SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to SmartStop Self-Storage Q1 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Korak, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategy. Thank you. You may now begin.

Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during today's call, including statements about our future plans, prospects, and expectations, may be considered forward-looking statements within the meeting of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, as described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and these risks could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in our earnings release that we issued last night, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of these measures and a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and supplemental disclosure that we issued last night and are available for download on our website at investors.smartstopselfstorage.com. In addition to myself, today we have H. Michael Schwartz, founder, chairman, and CEO, as well as James Berry, our CFO. Now, I'll turn it over to Michael.

Thank you, David, and thank you for joining us today for our first quarter earnings call. I'll start with a few highlights of our first quarter results. We posted strong same-store revenue growth of 1.5%, NOI growth of 2%, and maintained average occupancy of 92.5%, while facing our toughest quarterly comp of the year. Operationally, we posted very strong results despite recent geopolitical news. With that said, 10 of our top 15 markets posted positive same-store NOI growth and good expense control led to a 30 basis point growth in our same-store operating margins. Likewise, other areas of our business outperformed expectations. We reported FFO as adjusted per share of 49 cents, up 19.3% year over year. In February, we've completed the recast of our $500 million syndicated bank facility at an all-in cost of about 30 basis points below the previous facility. Additionally, we acquired a parcel of land in Canada that we intend to develop into Class A storage in our Smart Centers joint venture. Lastly, in March, we entered into a strategic joint venture with Access Capital focused on providing bridge capital to self-storage sponsors across the United States. In terms of guidance, we are now narrowing our same-store revenue growth from a range of negative 0.5% to 2% to a range of negative 0.25% to 1.75%. Additionally, we're reducing our overall OpEx growth range from 2% to 4% to 1.75% to 3.75%. The result is an increase of our NOI growth midpoint from a negative 40 basis points to a negative 25 basis points. Additionally, we are narrowing our FFO as adjusted per share of $1.93 to $2.05 to $1.94 to $2.04. Turning to operations, January and February were strong months for us, slightly above our initial expectations. In March, we saw a pullback in demand that directly coincided with the geopolitical news. This played through from the second week of March until about the second week of April when things really started to turn for the better. Demand has returned, and it appears rental season is upon us. We are still very early in the year, and in the self-storage business, rental season can end up impacting annual results. That said, we are certainly encouraged going into the rental season. With that, I'll turn it over to James to discuss the quarter.