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Text: Leading today's discussion will be Joe Saffire, Chief Executive Officer of Life Storage; and Andy Gregoire, Chief Financial Officer.
Our actual results may differ from those projected due to risks and uncertainties with the company's business.
Additional information regarding these factors can be found in the company's SEC filings.
I am very pleased to report another solid quarter and a great start to this year.
With record occupancy of 94% at quarter end, we have managed to grow occupancy by 460 basis points year-over-year, an incredible accomplishment, and I'm very proud of the entire Life Storage team.
With this level of occupancy, we have been aggressively pushing asking rates while also decreasing free rent, resulting in higher net effective rates, which were up roughly 20% for the quarter.
Further, we have been very active on the acquisition front, with 33 stores acquired or under contract since the beginning of the year.
These stores are a blend of lease-up and stabilized and as a group, will be immediately accretive and growing thereafter.
We also continue to see strong growth in our third-party platform with 18 new additions during the quarter and a very robust pipeline as more and more owners consider Life Storage as a leading candidate to manage their stores.
And we continue to see further traction in Warehouse Anywhere with a significant contract for our Enterprise product.
This product is unmatched in the self-storage industry, and we continue to drive more corporate business to our unique solution.
These enterprise customers would unlikely be using self-storage for their inventory needs, if it were not for Warehouse Anywhere brings to the table.
Our newer Lightspeed product also continues to expand with now three fully operational micro fulfillment centers and three more in the works to open over the coming months.
Revenue for this business will continue to grow as we add more and more clients to our last mile fulfillment solution.
This solution is also unmatched in the self-storage industry.
With all of this success and growth, we exceeded our expectations for the quarter, and as such, are increasing our guidance for the remainder of the year.
We are raising the midpoint of our estimated adjusted funds from operations per share by more than 3% to $4.37 this year, which would be 10.1% growth over 2020.
And with that, I will hand it over to Andy to provide further details on the quarter and revisions to our guidance.
Last night, we reported adjusted quarterly funds from operations of $1.08 per share for the first quarter, an increase of 16.1% year-over-year.
First quarter same-store revenue accelerated significantly again to 7.3% year-over-year, up 240 basis points from the 4.9% growth produced in the fourth quarter.
Revenue performance was driven by a 410 basis point increase in average quarterly occupancy.
That occupancy is augmented by positive rent roll up.
In the quarter, our move-ins were paying almost 6% more than our move-outs, which is a significant improvement from the rent roll down that we experienced in the same quarter last year.
Our move-ins have been paying more than our move-outs for six straight months, with March move-ins paying almost 8% more than move-outs.
Same-store operating expenses increased 4.7% year-over-year for the quarter.
The largest negative variance during the quarter occurred in repairs and maintenance, which increased primarily due to higher snow falling expense and miscellaneous repairs following record cold weather earlier this year.
Payroll and benefits, again, remained well controlled, up only 1.8% year-over-year, while advertising and Internet marketing costs were down 2.6%.
The net effect of the same-store revenue and expense performance was an increase in net operating income of 8.6% for the quarter.
Our balance sheet remains strong.
We supported our acquisition activity and liquidity position by issuing approximately $180 million of common stock via our ATM program in the first quarter.
Our net debt to recurring EBITDA ratio decreased to 5.5 times, and our debt service coverage increased to a healthy 4.9 times at March 31.
At quarter end, we have $457 million available on our line of credit, and we have no significant debt maturities until April of 2024 when $175 million becomes due.
Our average debt maturity is 6.7 years.
Regarding 2021 guidance, we've increased our same-store forecast, driven by higher expected revenues and unchanged expense expectations.
Specifically, we expect same-store revenue to grow between 5.5% and 6.5%.
Excluding property taxes, we continue to expect other expenses to increase between 2.25% and 3.25%, while property taxes are expected to increase 6.75% to 7.75%.
The cumulative effect of these assumptions should result in 6.5% to 7.5% growth in same-store NOI relative to our original guidance of between 3.75% and 4.75%.
We have also increased our anticipated acquisitions by $175 million to between $550 million and $600 million.
Based on these assumptions changes, we anticipate adjusted FFO per share for the 2021 year to be between $4.33 and $4.41.

user
q1 adjusted ffo per share $1.08.
q1 ffo per share $1.08.
in quarter increased same store revenue by 7.3% and same store net operating income by 8.6%, year-over-year.
sees 2021 adjusted funds from operations per share $4.33 - $4.41.

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