Sun Communities, Inc.

Greetings. Thank you for joining us today for Sutton Community's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anybody needs operator assistance, you may press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Gary Shiffman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning and thank you for joining us as we discuss our first quarter 2021 results. We're very pleased with the performance of all of our business lines as 2021 is off to a very strong start. In the first quarter, we delivered core FFO per share of $1.26, which exceeded the high end of our guidance of $1.17. Due to this outperformance and strong visibility into our second and third quarter transient RV bookings, we are raising our 2021 core FFO per share annual guidance range by 13 cents to $5.92 to $6.08 and our expected same community NOI growth for the full year by 190 basis points to a range of 7.5% to 8.5%. The momentum we experienced in our RV resorts in 2020 has only accelerated this year as the country continues to reopen. For the quarter, same community NOI growth rose 2.7% over last year, despite the continued Canadian border closure and the California stay-at-home order, which dictated the closure of our California resorts through early February. We achieved total portfolio occupancy of 97.3%, a 60 basis point improvement over the first quarter of 2020 by filling 514 revenue-producing sites. We also delivered approximately 350 ground-up and expansion sites in the first quarter, which include the grand opening of our premier 250-site Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay Resort. Since the beginning of the year, we have deployed $183 million into acquisitions comprised of two manufactured housing communities, six RV resorts, and four marinas. Our team continues to find ways to add irreplaceable assets to our portfolio that serve to reinforce the high quality of our brand, enhance our offerings to our guests, and foster continued growth of our revenues and earnings over time. In our manufactured housing business, our operations are benefiting from sustained strength in fundamentals and demand for affordable housing, evidenced by new, pre-owned, and brokered home sales. Furthermore, applications to live in a Sun community remain at record high levels, up 21% over this time last year. Our RV business while impacted by the closures and the travel restrictions associated with the pandemic during the quarter, is showing resilience with forward bookings well ahead of both 2020 and 2019. As we emerge from the pandemic and as the percentage of the vaccinated population rises, we anticipate our best-in-class resorts to remain a preferred vacationing option. Our assertion is supported by the RV Industry Association stating record year unit sale expectations for 2021, as well as our strong advanced bookings for the second and third quarters. A broader segment of the population rediscovered the outdoors during 2020, and we are seeing that interest carry forward. In an environment impacted by COVID, RVing provides travelers with an incremental level of safety and control Moreover, we believe that increased demand is being driven by the continued desire of consumers to get back to a degree of normalcy, resuming vacation and leisure travel after last year's travel restrictions. In our marina business, results continue to track ahead of our underwriting, and the team is preparing for an active boating season. According to multiple industry sources, boat sales have increased in demand year over year. With our expanded presence in this sought after and scarce asset class, we are well positioned to benefit from the increased demand for slips and moorings. We are relying on our four core investment strategies to support long-term resilience and the growth of our platform, further solidifying our position of delivering industry leading results. An important part of these core strategies includes expansion and ground-up development. We wanted to highlight the recent opening of Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay, first announced nearly four years ago. It is now open for guests and we are pleased to continue to realize meaningful accretion from our capital deployment activities. In early March, We executed a $1.1 billion equity raise to secure capital to fund our growing acquisition pipeline and other opportunities. We will match fund these growth initiatives with this equity. Key contributors to the success of our franchise are our ongoing efforts with regard to our environment and its sustainability, our social ecosystem, and careful attention to governance. With that said, we wanted to provide some important updates with regard to our ESG initiatives. This month, we launched a new partnership with the National Park Foundation in support of the foundation's outdoor exploration program. Sun RV Resorts has committed to contribute toward the National Park Foundation's mission to connect this and future generations with the social, mental, and physical health benefits of national parks and outdoor discovery. With respect to our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, SUN has engaged with the consultancy team with 30 years of experience in the field of equality and justice. This group has deep expertise in the importance of breaking through unconscious bias and social injustices in the workplace. Together, we are assessing the current state of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility at SUN, and developing an organization-wide strategy to create positive change. Before handing the call over to John and Karen, I wanted to point out that we have enhanced our financial disclosures. With the addition of Safe Harbor, we took the opportunity to provide better insight into the primary drivers of our business. Karen will walk you through the changes we have implemented after John shares details about our operational performance. I will now turn the call over to John. John?

Thank you, Gary. SUN delivered a strong first quarter across the board, setting the stage for a solid year. Our results reflect the combination of the stability of our manufactured housing business line and our same community portfolio, as well as the incremental benefits of our growth initiatives across MH, RV, and Marina business lines. For the first quarter, combined same community NOI increased 2.7%. The growth in NOI was driven by a 3.5% revenue gain supported by a 1.9% increase in occupancy to 98.8% and a 3.5 weighted average rent increase. This was offset by a 5.5% expense increase. As part of our revised disclosures, we are now providing same community NOI for our manufactured housing and RV businesses. Same Community Manufactured Housing NOI increased by 4.9% from 2020, and Same Community RV NOI declined by 4%. RV revenues were impacted by the Canadian border closure during the first quarter, which affected our snowbird season and the California shelter-in-place order that ran through early February. Combined, these two events had a $6 million impact on our transient RV same community revenue as compared to our previously communicated estimate of $8 to $10 million. With respect to RV revenue, we anticipate a significant rebound in the second and third quarters. RV resorts are beneficiaries of the reopening trade, and we are fully participating. Our second quarter transient forecast is already ahead of our original budget by over 20% and trending 57% higher than 2019, which we believe to be a better comparable given COVID-related disruptions in 2020. Likewise, our third quarter transient ROV forecast is currently ahead of the original budget by approximately 5% and is trending ahead of 2019 by almost 40%. In addition, we have a great deal of visibility into our reservations the rest of the year through Camp Spot, our proprietary RV reservation and revenue management software. Today, digital reservations comprise over 60% of our total reservations for our same community portfolio as compared to 16% just two years ago. Moving on to total MH and RV portfolio, in the first quarter, we gained 514 revenue-producing sites as compared to 300 in the first quarter of 2020, bringing our total portfolio occupancy to 97.3% from 96.7% a year ago. Of our revenue-producing site gains, over 380 transient RV sites were converted to annual leases, with the balance being added in our manufactured housing expansion communities. A key component of our four core growth initiatives is the development of ground-up and expansion sites. In the first quarter, we delivered approximately 350 sites, 250 of which in the ground-up development in San Diego and 100 were in MH expansion sites at Sunset Ridge in Texas. These completed expansion and ground-up development sites will contribute to RPS gains in 2021 and beyond as they fill up and stabilize. As of the end of the quarter, we have approximately 9,700 zoned and entitled sites in our portfolio that once built will contribute to growth in the coming years. Home sales in the quarter were particularly strong. We sold 835 homes, an increase of 9.4% versus the first quarter of 2020. Of these, 149 were new home sales, up over 25%, and 686 were pre-owned home sales, up 6.5% as compared to the same period last year, respectively. Average home prices for both new and pre-owned homes rose 17.6% and 9.8% respectively, underscoring the overall geographic market mix as well as sustained demand for our product and the strong desire to live in a Sun community. Brokered home sales throughout Sun's portfolio saw a 36% increase year-over-year as the resale market continues to show strength. Average brokered home prices in our communities increased by over 20% as compared to the first quarter of 2020. We believe that a vibrant resale market for homes in our communities demonstrates the benefits of the consistent reinvestment in our properties, creating equity value for our homeowners and increasing the overall value of our portfolio. Moving on to Safe Harbor, during the quarter, the marina portfolio contributed over $31.4 million to total NOI. The marinas are performing ahead of our underwriting, and the team continues to source acquisitions in irreplaceable locations, which for the first quarter include two marinas on Isle Morada in the Florida Keys and two marinas on Martha's Vineyard. We are optimistic about the underlying trends we are observing across all of our business lines, With the vaccination rate increasing across the country, we are anticipating accelerated growth in our RV and marina businesses. We are well positioned to see follow-through of this quarter's outperformance and look forward to sharing our progress with you in the coming quarters. Karen will now discuss our financial results in more detail. Karen?