CubeSmart

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Josh Schuetzler, VP of Finance.

Thank you, Christina. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CubeSmart's second quarter 2024 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 could 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 8K we filed this morning, together with our earnings release filed with the Form 8K, and the risk factor section of the company's annual report on Form 10K. 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 second quarter financial supplement posted on the company's website at www.qsmart.com. I will now turn the call over to Chris. Thanks, Josh.

Good morning. Thank you all for joining the second quarter earnings call. Overall operating trends for CubeSmart during the quarter were largely in line with our expectations. Our same store portfolio experienced a 1.8% increase in rentals compared to the second quarter of 2023. Vacates in the same store portfolio were flat to the second quarter of last year. Asking rates in that same store pool began the quarter down Roughly 13% to the prior year and ended June, negative 9.8% compared to the end of June last year. Same store occupancy ended June, 91.9, gaining 150 basis points during the quarter. We historically reached our seasonal peak in early August. Over the last few years, those peaks had been shifting earlier in July, and this year it now appears that peak occurred in late June. This aligns with the macro trends in the economy, housing, and the consumer. Performance trends by market were consistent with the first quarter. The urban markets of New York, the DMV, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Northern Virginia, and Chicago were all stronger performers across key metrics, while we continue to see softness along the west coast of Florida and Atlanta and Tucson, Arizona. Within New York City, the boroughs continue to outperform the overall MSA, as we are still feeling a bit of the residual impact of supply on our Long Island, Westchester, and North Jersey stores. Our third-party management program continues to grow, and our balance sheet remains in excellent condition. I'd like to now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Tim Martin.