Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Equity Lifestyles Property Second Quarter 2020 results. Our featured speakers today are Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO, Paul Seavey, our Executive Vice President and CFO, and Patrick Waite, our Executive Vice President and COO. In advance of today's call, management release earnings. Today's call will consist of opening remarks and question and a question and answer session with management relating to the company's earnings release. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Certain matters discussed during this conference call may contain forward-looking statements in the meanings of the federal securities law. Our forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risks and uncertainties. The company assumes no obligation to update or or to supplement any statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures as identified by the SEC Regulation G. Our reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, our supplemental information, and our historical SEC filings. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Our second quarter results show the continued strength of our business. We continue to be able to safely and efficiently operate our properties under new operating conditions. Paul will provide more details on collections, but across our organization, we have seen payment patterns consistent with last year. We have put in place a rent deferral program for residents facing a hardship due to the impact of COVID-19. Approximately 500 residents are enrolled in this program. We saw strong demand on the MH side of the business with a 4.6% increase in rental revenue. In the quarter, we saw a decrease in residents moving out of our community. We increased new home sales volume by 14% and the average purchase price increased by 10%. Our MH properties are currently 95% occupied. Our residents are homeowners who have generally paid cash for their home. This capital commitment to our communities is an important differentiator in difficult times. Our overall occupancy consists of less than 6% renters. Moving to our RV business, we have had an acquisition strategy over the years of buying RV resorts that are heavily focused on annual and seasonal revenue streams. 80% of our RV revenue is longer-term in nature, and 20% comes from our transient customers. In the second quarter, our properties were impacted by local shelter-in-place orders, which called for reduced or eliminated travel activity inside a jurisdiction. Our RV annual customer generally has developed roots at the community. For the second quarter, the annual revenue, which historically accounts for approximately 70% of our total revenue, grew by 4.7%. In the quarter, we were primarily closed to transient traffic until the beginning of June. We followed shelter-in-place orders and reduced activity to protect our employees and customers from potential risks associated with transient traffic. We saw a significant increase in reservation activity and revenue in the month of June. The demand is high for customers to travel in a controlled environment. I would like to close by thanking the entire ELS family. They have continued to react to the evolving climate in an impressive manner. The team has successfully adapted to new regulatory protocols and changes in the operating environment with a primary focus on the safety and well-being of our employees, residents, and guests. I will now turn it over to Paul to walk through the numbers in detail.

Thank you, Marguerite, and good morning, everyone. I will review our second quarter results, highlight some of the topics mentioned in the COVID-19 update included with our earnings release and supplemental financial information, and discuss our balance sheet and liquidity position. For the second quarter, we reported 47 cents normalized FFO per share. As disclosed in our earnings release, we incurred approximately $1.4 million in non-recurring COVID-19 related expenses during the quarter. We have added these expenses back in our calculation of NFFO. Our core MH rent growth of 4.6% consists of approximately 4.1% rate growth and 50 basis points related to occupancy gain. We have increased occupancy 103 sites since December with an increase in owners of 156, while renters decreased by 53. Core RV resort based rental income from annuals increased 4.7% for the second quarter and 6.1% year to date compared to the same periods last year. The driver of rent growth from annuals in the quarter was rate with occupancy essentially flat compared to the prior period. Year-to-date core resort base rent from seasonals increased 3.7% compared to 2019. Core base rent from transients decreased 47.7% in the quarter as a result of the closures Marguerite mentioned in her remarks. Membership dues revenue increased 3% compared to the prior year. During the quarter, we sold approximately 5,800,000 Trails Camping Pass memberships. This represents a 12% decrease for the quarter, which we attribute to the impact of COVID-19. We experienced significant recovery in sales volume in June, which showed an increase of 43% over June 2019. The net contribution from membership upgrade sales in the quarter was flat compared to last year. Sales volumes increased almost 12%, while the mix of products sold changed, resulting in a lower average sales price. Core utility and other income was about $400,000 lower than second quarter 2019. Increases in pass-through and utility income, primarily resulting from pass-throughs of real estate tax increases that were effective in late 2019, were offset by reduced revenue, resulting from our suspension of late fees, as well as fees related to transient RV stays. Core property operating expenses were flat compared to second quarter 2019. The footnote disclosure included in our supplemental financial information package states that our core income from property operations includes approximately $1 million of non-recurring COVID-19 related expenses. Excluding these expenses, we realized a 90 basis point decline in core property operating expenses in the quarter compared to last year. In summary, second quarter core property operating revenues increased 60 basis points and core property operating expenses increased 10 basis points, resulting in an increase in core NOI before property management of 1%. Core NOI before property management excluding COVID-19 related expenses increased 1.8%. Income from property operations generated by our non-core portfolio, which includes our marina assets, was $3 million in the quarter. Revenues from annual customers at the marinas and other properties in the non-core portfolio generated more than 90% of total non-core revenues in the quarter and year-to-date period. Property management and corporate G&A expenses were $25.4 million for the second quarter of 2020 and $51.3 million for the year-to-date period. Other income and expenses generated a net contribution of $1.7 million for the quarter. Ancillary retail and restaurant operations were impacted by COVID-19 and generated approximately $1.2 million less NOI during the quarter than last year. In addition, our joint venture income was approximately $2.4 million lower because of a refinancing distribution we recognized in 2019. Interest in related loan cost amortization expense was $26.2 million for the quarter and $53.2 million for the year-to-date period. We included a COVID-19 update with our earnings release and supplemental financial information. All of our MH, RV, and marina locations are open, though some have limited access to certain amenities pursuant to state and local guidelines. Our rent deferral program was in place from April through June. Through that program, we assisted 540 residents with a deferral of approximately a half a million dollars of rent. We also provided assistance in the form of rent credits to annual customers at certain of our RV resorts where openings were delayed because of shelter-in-place orders. Those credits will be applied to future charges and total approximately $900,000. We have also continued suspension of late fees in the month of July. Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not experienced meaningful negative impact to our rate of rent collection. For the second quarter, our overall collection rate for our MHRV and TT properties was 99 percent consistent with the second quarter of 2019. Our months of state collections in July are consistent with the collections at this time in April, May, and June 2020. Now some comments on debt markets and our balance sheet. Market conditions have stabilized somewhat since our April call. Current secured financing terms available for MH and RV assets range from 55 to 75 percent LTV with rates from 2.75% to 3.5% for 10-year money. We continue to see lenders place high value on sponsor strength, and ELS continues to be highly regarded. High-quality, age-qualified MH assets will command preferred terms from participating lenders. Our cash balance after funding our July dividend is more than $50 million. We have available capacity of $350 million from our unsecured line of credit, We have approximately $141 million of capacity under our ATM program, and we have no scheduled debt maturities for the next 12 months. We continue to place high importance on balance sheet flexibility, and we believe we have multiple sources of capital available to us. Our interest coverage ratio is 4.9 times, and our debt to adjusted EBITDA RE is five times. The weighted average maturity of our outstanding secured debt is 12 and a half years. Now we would like to open it up for questions. Jonathan?