What lies ahead I have no way of knowing. But under my feet, baby, grass is growing.

It's time to move on. It's time to get going. Good morning, and welcome to Camden Property Trust's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I'm Kim Callahan, senior vice president of investor relations. Joining me today are Rick Campo, Camden's chairman and chief executive officer, Keith Oden, executive vice chairman, and Alex Jessett, president and chief financial officer. Today's event is being webcast through the investor section of our website at CamdenLiving.com, and a replay will be available shortly after the call ends. And please note, this event is being recorded. 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 fourth quarter 2024 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 this call. We would like to respect everyone's time and complete our call within one hour, so please limit your initial question to one, then rejoin the queue if you have a follow-up question or additional items to discuss. 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. Good morning. The theme of our on hold music this quarter is, "'It's Time to Move On.'" The late, great Tom Petty captured the current sentiment of Team Camden in this verse. "'It's Time to Move On,' it's time to get going, what lies ahead, I have no way of knowing, but under my feet, baby, grass is growing. It's time to move on, it's time to get going.'" After a few years of waiting somewhat impatiently for better investment opportunities in our markets, we believe 2025 is the year for Camden to move on. In 2024, we saw multifamily deliveries reach a peak level not seen in over 40 years. We expect new supply pressure to lessen throughout 2025, setting the stage for a return to improve revenue and net operating income growth. As the headwinds in recent years turn into tailwinds in 2025 and beyond, there are attractive opportunities for us to continue to develop at starts and to pursue acquisitions. The positive market backdrop positions Camden to begin executing our 2025 strategic plan. The plan follows a similar playbook that we executed after the great financial crisis, where we acquired 2.7 billion in apartments with an average age of four years, developed 4.2 billion of apartments and sold 3.8 billion of apartments with an average age of 24 years. Recycling capital in this way keeps our portfolio competitive, lowers capital expenses and accelerates our return on invested capital driving long-term core FFO growth. It's time to move on, it's time to get going. I want to give a big shout out to Team Camden for their outstanding performance in 2024, exceeding our operating budgets by a wide margin despite record supply. Team Camden works smart, implementing new technologies that continue to improve customer experiences and reduce costs. Occupancy and rents in most Sunbelt markets have likely bottomed. Resident retention and customer sentiment remains high. The premium to own versus rent continues to be at historic levels, making apartment homes a more affordable and attractive option for consumers. Wage growth has outpaced rent growth for the past couple of years, strengthening our residents' financial prospects and improving rent to income ratios. Population growth to our Sunbelt markets continues to outpace the nation. Texas and Florida added over a million new residents in 2024, which was nearly one third of the nation's population growth. Each new family needed a place to call home. Texas and Florida are projected again to lead the nation's population growth over the next five years. The states in which Camden operates capture .3% of the US population growth. This long-term mega trend continues to produce outsize housing demand in our markets. We know it's time to get going, but we will not move on from Camden's why, which as many of you know is to improve the lives of our teammates, our customers, and our stakeholders one experience at a time. Keith Oden is up next.

Thanks, Rick. Camden's same property revenue growth was .3% in 2024, with most of our markets achieving results within 100 basis points of their original budgets. San Diego, Inland Empire, and Washington DC Metro both outperformed our expectations, while Austin and Nashville came in slightly below budget. For 2025, we anticipate same property revenue growth of 1% within the majority of our markets, falling between zero and 2%. Our top five markets should see revenue growth in the range of two to two and a half percent, and these markets account for over 40% of our budgeted revenue. Several of these markets were top performers last year, including Southern California, Washington DC Metro, and Houston, and we expect Tampa to join them as one of our top markets this year. Our next eight markets are budgeted for revenue growth between zero and 1%, and they comprise over half of our 2025 budgeted revenue. These markets include Denver, Atlanta, Phoenix, Raleigh, Orlando, Southeast Florida, Dallas, and Charlotte. In our last two markets, Nashville and Austin, which represent 6% of Camden's revenues, these markets were down roughly 3% on revenues last year and are expected to remain challenged this year, given the continued levels of new supply coming online. We expect them to decline another zero to 3% this year, but we're cautiously optimistic that they will end 2025 at a better position than where they started. As many of you know, we have a tradition of assigning letter grades to forecast conditions in our markets at the beginning of each year and ranking our markets in order of their expected performance during 2025. We currently grade our overall portfolio as a B with a stable outlook, slightly better than our B rating with a moderating outlook last year. Our full report card is included as part of our earnings call slide deck, which is incorporated into this webcast and available on our website. The overall economy remains healthy and we expect our Sunbelt-focused market footprint will allow us to outperform the U.S. outlook. We expect to see continued in-migration into our markets and strong demand for apartment homes, given the relative unaffordability of buying a single-family home. We reviewed supply forecasts from several third-party data providers and their projections ranged from 160,000 to 230,000 completions across our 15 markets over the course of 2025, compared with 230 to 280,000 apartments delivered in 2024. Despite the wide range of estimates, the unanimous conclusion from each firm was that supply in our markets peaked during 2024 and will be declining as we move through 2025, setting up 2026 to be a below average year for new supply. As a reminder, these supply estimates are totals for each of the MSAs, and not all of this new product will be competitive with our existing portfolio, given various sub-market locations and price points. As I mentioned earlier, we expect revenue growth in the range of two to two and a half percent for our top five markets. Four of Camden's markets received a grade of A- with varying outlooks of improving, stable, or moderating. Tampa earns an A- with an improving outlook, and it should be one of our best performers this year, given strong occupancy levels, manageable supply, and a boost in demand that we saw during the fourth quarter of 2024. Our Southern California markets would be next with both LA Orange County and San Diego Inland Empire expected to finish in the top three again, as they did in 2024. Their growth rates are expected to slow a bit during 2025, given slightly higher levels of supply, and less of a tailwind from bad debt declining, thus they received stable to moderating outlooks. Washington DC Metro would also rank as an A- with a moderating outlook. Supply remains in check, particularly in our sub-markets in Northern Virginia and Maryland, and we expect revenue growth to be slightly below the .7% achieved last year. Houston rounds out the top five with a B-plus rating and a stable outlook. Houston ranked number five for revenue growth in 2024, and this year should see more of the same with limited supply and healthy demand. Most of our eight markets received a B-grade with one B-plus and two B-minus ratings, and we're budgeting revenue growth of zero to 1% in all eight. We rate Denver as a B-plus with a moderating outlook and expect their revenue growth to be closer to 1% this year versus .6% last year, given moderating supply, coupled with moderating job growth. Atlanta ranks as a B-performer with an improving outlook, mainly due to the progress we've made in reducing bad debt and fraudulent activity. Phoenix and Raleigh are next, integrated B- with stable outlooks, followed by Orlando and Southeast Florida with Bs, but moderating outlooks. Phoenix, Raleigh, and Orlando should all see slight declines in supply over the course of 2025, but pricing power in those markets will likely be limited for most of this year. Southeast Florida was one of our top performers in 2024, and we expect to see moderation this year from the above average occupancy levels we achieved there last year. Dallas earns a B- with a stable outlook again this year, with minimal revenue growth expected in 2025. While Dallas still ranks as one of the nation's top metros for job growth, in-migration, and quality of life, the market is still working through much of the new supply that was delivered over the past year. And Charlotte is rated B- with a moderating outlook. The aggregate level of new supply coming online in the Charlotte MSA is still elevated this year, and we expect our main competition will continue to fall in the uptown south end sub-market. And finally, Nashville and Austin received the same grades as last year with C and C- respectively. Both markets posted negative revenue growth in 2024, and will likely repeat that in 2025 as new supply continues to pose a challenge. Our outlook for Nashville is improving, particularly outside of the downtown CBD area, while Austin's outlook is stable. Now a few details on our fourth quarter 2024 operating results. Rental rates for the fourth quarter had signed new leases down .7% and renewals up .2% for a blended rate of negative 1.2%. Renewal offers for February through April were sent out at an average increase of 4%. And as expected, move-outs to purchase homes remained very low at .6% for both the fourth quarter 24 and the full year of 2024. I'll now turn the call over to Alex Jessett, Camden's president and chief financial officer.

Thanks, Keith. Before I move on to our financial results and guidance, a brief update on our recent real estate activities. During the fourth quarter of 2024, we completed construction on Camden Durham, a 420 unit, $145 million community located in the Raleigh Durham market of North Carolina, which is now almost 80% leased. In Camden Long Meadow Farms, a 188 unit, $72 million single family rental community located in suburban Houston, which is now almost 55% leased. Additionally, we continued leasing at Camden Woodmill Creek, a 189 unit, $72 million single family rental community also located in suburban Houston. Subsequent to quarter end, we acquired for approximately $68 million Camden Leander, a newly constructed 352 unit suburban Austin community, which is currently 85% occupied. This community was purchased at a stabilized yield of 5%. Turning to financial results, last night we reported core funds from operations for the fourth quarter of 2024 of $190.4 million or $1.73 per share. Three cents ahead of the midpoint of our prior quarterly guidance. This outperformance resulted from half a cent in higher other income and two and a half cents in lower operating expenses driven entirely by lower than anticipated core property insurance claims and lower final tax valuations. For 2024, we delivered same store revenue growth of 1.3%, expense growth of 1.8%, and NOI growth of 1.1%. Our .8% full year expense growth was driven primarily by declines of .2% and .9% on property taxes and insurance respectively. You can refer to page 24 of our fourth quarter supplemental package for details on the key assumptions driving our 2025 financial outlook. One of the key drivers of this year's guidance is an uptick in acquisitions and dispositions with a midpoint of $750 million anticipated for each. Operating a geographically diversified portfolio helps ensure consistent cashflow for our investors. Over the next few years, consistent with past messaging, we will seek greater market balance by reducing our exposure to our two largest markets, DC Metro and Houston, through a combination of select dispositions and growth in our other existing markets with a target of no one market representing more than 10% of our net operating income and no market representing less than 4% of our net operating income by the end of 2027. Additionally, we will dispose of older, more capital intensive assets and redeploy the proceeds into newer, faster growing communities. As we execute this plan, depending upon the location and age of the disposed communities, there may be zero to 100 basis points negative FFO yield differential for these matching transactions, while we expect AFFO yields to be relatively flat. The end result will be a more geographically diverse, newer and faster growing portfolio. We expect our 2025 core FFO per share to be in the range of $6.60 to $6.90 with the midpoint of $6.75 representing a 10 cent per share decrease from our 2024 results. This decrease is anticipated to result primarily from an approximate six cent per share increase in core FFO related to the growth and operating income from our development, non-same store and retail communities resulting primarily from the incremental contribution from our five development communities in lease up during 2024 and or 2025. A one cent per share net increase from the timing of our assumed $750 million of offsetting acquisitions and dispositions. For tax efficiency purposes and to facilitate reverse 1031 exchanges, we are anticipating completing the acquisitions on average two months before their matching disposition. This seven cent cumulative increase in anticipated core FFO per share is offset by a 10 cent per share increase in interest expense attributable to $250 million of higher average anticipated debt balances outstanding in 2025 as compared to 2024 and lower levels of capitalized interest as we complete certain development communities. The higher debt balances result in part from the timing of our acquisition and disposition activity. For 2025, we are anticipating $485 million on average outstanding under our line of credit with an average rate of approximately 4.9%. A four cent per share decrease in interest and other income due to minimal cash balances in 2025 and an approximate three cent per share decrease in core FFO resulting primarily from the combination of higher general and administrative and property management expenses. At the midpoint, we are expecting flat same store net operating income with revenue growth of 1% and expense growth of 3%. Each 1% increase in same store NOI is approximately nine cents per share in core FFO. Our 2025 same store revenue growth midpoint of 1% is based upon a flat earn in at the end of 2024 and an effectively flat loss to lease. We expect a .4% increase in market rental rates from December 31st, 2024 to December 31st, 2025. Recognizing half of this annual market rental rate increase results in a budgeted 70 basis point increase in 2025 net market rents. We are assuming occupancy averages .4% in 2025, a 20 basis point annual improvement and that bad debt averages 70 basis points in 2025, a 10 basis point annual improvement. When combining our 70 basis point increase in net market rents with our 20 basis point increase in occupancy and our 10 basis point decline in bad debt, we are budgeting 2025 rental income growth of 1%. Rental income encompasses approximately 90% of our total rental revenues. The remaining 10% of our property revenues is primarily comprised of utility re-billing and other fees and is anticipated to grow at a similar level as our rental income. Our 2025 same store expense growth midpoint of 3% does not contain any significant category outliers. Page 24 of our supplemental package also details other guidance assumptions, including the plan for up to $675 million of development starts spread throughout the year and approximately $285 million of total 2025 development spend. Non-core FFO adjustments for the year are anticipated to be approximately 10 cents per share and are primarily legal expenses and expense transaction pursuit costs. We expect core FFO per share for the first quarter of 2025 to be within the range of $1.66 to $1.70. The midpoint of $1.68 represents a 5 cent per share decrease from the fourth quarter of 2024, which is primarily the result of an approximate 4 cent per share sequential decline in same store NOI driven by an increase in sequential same store expenses resulting from the timing of quarterly tax refunds, the reset of our annual property tax accrual on January the 1st of each year and other expense increases primarily attributable to typical seasonal trends, including the timing of onsite salary increases and an approximate 1.5 cent per share increase in interest expense from our higher debt balances resulting in part from our actual and anticipated first quarter acquisitions. This 5.5 cent per share cumulative decrease in quarterly sequential core FFO is partially offset by an approximate half cent per share increase in core FFO related to our first quarter acquisition activity. We are anticipating blended lease tradeouts for the first quarter to be relatively flat. At year end, approximately 80% of our debt was fixed rate. We had less than $200 million outstanding on our $1.2 billion credit facility, no maturities over the next 12 months and less than $250 million left to fund under our existing development pipeline. Our balance sheet remains strong with net debt to EBITDA at 3.8 times. At this time, we'll open the call up to questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. And your first question today will come from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks for taking my question. So I was just hoping you could provide some more color on your blend assumptions. Can you talk about what you're thinking in a new and renewal lease growth throughout the year and how do you think it trends, first quarter through fourth quarter?

Sure, absolutely. So the way I would look at it for the full year is we're anticipating somewhere between one to 2% on a blend and if you look at new leases, new leases will be slightly negative for the full year and renewals will probably be in the high 3% range. If I look at how that progresses throughout the year, obviously we are very optimistic about the way 2025 is gonna unfold, in particular with the absorption of a new supply. And so we're anticipating that by the time we get to third quarter, this is when we'll start to see positive new leases and then it will continue from that point on.

Okay, thank you. And your next question today will come from Brad Heffern with RBC Capital Markets, please go ahead.

Yeah, hi morning everyone. Are you seeing signs right now of the impact of supply fading on the ground? And if so, what are those signs?

So we absolutely are.

Go

ahead, go ahead

Alex.

We absolutely are and the largest indicator that we're looking at is the new, signed new lease improvement throughout the fourth quarter and although we are not gonna give quarterly, excuse me, monthly new lease and renewal data, I will tell you that we're very encouraged by what we're seeing so far in January in terms of signed new lease improvements.

And your next question today will come from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks, this is Sanket on for Steve. I had a question around transaction guidance. So after a muted couple of years from transaction market standpoint, it seems like things are opening up and you're guiding to send 50 million of acquisitions and dispositions. Can you help us provide more color on this in terms of the new lease improvements? And what are the types of timing gap rate for the type of buyers and seller pools you're seeing in the market today?

Sure, so when you think about the last couple of years, it's been a very muted sales transaction markets and what's happened primarily is that buyers and sellers have been sort of at odds, right? Sellers want high prices and buyers don't wanna pay high prices and so that's created a standoff between buyers and sellers. So transaction volume has been significantly lower in the last couple of years. But I think what's happened now is that with rates continuing to be higher for longer, it sort of put pressure on the sellers and then also on the buyer side, you have a pretty constructive view of the future. Most people will need supply has peaked for sure in that 2025 is going to be a better year than 2024 from a accelerating growth perspective. And then in 26, 27, you're gonna have some pretty outsized real increases. So what that's allowed buyers to do is to increase their pro forma rent gross and feel pretty competent about that so that they could actually pay maybe a higher price than they've got before because the inflection point of positive, second derivatives on round rates is gonna happen sometime during 2025. So what that's led to then is a sort of a closing of the gap, if you wanna call it that, between the buyers and the sellers. And from our perspective, since we're going to be recycling capital, we're gonna be buying and then as Alex pointed out earlier, we're gonna be selling to fund those acquisitions. And as we did in our last big acquisition slash development disposition cycle, we thought we'd make that this next couple of years is gonna be pretty much like it was sort of after the great financial crisis and where you have a lot of transactions that have to move and you're gonna have a lot of activity. And I think that it sets up really well for us to recycle capital and to get more aggressive on the acquisition side and the development side going forward.

And your next question today will come from Jeff Spector with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Great, thank you. Rick, I'll ask a follow up to that point. I mean, post-World Financial Crisis, there was a lot of distress. And as of today, I'd say we're hearing mixed things or not really hearing distress. Or what are you, I guess, what are you seeing and hearing that gives you confidence that there will be similar distress that can take advantage of? Thank you.

Sure, well, when you go back to the financial crisis, there was moderate distress, but it was primarily in 08, maybe 09 and 10. After that, there's really no distress. I mean, if you think about what happened, the Fed took interest rates to zero and the FDIC and the Federal Reserve propped up the banks by saying they didn't have to mark to market construction loans. And so that eliminated a lot of the distress that people thought was gonna happen after the Great Financial Crisis. And today, the difference today during the GFC was that as a result of the GFC, leverage is just over leveraging which is not part of the equation today. And banks have significantly decreased their commercial real estate exposure and they've also diversified their commercial real estate exposure. So banks are stronger, borrowers are stronger and you're in a situation where there's no real pressure on borrowers or the banks to force people to sell. And that of course is what creates the stress. Now, there's clearly distress in the sort of C and D part of the market where you had syndicators raising money online and through GoFundMe pages who were buying pretty low quality properties and leveraging them up. And there's been some significant stories about that kind of distress but not in the institutional investor quality space. I mean, today investors are, the sellers today are not financially stressed. So I don't think we're gonna get quote unquote distress out there. What we're gonna get is better pricing that we had during the peak, right? When cap rates were in the threes, now cap rates are gonna be four and a half to five and with a better growth prospect when your pro-form is going forward so that you can get your IRs up into the sevens on an unleveraged basis. So it's a little different today. So I don't think that we're gonna have distress in the market and buy all these great deals. On the other hand, the deals are good when you look at our Camden Leander transaction. It's a project in Leasup in Austin, very complicated market. Obviously Austin has more supply than most. We're buying the property at 15% below replacement cost. Rent's are depressed and once the supply gets worked out in Austin over the next year or so, you're gonna see outsized growth in Austin. You look at Austin in terms of its population growth, it's like number one in America on a percentage basis for population growth. So Austin's gonna be great in 2026, 27, and 2028. So we're able to buy below replacement costs. So I could go build there, but why build when I can buy it below replacement costs and then be positioned in the marketplace to have outsized growth to drive that cap rate up into a really good number.

And your next question today will come from Handel St. Just with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, good morning. So I was hoping you could walk us through the quarter a bit and give us some color on how the portfolio performed in terms of new lease rate expectations. They seem to be a bit more resilient in the fourth quarter versus your peers. And with the stability of new lease rates and improvement in January in occupancy, think above 95%, it seems like you could push rate a bit sooner this year than we might have previously expected. So maybe give us some color on how you think what new lease rates are embedded in the first quarter guide you provided, but broadly, the sense of how much perhaps the improvement or stability you're seeing here can result in perhaps you, perhaps being a bit more aggressive on that front.

Thanks. Yeah, so Handel, we did have, our fourth quarter was actually a little bit better than we thought it would be. And it was pretty broad across all of our markets. And it's not, in terms of expectations for next year, I think Alex walked through those in his commentary regarding what the full year guidance is, et cetera. I think that the improvement that we're seeing is just stickiness around occupancy rates across our entire portfolio, which allows us to do, in our pricing model, to do what it does best, which is find strength and then price accordingly. So I think it's really good operating fundamentals, had a good fourth quarter, and as Alex mentioned, it's carried over, it looks like it's carried over into January. So last year we started out really strong in January, we had a good month. That bled into some optimism around here and maybe other places for what that foretold for maybe the first quarter of the full year. It turned out that wasn't really the case, and we had kind of an air pocket in February of last year, and we don't think we're gonna see that this year, don't anticipate that. But so far, so good. Good month in January for sure, and we expect that it's gonna continue to improve throughout the year because every month that goes by, we're taking another big chunk out of the supply bubble that we've been fighting and continue to have in front of us. But I think things on the horizon, back half of 2025 looks to be pretty constructive for us. But I think more importantly, when you get past the 25s, kind of a transition year between getting back to more normal supply and demand dynamics. But when you look out to 2026 and what's been happening on starts and what's likely to happen on completions in 26 and 27, I think we're set up for one of those two or three year runs that they're gonna be pretty impressive for the entire multifamily sector. I think where Camden's located in our markets, we're gonna benefit more than most from that.

And your next question today will come from Eric Wolf with Citi. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. It seems like based on your interest expense guidance here, your front loading, the acquisitions, can you just talk about the rationale around the strategy? And also you mentioned, I think, zero to a hundred bits of potential gap dilution from this activity and that this transaction activity could last through 2027. So should we be building in our models, like say 50 bits of gap dilution on 750 million of transactions for the next couple of years or is that not what you meant by this continuing through 2027?

Yeah, so we'll hit both parts of it. The first thing is that we anticipate that we're gonna buy before we sell and we're doing that for tax efficiency purposes. We'll do these in reverse 1031 exchanges. The second part that you have to look at is what we're looking at for 2025 is the dispositions that we will first complete will be our older, our more capital intensive assets. And so because of that, you're probably gonna see a larger spread between FFO on the assets we're buying and FFO on the assets we're selling. I think it's important to note that on an AFFO basis, that spread will be very tight, but on FFO basis, it's gonna be a little bit wider, call it around the 100 basis point range for what we're gonna look at for 2025. If you think about what happens as we go throughout 26 and 27, completing our plan, we're gonna get to a point in time where we're gonna be trading very comparable assets, but just not in the geography where we want them. So for instance, we've talked quite a bit about how we'll lower our exposure in DC and we'll lower our exposure in Houston. If we're gonna sell a community in DC in 26 and in 27, I think likely that it will be a particular community that will probably trade at a pretty good cap rate and we'll be trading that for a community in, call it Nashville or call it Austin, that will also be trading at a comparable cap rate. So I don't think it's fair to take the dilution that you're seeing in 25 and extrapolate that into 26 and 27.

Now the other thing I would add to this is that if you look at the last time we did this where we did 2.7 billion of acquisitions and 3.8 of dispositions, at that time we were budgeting over 100 basis point negative spread, turned out to be flat. And so once the market starts getting attuned to higher revenue growth and higher NOI growth, those cap rates are gonna compress and older property cap rates are gonna converge to newer property cap rates. And then part of the challenge is that if you look at the, or part of the dilution issue is not that it's permanent dilution because of the spread, but when you look at the Camden-Leander transaction, it was 84% occupied, it's not finished. It's not finished leasing or stabilized. So you're gonna have more dilution when we're buying properties that are not necessarily fully leased up yet. And so that's part of that equation. But I expect that the market transaction market through the middle of the year will start gaining steam, which means that you'll have the 300 or 400 billion dollars of capital that's still waiting in the wings entering the market. So cap rates, I think are gonna be tighter and the spreads will be tighter towards the back half of the year. But we're gonna, we have budgeted this 100 basis points, but I'm sure we'll do better.

And your next question today will come from Austin Werschmitt with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks and good morning everyone. So keeping the conversation going on your portfolio management objectives and Alex you hit on this with your comments about selling down some DC in Houston, which you guys have talked about. I guess what's kind of the right exposure for those top markets? Are there any new markets that you could enter with this strategic plan? And then I guess just given the constructive outlook for fundamentals in the next few years, what would it take for you to lean into your balance sheet capacity instead of kind of the tax efficient pair trade strategy? Thanks.

Yeah, so what I said on the call is that by the end of 27, we do not wanna have any one market that's over 10% of NOI. And so if you think about it, there's only two markets that we have today that are over that, which is DC Metro in Houston. So that's where we'll be bringing that down and additionally, it just doesn't make a ton of sense to us to have a market that has less than 4% of NOI. The only market that falls into that category today is Nashville. So we'll be bringing that up and that will obviously be one of our main target markets. When you think about leaning into our balance sheet, absolutely. The reason why we have a 3.8 times debt debida, which is number one in the multifamily sector is because it gives us capacity and ability to take advantage of opportunities. If there are opportunities there where we can create some real value for our shareholders and increase a little bit of leverage, but still stay below the five times level and take advantage of some great opportunities, we're gonna absolutely do that. So that's something that we're absolutely looking at. I think you're not gonna see that right now because right now what we're looking for is some more stability in the transaction market. And right now, there's just not a tremendous amount of opportunities. So the opportunities that are there, we will match fund with dispositions in the near term. But as we go forward and execute the plan, you should see us buying and building more than we are selling.

And your next question today will come from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thanks, someone to ask about revenue enhancing and repositioning capex, which you're looking to increase this year versus last year. Can you remind or update us on the typical return or rental uplift you get? And what was the contribution to either blended rents or same store revenue that $86 million last year had?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, this is the first question we've had on repositions in about three years. So thank you, John, for bringing this back in. Our reposition program has been an absolutely tremendous success. We are generally getting somewhere around an eight to 10% return on invested capital for what we're doing. And the way you should think about that is that generally equates to about 150 plus or minus dollars per door in additional rent. When I look at the impact in 2024 from repositions, on an NOI basis, it was, you know, call it 10 to 15 basis points, which is certainly not nothing. It's certainly something that makes a ton of sense to us. But you have to really remember that the real reason why we do repositions is it refreshes our portfolio. If you think about the type of real estate that we build on the exterior, it is absolutely timeless. But like everything else, kitchens and bathrooms are what really shows the age of a development. It shows the age of your house. And so if we can go in and we can refresh a kitchen and a bathroom and make it look brand new, and on the exterior it looks brand new, it really does create a natural defense against the new supply that we see in the market. You think about a brand new asset has a much higher basis, and of course whoever owns that must charge much higher rents just to get the adequate return. We can have an asset directly next door, directly adjacent that looks brand new, has brand new kitchens and bathrooms, and because we have a lower basis, we can charge a lower rental rate, and it positions us incredibly well. So the reposition program is something that makes a ton of sense to us. It's something that you're gonna see us do quite a bit. The other thing that I'd point out is that we are also looking at repurposing some of our real estate, and what that means is looking at space that we have in a community, call it a basketball court, an indoor basketball court that nobody uses, et cetera, and turning that into additional units, and that makes a lot of sense to us as well.

And your next question today will come from Rich Hightower with Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning everybody.

I just wanna get a sense of, I mean, I think it's been a pretty consistent theme this earnings season that there is a pretty progressive step up in blended rents and ultimately rent growth in Sunbelt markets over the course of the year, but I'm trying to get a sense of the risk that all of us are wrong about the pace of supply dropping off over time, and how much of that cushion is baked into the current same store guidance?

Well, I think when you look at anyone's numbers, whether it be Witten or RealPage, or the supply is baked for the next two years right now. You're not starting a bunch of units. Most supply is down, and markets are down, starts there down 50, 60%. A couple of markets, it's up a little like Phoenix, but it's all on the west side of Phoenix, and we happen to be on the east side of Phoenix, which is a big difference. And so I don't think there's a lot of risk on the supply being ratcheted up. I mean, when you look at the pressure on the developers today, when the tenure is pushing four and a half, and short rates haven't dropped as much as people thought they would drop. Construction costs, while they're not up dramatically, they're also not down dramatically. There's still a lot of pressure on construction costs, just to keep them, we think they're up maybe 1% or 2% from last year, but that doesn't include tariff issues. We did an analysis on tariffs, and on tariffs, we'll add another 2% to 3% in cost. Most of products are bought, lumber comes out of Canada, a lot of products from Mexico, electrical boxes, and things like that. So I would say that with the current cost structure, you have to really pro forma significant rent increases in 26, 27, 28, in order to make a pro forma work. So I don't think that there's a big risk in a big upturn in development starts, unless you have rates fall dramatically, construction costs fall dramatically, and that's just not happening. So I think there's pretty low risk from a supply perspective. I think the bigger risk probably is in what happens to the overall economy. I mean, if we have a recession in 2025, then I think all bets are off on how well things progress. And I don't think that's on people's radar screen, but I do think that's probably the bigger risk when you think about how 25 could play out versus, but it's not gonna be on the supply side. I mean, the supply is coming, we know it's coming, then it stops. And it's gonna take, even if you had a 50% increase in starts this year, they wouldn't come into play until 2027 or 2028. It just takes that long to deliver. So I think we've got clear sailing on supply at least through the end of 27 and into 28.

And your next question today will come from Amy Provant with UBS, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. So you discussed Tampa, LA, San Diego, Washington DC and Houston is the top market. Do you think that Camden's performance in these markets is representative of the overall market or are there some Camden specific attributes that are leading to stronger performance? And then specifically on Tampa, you mentioned a boost in demand in the fourth quarter. So I'm wondering if that's hurricane related and sustainable, thanks.

So yeah, on Tampa, it is hurricane related for sure. And eventually that will moderate over time. We've seen that happen in Houston with Harvey, et cetera. So that was definitely a hurricane related thing. On the performance in those other markets, I think you look at the peer group and in those other markets, the biggest overlap that we have with the public market peer group is in Washington DC Metro. And I think everybody had pretty constructive commentary around what's happening in Washington DC Metro. Houston is the differentiator for us because we're the only public company that has any meaningful presence. And as Alex pointed out, it's 13%, it's our largest NOI concentration market that we have. Now we're committed to bringing that down to single digits over some period of time. But the reality is, is that Houston has just been a great performer for the last year and a half. And it again, looks like it will be in 2025 as well. And that's a combination of relatively low supply. You just didn't have the waves of, when all of that, the current pipeline was being put in play a couple of years ago, Houston sort of got missed because of a lot of other issues. But the energy sector is performing incredibly well. I think all indications are that that's gonna continue to be supported and maybe even much more supported than it has been in the last four years. So those two markets for sure, I think, anybody that has assets in those markets has done pretty well. On Southern California, its story has been pretty good as well. And a lot of that is driven by the cessation and the working through all of the COVID related initiatives to include coming down on bad debts, et cetera. So I think that that's also a pretty good story for anybody that owns assets in Southern California. So we tend to operate better in our markets on metrics on occupancy and in our growth across the board. So there's probably some Camdenism, just the way and the efficiency with which we operate our portfolio and our time in these markets and understanding on that helps. But all five of those markets, if you've got assets in those markets, you're probably really happy right now and looking forward to, let's bring on 2025.

I would brag a little bit more on Camden's execution ability. You don't become one of the 100 best companies to work for on Fortune's list. For 17 years straight, if you don't have a great team. And we all know Super Bowl is coming up on Sunday and we know that it's not just one player, it's team, it's philosophy, it's energy, it's that synergy that brings the best out of the players. And in our case, our players are working every day and believing that they really wanna take care of their customers and that just adds value and customers feel it. So when you have really a very great team, it's gonna have incrementally, it's gonna benefit customers and lower turnover. And when you ask somebody to raise their rent, they're gonna say, yeah, okay, I like this place and you guys are fun and great people. And so sure, I'll pay more. But I think that's a big part of Camden, there's a question.

And your next question today will come from Rob Stevenson with Jani. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Regarding the 175 to $675 million development start guidance, can you talk about where expected yields on any of these new starts are penciling today given construction costs and expected rents if you need to wait for anything to start those projects? And also where's the expected yield there versus the expected yield on the three North Carolina assets you currently have under construction?

Sure, our projected yields given the current backdrop of cost and rental rate growth and what have you is around 6% and that's kind of where our starts, our development numbers have been, including the ones that were currently under construction. But I will tell you, it's not easy to find a lot of developments that pencil to those numbers. And so that's why we haven't been able to lean in as much as we'd like to. But I think given the markets that we're in and where our developments are located, we should have outsized rent growth that can get us to those numbers are better.

And your next question today will come from Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks for the time. I wanted to ask about Washington DC a little bit and maybe a few questions in here. I think just first, just maybe the latest on demand there, obviously a lot of headlines around what's happening with kind of federal workers and maybe a smaller federal government. Maybe just what's happening from the demand side in the last couple weeks there and maybe what your outlook is as maybe the composition of the government changes. And then just as a second part there, again, still in DC, what are you guys seeing in terms of cap rates or even on a per square foot basis in terms of the transaction market in DC?

Well, let me hit the current transaction market first. DC is a great transaction market. Cap rates are depending on the property in the mid-fours or high-fours, plus or minus. So there's still a decent demand there. And when you look at the fact that DC has been a outperformer from the revenue growth the last couple years and will continue, we think B in that kind of A category range, I think that transaction volume will be good. When you think about government changes, it's real interesting. You look at some of the single family markets there, I mean, there's been a spike in prices for sale property there because of the transition, because of the new administration. There's always tends to be more demand during transitions than if you just had an incumbent win. I'll let Keith talk more about the current demand. Go ahead, Keith.

Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to figure out the cross currents right now between kind of what's being talked about versus kind of thinking about what do you think is actually gonna happen is, man, it's a crap shoot, I think. For every time you hear government potential of government downsizing of people, I think the latest number I heard was out of, they offered everybody in the entire federal government a buyout, a package, and at the last count, I think it was up to 20,000 or 25,000 people that said they're gonna sign up for that, which is a rounding error of the total federal workforce. I think at the same time that conversation's going on, you're having another broader conversation about if you're a federal employee, that you're gonna have to come back to the office. And so I think that there's probably a knock-on effect there of DC proper, which frankly for us has been the weak link in our DC metro portfolio for the last two years. And it could very well be that as people have to return to work in an actual office, preponderance and a big portion of which are in DC proper, that it's gonna make more sense for them to potentially move back closer to or into DC proper. So I think there's a lot of cross currents, I think there's a lot of talk, and I think you're probably never gonna go broke betting on the under, on how many federal employees are actually going to go do something else, regardless of who asked them to do so.

And I'll tell you, year to date, DC Metro has our highest increase in signed new lease rates.

And your next question today will come from Julian Blowen with Goldman Sachs, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to ask on the spread between the low end and the high end of development starts in 2025, sort of what drives you to sort of trend closer to the low end versus the high end this year?

It's just a matter of making sure that we hit what we believe would be reasonable spreads and a reasonable return. I mean, if one of the things that we've seen, just take Nashville as an example, I mean, Nashville is so busy from a development perspective, costs went up so dramatically, you couldn't get anybody to bid your jobs. Now we have seven deep of subcontractors bidding on our Nashville nation's property. So what happened then is that A, you've had construction costs flatten, maybe go down a little, and then B, on the other hand, you have a broader sub base, which means that that tells me that once we exude contracts, we can probably get buyout anywhere from two to three or 4% less when we actually buy the contracts rather than just asking them to tell us what they would go for. So it's gonna be, so towards the middle of the year, we will have a better view of when that second derivative turns positive in a lot of these markets on rental rates, and that will just give us more confidence to lean in. So it's really a decision about, we need to get paid for development risks. So we need 100 to 150 basis points of positive spread between what we can buy for and what we can bill for. And then we have to have the confidence that the revenue growth is gonna be there in 26 and 27 and 28, we'll get more confidence to that mid year. So that'll determine whether we get to the high end of that range. One of the other, I think, opportunities that we could see basically is merchant builders who can't get their deals done and we can then step into those deals and get those done. We have historically done that a lot over the years, especially during transition times like we have now. And so we might be able to pick up some of those that can't get done either. So that could push us towards the high end of that range as well.

And your next question today will come from Connor Mitchell with Piper Sandler, please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just going back to the broader transaction markets, appreciate all the colors so far. And it just seems like there's still a ton of money bidding on apartments inside financial costs and the expectations for rent growth to eventually overcome that obstacle. But you guys had talked about maybe the increased pickup in the back half of the year. So I guess my question is just how much longer do you think the negative leverage will last, especially thinking about how much more there is to common transactions in the back half. And I guess just a quick follow up on that. Do you think that the market might be too aggressive on the rate of growth being underrated for 26 and 27, or is it really that high of an expectation that justifies the negative leverage? Thanks.

Well, that's what people are betting on for sure, is that 26 and 27 are gonna be outsized growth years. And if history is any indication of what might be the future, that's exactly what's happened over the years. If you have a downturn, you have excess supply, or you have a recession or what have you, and then what happens is you have a snapback. And usually supply continues to be robust, but we know that supply's not gonna be robust. And if the job market just holds up and the economy holds up, we'll get 2% GDP growth or one and a half to 2%, you can, or buyers are gonna be underwriting significant rent growth in 26 and 27, 28. Otherwise they can't make their numbers, right? And especially when you look at where the prices are today. So I think what's gonna happen that will drive buyers and sellers closer together is the NOIs are gonna go up in some markets in 2025. And when you think about our top markets, our NOIs are growing. And so even if the cap rate stays the same, the cash flows are growing and you have a trajectory that you can count on. And then hopefully, I think people are betting on even though rates are gonna be higher for longer over a longer period, they believe that they're gonna come down some. So I think the combination of supply, the ability to drive your revenue growth and your NOI growth is gonna keep people in the, they will continue to buy even with negative leverage day. I think long-term, if the NOI growth isn't there and if rates don't come down some, then cap rates have to go up or you're gonna have a stalemate between the buyers and the sellers. And so we'll see what happens, but right now the market's pretty robust. And what happens is really interesting. There was a transaction, for example, that we were bidding on in Nashville recently. And if you're trying to buy at a specific cap rate like we are, the seller basically just said, look, we hear your number and we're gonna hold. And their view is that they're gonna get up higher price in the future. The cap rate will be the same perhaps, but their cash flow growth will be higher. And so I think there'll be a interesting, it'll be very interesting to see what happens between now and mid-year to the end of the year in 2025. But I think it's gonna be a more robust transaction market. And I think all the signs are that we'll get that positive second derivative on a new rent growth. And that's going to create a lot of opportunity for sellers to come into the market and for buyers to

buy. And your next question today will come from Michael Lewis with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I wanted to come back to this decision to have no more than 10% of your portfolio in any market. So, there's been this trend toward diversification in apartment rates lately. As you know, a lot of that is coastal investors diversifying into more year markets. Aren't there any markets that you just think are better? They're just flat out better apartment markets for the next 10 or 15 years or whatever it might be. Or is that not really the case? There's nothing structural or secular there. I'm just thinking about, does this decision say more about Houston and DC or does it say more about a wide opportunity set across your markets and it being a little bit difficult to distinguish?

So, I would say it's more about the opportunity set across all our markets. And when you say some markets are better, well, it depends on when. For example, three years ago, Houston and Washington DC were the problem children in Camden's portfolio. It's all anybody wanted to talk about and it's a lot of what we talked about internally because those are our two largest markets and they were underperforming and had been for about two or three years straight. So, fast forward, here we are today. Washington DC Metro and Houston are in the top five and probably slated to be in the top two or three for this year and probably next year as well. So, if you ask that question, some markets just better, yeah. I mean, four years ago, all of them would have been better than Houston and DC Metro and today it's reversed. It's more about just having a balance among 15 markets that we absolutely love. Every market that's in our portfolio has the characteristics that exemplify what we wanna see in migration, job growth, consistently performing on the ability to move rents over time and to operate the assets from an expense standpoint at a level that allows us to grow cash flow. So, it's not a statement anyway about DC and Houston. It's just a statement about we got great opportunities in other markets, growth opportunities in markets like Austin and Nashville where we're underweight and it's just balancing those opportunities.

And your next question today will come from Nick Yulico with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Daniel for Caracol. I'm with Nick. Alex, I wanted to clarify your answer to Jamie's question at the beginning. You said new lease rates turning positive in Q3 and continuing from there. Does that mean it's gonna continue to improve on an absolute basis? Are you assuming a normal seasonal pattern into the fourth quarter or is there a comp benefit with new supply being absorbed that would cause Q4 to look seasonally?

Right, so we're gonna return to seasonality and at least that's what's in our budgets. And so, what that means is that you see the positive new lease rates in the third quarter and then in the fourth quarter, that's always our softest quarter. There's just not a lot of people who wanna move around the holiday season, et cetera. And that's usually when we have the least amount of pricing power. And so, you should see it start to return to a more normal seasonal pattern at that point in time.

And your next question today will come from David Seagal with GreenTree. Please go ahead.

Hey, thank you. I just wanted to drill down a bit more onto the proposed development part, development starts. Can you ballpark the rents or revenue unit that you would need to achieve in Nashville and Denver to achieve the 6% yield?

Yeah, those Alex? I don't, we'll have to get back to you with that.

Okay, great, thank you.

And your next question today will come from Alex Kim with Zelman and Associates. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys, thanks for taking my question. I always appreciate the song choices leading up to call as well. I was wondering if you could talk about your leasing trend so far for the three communities in LeaseUp and how that flowed just into the LeaseUp revenue line for the quarter and then more broadly for your 2025 view, thanks.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you look at the communities that we have in LeaseUp, two of them are the single family rental communities. And we've been very upfront that our single family rental communities are, they're slow leasing. They just are. It's the particular demographic that looks for that product type has a tendency to show up once, then they show up again, then they show up and they measure a bedroom and make sure that their furniture can fit, et cetera. And so it is a slower leasing. Now the good news is that we think they're gonna be really sticky. And we think once they're in the turnover, if it takes them that long to make a decision to move in, we think it'll take them equally as long to make a decision to move out. But that's what we've been seeing. When I look at Camden Durham, which is our last, the third one that's in LeaseUp, during the fourth quarter, we had the type of leasing that we'd expect, which is slower. As I said to one of the previous calls, the fourth quarter is always the slowest quarter. And that's no different whether or not it's a new LeaseUp or an existing asset. That being said, if you look where they are, so Woodmill Creek is 89% occupied, Durham is 78% occupied. So both of those are getting very close to stabilization. And so obviously we should get some uptick in 2025 from those two as they stabilize. And then Long Meta Farms is a little bit behind the other two just because it started after them at 53% leased.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rick Campo for any closing remarks.

Well, I appreciate your time today and we're glad to close out the earnings season for the large CAP multi-family. So we'll see you at the next conference or next road show.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.