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Text: Bill Bayless, Chief Executive Officer; Jim Hopke, President; Jennifer Beese, Chief Operating Officer; William Talbot, Chief Investment Officer; Daniel Perry, Chief Financial Officer; Kim Voss, Chief Accounting Officer; and Jamie Wilhelm, our EVP of Public-Private Partnerships.
As you know, Q3 encompasses the completion of the prior academic year, which was substantially impacted by the onset of the COVID pandemic and the commencement of the new academic year.
Let me start by saying that we are pleased with the start of the 2020-2021 academic year.
As Jennifer, William, and Daniel will discuss, the resiliency of the modern student housing industry, operationally, financially, and from an industry fundamentals perspective, is once again being demonstrated as we transition into the new academic year amid the COVID pandemic.
While our business has not fully normalized at this time, we believe we are on the road to recovery as exemplified in many areas.
Our lease-up occupancy exceeded 90%, a level many believe to be a best-case scenario in the early days of this pandemic.
Our rent collection rate improved to 97% in September, the first full month of the new academic year in most of our markets, from approximately 94% in Q2.
This improvement taking place, while many other sectors continue to experience decreasing trends at this time.
We're also receiving significantly fewer resident hardship rent abatement request.
Several hundred currently versus several thousand per month in the prior academic year.
We have also definitively witnessed the strong consumer sentiment regarding students' desires to be in the college environment with their peers regardless of University's curriculum delivery methodology, whether it being online, in-person, or a hybrid combination.
And our university partners have planned and implemented prudent strategies.
It appears to have provided stability and ongoing on-campus occupancies.
As we are not currently holding any discussions for on-campus rental refunds beyond one university partner, which we expect to total only $1 million -- approximately $1 million in the fourth quarter versus the $15 million we contributed in the second quarter of the prior academic year.
Also, as William will discuss, in ACC's Tier one university markets, there appears to be enrollment stability amid the pandemic.
Even amid this black swan event, the resounding value of a college degree and abundant demand for higher education at Power five and Carnegie R1 research institutions continues underpinning the stability and consistent growth opportunity in our sector.
Finally, as part of our ongoing commitment to the Hi, How Are You Project, whose mission is to remove the stigma associated with mental illness and to encourage discussion regarding mental health and well-being.
We jointly conducted a mental health survey at our communities in conjunction with the commencement of the new academic year to better understand the mindsets during COVID-19.
The survey received responses from over 12,000 of our residents.
This is one of the largest surveys of its kind, specifically examining college student's perspectives about COVID and how it has impacted their mental health.
Not surprising, according to the survey, 85% of respondents are more stressed as a result of the global pandemic.
Also worth noting, the top three items students are missing most are: one, socializing with their friends; two, participating in in-class instruction; and three, attending events both on and off-campus.
Encouragingly, the results also reveal students believe that their mental health is just as important as their physical health, and they're open to having dialogue to help themselves and others.
We'll continue to promote the mission of the Hi, How Are You Project, and promote discussion around mental well-being among our student residents through our Residence Life programs, as we hope to have a meaningful impact in this very important endeavor.
We are excited to get the 2020-2021 academic year under way with September representing its first full month.
Based on our leasing activity, it is now evident that the vast majority of our students desire to be with their peers in their college environment regardless of the curriculum delivery method at their universities.
Our modern, well-located, fully amenitized apartment communities offer students the ability to continue to thrive despite the current COVID environment.
Turning to Page S6 of the supplemental.
As usual, our third quarter includes a mix of two academic years, with prior academic year leases expiring mid-quarter and new academic year leases commencing in August and September.
While the prior year academic year results were heavily influenced by COVID, in the new academic year we are seeing an improving financial trajectory.
During the quarter, we provided $2.1 million in rent refunds to on-campus residents at one ACE Partnership University, which we expect to decrease to $1.2 million in the fourth quarter.
This is in comparison to the $15 million provided to residents that are primarily on-campus residence halls in the second quarter.
As noted in our release, no additional refunds are in discussion at this time.
With regard to students and parents being impacted by COVID-19, we instituted our Resident Hardship Program during the second quarter where we provided over $8 million of financial assistance.
During the current quarter, the amount totaled $4.7 million, with the majority of this amount relating to our prior academic year leases.
In September, based on significantly lower levels of requests within the program, we gave approximately $175,000 in direct rent relief during the month.
In regards to collections, we had a 97% collection rate on our rent charge for September, a significant improvement from the 93.7% seen during the second quarter.
As expected, our third quarter other income was impacted by $8.4 million due to the loss of summer camp conference business, the continued waiver of online transaction fees and late payment fees, and higher levels of bad debt.
Going into the fourth quarter, we will continue to be impacted to some degree as we work on reinstituting leasing and payment fees.
With regard to same-store opex, we were able to partially offset lost revenue with savings and operating expenses of 5.2%, led by savings in all of our controllable categories.
We continue to have lower G&A costs due to the cancellation of nonessential travel, savings, and maintenance as we were able to turn more of our units in-house, lower marketing expenses due to substantially fewer in-person promotional and marketing events, and lower payroll costs associated with adjusted staffing and less overtime during the pandemic.
After executing successful touchless, digital, and physically distant move-ins at our properties across the country, our sanitization plan procedures continues.
Throughout the pandemic, at our owned properties, our resident's physical health has been minimally impacted by the COVID virus.
In the current academic year, residents have reported a total of approximately 1,500 positive COVID-19 cases or 1.7% of our occupied beds.
At this time, we are tracking only 110 active cases or 0.1% of our occupied beds.
It is also worth noting that both the CDC and Dr. Fauci have urged universities to not send students back home to their primary residents if at all possible, to eliminate the risk of scattering students throughout the country and putting them in contact with parents and family that may be in a higher risk category.
We are pleased to see that universities have successfully implemented their operational protocols.
Work through the initial spikes in cases, seeing cases decline, and several have recently announced plans for expanded in-person activities in the spring.
Turning to our leasing results on Page S9 of the supplemental.
As of September 30, our 2020-2021 same-store portfolio was 90.3% leased, with in-place rents growing 1.1% over prior year.
However, as you will see in the chart, we gained approximately 300 additional leases at our properties that primarily serve sophomores and above, which offsets the decreasing at our properties, primarily serving first year students as our university partners finalize their move-in in assignment processes.
We continue to see fall leasing activity at our off-campus communities, primarily serving sophomores and above.
The largest opportunity for occupancy gains in the spring is our on-campus ACE property serving first year students, a process which again is administered by university partners.
Turning first to development.
We are pleased to have completed construction and delivered two owned ACE developments on the campuses of the University of Southern California Health Sciences in San Francisco State University.
The developments were completed on time and on budget despite the challenging environment.
However, initial occupancy at the communities were impacted primarily due to state and university policies in response to COVID-19.
We still anticipate the projects will stabilize at development yields of 6.25 upon a return to normalcy on each campus.
In addition, we completed the second phase of our Flamingo Crossings Village project at Walt Disney World.
With the continued temporary suspension of the Disney College Program, both delivered phases, which totaled 406 units and 1,624 beds remain unoccupied at the current time.
Given our strong relationship, Disney has agreed to abate all ground rent until the project becomes occupied, and we are actively working with Disney to market and lease the community to the broader rental market, including Walt Disney World cast members.
The original design of the community and ground lease contemplated the potential leasing of units beyond the DCP program with configurable furniture, attractive individual lease liability options, and an unmatched amenity package in the market.
Based on recently updated projections provided by Disney, we now do not expect occupancy from DCP participants until the second half of 2021.
While leasing of the currently available beds to the open market has just commenced and will continue through 2021, based on traditional conventional multifamily absorption versus immediate DCP stabilization as units are brought online, coupled with discount pricing due to the interim nature of these non-DCP leases, we expect short-term diminished economics from the original DCP pro forma projections.
We anticipate housing both open market renters and DCP participants through at least 2022.
We continue the construction of the remaining phases of the project to be delivered through May 2023, in anticipation of the full return of the Disney College Program along with leasing to the broader rental market until the DCP program returns to levels that fully occupy the community.
In our on-campus third-party development business, during the quarter, we commenced construction on a 476-bed development on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The project is located on the University's capital campus, just north of the Georgetown Law School, and is expected to be delivered in fall of 2022.
We expect to earn a total of $3 million in development fees, and we'll manage the project upon completion.
We continue to make progress on predevelopment efforts at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Irvine, MIT, Princeton University, West Virginia University, Concordia University, and Virginia Commonwealth University.
The ultimate timing, finance structure, and project feasibility for these predevelopments have not been finalized at this time.
With regard to the overall on-campus development environment, we still anticipate the continued increase in on-campus P3 opportunities across the country.
The occupancy of antiquity communities on-campus have been impacted to a much greater extent, the more modern accommodations offered both on and off-campus.
And universities will look to modernize their on-campus housing to meet consumer preferences and mitigate against future losses.
In addition, we anticipate more universities return to off-balance sheet financing structures, including our ACE program, to finance the development of new housing as universities will be focused on conserving their balance sheets and debt capacity in the wake of the effects of COVID-19.
We are currently tracking a deep pipeline of on-campus opportunities, and American Campus remains in a strong position to capitalize on those opportunities.
Turning to university enrollment.
We have been actively tracking fall 2020 enrollment and the potential impact of COVID-19.
Of the 68 owned markets where ACC currently operates, 85% of universities have reported statistics for the fall.
Overall, we've seen only a 0.3% decline in enrollment across those 58 markets.
50% of our universities experienced increased enrollment in fall 2020, with an average increase in students of 2.5%.
Of the half of our universities that had decreases in enrollment, they only averaged a 3.1% decline for fall 2020.
First year student enrollment is only down 1.1% for fall.
As Jennifer discussed, our properties that primarily serve first year students are currently 77% occupied.
And given there has only been a slight decline in first year student enrollment, we believe there is opportunity to improve occupancies in those projects as first year students may decide to return to the university for the spring semester.
University enrollment has remained stable despite reduced international students for fall 2020.
As international students typically constitute less than 10% of enrollment in our portfolio, while demand from domestic students remains deep to replace any loss from international students.
With 51% of our universities having released fall 2020 international data, there has been a 14% decline in international students.
Yet those same universities have grown the much larger segment of domestic enrollment by 1.2%.
Overall, this demonstrates the demand from domestic students at the Tier one universities we serve offset the negative impact from reduced international enrollment.
The resilient, stable enrollment figures during the pandemic places the Tier one colleges and universities we serve in a strong position for academic year 2021 and beyond.
Finally, the new supply landscape for next academic year continues to remain favorable.
Within ACC's 68 markets, we are now tracking 21,150 beds currently under construction for 2021, of a potential additional 400 beds planned, but not yet under construction, reflecting a decline of 2% to 4% in new supply off the current year's decline in new supply of 20%.
Limited available land close to campus, construction costs, and lack of available construction financing will continue to put downward pressure on future supply in our markets for the next few years.
As we reported last night, total FFOM for the third quarter of 2020 was $45.2 million or $0.32 per fully diluted share.
As Jennifer said, despite the unprecedented and ongoing response to the virus, we have all experienced in 2020 and its direct effect on the operating environment of the colleges and universities we serve, we have been pleased with the resiliency the student housing sector has exhibited.
While the company's near-term earnings will, of course, be affected by the governmental and university actions taken in response to the pandemic, we believe that we are on a path to return to a relative level of normalcy both operationally and financially after achieving over 90% for this fall despite the amount of ongoing online instruction as well as seeing significant reductions in delinquencies, refunds, and resident hardships as we have started the new academic year.
Like last quarter, we cannot completely isolate every item related to the pandemic, but we believe FFOM was negatively impacted by approximately $19 million versus our original expectations for the quarter.
And year-to-date, FFOM has been negatively impacted by approximately $42 million to $43 million.
Total property revenue was approximately $27 million impacted for the quarter, with $15 million due to COVID-related rent relief, lost summer camp revenue, increased bad debt, and wave fees.
And $12 million due to lower opening occupancy for the fall semester relative to our original expectations.
Partially offsetting the loss revenue, property operating expenses were $7.5 million than -- lower than originally budgeted, as Jennifer discussed.
Also as a result of the lower originally budgeted property NOI, joint venture partners' noncontrolling interest and earnings was approximately $700,000 lower, and ground lease expense was approximately $1.4 million less due to a reduction in outperformance rent being paid to our university ground lessor partners as well as Disney's agreement to waive ground rent on the Disney College Program housing until occupancy resumes.
Additionally, third-party management fee income was approximately $1.2 million lower than expected.
And FFOM contributed from our on-campus participating properties was almost $500,000 lower, due to University's refunding a portion of rents and lower fall occupancies at properties in both of these business segments.
Lastly, we benefited from approximately $700,000 in G&A and third-party overhead expense savings relative to our original plan due to both reduced travel and payroll costs.
Due to the continued uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, we will not be reissuing earnings guidance for 2020.
If the current environment remains stable, though, we are hopeful that the reduction in revenue through the remainder of the year should be limited to the impact of the 90.3% occupancy we achieved for the opening of the fall semester, and the $1.2 million in rent refunds that we have agreed to for the fourth quarter at one of our ACE partnership universities.
Also, while delinquencies and resident hardships have improved significantly in September, we still expect to run at an elevated level of bad debt relative to the 1% level we typically operated at prior to the pandemic.
With regards to operating expenses, we will, of course, strive to be as efficient as possible and create savings that can help offset the lower revenue levels in the near-term.
However, with the new academic year physical occupancy levels above 90% and approximately $2.5 million to $3 million in expected additional annual costs for COVID-related cleaning supplies and procedures, we do not expect to be able to create expense savings at the same levels we did in the second and third quarters.
And finally, as discussed last quarter, we continue to believe the three third-party development projects at the University of California, Irvine, Cal Berkeley, and Concordia University, originally scheduled to commence in 2020 will be delayed until 2021.
These projects were expected to contribute a combined $4 million in development fee income in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Again, while there will be some continued financial impacts of the pandemic into the immediate future, the progress that has been made gives us confidence that longer term, our operating results will return to normalized levels.
In the meantime, we continue to have a strong and healthy balance sheet and substantial liquidity to allow us to absorb the disruption.
As of September 30, we had $44 million in cash on hand and over $720 million of availability on our corporate revolver, with no remaining debt maturities in 2020, and a manageable $167 million in secured mortgage debt maturing in 2021.
Also, as detailed on Page S16 of our earnings supplemental, the remaining phases of the Walt Disney World project represent our only ongoing development with phases spanning through 2023 and only $201 million in remaining development capital needs.
As of September 30, the company's debt to total asset value was 41.3%, and net debt-to-EBITDA was 8.1 times.
It's worth noting that excluding the impacts of COVID on operating results this year, net debt-to-EBITDA would be in the range of seven to 7.1 times.
Although our leverage levels are temporarily elevated relative to the targets we have historically communicated, we feel confident that with the three-year capital plan we layout on Page S16 as well as the expected normalization of the EBITDA, the company's debt to total assets will return to the mid-30% range and net debt-to-EBITDA to the high five to low six times range.

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q3 ffo per share $0.32.
q3 adjusted ffo per share $0.32.

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