Invitation Homes Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Invitation Homes first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. All participants are in listen-only mode at this time. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Greg Van Winkle, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. On today's call from Invitation Homes are Dallas Tanner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ernie Friedman, Chief Financial Officer, and Charles Young, Chief Operating Officer. I'd like to point everyone to our first quarter 2020 earnings press release and supplemental information which we may reference on today's call. This document can be found on the investor relations section of our website at www.invh.com. I'd also like to inform you that certain statements made during this call may include forward-looking statements relating to the future performance of our business, financial results, liquidity and capital resources, and other non-historical statements. They're subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes or results to differ materially from those indicated in any such statements. We describe some of these risks and uncertainties in our 2019 Annual Report on Form 10-K and other filings we make with the SEC from time to time, including the potential negative impact of the outbreak of a novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 on our business, employees, residents, and our ability to operate our business. Future impact of the outbreak is highly uncertain and cannot be predicted. The extent of the impact will depend on future developments, including actions taken to contain and mitigate COVID-19 outbreak. Invitation Homes does not update forward-looking statements and expressly disclaims any obligation to do so. During this call, we may also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. To find additional information regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, and our earnings release and supplemental information, which are available on the investor relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dallas Tanner.

Thank you, Greg. I want to start by saying I sincerely hope all of you listening are doing well and staying safe. Invitation Homes' mission to provide quality housing for American families impacts many stakeholders, including our residents, associates, vendors, communities, and investors. I could not be prouder of the way our teams have embodied our core values of genuine care and standout citizenship to keep these stakeholders safe and bring stability to residents' lives with a comforting home and a friendly experience. On today's call, Charles and Ernie will provide an update on our results and financial position, but I'd like to begin by telling you what we are focused on as a management team. First and foremost is health and safety. Our homes are ports in the storm for thousands of families. making it our duty to continue serving residents through this pandemic. To perform this duty safely, we implemented important precautions early on. For prospective residents, we are relying on self-showings by utilizing our smart home technology and keyless entry systems. For current residents, we are making every effort to fulfill critical service needs while ensuring safety measures, including deferral of non-emergency service trips, health and wellness verification for residents, service techs and vendors before visiting homes, and observation of social distancing best practices in all of our resident and associate interactions. While our focus on health and safety begins with physical health, it also includes financial health. We have created appropriate solutions to financial hardship for those who need it. This includes payment plans without late fees for residents who require flexibility to meet their rental obligations over time and a voluntary moratorium on evictions. The second important focus area I'll address is the financial well-being of our company. We entered the pandemic in a position of strength with record high occupancy, significant liquidity available to us, and zero debt maturing before 2022. We also entered the pandemic knowing that our business had several differentiators that might work in our favor despite the uncertain environment. First, We provide the essential human need of housing and a leasing lifestyle that we believe is even more attractive versus other housing alternatives in times of uncertainty. Second, as you know, we have been purposeful about assembling an infill portfolio in locations where we expect greater resilience to economic cycles. Third, the residents we serve on average came into the pandemic with two wage earners per household, generating income of almost $110,000 that covered rent obligations by five times. And fourth, we operate a high margin business. Despite these positive differentiators, we took certain steps beginning in mid-March to further strengthen our operating and financial position, not knowing exactly how things might unfold. These actions included prioritizing occupancy, which climbed to a record high 97.2% in April. drawing roughly one quarter of our revolver to increase working capital and pushing pause temporarily on sourcing new acquisitions. Based on how well our business performed in March and April, it appears that the positive differentiators of our business and the additional COVID specific steps we took to strengthen our position are working favorably to this point in the pandemic. Shelter in place has not impacted our ability to lease homes. In fact, Residents have been moving into our portfolio at a similar rate to last year and at a greater rate than they have been moving out. Both renewal and new lease rate growth remain positive in April and occupancy reaches all times highs. On this higher potential revenue base, we collected rents at over 95% of our typical collection rate in April and are tracking even better in May than we were in April through the fifth day of the month. The third area we are focused on is staying close to information on the ground in our markets. Our platform has been purpose-built to provide real-time feedback. Our teams, from operations management to customer service reps, maintenance supervisors, and investment directors, are in-house and local. This on-the-ground presence has served us well in navigating fast-changing scenarios like natural disasters in the past, and we've been able to leverage our playbook from these past events to help our teams identify and quickly adapt to rapid changes in each of our markets today. We believe our local presence and agility should also benefit us as we emerge on the other side of this pandemic with more clarity about the future. I'll say a few more words at the end of our prepared remarks, but at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Charles Young, our Chief Operating Officer.