Invitation Homes Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Invitation Homes first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen only mode at this time. Should you need assistance, please signal for 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 Scott McLaughlin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and welcome. Joining me today from Invitation Homes are Dallas Tanner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ernie Friedman, Chief Financial Officer, and Charles Young, Chief Operating Officer. During this call, we may reference our first quarter 2021 earnings press release and supplemental information. This document was issued yesterday after the market closed. and is available on the investor relations section of our website at www.indh.com. Certain statements we make 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, which are 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 2020 Annual Report on Form 10-K and other filings we make with the SEC from time to time. Invitation Homes does not update forward-looking statements and expressly disclaims any obligation to do so. We may also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures during the call. You can find additional information regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures, in our earnings release and supplemental information, which are available on the investor relations section of our website. With that, let me turn the call over to Dallas.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. We hope you are well and have continued to stay safe. We're off to a great start in 2021 with strong fundamentals, steady progress on our growth objectives, and great positioning for the peak leasing season. We are seeing record demand for our homes, and we're executing well to turn that into record high occupancy and capture market-driven rental rate growth. We are also driving growth through acquisitions as our tried and true multi-channel platform and local investment professionals continue to successfully source accretive opportunities as home price appreciation accelerates. Before turning it over to Erk Charles and Ernie, I'd like to elaborate on the macroeconomic opportunity we see and the strategy we've put in place to capitalize on it. To begin, we believe the tailwinds driving growth in our business and markets are stronger than they've ever been. The supply of single-family homes remain well short of growing demand, while the leading edge of the millennial generation is just starting to reach our avid resident age of 39 years. As this large cohort of the population may increasingly seek out single-family homes, we anticipate that their preference for and participation in the subscription economy could continue to drive them toward home rental versus home ownership, further extending demand growth for our product in the years ahead. We also expect continued benefits from our home's compatibility with the work-from-home lifestyle and the relative affordability of our square footage compared to other housing options. We believe these benefits are magnified in a world where people rethink the way they use space to work and play. In addition, we're seeing strong continued growth in household formation within our markets, which are benefiting from the southward migration of the US population. Put simply, we believe the growth we've experienced to date is only the beginning. and we're as bullish as ever about the fundamental outlook for single-family rentals in our markets. These positive industry dynamics are not only a strong backdrop for organic growth, but also enhance the investment thesis for external growth as we look to grow in a very disciplined way. Of the 16 million single-family rental homes in the U.S. today, less than 2% are institutionally owned. We are hearing from our residents and seeing in our results that there is high demand for an increased number of professionally managed single-family rental homes. There is an opportunity and a need for the industry to grow, and with our best-in-class platform, people, and scale, we believe we are the best prepared to invest and execute to capture these growth opportunities ahead. In this regard, our growth strategy is comprised of two parallel avenues. The first is through acquisitions. The second is through enhancing the resident experience. Let me walk you through both of these in a bit more detail. First, I'll cover growing our portfolio. As we've stated, we've projected acquisitions of at least a billion dollars in homes this year, and I'm pleased to report we are off to a great start. During the first quarter, we added 696 homes to our portfolio, including 295 in our joint venture. Our proven multi-channel approach to acquisitions, driven by our proprietary acquisition IQ technology, and in-house local investment experts enable us to remain nimble and source robust acquisition volume while maintaining discipline around location, quality, and risk-adjusted returns. Second, I'd like to talk about our plans to further enhance the resident experience. Our residents look to us not only for shelter, but also a worry-free leasing lifestyle. Our ProCare service offers proactive maintenance to keep our residents' homes in excellent condition. Our smart home technology makes it easy to manage the features and utilities in their homes. And our filthy delivery service make it more convenient for residents to maintain air quality and energy efficiency of their homes. We recently rolled out our pest control services and will launch a landscaping pilot program in select markets next month. All of these items are provided at an additional monthly cost, and both our resident survey data and the number of residents signing up for these services tell us that we're delivering these services that residents want in order to simplify their lives. We estimate we're over halfway to our expectation to reach approximately 15 to 30 million in run rate annual ancillary income by the end of 2022. As we grow, we also remain focused on ESG. including added attention to the environmental performance of our homes. For example, we recently piloted a program designed to help our residents optimize their energy usage while reducing peak energy demand. The software-based system is integrated into our smart home technology and allows our residents to save hundreds of dollars a year in utility costs, in addition to consuming less energy. We also recently launched our green spaces community program, in which we select philanthropic and volunteer opportunities to improve outdoor spaces in our neighborhoods. We kicked off the program earlier this month with support for the Hawes Trail Alliance in Mesa, Arizona, where members of our executive team joined dozens of local associates and community partners to create new hiking and biking trails for our residents and for our neighbors to enjoy. I'd also like to take a minute and comment on our recent investment grade ratings announcement. We are very pleased that the rating agencies recognize the strength of our platform and our team and the safety of our balance sheet. This represents the achievement of a long stated goal since our IPO and Ernie will provide more commentary on what it means for our company going forward. In closing, we're proud of the accomplishments we've made this quarter and are excited by the opportunities we have to grow both internally and externally using our strengths, scale, and operational excellence to continue leading the single-family sector. I'd like to thank all of our associates for their hard work in serving our residents with genuine care and getting us off to a strong start this year. With that, I'll turn it over to Charles to talk further about our operational results.