EarningsCall · ELS Q1 2024

spk33: Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Equity Lifestyle Properties first quarter 2024 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 released earnings. Today's call will consist of opening remarks and a question and answer session with management relating to the company's earnings release. For those who would like to participate in the question and answer session, management asks that you limit yourself to two questions, so everyone who would like to participate has ample opportunity. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Certain matters discussed today on this conference call may contain forward-looking statements in the meanings of the federal securities laws. Our forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risk and uncertainty. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. 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 would like to turn the call over to Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO.

spk29: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report the results for the first quarter of 2024. Quality of our cash flow, our in-demand locations, the lack of new supply, and the strength of our balance sheet continue to allow us to report impressive results. In times of macroeconomic uncertainty, we continue to deliver strong revenue growth as well as expense controls throughout our portfolio. Our core NOI for the quarter was strong with a 7.1% increase compared to last year, supported by MH and RV rate growth and controlling expenses. Our results for the first quarter and our view for the continued strength for the remainder of 2024 support our guidance rates. Over a 10-year period of time, we have increased the dividend on average 14% compared to the REIT average of 5.5%. Our balance sheet is in great shape with an average term to maturity of nine years. 18% of our debt is fully amortizing and not subject to refinance risk, And our debt maturity schedule through 2026 shows only 11% of our debt coming due compared to the REIT average of 29%. We have spent the last 30 years building a portfolio focused on high-quality coastal and Sunbelt retirement and vacation destinations. We are in locations where active adults want to be. Our customer base is seeking a place to escape from the cold winter and lead an active lifestyle in locations such as Florida, Arizona, and California. We are in states where there is outsized growth in seniors, and we appeal to the right demographic. The population of people age 55 and older in the U.S. is expected to grow 15% from now until 2039, with 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day for the near future. Our MH portfolio comprises approximately 60% of our total revenue, and our properties are 95% occupied. The MH business is unique in that once an elevated level of occupancy is achieved at a property, the occupancy is sustainable for a long time. For ELS, the key to that stickiness is an elevated level of homeowners in the portfolio. Our portfolio is 96% occupied by homeowners. This composition of our resident base is important to protect an uninterrupted cash flow stream as new residents are welcome to our communities. Our residents enjoy the community found in our properties and spend time focused on building new relationships with their fellow residents. We continue to engage our existing customers and attract new prospects through media outreach, engaging in social media campaigns, and targeted digital advertising. Our public relations strategy helps build awareness and credibility through coverage of the lifestyle offered at our properties and interesting stories about our customers who make a difference in the communities in which we operate. Our social media strategy seeks to engage both customers and prospects in a wide variety of platforms so we can reach people where they spend time. We have almost 2 million fans and followers across social media networks. Over the past 10 years, we have grown our social media fans and followers by an average of 19% annually. Our property teams in the north are gearing up to open the summer season. This year, Thousand Trails will celebrate its 55th anniversary. Thousand Trails is one of America's most well-known camping brands, and we have earned strong customer loyalty with hundreds of thousands of our viewers making memories with families and friends throughout the company's long history. We have closed another successful quarter, and our teams will now begin to focus on welcoming our residents to our northern locations as we kick off the summer season. I would like to thank all of our team members for their hard work in making this winter season so successful. I will now turn it over to Patrick to provide an operational overview.

spk07: Thank you, Marguerite. As we wind down the 2023-2024 Sun Belt season and look forward to the 2024 summer season, I will provide color on the Sun Belt season results and a view into the summer season, including drivers of demand. Overall, we continue to see consistent demand across each of our lifestyle property types, reflecting the high quality of our property locations. I will start by highlighting our MH business. Over my 30 years in the industry, my responsibilities have ranged from acquisitions to asset management to operations. And regardless of my area of focus, the consistency of our high-quality MH portfolio has been a constant. MH properties operate year-round, and seasonality is not a consideration. Our MH portfolio maintains high occupancy, and each year approximately 10% of our resident needs turns over. This turnover results in an uninterrupted revenue stream for ELS, as a current homeowner sells their home to an incoming home buyer and the new resident pays market rent. Year to date, we have seen an average rent increase of 5.6% to renewing residents. Our resident base generally consists of retired individuals who are cash buyers. Due to the high homeowner base in our portfolio, occupancy is resilient and the delinquency rate is very low. which is reflected in bad debt that is typically 40 to 45 basis points of revenue. This low level of delinquency has been consistent over the last 30 years in all economic cycles. Moving to the RV portfolio, the Sunbelt season runs from December to April, peaking in February, and demand is largely comprised of snowbirds from the northern U.S. and Canada seeking out the temperate climate of Florida, California, Arizona, and Texas. and Q1 annuals delivered steady occupancy and strong rate growth. Combined seasonal and transient increased in line with expectations supported by demand with consistent rate growth. I'd also note that nearly 50% of our seasonal revenue for the full year comes to us in Q1 during the Sun Belt season, while Q1 transient represents less than 20% of the full year transient revenue. We are now looking forward to the summer season which is comprised of the 100 days of camping from Memorial Day to Labor Day and spans 14 weeks. This is the time that our annual customers at 125 summer resorts and campgrounds visit their getaways on weekends, holidays, and summer vacations. Summer season annuals have a vacation or lake house, basically their resort cottage or park model, located at one of our properties. The resorts are now active with customers focused on spring cleaning and and getting their homes ready for summer activities. These customers are from the local or regional submarkets and are typically a one hour to one and a half hour drive from their homes to their campgrounds. In contrast to the overweight of seasonal revenue in the Sunbelt season, during the summer season, approximately two thirds of our transient revenue for the full year is earned in the second and third quarters. Our reservation pace is similar to last year with the holiday weekends in demand. While booking windows are similar to last year, the booking window is short and therefore we have limited visibility. More than 50% of transient reservations are booked within 10 days of arrival and are subject to short-term disruptors like weather. Finally, I would like to focus on our home sales efforts. Over the last five years, we've sold 4,500 new homes. Investing in these new homes is an upgrade for the community. The new home's construction quality meets stick-built construction standards, including primary bedrooms with walk-in closets, open floor plan kitchens with high-end, high-efficiency appliances, and exterior finishes like gable roofs and architectural shingles. And they remain affordable when compared to other housing options. We've been able to sell our homes for an average price of about $100,000 with limited concessions. Demand for these homes and our locations is evident from new leads and referrals from current residents, all supporting an 8.5% increase in Q1 new home sales year-over-year and a more than 100% increase from the pre-COVID timeframe in Q1 2019. The aging trends from 70 million baby boomers who are currently moving through their retirement years to almost 140 million combined Gen Xers and Millennials who will follow the boomers into their own retirement years all support generational demand for MH and all of our property offerings for decades to come. I'll now turn it over to Paul.

spk19: Thanks, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. I will review our first quarter 2024 results and provide an overview of our second quarter and full year 2024 guidance. First quarter normalized FFO was $0.78 per share, in line with our guidance. Strong core portfolio performance generated 7.1% growth in the quarter, also in line with our expectations. FFO was 86 cents per share and includes $14.8 million of insurance recovery revenue that has been deducted from normalized FFO. Core community-based rental income increased 6.4% for the quarter compared to 2023, primarily as a result of noticed increases to renewing residents and market rent paid by new residents after resident turnover. We increased homeowners by 123 sites in the quarter. Rental homes currently represent 3.1% of our MH occupancy. First quarter core, resort, and marina based rental income increased 5.8% compared to 2023. Rent growth from annuals in the first quarter was 8%. As a reminder, 2024 is a leap year which results in an additional day of revenue allocated to the first quarter, resulting in higher rate growth than we expect in the subsequent quarters of 2024. Our first quarter rent from CORE RV seasonal and transient generally performed in line with expectations. Seasonal rent increased 2.4% and transient rent increased 1.4% compared to first quarter 2023. For the first quarter, the net contribution from our membership business, which consists of annual subscription and upgrade sales revenues offset by sales and marketing expenses, was $14.9 million, an increase of 3% compared to the prior year. The net deferral impact for the quarter was $3.2 million. Subscription revenues increased 2.7% as a result of rate increases effective for 2024. During the quarter, we sold just over 800 upgrades. Our average upgrade sale price increased 4%, with the percentage of sales attributed to our adventure upgrade product representing 28% of our first quarter 2024 sales. Core utility and other income increased 5.6%, which includes pass-through recovery of real estate tax increases from 2023. Our utility income recovery percentage was 46.5%, about 70 basis points higher than the first quarter of 2023. First quarter core operating expenses increased 3.9% compared to the same period in 2023. Growth in real estate taxes and insurance reflect the run rate impact of increases that took effect after the first quarter of 2023. Repairs and maintenance decreased compared to 2023 when we incurred expenses to recover from several winter storms. Utility expenses reflect moderating rate growth along with reduced gas consumption, particularly in California. We renewed our property and casualty insurance programs April 1st, and the premium increase was approximately 9%. We are pleased with the result, which reflects no change in our program deductibles and expansion of coverage limits for named windstorm damage. Core property operating revenues increased 5.8%, while core property operating expenses increased 3.9%, 50 basis points lower than the midpoint of our guidance, resulting in growth in core NOI before property management of 7.1%. 10 basis points higher than the midpoint of our guidance. Our non-core properties contributed $5.3 million in the quarter, in line with our expectations. The press release and supplemental package provide an overview of 2024 second quarter and full year earnings guidance. The following remarks are intended to provide context for our current estimate of future results. All growth rate ranges and revenue and expense projections are qualified by the risk factors included in our press release and supplemental package. Our guidance for 2024 full-year normalized FFO is $2.89 per share at the midpoint of our guidance range of $2.84 to $2.94, an increase of a penny per share compared to prior guidance. We project full-year core property operating income growth of 5.8% at the midpoint of our range of 5.3% to 6.3%. Full-year guidance assumes core base rent growth in the ranges of 5.6% to 6.6% for MH and 4.5% to 5.5% for RV and marina. We assume occupancy in our stabilized MH portfolio will be flat to the first quarter. Core property operating expenses are projected to increase 4.2% to 5.2%. Our full year expense growth assumption includes the benefit of first quarter savings in repairs and maintenance and payroll expense, as well as the impact of our April 1st insurance renewal for the rest of 2024. Our guidance model includes the impact of the fixed rate swaps we disclosed in our earnings release and supplemental package. The full-year guidance model makes no assumptions regarding other capital events or the use of free cash flow we expect to generate in 2024. Our second quarter guidance assumes normalized FFO per share in the range of $0.61 to $0.67. Core property operating income growth is projected to be 4.6% at the midpoint of our guidance range for the second quarter, which represents approximately 23% of our expected full-year core NOI. In our core portfolio, property operating revenues are projected to increase 5.1% and expenses are projected to increase 5.6%, both at the midpoint of the guidance range. I'll now provide some comments on our balance sheet and the financing market. As noted in the earnings release and supplemental package, we executed fixed rate swaps on our $300 million unsecured term loan maturing in 2026. The swaps fixed the all-in borrowing cost at 6.05% through maturity. We are pleased with this execution as it eliminates floating rate exposure except balances outstanding from time to time on our line of credit. Current secured debt terms vary depending on many factors including lender, borrower sponsor, and asset type and quality. Current 10-year loans are quoted between 6% and 6.75%, 60 to 75% loan to value, and 1.4 to 1.6 times debt service coverage. We continue to see solid interest from like companies and GSEs to lend for 10-year terms. High-quality, age-qualified MH assets continue to command best financing terms. Regarding our liquidity position, we have approximately $470 million available on our line of credit, and our ATM program has $500 million of capacity. Our weighted average secured debt maturity is almost 10 years. Our debt to adjusted EBITDA is 5.1 times, and interest coverage is 5.2 times. We continue to place high importance on balance sheet flexibility, and we believe we have multiple sources of capital available to us. Now we would like to open it up for questions.

spk33: To ask a question at this time, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Our first question comes from the line of Josh Dennerlein with Bank of America.

spk02: Hey, guys. Thanks for the time. I just wanted to dig into the guidance update a little bit. It looks like you lowered your RV and marina revenue range at the midpoint by 40 basis points. I'm assuming there's a corresponding drop in expenses. Is that all...

spk19: um transient related or is it somewhat marina i guess how to think about the mix here yeah i think josh maybe it'll help if i just walk through the process um yeah so just when we think about our budget and re-forecast process for seasonal and transient rent overall i'll start by framing the timing and the composition of those revenue streams during the first quarter we earn approximately 50 percent of our anticipated full year seasonal rent and almost 20% of our full-year transient rent. And then by the end of the second quarter, we've earned almost two-thirds of our anticipated full-year seasonal rent and close to 45% of our full-year transients. The last thing on that is just in the third quarter, we earn almost 40% of our transient rent. So we've talked often about the impact of weather on those variable rental income streams, both seasonal and transient, particularly considering the short booking window for the transient customers. I mentioned on the call in January that when we prepared our 2024 budget, we focused on reservation pacing at that time for rent that we anticipated earning in the first quarter, and we had expectations for modest rates of growth in subsequent quarters. We're pleased with our first quarter results for seasonal and transient, particularly the seasonal, which, as I mentioned, represents half of the seasonal rent we expect in the year. Our guidance update for the second quarter and full year employs the same methodology we use for the budget. We focused on reservation pacing for rent we anticipate earning in the second quarter, and we didn't assume any change to our original budget assumptions for the third and fourth quarters. Our current view on second quarter reservation pacing reflects some softness, mainly as a result of weather in April, And I think Patrick can provide a little bit more color on that.

spk07: Yeah. During the first half of April, precipitation was significantly above average in California, the Midwest, and the Northeast. But especially so in California, where the RV portfolio experienced precipitation around 300% of average. California has experienced more precipitation in the first half of April been in the entirety of April last year. So that's been a headwind to the business. Some markets in the Midwest and the Northeast have also experienced above average rainfall by about 200%. I'd also point out that the relatively cool and wet sunbelt season in Florida and the relatively mild winter in the northern U.S. resulted to a difficult year-over-year comparison regarding seasonal guests extending from Q1 into Q2. So these are seasonals that are down for the winter season, extending their reservations into April. The winter of 2023 was very cold, and those extensions were pretty robust, just with respect to the current period that had been headwinds, again, really weather-related.

spk02: I appreciate that color. And then maybe just on the Thousand Trails membership, it's like it dipped in the quarter. Just curious just what's driving that. Is it just like normal seasonality or any kind of color would be helpful?

spk29: Fair question. And certainly there is some seasonality to that. At the end of the quarter, we had I think 119,000 members. Those members are made up of really both dues-paying members and then the free trial members. And the drivers of the decrease is a reduction in free trials and a reduction in the sales activity at the property level. Really, you see a lot of that happen in the first quarter and in other years. I think there's a few things to focus on regarding the membership line If you go back kind of to the beginning when we started operating the Thousand Trails properties, which I think was in 2008, you'll see some years where there's been a drop in a member count. But even with that decrease in those various times, we've really been able to grow the dues revenue base meaningfully through rate increases and additional product offerings.

spk10: And so I think you'll continue to see us do that.

spk09: Thanks for the call, Eric.

spk33: Thanks, Josh. Our next question will come from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.

spk04: Great. Thanks, and good morning.

spk12: Good morning, Jamie.

spk06: Hi. So I guess just to start, I just want to follow up on the insurance renewal of 9%. Can you talk about the assumption that was originally embedded in your guidance And then also how much the full year decrease in operating expense growth results of the lower insurance premium than expected? And are there other areas on the expense line where you're seeing more relief than you expected in your initial numbers?

spk19: Yeah, I think generally, Jamie, we're pleased with the 9% premium increase on renewal. I'd say that in terms of the other line items, we saw in the first quarter that a reduction in our repairs and maintenance that was in place savings on R&M. We did have some portion of that that was timing related, and we've included that in the REIT forecast going forward, but there was a meaningful savings compared to our budget that we consider permanent in R&M.

spk06: Okay, and then on the insurance side, how did the 9% compare to your initial guidance?

spk20: It was favorable.

spk06: Yeah, I think we all know that. I mean, can you ballpark it? I think a lot of people were thinking like 20% to 30%. Were you that high or maybe not?

spk19: We didn't have an assumption as high as 30% in our budget, no. Okay.

spk06: All right, and then I guess the second question is just, you know, I know you guys have said in the past not a ton happening on the distressed acquisition front, but maybe if you could provide an update, you know, as we're kind of further into this cycle and the banks seem to be working through more loans, Is anything starting to look more promising or interesting to you that we might be able to see you get your hands on?

spk29: Sure. Yeah, we continue to have discussions with owners, but really the overall market has been slow, as you point out. There's really little distress in the market as far as owners of our assets. The owners have generally been conservative over the years with their balance sheet, and they have really the luxury of taking the time to transact. I think it's a good idea, Jamie, to think about a longer-term perspective on how we've grown as a company from 41 properties 30 years ago to 450 properties today. That acquisition environment has been episodic. And I think there's been a few times in our history where we've had a very low level of acquisition volume followed by a year of outsized growth. So we really work on planting the seeds for that growth over the years and then are ready to act when it makes sense for us.

spk06: Okay. I mean, are you foreshadowing that it could get better soon or just we know you're just the flag that you keep working on it?

spk29: Yeah, I mean, I think that we continue to be in conversations with owners, and to the extent we have closings, we'll certainly let everyone know as soon as we have information to talk about.

spk06: Do you think there's opportunities to get involved in the capital stack, like debt investments, or do you think anything you do would be straight equity?

spk29: No, I mean, we have looked at it in the past. It's certainly a debt structure where we have the ability to own the asset at some point. Also, you know, we've looked at management along those same lines. So we have looked at things over the years and continue to look at unique structures that could make sense for us.

spk06: Okay. All right. Thank you.

spk33: Thanks, Jane. Our next question will come from the line of Eric Wolf with Citi.

spk17: Hi. If I look at your other income and answer services, it's about 9% of your revenues. I know a lot of it is just utility income, but was curious whether you're sort of implementing any new initiatives to grow the other piece of it, because I would assume that the annual RV members and NH tenants might want things like bundled internet or smart home equipment, but just curious if there's an opportunity to grow that side of the business more quickly.

spk19: I guess before, Eric, we talk about maybe some new initiatives, which I would characterize as kind of modest in terms of generating incremental revenue, I would point to a couple things. First, utility income, as you said. We've continued to segregate utility charges from rents and bill customers for those. We also have the impact of the real estate tax pass-throughs that you see driving some of that growth in 24 compared to 23. And then we do also have the business interruption insurance proceeds impacting that line item year over year.

spk17: Got it. Yeah, I guess it takes up so much conversation on some departments and SFR calls adding, you know, like 50 basis points to stay in store revenue per year, but I guess It doesn't sound like there's probably something that's going to be moving there. So I guess the second question is, you mentioned the collection of property taxes. I was just curious how that is going so far, and if you could just share what you sort of base into your forecast this year for that specifically.

spk19: Yeah, so in terms of the recovery, we have noticed those customers for the amount, they've been paying it, so no issues with respect to that. And it represented about 95% of the increase that we realized in the MH portfolio, the amount that we billed back to the customers.

spk17: Yeah, and there's just a way for us to think about the aggregate amount that's in, because it's in other income rights. I don't know if there's a million, like a dollar a million number that's sort of embedded in there.

spk19: Yeah, it's a little bit tricky when you think about it quarter to quarter, but for the full year, because of the timing of the leases and when those pass-throughs might start, but on a full year basis, it's a couple million dollars in recovery.

spk15: Thank you.

spk33: Thanks, Eric. Our next question will come from the line of Michael Goldsmith with UBS.

spk11: Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Good morning, Michael. Can you hear me?

spk10: We can hear you. Good morning.

spk16: Good morning, guys. In the prepared remarks, you talked a little bit about the reservation piece. being similar to last year, is that less encouraging than you were expecting at this point in the year, or was the base case kind of in line with last year?

spk19: I think it's in line. I mean, when we think about the reservation pacing that we used for seasonal and transient, certainly the seasonal is tracking in line. We're reserved for almost 80 percent of that second quarter rent, which is consistent, and I mean, we talk often about the variability in the transient, but the current pacing is in line with our expectations. No surprises there.

spk16: And then my second question relates to, you know, the last couple of years, demand on the transient has been choppy. But I think what has been a pleasant surprise has been the ability to kind of match expenses to the choppiness in demand. So as you think about the outlook for this year, what have been the learnings from matching payroll to transient demand and are there already preparations in place to flex up or flex down payroll depending on how that piece of reservations plays out through the kind of peak transient year? Thanks.

spk07: There is a great deal of focus on matching the resources we have on-site, particularly with that transient customer flow to, as an example, seasonal employees that are there to provide services and activities for those transient customers. Literally this morning, I was talking to one of my SVPs about exactly that as we're moving through ramping up for the summer season and what that plan looks like in the next couple of weekends.

spk11: Thank you very much.

spk14: Thanks, Michael.

spk33: Our next question will come from the line of Keegan Carl with Wolf Research.

spk37: Yeah, thanks for the time, guys. Maybe first, just your non-core portfolio outlook was increased. Just curious what's driving that.

spk19: Yeah, Keegan, I mean, the non-core, excuse me, sorry. Primarily, it's the mix of performance. The non-core is a little bit tricky, frankly, because of the business interruption proceeds and the restoration of the properties that were impacted by the hurricanes. So there's a bit of an uptick just in terms of the return to normalized business operation.

spk37: Got it. And then bigger picture, if I take a look at your rental home portfolio, pretty material decline on a year-over-year basis and down over 100 units sequentially. I guess I'm just curious what's driving this and how we should think about this relative to the mix of home sales versus the potential for you to add homes that you don't sell to your rental portfolio this year.

spk29: Yes, certainly. What's driving that activity is people buying the homes. So they're either in the home and renting it and want to buy it, or there is somebody else that is interested, maybe inside of the community, that wants to buy that home. So you've seen over the last few years a significant conversion of the rental homes to owned homes And I think we've been very successful in reducing our rental program from a high of about 9% to down to now 3%. So I think that's really a function of the demand for our properties and for people wanting to enjoy that lifestyle.

spk13: Got it. Thanks for the time, guys.

spk33: Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Samir Canal with Evercore ISI.

spk25: Hi, good morning, everyone.

spk26: Hey, Marguerite, maybe expand on the property and casualty insurance renewals. I know it was up 9%. I guess to a question earlier, I mean, it is less than what you were sort of maybe baking in. Maybe walk us through the process and conversations you had to maybe get sort of a lower increase in the premium, because it is surprising based on kind of you know, what the peers have been sort of reporting. So maybe walk us through that process.

spk29: Sure. I think we have a pretty robust disclosure included in our filings about, you know, what makes up our insurance program. It's difficult to determine and see what others in the read space or, you know, in general have for coverage because there isn't as much detail. So I think we have a pretty detailed analysis of where we end up and the process is really built up of a lot of time and effort focused on making sure the carriers appreciate our properties, understand what we have to offer at the property level, and then of course the experience and the claim experience is a big part of the discussions as we head over to London to have the discussions. And we had a very good year from a claims perspective. And that certainly helps us as we go into the discussions with the carriers.

spk26: Okay, got it. And I guess my second question is around the transient business. I guess, Paul or Patrick, what are you expecting for transient to be down this year? I mean, how much? I know the combined number, seasonal and transient, because you can do the math and You know, maybe that sort of slapped it down, but I'm trying to understand, you know, if you were to break down seasonal and transient, sort of what is that projection for this year? Thanks.

spk19: Yeah, I think, Samir, as we think about those revenue streams and the volatility associated with them, we've adopted a practice over the last couple years of combining for guidance purposes those two, and we think that the value in that is that it helps to kind of reduce to a degree some of the volatility that we see from quarter to quarter. So we don't have a transient number to quote independent of the seasonal.

spk13: Okay. Thank you.

spk14: Thanks.

spk33: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Kim with BMO Capital Markets.

spk24: Good morning.

spk33: Good morning, John.

spk24: Hey, Marie. Just had one question on expansion sites. I know historically you'd like to guide or deliver about 1,000 per year. Last year it was a little bit lower than that. But I was wondering if you could talk about the constraints to doing more as far as delivering expansion sites.

spk07: Yeah, sure. As you pointed out last year, we were just shy of 1,000, and that's been a goal of ours, but noting that there are going to be some timing constraints on any particular calendar year. For the current year, we're expecting the number of sites to be developed in the neighborhood of 700 to 800, and one of the One of the variables that's got some pressure on the delivery timeline is just the cadence of getting plans through approval, which can also frequently be a multi-step process. You submit plans for a development, you need to pull a permit. To the extent that there are comments you need to resubmit, that is happening frequently and the timeline for the review of each one of those submittals, is also running long. We're finding that in particular in the higher activity markets where we're doing expansions. Florida has continued to see some pressure with respect to those approvals and working through those agencies. That's in part due to continued buildback from Ian and the state overall, but also just the high level of construction activity in the state.

spk22: And do you think that's a structural headwind?

spk24: In other words, are you going to be delivering in the number you said, 700, 800 going forward? Or is it just timing in the next year?

spk07: I would say it's probably largely timing. We'll work our way through those headwinds. I would expect those headwinds to subside. For perspective, we have over 1,000 sites, over 1,100 sites currently in construction. So the timing of completion and then getting a shovel in the ground on the pipeline, those two things are going to play out over time. And I would expect we're going to be in that neighborhood of 1,000 sites on a run rate basis. But as evidenced by the current year, there may be some headwinds from time to time.

spk24: And Patrick, can you just remind us on the stabilized yields that you expect and how that's trended over time?

spk07: Yeah, they've been in the 8% to 10%, 7% to 10% range recently. When we started really building our pipeline, those yields were higher single digits and low double digits. We've been able to continue to grow the top-line revenue as we've been developing out these sites, but there have been some pressures on construction costs. But I guess part of the good news is In recent quarters, the pressure on some of the construction activities has started to subside somewhat.

spk34: Got it. Thank you. Sure.

spk33: Thanks, John. Our next question will come from the line of Wes Galladay with Baird.

spk27: Hey, good morning, everyone. What drove the decline in the seasonal sites? It looks like it went from 12,500 to 11,800, and do you think it stays at this level?

spk19: Yeah, I think, excuse me, Wes, on the seasonal site count, essentially the adjustment reflects a change in occupancy across the seasonal footprint. It's primarily driven by locations in California and the South and represents transient workers. You know, we have traveling nurses and construction workers that stay in our properties for longer periods of time and qualify as seasonal. So that's the driver of that.

spk27: Okay, and then are you seeing any pushback on the price increases for your various thousand trail upgrade options? And do you notice any members moving up the tiers or more moving down?

spk29: With respect to the membership upgrades, we haven't seen any issues relative to the price of the product. I think the members are very excited to be able to upgrade and get the additional benefits. I think what you see is that during COVID, we had an outsized number of memberships upgraded. You're seeing that kind of go back down to a pre-COVID level.

spk32: Okay. Thanks for the time.

spk33: Thank you, Wes. Our next question will come from the line of Anthony Howe with Truist Securities.

spk21: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe it's a bit too early to tell, but are you guys seeing any benefits from the recent changes to the increase of the loan limits of Title I manufactured housing?

spk19: I think a couple things on that. A, it is early to tell, Anthony, but B, I would also just remind you that the vast majority, over 95% of our customers are paying cash for the homes in our communities. So there's not tremendous reliance on financing in our portfolio.

spk21: I would think that would probably help you guys sell those homes, right? Just because I think some of those loans can go up to $195,000.

spk19: Right, right. And customers are coming and they're buying homes you know, hundred plus thousand dollar homes in our communities and paying cash for them.

spk29: And that's consistent with our long history of our customers paying cash, which adds to just the, you know, the ability at the property level for people to really feel ownership at the community.

spk21: Gotcha. And also, do you guys expect the membership to start growing again since RV shipments is up 15% this year?

spk29: Certainly. Having predictions for RV shipments to be up is a positive overall for our business, including the membership side.

spk30: Okay. Thanks, guys.

spk33: Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of John Pawlowski with Green Street.

spk18: Thanks for the time. Paul, are the revenue declines for the seasonal and transient business over the balance of the year that's implied in your guidance solely driven by the rainy April and tough seasonal RV comp in 2Q, or are there additional signs of price sensitivity popping up from customers?

spk19: Excuse me. The adjustment is limited to Q2 and is driven by the April activity that Patrick talked about.

spk18: Okay. And then I would love to just hear you guys talk through shifts in the transaction market. I know the volume is quiet right now, but very quickly we're looking at pretty deeply negative leverage here given the secured financing costs you alluded to. So if you assumed interest rates stay in a similar range right now, where would you expect called MH cap rates to settle out for ELS quality product in the coming quarters once we do see more transaction volume come in?

spk29: I think it's a little bit difficult to say kind of where the cap rates will end up being in the future, but over the past 18 to 24 months, there have been very few deals, so it's difficult to say kind of pinpoint cap rates. I think you really need more robust market with many data points to be able to quote that. But what we have seen is continued demand and you know it's really still very high for our asset class people want to own these properties people don't want to get you know sell the property so there is a lot of demand for even new people coming into the space one-off owners are interested in buying so I think that you know we'll continue to see that that those levels of demand Certainly, you know, where we're at in the debt markets are an important discussion. But as I kind of pointed out, I think, earlier in this call, you know, there's not a lot of leverage on these assets that we're interested in. So that discussion falls a little flat on the, you know, to the owners who, you know, haven't put a lot of debt on their property. So the movement in the rates isn't as big of a concern for them. but certainly is something that we look at. So, you know, our acquisition department is very focused, very focused on continuing the conversations that we've had with the owners that we've had for a long time now and will continue to do that. But, you know, we have seen times where there's not a lot of activity and then all of a sudden there's, you know, you tend to see deals popping up. So hopefully that is something that we'll see this year.

spk08: Okay. Thank you for the time.

spk33: Thank you, John. Since we have no more questions on the line at this time, I would like to turn it back over to Marguerite Nader for closing comments. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to updating you on the second quarter call. Take care. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.

spk14: You may now disconnect.

spk31: Thank you. you Thank you. you Bye. music music

spk33: Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Equity Lifestyle Properties first quarter 2024 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 released earnings. Today's call will consist of opening remarks and a question and answer session with management relating to the company's earnings release. For those who would like to participate in the question and answer session, management asks that you limit yourself to two questions, so everyone who would like to participate has ample opportunity. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Certain matters discussed today on this conference call may contain forward-looking statements in the meanings of the federal securities laws. Our forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risk and uncertainty. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. 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 would like to turn the call over to Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO.

spk29: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report the results for the first quarter of 2024. Quality of our cash flow, our in-demand locations, the lack of new supply, and the strength of our balance sheet continue to allow us to report impressive results. In times of macroeconomic uncertainty, we continue to deliver strong revenue growth as well as expense controls throughout our portfolio. Our core NOI for the quarter was strong with a 7.1% increase compared to last year, supported by MH and RV rate growth and controlling expenses. Our results for the first quarter and our view for the continued strength for the remainder of 2024 support our guidance rates. Over a 10-year period of time, we have increased the dividend on average 14% compared to the REIT average of 5.5%. Our balance sheet is in great shape with an average term to maturity of nine years. 18% of our debt is fully amortizing and not subject to refinance risk, And our debt maturity schedule through 2026 shows only 11% of our debt coming due compared to the REIT average of 29%. We have spent the last 30 years building a portfolio focused on high-quality coastal and Sunbelt retirement and vacation destinations. We are in locations where active adults want to be. Our customer base is seeking a place to escape from the cold winter and lead an active lifestyle in locations such as Florida, Arizona, and California. We are in states where there is outsized growth in seniors, and we appeal to the right demographic. The population of people age 55 and older in the U.S. is expected to grow 15% from now until 2039, with 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day for the near future. Our MH portfolio comprises approximately 60% of our total revenue, and our properties are 95% occupied. The MH business is unique in that once an elevated level of occupancy is achieved at a property, the occupancy is sustainable for a long time. For ELS, the key to that stickiness is an elevated level of homeowners in the portfolio. Our portfolio is 96% occupied by homeowners. This composition of our resident base is important to protect an uninterrupted cash flow stream as new residents are welcome to our communities. Our residents enjoy the community found in our properties and spend time focused on building new relationships with their fellow residents. We continue to engage our existing customers and attract new prospects through media outreach, engaging in social media campaigns, and targeted digital advertising. Our public relations strategy helps build awareness and credibility through coverage of the lifestyle offered at our properties and interesting stories about our customers who make a difference in the communities in which we operate. Our social media strategy seeks to engage both customers and prospects in a wide variety of platforms so we can reach people where they spend time. We have almost 2 million fans and followers across social media networks. Over the past 10 years, we have grown our social media fans and followers by an average of 19% annually. Our property teams in the north are gearing up to open the summer season. This year, Thousand Trails will celebrate its 55th anniversary. Thousand Trails is one of America's most well-known camping brands, and we have earned strong customer loyalty with hundreds of thousands of our viewers making memories with families and friends throughout the company's long history. We have closed another successful quarter, and our teams will now begin to focus on welcoming our residents to our northern locations as we kick off the summer season. I would like to thank all of our team members for their hard work in making this winter season so successful. I will now turn it over to Patrick to provide an operational overview.

spk07: Thank you, Marguerite. As we wind down the 2023-2024 Sun Belt season and look forward to the 2024 summer season, I will provide color on the Sun Belt season results and a view into the summer season, including drivers of demand. Overall, we continue to see consistent demand across each of our lifestyle property types, reflecting the high quality of our property locations. I will start by highlighting our MH business. Over my 30 years in the industry, my responsibilities have ranged from acquisitions to asset management to operations. And regardless of my area of focus, the consistency of our high-quality MH portfolio has been a constant. MH properties operate year-round, and seasonality is not a consideration. Our MH portfolio maintains high occupancy, and each year approximately 10% of our resident needs turns over. This turnover results in an uninterrupted revenue stream for ELS. as a current homeowner sells their home to an incoming home buyer and the new resident pays market rent. Year to date, we have seen an average rent increase of 5.6% to renewing residents. Our resident base generally consists of retired individuals who are cash buyers. Due to the high homeowner base in our portfolio, occupancy is resilient and the delinquency rate is very low. which is reflected in bad debt that is typically 40 to 45 basis points of revenue. This low level of delinquency has been consistent over the last 30 years in all economic cycles. Moving to the RV portfolio, the Sunbelt season runs from December to April, peaking in February, and demand is largely comprised of snowbirds from the northern U.S. and Canada seeking out the temperate climate of Florida, California, Arizona, and Texas. and Q1 annuals delivered steady occupancy and strong rate growth. Combined seasonal and transient increased in line with expectations supported by demand with consistent rate growth. I'd also note that nearly 50% of our seasonal revenue for the full year comes to us in Q1 during the Sun Belt season, while Q1 transient represents less than 20% of the full year transient revenue. We are now looking forward to the summer season which is comprised of the 100 days of camping from Memorial Day to Labor Day and spans 14 weeks. This is the time that our annual customers at 125 summer resorts and campgrounds visit their getaways on weekends, holidays, and summer vacations. Summer season annuals have a vacation or lake house, basically their resort cottage or park model, located at one of our properties. The resorts are now active with customers focused on spring cleaning, and getting their homes ready for summer activities. These customers are from the local or regional submarkets and are typically a one hour to one and a half hour drive from their homes to their campgrounds. In contrast to the overweight of seasonal revenue in the Sunbelt season, during the summer season, approximately two thirds of our transient revenue for the full year is earned in the second and third quarters. Our reservation pace is similar to last year with the holiday weekends in demand. While booking windows are similar to last year, the booking window is short and therefore we have limited visibility. More than 50% of transient reservations are booked within 10 days of arrival and are subject to short-term disruptors like weather. Finally, I would like to focus on our home sales efforts. Over the last five years, we've sold 4,500 new homes. Investing in these new homes is an upgrade for the community. The new home's construction quality meets stick-built construction standards, including primary bedrooms with walk-in closets, open floor plan kitchens with high-end, high-efficiency appliances, and exterior finishes like gable roofs and architectural shingles. And they remain affordable when compared to other housing options. We've been able to sell our homes for an average price of about $100,000 with limited concessions. Demand for these homes and our locations is evident from new leads and referrals from current residents, all supporting an 8.5% increase in Q1 new home sales year-over-year and a more than 100% increase from the pre-COVID timeframe in Q1 2019. The aging trends from 70 million baby boomers who are currently moving through their retirement years to almost 140 million combined Gen Xers and Millennials who will follow the boomers into their own retirement years all support generational demand for MH and all of our property offerings for decades to come. I'll now turn it over to Paul.

spk19: Thanks, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. I will review our first quarter 2024 results and provide an overview of our second quarter and full year 2024 guidance. First quarter normalized FFO was $0.78 per share, in line with our guidance. Strong core portfolio performance generated 7.1% growth in the quarter, also in line with our expectations. FFO was 86 cents per share and includes $14.8 million of insurance recovery revenue that has been deducted from normalized FFO. Core community-based rental income increased 6.4% for the quarter compared to 2023, primarily as a result of noticed increases to renewing residents and market rent paid by new residents after resident turnover. We increased homeowners by 123 sites in the quarter. Rental homes currently represent 3.1% of our MH occupancy. First quarter core resort and marina-based rental income increased 5.8% compared to 2023. Rent growth from annuals in the first quarter was 8%. As a reminder, 2024 is a leap year which results in an additional day of revenue allocated to the first quarter, resulting in higher rate growth than we expect in the subsequent quarters of 2024. Our first quarter rent from CORE RV seasonal and transient generally performed in line with expectations. Seasonal rent increased 2.4% and transient rent increased 1.4% compared to first quarter 2023. For the first quarter, the net contribution from our membership business, which consists of annual subscription and upgrade sales revenues offset by sales and marketing expenses, was $14.9 million, an increase of 3% compared to the prior year. The net deferral impact for the quarter was $3.2 million. Subscription revenues increased 2.7% as a result of rate increases effective for 2024. During the quarter, we sold just over 800 upgrades. Our average upgrade sale price increased 4%, with the percentage of sales attributed to our adventure upgrade product representing 28% of our first quarter 2024 sales. Core utility and other income increased 5.6%, which includes pass-through recovery of real estate tax increases from 2023. Our utility income recovery percentage was 46.5%, about 70 basis points higher than the first quarter of 2023. First quarter core operating expenses increased 3.9% compared to the same period in 2023. Growth in real estate taxes and insurance reflect the run rate impact of increases that took effect after the first quarter of 2023. Repairs and maintenance decreased compared to 2023 when we incurred expenses to recover from several winter storms. Utility expenses reflect moderating rate growth along with reduced gas consumption, particularly in California. We renewed our property and casualty insurance programs April 1st, and the premium increase was approximately 9%. We are pleased with the result, which reflects no change in our program deductibles and expansion of coverage limits for named windstorm damage. Core property operating revenues increased 5.8%, while core property operating expenses increased 3.9%, 50 basis points lower than the midpoint of our guidance, resulting in growth in core NOI before property management of 7.1%. 10 basis points higher than the midpoint of our guidance. Our non-core properties contributed $5.3 million in the quarter, in line with our expectations. The press release and supplemental package provide an overview of 2024 second quarter and full year earnings guidance. The following remarks are intended to provide context for our current estimate of future results. All growth rate ranges and revenue and expense projections are qualified by the risk factors included in our press release and supplemental package. Our guidance for 2024 full-year normalized FFO is $2.89 per share at the midpoint of our guidance range of $2.84 to $2.94, an increase of a penny per share compared to prior guidance. We project full-year core property operating income growth of 5.8% at the midpoint of our range of 5.3% to 6.3%. Full-year guidance assumes core base rent growth in the ranges of 5.6% to 6.6% for MH and 4.5% to 5.5% for RV and marina. We assume occupancy in our stabilized MH portfolio will be flat to the first quarter. Core property operating expenses are projected to increase 4.2% to 5.2%. Our full year expense growth assumption includes the benefit of first quarter savings in repairs and maintenance and payroll expense, as well as the impact of our April 1st insurance renewal for the rest of 2024. Our guidance model includes the impact of the fixed rate swaps we disclosed in our earnings release and supplemental package. The full-year guidance model makes no assumptions regarding other capital events or the use of free cash flow we expect to generate in 2024. Our second quarter guidance assumes normalized FFO per share in the range of $0.61 to $0.67. Core property operating income growth is projected to be 4.6% at the midpoint of our guidance range for the second quarter, which represents approximately 23% of our expected full-year core NOI. In our core portfolio, property operating revenues are projected to increase 5.1% and expenses are projected to increase 5.6%, both at the midpoint of the guidance range. I'll now provide some comments on our balance sheet and the financing market. As noted in the earnings release and supplemental package, we executed fixed rate swaps on our $300 million unsecured term loan maturing in 2026. The swaps fixed the all-in borrowing cost at 6.05% through maturity. We are pleased with this execution as it eliminates floating rate exposure except balances outstanding from time to time on our line of credit. Current secured debt terms vary depending on many factors including lender, borrower sponsor, and asset type and quality. Current 10-year loans are quoted between 6% and 6.75%, 60 to 75% loan to value, and 1.4 to 1.6 times debt service coverage. We continue to see solid interest from like companies and GSEs to lend for 10-year terms. High-quality, age-qualified MH assets continue to command best financing terms. Regarding our liquidity position, we have approximately $470 million available on our line of credit, and our ATM program has $500 million of capacity. Our weighted average secured debt maturity is almost 10 years. Our debt to adjusted EBITDA is 5.1 times, and interest coverage is 5.2 times. We continue to place high importance on balance sheet flexibility, and we believe we have multiple sources of capital available to us. Now we would like to open it up for questions.

spk33: To ask a question at this time, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Our first question comes from the line of Josh Dennerlein with Bank of America.

spk02: Hey, guys. Thanks for the time. I just wanted to dig into the guidance update a little bit. It looks like you lowered your RV and marina revenue range at the midpoint by 40 basis points. I'm assuming there's a corresponding drop in expenses. Is that all...

spk19: um transient related or is it somewhat marina i guess how to think about the mix here yeah i think josh maybe it'll help if i just walk through the process um yeah so just when we think about our budget and re-forecast process for seasonal and transient rent overall i'll start by framing the timing and the composition of those revenue streams during the first quarter we earn approximately 50 percent of our anticipated full year seasonal rent and almost 20% of our full-year transient rent. And then by the end of the second quarter, we've earned almost two-thirds of our anticipated full-year seasonal rent and close to 45% of our full-year transients. The last thing on that is just in the third quarter, we earn almost 40% of our transient rent. So we've talked often about the impact of weather on those variable rental income streams, both seasonal and transient, particularly considering the short booking window for the transient customers. I mentioned on the call in January that when we prepared our 2024 budget, we focused on reservation pacing at that time for rent that we anticipated earning in the first quarter, and we had expectations for modest rates of growth in subsequent quarters. We're pleased with our first quarter results for seasonal and transient, particularly the seasonal, which, as I mentioned, represents half of the seasonal rent we expect in the year. Our guidance update for the second quarter and full year employs the same methodology we use for the budget. We focused on reservation pacing for rent we anticipate earning in the second quarter, and we didn't assume any change to our original budget assumptions for the third and fourth quarters. Our current view on second quarter reservation pacing reflects some softness, mainly as a result of weather in April, And I think Patrick can provide a little bit more color on that.

spk07: Yeah. During the first half of April, precipitation was significantly above average in California, the Midwest, and the Northeast. But especially so in California, where the RV portfolio experienced precipitation around 300% of average. California has experienced more precipitation in the first half of April been in the entirety of April last year. So that's been a headwind to the business. Some markets in the Midwest and the Northeast have also experienced above average rainfall by about 200%. I'd also point out that the relatively cool and wet sunbelt season in Florida and the relatively mild winter in the northern U.S. resulted to a difficult year-over-year comparison regarding seasonal guests extending from Q1 into Q2. So these are seasonals that are down for the winter season, extending their reservations into April. The winter of 2023 was very cold, and those extensions were pretty robust, just with respect to the current period that had been headwinds, again, really weather-related.

spk02: I appreciate that color. And then maybe just on the Thousand Trails membership, it's like it dipped in the quarter. Just curious just what's driving that. Is it just like normal seasonality or any kind of color would be helpful?

spk29: Fair question. And certainly there is some seasonality to that. At the end of the quarter, we had I think 119,000 members. Those members are made up of really both dues-paying members and then the free trial members. And the drivers of the decrease is a reduction in free trials and a reduction in the sales activity at the property level. Really, you see a lot of that happening in the first quarter and in other years. I think there's a few things to focus on regarding the membership line. If you go back kind of to the beginning when we started operating the Thousand Trails properties, which I think was in 2008, you'll see some years where there's been a drop in a member count. But even with that decrease in those various times, we've really been able to grow the dues revenue base meaningfully through rate increases and additional product offerings. And so I think you'll continue to see us do that.

spk09: Thanks for the call, Eric.

spk10: Thanks, Josh.

spk33: Our next question will come from the line of Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.

spk04: Great. Thanks, and good morning.

spk12: Good morning, Jamie.

spk06: Hi. So I guess just to start, I just want to follow up on the insurance renewal of 9%. Can you talk about the assumption that was originally embedded in your guidance And then also how much the full year decrease in operating expense growth results of the lower insurance premium than expected? And are there other areas on the expense line where you're seeing more relief than you expected in your initial numbers?

spk19: Yeah, I think generally, Jamie, we're pleased with the 9% premium increase on renewal. I'd say that in terms of the other line items, we saw in the first quarter that a reduction in our repairs and maintenance that was in-place savings on R&M. We did have some portion of that that was timing-related, and we've included that in the re-forecast going forward, but there was a meaningful savings compared to our budget that we consider permanent in R&M.