Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.

Please stand by. Your program is about to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MAA fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, the company will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, February 3, 2022. And I will now turn the call over to Andrew Schaffer, Senior Vice President, Treasurer, and Director of Capital Markets of MAA for opening comments. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. This is Andrew Schaefer, Treasurer and Director of Capital Markets for MAA. Members of the management team also participating on the call with me this morning are Eric Bolton, Tim Argo, Al Campbell, Rob Del Prore, Joe Fracchia, Tom Grimes, and Brad Hill. Before we begin with our prepared comments this morning, I want to point out that as part of this 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 statements section in yesterday's earnings release and our 34-act filings with the SEC, which describe risk factors that may impact future results. During this call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, a presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, as well as reconciliations of the differences between non-GAAP and comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and supplemental financial data. Our earnings release and supplement are currently available on the For Investors page of our website at www.mac.com. A copy of our prepared comments and audio recording of this call will also be available on our website later today. After some brief prepared comments, the management team will be available to answer questions. I will now turn the call over to Eric.

Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. MAA wrapped up calendar year 2021 with strong momentum in rent growth, driving fourth quarter results that were ahead of expectations. The demand for apartment housing across our markets continues to grow. Comparing the pricing achieved on all the leases that went into effect during the fourth quarter on a lease-over-lease basis, rents jumped 16% as compared to the rents on expiring leases. This is 100 basis points ahead of the performance in the preceding third quarter. We're clearly carrying good momentum for continued strong rent growth in the coming year. As outlined in our earnings guidance for 2022, we plan to take further advantage of the strong leasing environment and drive additional rent growth through unit interior upgrades and more extensive full repositioning projects at several communities. Additionally, we continue a steady rollout of a number of new technology initiatives aimed at further expanding our operating margins. We are just beginning to harvest some of the benefits of our new tech initiatives with 30 leasing positions eliminated through attrition in 2021 and another 50 leasing positions targeted to be eliminated by the end of this year. Our new development and lease up portfolios continue to make solid progress with leasing velocity and rents running ahead of our pro forma expectations. As Brad will outline in his comments, we have several additional new projects that we are expected to start in 2022. The balance sheet remains in a very strong position, and during the fourth quarter, Standard & Poor's moved their credit rating outlook on MAA to a positive status. Given the strong earnings performance and robust pricing being captured on property dispositions, we expect to see the balance sheet metrics improve further in 2022. Our initial earnings guidance for 2022 outlines in more detail our expectations for continued strong performance from our existing portfolio, the expansion of our new development pipeline, and our commitment to maintain a strong balance sheet. Following a 9% growth in core FFO per share in calendar year 2021, we're forecasting a 13% growth in core FFO in 2022 at the midpoint of our guidance range. Our team of MAA associates had a terrific year of performance in 2021, and I very much appreciate their service to our residents and support to each other. And that's all I have in the way of prepared comments, and I'll turn the call over to Tom to update on property operations. Tom.