CubeSmart

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CubeSmart third quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, online journalism only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, November 3, 2023. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Josh Sutzer, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ina. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CubeSmart's third quarter 2023 earnings call. Participants on today's call include Chris Marr, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Martin, Chief Financial Officer. Our prepared remarks will be followed by a Q&A session. In addition to our earnings release, which was issued yesterday evening, supplemental operating and financial data is available under the investor relations section of the company's website at www.cubesmart.com. The company's remarks will include certain forward-looking statements regarding earnings and strategy that involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The risks and factors that can cause our actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements are provided in documents the company furnishes to or files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Form 8-K we filed this morning together with our earnings release filed with the Form 8-K. and the risk factor section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K. In addition, the company's remarks include reference to non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in the third quarter financial supplement posted on the company's website at www.cubesmart.com. I will now turn the call over to Chris.

Good morning, and thank you for joining the call today. Our third quarter results reflect the core attributes of our quality-focused strategy, our portfolio, with its sector-leading demographics is demonstrating its resilience led by our urban markets with particular strength in New York City. Our operating team is leveraging our sophisticated technology to develop creative ways to meet our customers' evolving needs while simultaneously gaining efficiency and minimizing expense growth. Our balance sheet is in excellent condition with a well-staggered maturity schedule having us primed to take advantage of the external growth opportunities that inevitably arise after periods of capital market volatility. As we look ahead, we expect trends in the near to medium term to remain less consistent with a tight housing market, macro uncertainties, and a very competitive street rate environment being somewhat counterbalanced by the resilience and economic health of our existing customers. What we experienced in the third quarter and what we expect we will continue to experience during this period of inconsistency is the relative outperformance of our properties located in the more urban markets as the demographic makeup of those customers tends to skew more towards renters and the use cases tend to lend themselves to lower churn and longer lengths of stay. Our portfolio construct combined with a continuing decline in the impact of new supply and a healthy existing customer supporting our rate increase program are positive factors heading into next year. While difficult to predict timing with any amount of certainty, and the current logjam in single family home sales is broken, through any combination of buyers and sellers coming together on pricing expectations, a relaxation of interest rate policy, or a pullback in costs, creating an acceleration in the construction of affordable new homes, our portfolio will most certainly experience a rapid acceleration in top line growth as that pent up demand creates movement and customers. We see the same opportunity on the external growth front as buyer and seller expectations are gradually coming closer together. Along with the need for developers to refinance recent projects, our expectation is we will deliver meaningful external growth and we have the balance sheet and team in place to capitalize on that opportunity when presented. In the meantime, we remain focused on capturing customer demand in a manner that maximizes the revenue opportunity while controlling our costs and providing the outstanding customer service our brand is known for delivering. Thanks, and I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Tim Martin.