Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.

good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to today's mma first quarter 2022 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 28 2022 i will now turn the call over to andrew schaefer senior vice president Treasurer and Director of Capital Markets of MAA for opening comments.

Thank you, Ashley, 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, 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.maac.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 we appreciate everyone joining us this morning. EMEA continues to capture robust leasing conditions across our portfolio, and we are carrying strong momentum in rent growth into the summer leasing season. Leasing traffic remains high. The solid job growth, accelerating migration trends to our Sunbelt markets, and the higher pricing hurdles for single-family ownership continue to fuel strong demand for apartment housing. Almost 14% of the new leases we wrote in the first quarter came from move-ins relocating to the Sunbelt, This is an increase of 190 basis points from the first quarter of last year. Resident turnover continues to remain low with move outs further declining by close to 6% as compared to Q1 of last year. These trends continue to support our ability to capture strong rent growth. The rents in place a quarter in within the same store portfolio were on average 12.4% higher on a comparable basis to the prior year. And encouragingly, The new leases that went into effect in the first quarter were 16.8% higher than the expiring leases. Pricing momentum remained strong heading into the important summer leasing period. Our largest pressures on property operating expenses were with personnel costs and repair and maintenance expenses, as the tight labor market, inflationary pressures, and supply chain issues make an impact. But with the strong top-line performance, we continue to see strong NOI growth, and as detailed in our earnings release, we have increased our performance expectations for the full year. Our new development pipeline continues to perform very well, with five of the projects now actively leasing and capturing rents that are higher than assumed in our projections. As detailed in the earnings release, we have three other developments under construction that we expect to start leasing late this year. In addition to the development detailed in the earnings release, we are also expecting to break ground on another three projects later this year located in Raleigh, Tampa, and Denver. We're excited with the strong start to the year. Leasing conditions clearly remain very favorable. We have a number of initiatives underway with new technologies and redevelopment that will further fuel margin expansion and higher earnings growth from our existing portfolio. An expanding new development pipeline will also fuel additional FFO growth over the next two to three years, and the balance sheet is in a strong position to support our growth plans. MAA's strategy has consistently demonstrated more resilient performance during weaker parts of the economic cycle. But as a consequence of the many enhancements we've made over the past few years to the portfolio mix, to the operating platform, to the balance sheet, and to our external growth capabilities, we're excited to now also see MAA's ability to post strong relative performance during recovery and the up parts of the market cycle. In closing, I'd like to extend my appreciation to our team of MAA associates for their continued hard work and consistently strong performance. That's all I have in the way of prepared comments, and I'll now turn the call over to Brad.