Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MAA First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterward, the company will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, April 29, 2021. I will now turn the call over to Tim Argo, Senior Vice President of Finance of MAA for opening comments. Please go ahead.

Tim Argo Thank you, Christine. Good morning, everyone. This is Tim Argo, Senior Vice President of Finance for MAA. With me are Eric Bolton, our CEO, Al Campbell, our CFO, Rob DelPriori, our General Counsel, Tom Grimes, our COO, and Brad Hill, our Head of Transactions. Before we begin with our prepared comments this morning, I would like to point out that as part of the discussion, company management will be making forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from our projections. We encourage you to refer to the forward-looking statement section in yesterday's earnings release and our 34-act filings with the SEC, which describe risk factors that may impact future results. these reports along with a copy of today's prepared comments and an audio copy of this morning's call will be available on our website during this call we will also discuss certain non-gap financial measures a presentation of the most directly comparable gap financial measures as well as reconciliations of the differences between non-gap and comparable gap measures can be found in our earnings release and supplemental financial data, which are available on the For Investors page of our website at www.maac.com. I'll now turn the call over to Eric.

Thanks, Tim, and good morning. We are encouraged with the solid start to the year as core FFO results were well ahead of our expectations. A recovery in rent growth is clearly getting started. Our overall blended rents on a lease-over-lease basis are running slightly ahead of last year, and our forecast is for continued improvement. A combination of the recovery within the Sunbelt economies that is just starting to build, coupled with the continued migration of employers and jobs to this region, are driving higher levels of demand across our portfolio. We like the trends that we're seeing as we head into the important summer leasing season. Our teams are off to a strong start this year with our unit interior redevelopment program, the rollout of our smart home technology platform, as well as several new projects aimed at full repositioning of communities to higher price points. We're excited about the upside in rent growth to capture from all three of these programs. It was about this time last year when we hit the pause button on these projects in order to protect residents and staff during the initial months of COVID. and we expect to make solid progress this year. Our new development platform continues to expand and we're excited to have closed this month on our first opportunity in the Salt Lake City market. We see continued strong job growth and positive migration trends to this market and look forward to expanding our presence there. Supported by our strong balance sheet and growing demand for apartment housing across our Sunbelt markets, we believe we are poised to capture increasing earnings contribution from our development pipeline over the next few years. As the Sunbelt market economies begin to reopen, it seems clear that based on the trends that we're seeing, that the worst of the pressures associated with COVID are behind us. MAA's unique approach to diversifying across the Sun Belt has clearly worked to soften some of the pressures surrounding the recession and the slowdown in leasing over the past few quarters. However, we're frankly more excited about the prospects for outperformance over the coming recovery cycle. the growing appeal of the Sunbelt markets, the upside that we have to capture in redevelopment within our existing portfolio, higher efficiencies we expect to harvest from several new technology initiatives, and finally, a growing impact from our external growth pipeline all combined to put MAA in a solid position for the coming recovery cycle. In closing, I want to thank our team of associates for their hard work and efforts to serve our residents this past quarter. with a special nod to our team in Texas who worked through the winter storm and freezing temperatures in February. Your commitment to our mission of serving those who depend on our company is much appreciated. Tom?

Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. The recovery continued across the portfolio through the first quarter. Leasing volume for the quarter was up 16%. This drove blended pricing achieved during the quarter up 2.7%. This is even with the very strong start we had in the first quarter of 2020 and up 200 basis points from the fourth quarter. In addition, we were able to maintain strong average daily occupancy of 95.7, and all in-place rents or effective rent growth on a year-over-year basis improved to 1.3% in the first quarter. Collections during the quarter were strong. We collected 99.1% billed rent in the first quarter. We've worked diligently to identify and support those who need help because of COVID-19. The number of those seeking assistance has dropped over time. In April of last year, we had 5,600 residents on relief plans. The number of participants has decreased to just 325 for the April of this year rental assistance plan. This represents only 20 basis points of April billed rent. we saw a steady interest in our product upgrade initiatives we're off to a strong start for the year on our interior unit redevelopment program as well as installation of our smart home technology package that includes mobile controlled lights thermostat and security as well as leak detection we completed 964 redevelopment units and 13 975 smart home packages For the full year of 2021, we expect to complete just over 6,000 interior unit upgrades and install 22,000 smart home packages. We are also in the final stages of completing the repositioning work on our first six full reposition properties and have another eight that will begin this year. April's collections are in line with the good results we saw in the first quarter. As of April 27th, we've collected 98.7% of rent billed, which is at least 10 basis points ahead of each of the comparable numbers for January, February, and March of this year. Leasing activity for April is strong. New lease over lease pricing in April is running close to 4% of rent on the prior lease. Renewal lease pricing in April is running 6.5% ahead of the prior lease. Our resident satisfaction scores remain strong and are actually ahead of last year by 120 basis points, which should support continued strong renewal lease pricing. still have a few down units in april as a result of the winter storm and including the impact of those average daily occupancy for the month of april is currently 96.1 which is 100 basis points better than april of last year exposure which is all vacant units plus notices through a 60-day period is just 7.2 percent this is 180 basis points better than the prior year and supports our ability to continue to prioritize a focus on rent growth. We are well positioned as we move into our busy leasing season. Led by job growth, which is expected to increase 4.9% in 2021 versus the negative 5% in 2020 for our markets. We expect to see the broad recovery in our region of the country continue. We expect Phoenix, Tampa, Raleigh, and Jacksonville to be our strongest markets and expect Houston, Orlando, and D.C. to recover, but at a slower rate. I would like to echo Eric's comments and thank our teams as well. They've shown tremendous adaptability and resilience over the last year. I'm proud of them and excited about their strong start to 2021. I'll now turn the call over to Brad.

Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Investor demand for multifamily product within our region of the country remains strong. However, a lack of properties for sale is causing a supply-demand imbalance that continues to drive already aggressive pricing. This robust investor demand, supported by continued low interest rates, has further compressed cap rates, which are frequently in the mid-3% and low-4% range for high-quality properties in desirable locations within our markets. Transaction cap rates on closed projects that we underwrote were down 25 basis points from last quarter and down 50 basis points from first quarter of 2020. We remain active in the transaction market, but as outlined in our guidance, we are not forecasting executing on any acquisitions of existing communities between now and year end. While acquiring existing assets is a challenge, we continue to make progress on the expansion of our development pipeline. As noted in our release, we closed on two land parcels in April as part of our pre-purchase program where we partner with third-party developers. We expect to start construction on both of these projects in the second quarter. Our Atlanta project is a five-story mid-rise development located along the Beltline Extension in the West Midtown area of Atlanta, less than two miles from Microsoft's recently announced campus. We also closed on a four-story surface park project in the Daybreak Master Plan community of Salt Lake City, one of the top five Master Plan communities in the United States. We are excited to expand our footprint into Salt Lake City, a market that shares many of the attributes that characterize our overall footprint. Good job growth, great migration trends, and a highly educated workforce. In addition to these two projects, we have several other development sites within our footprint, owned or under contract, that we hope to start construction on later this year and into next year. We have seen material run up in construction costs, and specifically lumber. But our construction team, as well as our partners, have done a good job helping us to mitigate some of this increase. We continue to see some supply chain disruptions on appliances, cabinets, windows, and other items. But on the majority of our projects, we've been able to work around these issues with minimal impact to our delivery schedules. We continue to see strong leasing demand in our region of the country, and our two lease-up properties in Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as our under construction property in Phoenix, all continue to perform very well with rents and leasing velocity in line with or ahead of our pre-COVID expectations. As part of our planned dispositions for 2021, we took our Jackson, Mississippi properties to market in the first quarter and received very strong investor interest with the strongest bidding coming from portfolio buyers wanting all four properties. The properties are currently under contract with our buyer's inspection period ending soon We expect this transaction to close in the third quarter. We are also on track to execute on the remainder of our 2021 disposition plan in the fourth quarter. Our view of new supply remains unchanged with the expectation that 2021 looks very similar to 2020. Based on 2020's permitting trends, we still expect new deliveries to start trending down late this year and into next year before possibly increasing in 2023, reflecting the recent increase in permitting and starts data. That's all I have in the way of prepared comments, so I'll turn the call over to Al.

Okay, thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. Core FFO per share performance of $1.64 for the first quarter was $0.05 per share ahead of the midpoint of our guidance. As expected, operating trends continue to improve through the quarter, producing same-store revenue and NOI performance that was slightly ahead of our forecast, providing about a penny per share of favorability for the quarter. We continue to expect stable occupancy and strong pricing trends to have a growing impact on effective rents over the remainder of the year. But keep in mind that only about 20% of our leases were effective in the first quarter, and we still have the majority of our leases to be signed during the summer leasing season in the second and third quarter. The remaining favorability came from overhead and interest expense, which were both lower than projections for the quarter. So overhead costs are expected to grow more in line with our original projections as the year progresses, as our travel and other activities move toward more normalized levels. Winter Storm Yuri impacted a portion of our portfolio during the quarter, where unusually cold temperature and electrical outages led to frozen pipes and damage at a number of our Texas communities. Our operating teams worked hard to take care of our residents and get affected units back online quickly. We incurred some casualty losses during the first quarter related to the storm, but established a receivable for the vast majority of the costs, which are expected to be reimbursed through insurance coverage. Net earnings impact to MAA during the quarter was only about $765,000, primarily related to downed units. Our balance sheet remains in great shape. During the quarter, we paid off the $118 million of secured mortgages at an expiring rate of 5.1%. We also funded an additional $64 million of costs toward the completion of our development pipeline, which at quarter end included seven communities with total projected costs of $528 million, of which $193 million remains to be funded. As Brad mentioned, we acquired two land parcels in April as part of pre-purchase development deals, which should begin construction later this year. And as discussed previously, we expect our development pipeline to grow to around $800 million by year-end, which is well within our development tolerance limits. As Tom mentioned, we also continue to make good progress during the quarter on our three internal investment programs, interior redevelopment, property repositioning projects, and smart home installations. We funded a total of $22.7 million toward these programs during the first quarter, which are expected to begin contributing to our growth more strongly in late 2021 and 2022. We ended the quarter with low leverage, debt to EBITDA only 4.9 times, and with $644 million of combined cash and borrowing capacity under our line of credit. And finally, in order to reflect the first quarter earnings performance, we increased our full-year guidance range for core FFO by $0.05 to a range of $635 to $665 per share, Our same-store performance trends were essentially in line with our forecast, and we expect pricing trends to continue to improve over the remainder of the year, with the most favorable prior year revenue comparisons coming in the second quarter due to the initial impact of COVID-19 last year. We plan to revisit guidance after the second quarter when we'll have more clarity on several key assumptions. So that's all that we have in the way of prepared comments, so Christy, we'll now turn the call back over to you for questions. Thank you.

Christy, are you there?

At this time, if you have a question, please press star and 1 on your touchtone phone. Star and 1 on your touchtone phone. You can always remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We'll pause a moment to allow questions to queue. First question is from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you. On your effective lease rates, they were growing steadily throughout each month in the first quarter, and it sounds like April is coming in at 5%. How does that compare to your original projections when you came up with guidance for the year?

Yeah, John, this is Al. I think Tim and I can both tag team on this one. But I think as we talked about, we had expected to have strong pricing trends in our forecast for the year. And if you take our pricing expectations or built in our forecast, it's somewhere around 2.5% blended for the full year. And I think if you take a look at what happened last year, which was about 1.3% pricing, you add what we expect this year, which in terms of revenue, you add about half of that production, and you can blend those two together and come up with the 2% bid point that we have on our overall revenue. So we're certainly encouraged by the trends that we see in the pricing that Tom talked about, but remember, as we talked about, we've only had about 20% of our leases effective now, and we've got a lot of leases to come in the second and third quarter, so a long way to go yet, and we'll take another look at that in the second quarter.

And we did plan for a return to sort of normal seasonality, so we expected it to be accelerating during this time and kind of move call it January through July to be accelerating, then start to trend back down a little bit with normal seasonality.

So is the April data, is that coming off an easier comp from last year? And you expect that to trend out? Or is it, you know, with seasonality behind the second, third quarter, you expect it to be?

Certainly on new leads is April was kind of the first month last year where we saw the weakness. So we're getting some good comparability there. But we would expect it to continue to grow from there and kind of return to that seasonality. So I think to Al's point, it's certainly encouraging with the trends we're seeing, and we'll see how it plays out over the next quarter.

My second question is on the pre-purchase development program. What are the initial stabilized cap rates that you expect to have on that program, and how does that compare to the development yield?

Yes, John, this is Brad. Our pre-purchase yields are generally in line with our overall development expectations, so there's really no difference in yields between those two platforms. But I will say the deals that we have, the seven deals on the books right now, those are generally yielding about 6%. We have seen some pressure relative to construction costs. Obviously, there's a lot of publications about that, but we would expect around a 10 to 20, not percent, 20 basis points reduction in costs associated with that. But that's somewhat offset by, if you just look broadly at our footprint in our region of the country, rents continue to do very, very well. So we expect some of that increase in cost and the impact there to be offset by what we expect rents to do within our region. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is from Brad Hepburn with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning everyone. Just following up on the April lease numbers again, is the differential between the renewals and the new leases about what you would expect it to be in sort of a normal market for this time of year? Is there still some COVID impact that's hitting those numbers?

yes that is brad is tom um if things are looking pretty normal and we would expect um to have that gap between new lease and renewal rate at this point in time um it's it's widest in the winter and then it begins to narrow and tighten in the summer okay got it um and then sort of philosophically i mean it's been a long long time since ma has has done any equity issuance i'm curious

With the market sort of implying a lower cost of equity at this point, whether you'd ever think it would make sense to raise money and maybe accelerate development, or maybe if you found attractive acquisition opportunities, or will you continue to sort of just recycle capital and use the cash generated by the business?

Brad, this is Eric. At the moment, we believe that the pace under which we're able to find opportunity and deploy capital coupled with the asset sales that we're going to continue to progress on, we don't see a need for equity. I think it's obviously something we continue to monitor. If the acquisition market began to change in some fashion that really yielded a lot more external growth opportunity, we'd have to revisit that point. For the moment, we believe that between the recycling and the deployment opportunities we have and the capacity we have on the balance sheet that we like where we are and don't feel a need to tap the equity markets.

Okay. Thank you.

And the next question is from Austin Worshmith with KeyBank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everybody. Somewhat to the last question, I mean, recognizing that competition for assets is really strong and cap rates are low, but given some of the growth you're seeing and, you know, the strength and sort of the economic recovery here, I mean, have you considered changing your underwriting and getting a little bit more aggressive in growth in, you know, some of the acquisition deals that you're taking a look at?

Well, I mean, we certainly – Austin, this is Eric. I mean, we constantly, you know, challenge our thinking a bit on our underwriting and make sure that we're being as, you know, realistic as we can be in what we expect, you know, rent growth to do. And so, you know, I think that at the end of the day, you know, we're looking at adding stabilized yields to our portfolio that, you know, will – increase the overall earnings potential of the portfolio long term. And I think that right now, what we see happening on the acquisition side, frankly, requires a level of reach and a level of assumption for a very long period of time that we just don't, we have a hard time sort of getting comfortable with. We can make the numbers work on both the pre-purchase program And on the new development, certainly it's dilution associated with the lease up and the construction process there. But once those assets get fully stabilized, I mean, the yield is there pretty quick. On the acquisition front, I think right now, frankly, you would have to be comfortable with – I believe, a level of dilution that is longer, frankly, than what we're able to do on the development front and pre-purchase front. So, you know, we think we're pushing it in terms of assumptions about as hard as we should, and beyond what we're doing right now would require a level of reach that, frankly, we're just not comfortable with.

Understood. I appreciate the thoughts. And then just going back to guidance, I mean, we touched on lease rates a bit, and given how strong they've been, it sounds like occupancy is also continuing to ramp into April. So can you just kind of walk through the assumptions there for the back half of the year and how you're thinking that trends, how occupancy trends to the balance of the year?

Yeah, so occupancy going into the year, we dialed in about a 10 basis point drop in occupancy compared to last year as we focus on pushing pricing. So somewhere around 95.5, 95.6 or so. So kind of given where Q1 was and where we stand right now, we feel good about that. So we'd expect that to be pretty steady. And again, you know, focus, given this environment, focus a little more on pushing rents where we can and kind of hold occupancy where it is.

Got it. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

The next question is from Amanda Schweitzer with Baird. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Your revenue growth recently has been boosted by some of your smaller markets. Are there any differences between rent-to-income metrics in those markets relative to the larger markets or anything else that would impact your ability to continue pushing those large rent increases going forward?

No, Amanda. The rent-to-income ratios in our small markets is in line with those larger markets. So we feel like the opportunity will continue there. Not worried about that at all.

And then it's relatively small dollars, but you had another double-digit increase in marketing expenses this quarter. Is that being caused by competitive new supply or driven by any specific markets? And do you expect similar rates of increase going forward?

yeah and i think you know on expenses for the year we'll see this there's a little bit of variability in prior year comparisons but for the full year marketing will be at or below uh three percent um and it's a combination of things it is is both our lead generating activities but some of the um some of the uh pressure this or some of the uh expense in this quarter was bringing online some new tools as it relates to online lead nurturing and our call center solutions, which will help keep our personnel costs flat for the year.

Thanks. Appreciate the time.

You bet. Thank you.

Next question from Alex Comis with Zoman & Associates. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Looking at move-ins from out-of-state, What did that percentage look like in the first quarter and how is that trending versus history? I believe last quarter was 12.2 and was at the highest rate. So here's how that's trending.

Yeah, that's continued on. It's right at the same percentage. And that trend is up from, we've been tracking that for a couple years. Low point was in Q1 of 19, where it was 9.2. So it's still about a 290 basis point increase or so. And that trend is continuing.

And I would add, Alex, this is Eric, that that's at a portfolio level. And so some of our secondary markets, it tends to be a little bit below that average, whereas you start to look at some of the markets like Austin, Phoenix, Raleigh, some of the markets that are are more likely to be benefiting from some of the migration out of California and places like that, it tends to be a little bit higher. As an example, in the first quarter, our move-ins from out of state in Phoenix were double that number. Over 24% of our move-ins in Phoenix in the first quarter came from out of state.

Got it. Thank you for the color. And just a question on the development. So the yields are around 6%. What is the spread versus a traditional cap rate on acquisitions today and is that similar spread as historical or is that spread gotten tighter or expanded because of what we're seeing in the acquisition market?

Yeah, Alex, I would say the spread is 100, 150 basis points on average and given just the amount of capital that's looking for acquisitions right now and how that's driven down the cap rates and yields on acquisitions. And certainly development has been impacted a little bit by construction costs, but I would say, as I said in my opening comments, cap rates are down 50 basis points year over year. So I would say the spread has probably gotten a little bit bigger, given how much the yields on existing acquisitions have compressed.

Great. Thank you.

Okay, I have the next question. It's from Neil Malkin with Capital One Security. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Good morning. First question, bigger picture question, Eric, maybe for you. When you think about the Sunbelt markets and how clearly you guys are going to get a bigger portion of the pie of existing and then future employees with all the corporate relocations, et cetera, You look at your multiple growth drivers, lower balance sheet, and where cap rates are trading in the market. Is it fair to say that you guys are undervalued even at current levels and really there should be a re-rating, particularly across Sunbelt markets and a portfolio like yours?

Well, Neil, I do think that at least From what we see, the dynamics that are sort of driving job growth and ultimately our ability to drive rent growth as compared to the non-Sunbelt markets, I think that that overall sort of dynamic has clearly changed. begun to shift. And that shift was underway certainly somewhat prior to COVID. And as much has been reported on, I think COVID accelerated a lot of those trends. And so I think that that's one factor that would suggest to me that the demand dynamics and the driver of rent growth dynamics for Sunbelt versus non-Sunbelt, I think it's a new day in that regard. The second thing I would tell you is that I think cap rates have begun to adjust a bit in terms of how real estate is being priced in Gateway versus Sunbelt markets. I think for many, many years that a lot of investor demand really drove cap rates down in a lot of these gateway markets, particularly a lot of international capital that frankly was just more familiar with and more knowledgeable of some of these bigger gateway markets. I think, again, the last few years, particularly the past year, has begun to I think, open eyes in the investment community a bit about the shifts that are going on in the U.S. regarding job growth and population trends and taxes and all the other sort of factors that continue to favor the Sun Belt. And I think international capitals is also paying attention to that. And I think as a consequence of that, I think the historic delta between cap rates for gateway versus non-gateway markets, I think that those cap rates have compressed certainly today. And I think they will remain more compressed or that gap will be more narrow than it has been historically. So I think there is some logic to what you're saying for both of those reasons. And, you know, I think the next few years will tell a lot about, you know, how these companies are able to perform, the platforms are able to perform, and how investor appetite continues to evolve. And I do think that there is some logic to that. what you used to think about five or six years ago in terms of pricing of real estate in Sunbelt markets versus where you should be pricing it today on a relative basis to non-Sunbelt. It's a different day.

Yeah, I totally agree. It's a great day. Next question is about the operating side. A lot of, I think, recent conversations about technology and and how that's shaping kind of the new wave of sort of institutional asset management, property management. Can you just kind of talk about what technology looks like for you guys and how you think about it, say, over the next three years in terms of implementing enhancements to the revenue process, revenue maximization, I mean, and then on the expense side, you know, just like with how you think leasing is going to be, property level, headcounts, Anything along those lines would be really interesting and I think something that we need to be on the lookout for over the next couple years.

Neil, I'll kind of give you a high-level overview, and you're correct. I mean, there's a transformation underway in our business. Currently what we have rolling is an expanded call center solution is out, and that allowed us to make some staffing changes. account reduction changes about how leasing phone calls are handled on site. We've also deployed lead nurturing software, which is automated prospect engagement technology, so it interacts with the prospects earlier in the sales process and automates the follow-ups. We've upgraded the virtual touring. We've implemented mobile inspections, which really makes it a lot clearer to the resident the condition of their apartment when they move in and then clearly documents the deficiencies if they move out. That's helped us with speed of inspection as well as clarity on billing and resident satisfaction. We're midway through deploying our mobile maintenance solution, which will give us some efficiency on that side of the business. We're also, you know, what's coming next is improved. I mean, we've got self-touring, but automating that process. We've got some tests ongoing with improved multi-location sales support, covering one property from another one. And, you know, I would expect the things we have underway right now built into the 2021 budget is 30 positions or about 3% of our office staff. This will be handled through attrition. And then I would expect through attrition and automation, we see another 30 to 50 headcount reduction in 2022.

Okay, so you're saying 30 this year and then 30 to 50 next year?

Yes. At this point, it's an evolving process.

Sure, sure. All right, yeah, no, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from John Palowski with Green Street. Please go ahead.

Brad, one follow-up on your comments on the yield compression on development. The 20 basis points yield compression, is that on projects that you've already started or about to start, or is that on kind of new land you're currently sourcing?

Yeah, that's on new, John. So the projects that we have under construction right now, those are intact. No impact on construction costs or anything like that. Those are locked in when we start construction. Those returns and rents and lease up, as I made it clear, point in my comments are all on schedule so those are intact so my reference really was was to the impact of costs related to new starts that we would have today and new underwritings that we have today on the development side okay and if these construction costs pressures continue improve more structural and less transient and you have the supply chain bottlenecks continuing

Do you sense that it'll be finally enough to break the fever on starts, you know, if we're talking this time next year, or probably not, given the spread of the cap rates?

You know, John, this is Eric. You know, I certainly hope so. But I don't know, I'm skeptical that certainly that the pressures that we've seen thus far are sufficient to have any meaningful impact to slowing the interest level on development at the moment. Because of the fact that we are seeing the demand growth and the rent growth opportunity continue to improve and get stronger, and I think that's fueling a level of tolerance and optimism on the underwriting side and the ability to withstand some level of cost increase. Where I think that you could see, and the other thing I would also add, as long as cap rates continue to remain as low as they are, providing the developer the opportunity to exit at today's cap rate environment, I think that, again, that supports at some level the ability to withstand some increase in cost. One of the things, though, that we're beginning to see increasingly affect development more than anything other than land costs is just the permitting and zoning processes are getting increasingly difficult. And I think that as we continue to see some of these Sunbelt markets facing much population growth and demand growth and some of these infrastructures start to get under a little pressure, I think you may see a little bit more stringent behavior out of some of the local governments and zoning and permitting folks to be a little bit more restrictive than they have been in the past. And I think that probably as much as anything else may start to moderate things. I'm comfortable With all the things that I just went through, that it's likely that supply is not likely to materially increase in the levels that we see happening right now. I think the pipelines are full and there's just too much pressure at this point to see any material increase in supply pressure. But I think we're a ways away from seeing any material decline in pressure.

Understood that. Final question for me, Al. You mentioned the down units in Texas. Could you give us a sense for just kind of the revenue impact these coming months or quarters from these down units, acknowledging it's small in the grand scheme of things?

I'll just start with that, and I think Tom can answer that. I think what we'd say is, you know, teams, as we talked about in the comments, teams work very hard to get the vast majority of those units online quickly. And I'd say as we get through the end of April, we have a very few left, only a handful of units that are down. So, overall, you've seen what I've talked about in my comments, the impact. You've seen the majority of that impact in the first quarter already, John. A little bit will trail, but most of that has been handled. I mean, Tom, if you might.

Yeah, no, John, I mean, we had a total of 251 down as a result of the freeze. 107 of those are already back up, and a remainder will be up shortly. We had a lot more with damage, but the teams were able to service those units without generating turnover in it, so they didn't go to down status.

Okay, thank you.

And our next question comes from Nick Ulico with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Two questions. First, on the concession impact to your portfolio currently, I don't think you break that out unless I missed it. Can you just give us a feel for concessions, how much they're impacting your effective rents right now, and kind of your assumption about how, if you get a benefit from removing those concessions, how that helps rental pricing later this year, how you're thinking about that?

Yeah, Nick, I'll give you a quick overview. And as you know, we price on a net effective basis. So concessions are really only used when the immediate comps in the submarket are using them. And our concessions are in the lease over lease rates that we share with you. But where we're doing it, concessions for the same store group peaked in third quarter of this year at 1.2% of net potential. And it's dropped to just 80 basis points of net potential for the first quarter of this year. So that's just sort of following this general trend of an improved pricing power.

I'll add to that real quick, Nick, that our same store revenue results, the way we reported, includes those being spread over the life of the lease.

Okay, great. Thank you. Just my other question was on, you know, in migration to your markets, you have cited this in the past, you gave some data, I don't think you gave an update today. But in terms of, you know, move in benefit from sort of outside of your markets, people coming to your portfolio from coastal areas, etc. You also gave some stats in the past about, you know, searches for rentals and cities such as Atlanta. So I guess,

just wondering if you have an update on that and also you know whether that benefit has you know changed at all because obviously we're starting to see some improvement in occupancy in coastal markets so just trying to understand how that's impacting your portfolio thanks the trend is uh the trend is uh continued you know it was uh in 2019 it was 9.2 percent of our movements from around the market it's moved up to 12.1 on the first quarter that's about where it was for the fourth quarter And then we're still seeing the high demand of surge rates. And as Eric pointed out earlier, that's at a portfolio level read. And some of our secondary markets get a little less of that in-migration. For instance, in a place like Phoenix, it was double that rate of in-migration from out of area. So that trend is very much alive and a big part of the bright future of the Sun Belt.

Great. Thank you, everyone. And our next question is from Nick Joseph with Citi. Please go ahead.

Thanks. How are you thinking about the further build-out of Salt Lake City and how large could that market become?

Hey Nick, this is Brad. You know, as we said when we first started looking at Salt Lake, you know, for operational efficiencies, we'd like to get that market to call it six to eight projects. And the first stage for us, given just the dynamics of Salt Lake City, is to go in there and partner with a developer who has a presence there and an ability to quickly add through development, you know, two or three, four projects. And then the next phase will be trying to buy through acquisitions with the final step being our development team perhaps coming in there and building from the ground up. So we're well underway with that. With a new project that we have announced there, As I said, we have a development partner that we're partnered with there that has a partner in the market, so they're actively looking and evaluating new sites, and we're hopeful that we can quickly add to our presence there.

Are there any other deals currently in the pipeline?

Not for Salt Lake City, no. There's one land site that is currently under LOI, but there's not one that's imminent at the moment.

Thanks. And then are there any other new market entries expected in the near term?

Nick, this is Eric. Nothing specific. I mean, we continue to, you know, look at opportunities in some other markets. But at the moment, you know, beyond what Brad just mentioned, we're working in some land sites in Tampa and We're controlling a land site in the Research Triangle in the Raleigh-Durham area at the moment. We've got another couple sites in Denver that we're working, but it's still all within our same footprint at the moment.

Thank you. The next question is from Rob Stevenson with Jenny. Please go ahead.

uh good morning guys just to follow up i mean how many projects other than the two that you guys uh brought on the land deals do you expect to start in 2021 this year from a development standpoint hey rob this is brad um you know we have two that we're hopeful we can start uh this year but again those are in due diligence so you know obviously anything can happen at any point time with those but That's at this point what we're working toward. As we mentioned, we do have other sites under control and under contract, but those are more likely 2022 starts.

We've got a 27-acre site in Denver, an area called Central Park, east of the old Stapleton Airport area that we are currently doing pre-development on, and we would hope to be able to start that late this year, the phase one. It'll be a three-phase project, so it'll be a big project for us. So we're hopeful we can get that one started late this year, in addition to the two Brad mentioned in Salt Lake and the new one in Atlanta.

And what's the rough construction costs expected on the two that you're about to start here?

So let's see. I've got it right here. Yeah. Salt Lake City... The project is I think it's $94 million. Sorry, I'm getting them right around $90. $90 million for Salt Lake City, $94 for West Midtown.

Okay, and so you're going to have the Arizona project delivering here, and so that will come out. You'll replace that with two other projects. And so at least temporarily until you get the back half of the year and you start to deliver more of the other ones, your pipeline will go up to somewhere in the neighborhood of about $600 million is the way to think about it.

Well, I think we talked about around – let's follow that math how you got there. But what I would say is, as I talked about a bit in the call, we would expect once we start these, the deals that are talked about and a couple that are possible, we kind of put in a couple potential starts, as Eric talked about, for the rest of the year beyond what Brad's talking about. And we could see easily our pipeline getting to what's committed, what's projects, their total cost of what's underway being about $800,000 or so by the year end. $800 million. Excuse. Excuse me, million. Yeah, big difference. Sorry about that. Slipped a couple of numbers there, but 800 million or so. And that's certainly well within the tolerance range that we've talked about in the past. So that's what we're expecting.

Okay. And then, Al, what's the ongoing cost from the high-speed bulk cable package? You guys noted in the release that it's 80 basis points hit same-store expense growth. I mean, how far into the future does that continue? When does that start to really sort of burn down or run off, et cetera?

I'll let Tim give you the details on that. We're getting pretty close to the end, though, Ron.

yeah i think for the full year we're expecting that to be call it 70 basis points of expense impact in 2021 and certainly we're getting revenue impact on it as well it'll have a little bit of outsized impact in next year but not to the level of 70 and then i think as we get to 2023 it becomes just sort of a normal normal line item if you will

Okay. And then last one for me, Tom, any markets stronger or weaker than you guys had expected thus far in 2021?

Yeah, I would, I mean, on the stronger side, I would put Orlando in that bucket. They were on my, you know, little bit of a laggard list. But as far as the shift in blended pricing from Q1 to Q2, or from Q4 to Q1, they're up like 430 basis points on a blended pricing basis. And it is good to see Orlando catch its gear again. You know, Disney opened their last two theme parks maybe, oh, it was a month ago. And really the feedback we're getting is that's brought hospitality back. and Restaurant is back, and it is moving along again. It's very encouraging to see the improvement in Orlando.

And anything weaker than you expected thus far?

No. The push forward has been pretty positive. I mean, we're still worried about D.C. and Houston. They're recovering, but at a slower pace.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

You bet.

It appears we have no further questions. I'll return the floor to our presenters for any closing remarks.

Okay. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. And obviously, if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to us any time. Thank you.

And this will conclude today's program. Thanks for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a great day.