Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and thank you all for joining us to discuss Equity Lifestyle Properties' first quarter 2025 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 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 yourselves to two questions, so everyone who would like to participate has ample opportunity. 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 laws. Our forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risks and uncertainties. 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'd like to turn the call over to Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report the results for the first quarter of 2025. The quality of our cash flow, our in-demand locations, the lack of new supply, and the strength of our balance sheet allow us to report impressive results. We continued our long-term record of strong core operations and FFO growth, with growth in NOI of 3.8% and a 6.7% increase in normalized FFO per share in the first quarter. We are pleased with our outlook for the remainder of 2025. We have maintained our strong full-year FFO guidance of $3.06 per share. Over the last 10 years, our average core NOI grew 5.3%, and normalized FFO grew nearly 8%, both outpacing the REIT industry average over that time. Our balance sheet is in terrific shape with an average term to maturity of more than eight years. Nineteen percent of our debt is fully amortizing and not subject to refinance risk, And our debt maturity schedule through 2027 shows only 9% of our debt coming due compared to the REIT average of 30%. During uncertain times, it's helpful to appreciate the stability of our business and the reasons it will continue to be stable. Our MH portfolio comprises approximately 60% of our total revenue and our properties are 94% occupied. Our properties stand out due to their ability to maintain high occupancy levels once achieved. This is driven by the unique composition of our resident base. Homeowners occupy 97% of our MH portfolio, creating long-term stability and reducing turnover. A high percentage of homeowners play the key role of maintaining consistent cash flow. Our communities foster a strong sense of connection where residents are focused on building relationships and contributing to an engaged neighborhood environment. Within our RV footprint, our annual revenue grew 4.1% in the quarter. Our annual customers stay with us in park models, resort cottages, and RVs. We welcome many multi-generational customers who consider our properties as part of their family history. Our transient stays serve as an important entry point for introducing new customers to our properties, laying the foundation for long-term revenue growth. Turning to demand, our offerings across our portfolio are unique. We offer great long-term experiences in sought-after locations at a fraction of the cost in those locations. We are engaging with our customers through traditional email campaigns, social media outreach, digital advertising, and ambassador programs. For the quarter, our websites attracted a combined 1.7 million unique visitors and generated 72,000 online leads, reflecting strong engagement. The drivers of the lead generation are from our RV annual site lease campaign and trip planning lead generation. Our social media strategy seeks to engage both customers and prospects in a wide variety of platforms. We have over 2.2 million fans and followers across the social media networks. Over the past 10 years, we have grown our social media fans and followers by an average of 30% annually. I want to thank our team members for a great start of the year. They've done an excellent job supporting our snowbird guests, and now we're getting ready to welcome our customers for the upcoming spring and summer seasons. Our REIT leading performance is made possible because of the efforts of our 4,000 team members across the country. I will now turn it over to Patrick to provide more details about property operations.

Thanks, Marguerite. Our business is currently in its spring seasonal shift. With snowbirds in our Sunbelt locations, beginning to head north, and our northern locations preparing for the summer rush. This shoulder season is an opportunity to look at the elements that shaped our first quarter results, as well as what we see ahead for the summer season. The fundamentals of our business remain strong. New supply of manufactured home communities and RV resorts continues to be limited, with MH entitlements remaining the most challenging. Our portfolio of MH and RV properties offer prime locations and meet demand from homebuyers and RV vacationers. First, I'll focus on our MH business. Our MH occupancy is at historically high levels, and on average, ELS homeowners pay $80,000 to $100,000 for a new home, and renters pay $1,500 per month. Our high homeowner count results in stable occupancy, with homeowners in our communities remaining an average of 10 years. For perspective on the relative value of homes in our MH communities, I'll highlight three states, Florida, California, and Arizona, that comprise the largest share of our major business. In our primary submarkets in Florida, the average single family home price ranges from over 370,000 in Tampa, St. Pete, to nearly 460,000 in the Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach submarket. Homes in Northern California, around San Francisco and San Jose, average over 1.4 million, and in Southern California, in Los Angeles and San Diego, it's just over 1 million, while homes in the Phoenix and Mesa sub-market average more than 425,000. In each sub-market, our communities offer great value to residents, both homeowners and renters. Our largest market is Florida, and last quarter we discussed the impact of recent hurricanes on MH occupancy. The result of last season's hurricanes, we lost approximately 170 occupied sites in in addition to more than 90 occupied sites in Q4. We are ordering replacement homes, and we will see the positive impact on the community and cash flow in coming quarters. On the RV side of our business, we continue to see strength from our annual sites, where we saw 4.1% revenue growth in the quarter. Customers are leveraging annual sites for their RV or park model as an attractive and affordable path to a vacation home or lake house. The annual site rent on one of our properties is a fraction of the cost of a mortgage on a second home, particularly on a home offering amenities like water access, a swimming pool, and a clubhouse with sports courts, among others. For many customers, their annual site rent, ranging from $5,000 to $6,000 in the north and averaging about $8,000 in the Sunbelt, is equivalent to the cost of their annual week-long vacation, considering travel expenses and accommodations. Annual customers typically purchase a PERC model for $25,000 to $100,000, which compares favorably to vacation homes that often exceed $500,000 in some markets where our properties are located. These annual sites provide a stable revenue base for our RV portfolio, accounting for more than 75% of our core RV revenue. While transient sites are an important element of our business, including serving a pipeline for annual sites and membership sales, We have less visibility into this revenue line as the time between booking and travel continues to be short. More than half of our transient reservations are booked within 30 days of arrival. A majority of our full-year transient revenue comes to us in Q2 and Q3 when we see historically high holiday demand. We are looking forward to our annual 100 Days of Camping promotion, spanning from Memorial Day to Labor Day. This will be our 11th season celebrating the 100 Days of Camping. We see very high engagement levels with this promotion. We saw more than 38 million impressions for the campaign last summer. Now I'll turn it over to Paul.