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Text: This is Tim Argo, Senior Vice President of Finance for MAA.
Actual results may differ materially from our projections.
As detailed in our fourth quarter earnings report, MAA ended 2020 on a positive note, results were ahead of expectations, and we carry good momentum into calendar year 2021.
During the fourth quarter, leasing traffic was strong, and we captured 6% higher move-ins as compared to prior year.
And despite the normal seasonal slowdown during the holidays, we were able to capture positive blended lease-over-lease rent growth that equaled the prior third quarter with particularly strong renewal lease pricing averaging 5.2% in Q4.
Average physical occupancy also remained strong at 95.7% in the fourth quarter, a slight improvement from the performance in Q3.
We believe these trends supported by improving employment conditions and the positive migration trends across our footprint positions MAA for continued outperformance into the coming spring and summer leasing season.
Overall, conditions are setting up for a solid recovery cycle for apartment leasing fundamental across the Sun Belt over the next three years or so as demand recovers and supply levels moderate a bit into 2022.
I believe for several reasons that MAA is in particularly strong position as we head into the recovery part of the cycle.
First, we expect that our Sun Belt markets will continue to capture job growth, migration trends and demand for apartment housing that will be well ahead of national trends.
While there were clearly favorable Sun Belt migration trends by both employers and households prior to COVID, this past year the trends accelerated.
The primary reasons behind these favorable migration trends, including enhanced affordability, favorable business climates and lower taxes will still be with us well past the point we get the pressures associated with COVID behind us.
Secondly, the efforts we have under way this past year implementing change to a number of our processes involving new technology and web-based tools will continue to drive more opportunity for margin expansion.
Specifically, steps taken to automate aspects of both our leasing and maintenance service operations will drive more efficiency with personnel cost.
We expect to begin harvesting some of those early benefits later this year.
Our redevelopment operation aimed at upgrading and repositioning many of our existing properties continues to capture very attractive rent growth and returns on capital.
These higher levels of -- the higher levels of new apartment supply introduced into a number of markets over the past year will actually expand this redevelopment opportunity for us over the next couple of years.
Our external growth pipeline executed through in-house development, prepurchase of joint venture development projects and the acquisition of existing properties will continue to expand over the next year.
Finally, and importantly, our balance sheet remains in a very strong position with ample capacity to support both our redevelopment and our new growth initiatives.
Calendar year 2020 was certainly not the year we expected, but MAA's full cycle strategy with a uniquely diversified portfolio across the Sun Belt supported by a strong operating platform and balance sheet position the company to hold up well.
Our strategy is working and our platform capabilities are strong.
However, it's your intensity and passion for serving those who depend on our company that enables us to truly excel.
The recovery we saw beginning in May and June continued across the portfolio through the fourth quarter.
Leasing volume for the quarter was up 6%.
This allowed us to improve average daily occupancy from 95.6% in the third quarter to 95.7% in the fourth quarter.
In addition to the improvement in occupancy, we were able to hold blended rents in the fourth quarter, in line with the third quarter and an 80 basis point increase.
All in-place rents or effective rent growth on a year-over-year basis improved 1.3% for the fourth quarter.
As noted in the release, collections during the quarter were strong.
We collected 99.2% of build rent in the fourth quarter.
This is the same result we had in the third quarter of 2020.
We've worked diligently to identify and support those who need help because of COVID-19.
The numbers of those seeking assistance has dropped over time.
In April, we had 5,600 residents on relief plans.
The number of participants has decreased to just 491 for the January rental assistance plan.
This represents less than 0.5% of our 100,000 units.
We saw steady interest in our product upgrade initiatives.
During the fourth quarter, we made progress on our interior unit redevelopment program as well as the installation of our Smart Home technology package that includes mobile control of lights, thermostat and security as well as leak detection.
For the full year 2020, we installed 23,950 Smart Home packages and completed just over 4,200 interior unit upgrades.
January's collections are in line with the good results we saw in the fourth quarter.
As of January 31, we've collected 98.7% of rent build which is comparable to the month end number for the third and fourth quarters of 2020.
Leasing volume in January was strong, up 4.9% from last year.
Blended lease-over-lease rent growth effective during January exceeded last year's results for the first time since March.
Effective blended lease-over-lease pricing for January was positive 2.2%, 40 basis improvement from the prior year.
Effective new lease pricing for January was negative 1.8%.
This is a 70 basis point improvement from January of last year.
January renewals effective during the month were up 6.3%.
Our customer service scores improved 110 basis points over the prior year.
This aids to our retention trends, which are positive for January, February and March, as well as lease-over-lease renewal rates for those months, which are in the 5.5 to 6.5 range.
Average daily occupancy for the month of January is 95.4%, which is even with January of last year.
60-day exposure, which is all vacant units plus notices through a 60-day period, is just 7.8%.
We're well positioned as we move into 2021.
Led by job growth, which is expected to increase 3.4% in 2021 versus the 6.1% drop we saw for our markets in 2020, we expect to see the broad recovery in our region and the country continue.
We expect Phoenix, Tampa, Raleigh and Jacksonville to be our strongest markets and expect Houston, Orlando and D.C. to recover at a slower rate.
They served and care for our residents and our associates, and they have adapted to new business conditions that drive -- and they drive our recovery.
While most buyers have returned to the market, the lack of available for sale properties continues to restrict transaction volume.
Investor demand for multifamily product within our region of the country is very strong.
And this supply/demand imbalance is driving aggressive pricing.
Due to the robust demand, supported by continued low interest rates, cap rates have compressed further and are frequently in the high 3% and low 4% range for high-quality properties in desirable locations within our markets.
We expect to remain active in the transaction market this year.
So based on pricing levels we're currently seeing, we're not optimistic that we will succeed in finding existing communities that will clear our underwriting hurdles in 2021.
While acquiring will be a challenge, as noted in the earnings guidance, we do plan to come to market with $200 million to $250 million of planned property dispositions this year.
We will redeploy those proceeds into our growing development pipeline, which currently stands at $595 million with eight projects in just over 2,600 units.
In the fourth quarter, we started construction on the MAA Windmill Hill in Austin, Texas as well as Novel Val Vista, a prepurchase in Phoenix, Arizona.
Both of these are lower density suburban projects that we expect to deliver stabilized NOI yields around 6%, well in excess of our current acquisition cap rates.
Despite increased construction costs as well as some supply chain issues related specifically to cabinets and appliances, our development and prepurchase projects remain on budget with no significant delay concerns at this point.
We have several other development sites owned or under contract that we hope to start construction on in 2021 and into 2022.
We are encouraged that despite facing some supply pressure, our Phase two lease-up property located in Fort Worth continues to lease up at our original expectations as does our soon to be completed Phase two in Dallas, where over 90% of the units have been delivered.
Turning to the outlook for new supply deliveries in 2021.
Based on our assessment and the projection data we have, new supply deliveries across our major markets are projected to remain flat with 2020 levels, at 2.8% of existing inventory.
Consistent with previous year's, we expect delayed starts, extended construction schedules, canceled projects and overall construction capacity constraints to continue to impact actual supply deliveries to some degree.
While clearly, new supply does have an impact on our business, it's just one side of the equation with demand playing a significant role as well.
And for reasons Eric mentioned in his comments, we believe the demand for multifamily housing within our region of the country will remain strong and improve this year as the economy continues to recover.
When looking at the ratios for expected job growth to new supply deliveries in 2021, we expect leasing conditions in our footprint to improve from last year.
Encouragingly, the data on permitting activity and construction starts for our region of the country continue to show activity below prepandemic levels.
This group -- this drop in activity will likely lead to a moderating level of new supply deliveries into 2022, setting up for what we believe will be an improved leasing environment beyond this year.
That's all I have in the way of prepared comments.
Core FFO of $1.65 per share for the fourth quarter produced full year core FFO of $6.43 per share, which represented a 2.7% growth over the prior year and is well above our internal expectations following the breakout of the pandemic.
Stable occupancy, strong collections and positive pricing performance were the primary drivers of continued same-store revenue growth for the fourth quarter, which is 1.8% and for the full year, which is 2.5%.
As expected, same-store operating expenses for the fourth quarter were impacted by growth in real estate taxes, insurance costs and the continued rollout of the bulk internet program, which is included in utilities expenses.
And though some of this pressure will carry into 2021, we expect overall same-store operating expenses to begin moderating this year, which I'll discuss just a bit more in a moment.
Our balance sheet remains in great shape.
We had no significant refinancing activity during the fourth quarter, but we continue to fund the development pipeline and internal redevelopment programs.
As Brad mentioned, our development pipeline has increased to eight deals with total projected costs of $595 million.
During the quarter, we funded $104 million of development costs, leaving less than half or another $259 million remaining to be funded toward the completion of the current pipeline.
Though still growing, our pipeline is still is only about 3% of our enterprise value, which is a modest risk, given the overall strength of our balance sheet and a diversified portfolio strategy.
As Tom mentioned, we also made good progress toward the -- during the quarter on our internal programs, funding a total of $40 million toward the interior unit redevelopments, Smart Home installations and external amenity upgrades, bringing our full year funding for lease programs to $76 million, which is expected to begin contributing to our growth more strongly late in 2021 and 2022.
We ended the year with low leverage, debt-to-EBITDA of only 4.8 times and with $850 million of combined cash and borrowing capacity under our line of credit.
Finally, we provided initial earnings guidance for 2021 with our release, which is detailed in our supplemental information package.
Core FFO for the full year is projected to be $6.30 to $6.60 per share, which is $6.45 at the midpoint.
The primary driver of earnings performance is same-store revenue growth, which is projected to be around 2% for the year.
This growth is based on the expectation of continued improving economic trends and job growth in our markets, as Tom outlined, and we believe these trends will support both stable occupancy levels, averaging around 95.5% for the year.
And modestly improving pricing trends through the year, driving effective rent growth for the year of around 1.7%.
An additional contribution of 30 to 40 basis points of projected revenue growth for the year is related to the final portion of our Double Play bulk internet program.
We do expect the first quarter to be our lowest revenue growth for the year as it will bear the full impact of 2020's pricing performance growing from there as the -- head from there as improving leasing trends take full effect.
Same-store operating expense growth is projected to moderate some as compared to 2020, will continue to be impacted by the rollout of Double Play and higher insurance costs with these costs combining for an estimated 1.4% of the same-store expense growth in 2021.
But excluding Double Play and insurance, all other same-store expenses are expected to increase in a more modest 2.5% to 3% range for the full year.
And this includes real estate tax growth of 3.75% at the midpoint, which is moderating, but still somewhat elevated.
Overhead costs for 2021 are projected to be more normalized, with total overhead expenses expected to be about $107 million for the year, which is a 2.8% increase over the midpoint of our original guidance for 2020.
Our forecast also assumes development funding of $250 million to $350 million for the year, primarily provided by projected asset sales of $200 million to $250 million.
And given our current forecast, we have no current plans to raise additional equity, and we expect to end the year with our debt-to-EBITDA just below 5 times.
So that's all we have in the way of prepared comments.

user
sees 2021 core ffo per share – diluted $6.30 to $6.60.

assistant