Extra Space Storage Inc

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2021 Extra Space Storage Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during a session, you need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and if you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I want to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jeff Milliman, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Victor. Welcome to Extra Space Storage's fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. In addition to our press release, we have furnished unaudited supplemental financial information on our website. Please remember that management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements, It was defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by our forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These forward-looking statements are qualified by the cautionary statements contained in the company's latest filings with the SEC, which we encourage our listeners to review. Forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of today, February 24th, 2022. The company assumes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements because of changing market conditions or other circumstances after the date of this conference call. I'd now like to turn the time over to Joe Margolis, Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Jeff, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. It is incredibly sad to wake up this morning to news of war in Europe. Without ignoring the human loss and suffering this will entail, we are also thinking of how this tragic event will affect economic growth, oil prices, inflation, interest rates, and ultimately our business and our company. Events like this certainly give us some perspective on our business and our lives, and in some ways make discussing the performance and outlook of our company seem less important. While we don't know how all of this will play out, we do know that historically self-storage has been a needed product in good and bad economic times, that the cash flow we produce is very stable, much more so than many other types of real estate, and that our company and balance sheet are structured and prepared to prosper in all economic conditions. Now turning to results. We had a remarkable, remarkable fourth quarter to cap off another strong year at extra space storage. Property level performance was exceptional across the board. Same store revenue growth in the quarter was 18.3 percent. Revenue growth was primarily driven by two factors. First, our same store occupancy 95.3 percent, which was a year-end high for extra space for the second year in a row. Secondly, strong new and existing customer rate growth. Expense growth remained in check at 2.5 percent, resulting in same-store NOI growth of 24.2 percent. We also had significant external growth in the quarter. We acquired 66 stores on a wholly owned basis or in joint ventures for a total investment from Extra Space of approximately $850 million. Total acquisition investment for the full year was $1.3 billion, primarily in relatively small transactions. We also closed $187 million in bridge loans in the quarter bringing the annual total to $333 million. We continue to execute on our strategy to sell a significant portion of our lower yielding first mortgage balances to our debt partners. We also continue to acquire properties originally sourced through our lending platform. To date, we have acquired 15 properties sourced through loans for $181 million. We added 69 stores to our management platform in the quarter for a total of 265 stores for the full year. To give context, including acquisitions, we onboarded 1.3 properties per business day in 2021. We experienced higher dispositions with more stores leaving our platform due to third-party owners selling property. but we were able to buy 58 of these, either wholly owned or with one of our joint venture partners. Our property NOI plus our external growth efforts resulted in core FFO growth of 29.1 percent in the quarter. I am proud of the Extra Space team. There are many contributions to our growth in 2021 and for how they have positioned us for another strong year in 2022. We are also proud to have been recognized not only for our performance, but the sustainable nature of the company we have built. For the second year in a row, we were named one of NAE REIT's leaders in the light for our sustainability efforts. And we are proud to be the only storage company to have received this award. Looking forward, industry fundamentals remain very strong. Occupancy levels remain at historically high levels, resulting in elevated pricing power to new and existing customers. Despite very difficult comparables, the strong market fundamentals and our team's ability to execute give us the confidence to guide to double-digit same-store revenue growth again in 2022, and FFO growth of over 13 percent at the midpoint. In light of this strength, we raised our dividend to $1.50 per share, a 50% increase year over year. We are off to a great start in 2022. We expect another exceptional year for extra space storage. I would now like to turn the time over to Scott to walk through some of the details of performance in the fourth quarter, as well as our 2022 guidance.