Welcome to Citi's 2026 Global Property CEO Conference. I'm Nick Joseph here with Eric Wolfe with Citi Research. Pleased to have with us AMH and CEO Bryan Smith. This session is for Citi clients only, and disclosures have been made available at the corporate access desk. To ask a question, you can raise your hand or go to liveqa.com and enter code GPC26 to submit any questions. Bryan, we'll turn it over to you to introduce the team and company, make any opening remarks, tell investors why they should buy your stock today, and then we'll get into Q&A. Then you have to press the button. There we go.
Oh, right. Good. Yeah, thank you, Nick. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. With me, on my right is Christopher Lau, our Chief Financial Officer. To my left is Lincoln Palmer, our Chief Operating Officer. We recently reported fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings last week. So I'll keep my remarks focused on some of the highlights and then what we're seeing today, in the business. Our teams executed exceptionally well to close out 2025, delivering residential sector leading FFO growth in excess of 5%. Demand for single-family rentals and AMH homes in particular remains strong. As we transition into 2026, we've been proactive in responding to persistent supply pressures in some of our markets, through the slower leasing season. We do this by adjusting price where appropriate to prioritize occupancy.
After a slower start to the year, we are encouraged by the arrival of the spring leasing season as we head into March. On the policy front, our government affairs teams remain highly engaged at the federal, state, and local levels, and we continue to clearly communicate that AMH is part of the solution to the housing shortage and affordability issues. This is really focused on our in-house development program, which is directly addressing the supply shortages in some of the key markets. Development remains a key differentiator for AMH.
Since inception of the development program, we've delivered more than 14,000 newly constructed homes, helping to modernize and expand the nation's aging housing stock. In 2026, we expect to deliver approximately 1,900 newly developed homes, further strengthening our portfolio and the long-term growth profile. Over time, our development drives higher quality cash flows and allows us to recycle capital into assets with better long-term fundamentals. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris to walk through current performance and our capital plan in more detail.
Sure. Couple quick updates. We put out an update deck that hit the website on Friday. Pretty similar to what we were talking about on the earnings call. January and February, Same-Home Occupancy, 95%. Renewals in the mid 3%s or so. New leases modestly negative, at -1%. Like we also talked about on the earnings call, we will likely stay focused on occupancy through the majority of the first quarter. Seeing nice encouraging signs in terms of activity as we're moving into the March timeframe. All that we think will translate into a slightly more moderated seasonal curve for this year. In terms of high points of the guide, you probably got the majority of them from the call.
We are expecting Same-Home Core NOI growth of 2%. FFO growth of 2.7%. A little bit moderated relative to 2025, but still top of the pack when we think about the residential peer set. Couple of other quick updates. In terms of capital, main update from a capital perspective is that we have been active on share repurchases recently. You probably heard the update, that through the fourth quarter and into the beginning of 2026, we fully exhausted our existing share repurchase authorization. We acquired in 2% of shares and units outstanding. That's about $265 million at an average purchase price of $31.65 per share. Very shortly after finishing that authorization, the board approved a fresh authorization, $500 million.
Then importantly, for this year as we think about the capital plan as many of you probably heard, we have throttled down the development program and in particular balance sheet spend going into the development program such that this year's balance sheet component is fundable through recycled capital coming from the disposition program, freeing up $200 million of incremental capital capacity for things like additional repurchases. That's probably a good pause point to open it up.
Great. Although I don't know if we got to the top reason. Did you answer the top reason to buy your stock today?
The development program and the operating platform.
Got it. I know, there have been a lot of proposals, that have been out there, and nothing is sort of concrete, today. I guess based on what you know, or what you expect around the legislation to come, I guess how do you see this changing the industry, if at all? How do you see it changing your strategy, if at all?
Yeah. Thank you. T here were some developments yesterday that you may have seen with a draft Senate bill that's been circulated that included a lot of the information that we expected through our last month or so of meetings in Washington, D.C. There's still a lot open for debate, so it's difficult to figure out exactly where it's going to land. There are some things in there that we're comforting. They set the threshold for institutional ownership levels. It also, under the current language, appears the existing portfolios are grandfathered in, kind of business as usual. There's some key components that still need to be worked out. We got it last night. We've been reviewing it, and there's some back and forth, before it goes to debate on the Senate floor.
It's difficult to predict exactly how it shakes out. Once we have a little bit more clarity, which may come later in this week, as it gets debated or it gets pushed to the House, we probably could form a better opinion. The key things, though, that we've been messaging in Washington and at the state and local level, as I said earlier, we're part of the solution if you're talking about supply shortage, and the easiest way to affordability is to have more choice. There's recognition of the importance of Build-to-Rent and supply in this overall narrative. We're hopeful that we'll be able to lean into that over time. In terms of the mechanics and how portfolios are dealt with, restrictions on the MLS, it still remains to be seen.
Understood. You know, I guess based on what we know, again, I know it's moving around and there's a draft yesterday. I guess more broadly, you know, if someone can't grow their portfolio, do you think that that sort of changes the amount of capital that's willing to go into the SFR space, or maybe, I guess, that capital that previously was focused on acquisitions or portfolios now moves more towards development, and does that bring sort of a risk around it that you get more supply in certain areas? I'll get to the next part of the question. Really is like, if you're gonna see more capital focus on development, does that also change your market selection from places that are easier to develop?
Yeah. There are a lot of different factors mixed in. A couple things that are important to remember. The importance of the operating platform, and there are relatively few sophisticated, highly efficient operating platforms, so that kind of narrows the space a little bit. The development business is hard. We've been doing it for 9+ years, incorporating a lot of internal experience, all the data that we're getting from the operating side of the business to really optimize what we're delivering and where. I think we've got a decent head start. If that's the only growth channel, I would expect additional investment there. There's plenty of room. The markets that we're in, we own a very small percentage. We're very particular in the areas that we're invested in.
Again, you're talking about a couple thousand homes in MSAs of millions of people. If there was some additional competition on the Build-to-Rent side, you know, I don't think it would have as much of an effect as the increase that we've seen over the past few years. I think the difference between those two is the expectations for performance from that initial flush of capital ended up playing out differently than they expected from the beginning, and it ties back to having the operating platform and really being focused on what and where you're developing. I think there's some protection around our position, but again, seeing a little bit of extra competition is not out of the realm of possibility.
You talked about this, on the call and in your opening remarks, that there's been sort of some stubborn supply that's, you know, reduced pricing power recently. I guess what I don't completely understand about that is that I guess I would've thought that the sort of supply aspect of it would be, you know, a little bit more predictable.
I thought, you know, sort of supply, at least of BTR, was coming down meaningfully this year, especially sort of given this lagged impact of, you know, It became much more difficult to develop as interest rates rose two years ago. I guess, is it really sort of supply that's impacting things, or is there also a bit of a demand component there where You know, you've had lower job growth. You have lower consumer sentiment. I guess, how do you sort of determine that it's really the problem is sort of supply right now, and when do you think that gets better?
Maybe I'll talk about the customer and demand side first. As far as sentiment goes, and maybe customer capability, the customers coming into the platform are still as healthy as we've seen them in many years. The rents continue to grow right in line with incomes. So they're very tight there. Our bad debt performance is as good as it's ever been. So the customer seems healthy. We talked a little bit about the demand this year, being a little bit later than we expected on the upswing into the leasing season. As Bryan mentioned in his opening remarks, encouraged by the level of demand that we're seeing, it's not outside of normal seasonal fluctuation.
So there hasn't been a significant drop-off in demand overall for single-family homes and for AMH homes. I think on the, on the supply side, what we've seen is, you talked a little bit about the timing, Eric. You know, I think everybody saw permits and starts slow down quite a bit last year, and deliveries were expected to kind of peak and begin to fall. It seems like those deliveries have maybe extended longer than they normally would have. You look at past cycles, and it's taken longer to get those deliveries to market. I think that's one of the reasons why we were surprised on the multifamily front last year, as an example.
Levels in multifamily seem to be about the same as they were in 2025 the same time last year. how quickly that overhang in supply gets absorbed is going to depend on the level of demand, which we see as healthy. absorption in multifamily seems to be pretty healthy. we're looking at the residential landscape in general. think about the continuum of housing from, you know, multifamily to single-family for rent. you have Build-to-Rent in there as well, and then for sale supply. Build-to-Rent has been a little bit more stubborn, but again, given the capital flows into Build-to-Rent in the last couple years, that seems to be improving.
On the for-sale side, the inventory is higher than it's been for several years, but still lower than pre-pandemic levels. There may be some effect from conversions from for sale to for rent. It's really market specific where we're seeing some of those things and we're prepared to make adjustments to the platform as we see those improving. It's difficult to say when that's going to be. I think there have been some missteps in the last year or two about calling an inflection point or something on demand. We definitely see a road ahead where that improves.
When you say demand, you know, is good right now, obviously some bad weather earlier in the year, demand is good right now. It's consistent, normal seasonal pattern. You're measuring that based on leads. You're measuring that based on conversions. Like, what are the demand indicators that you all talk about internally, you know, week to week, sort of how are those trending year-over-year?
Yeah, we watch the, we watch the internally the metrics starting at the very front of the lease journey for our residents. Whether they're engaging with an external platform first or coming directly into the AMH platform, we look at the number of interests for our homes. Specifically, the thing that we key in on is the number of showings, so people actually walking through our homes. In that journey, how many of those showings ultimately convert to leases. The interest and the showings have been relatively stable within a small amount of variability. The kickoff to the season starting kind of in mid-February, we had some better leasing than we've seen in a while a s it translates all the way through, again, we're really encouraged by the directionality of it.
Maybe we can talk about that. I think before, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, you sort of have leads going into conversions, but maybe that conversion was taking a little bit longer than it normally does, which is sort of increasing the amount of time that a home might sit vacant. I guess, what are you seeing now in terms of your forward indicators? It sounds like you're pretty encouraged about the direction of occupancy over the next couple of months. Maybe just help us understand, you know, sort of where retention is on a forward basis, why you think occupancy will increase.
Yeah. Couple different reasons. One, retention remains strong. Turnover was at the lowest levels that it was, that it's been in the history of the company in 2025. Rolling into 2026, the kind of 20, 25 basis point moderation in occupancy year-over-year contemplates a slight uptick in turnover. Then slight extension in the timeline that it takes to lease reflective of the supply in the marketplace. People have more choice. We've talked a little bit about that. Over the next couple months, beginning especially in second quarter, we should see occupancy build given the activity that we're seeing in the marketplace. As activity builds, rate tends to follow.
We'll build to a peak in May, June as is typical, and then hold as much of that occupancy at the back half of the year as we can, supported by our view on kind of flat new lease rate growth for the full year and renewals in the 3% range. A favorable expiration profile in the back half as we've been working on for the last couple years.
The renewals recently are in the mid-3%s. Is that where you've been signing, I guess, for March, April, and I guess early part of May?
Yeah. It's gonna be in the mid threes for the first half of the year.
Okay. Maybe just quickly on expenses before we shift over to capital allocation. You've seen, you know, much lower rate , of property tax growth. it's a, you know, majority or almost a majority, I guess, of your, of your expense structure. You know, I guess what gives you the confidence this year that, you know, you're only gonna see a, call it like a 3% increase, at this point in time? Do you have, sort of assessments and other information that you've seen thus far, that sort of supports that? Just trying to understand the comfort around that specific piece of the guidance.
You know, I would tie that into expenses overall, that we see expenses being pretty cooperative this year. You know, at this point, we're contemplating 3% property tax expense growth in 2026. You know, the components of that is, you know, generally speaking, we see values being in the flattish environment in 2026. Recognizing though that, you know, property taxes pay for things from a budget standpoint. The cost of those things that need to be funded in budgets continue to, you know, increase inflationarily. We are contemplating the fact that we may see rates go up in some markets across the country. You know, at this point, you know, at the start of the year, we feel good about the 3% area, well below long-term average.
Long-term average for us is 4%-5%. In terms of expenses more broadly, insurance renewal is done at this point. We finished it a couple of days ago. Our insurance renewal for this year is down in the ±10% area. That's a decrease. A, that's good. B, that's especially good considering that's a decrease on top of last year's decrease as well. In terms of other aspects of expenses, the teams are doing a great job controlling the controllables. Overall, we see expense growth this year growing sub- 3%.
Maybe we shift to capital allocation and maybe I guess first off, just the dividend. You grew it, you know, recently announced the increase 10%. Was that, you know, just based off of taxable net income? Was that kind of the amount that was required to grow it o r how did you think about kind of paying out a higher dividend versus other uses of that capital?
I would say it's a balance of all of that. It's a function of natural taxable income growth within the business. Naturally, we are continuing to robustly lean into dispositions. You know, a portion of dispositions can be 1031-ed into the development program. Naturally, when we are disposing of properties at the levels that we are, that creates tax considerations, which fold into our distribution planning on kind of a multi-year basis. We'll continue to, right? This year, we're contemplating selling between $400 million-$600 million of properties for this year. We are endeavoring to, you know, do as much as we can there.
Last year, we did a great job outperforming our disposition guidance at the start of the year, and we're gonna attempt to do that again this year as well. As we think about distribution planning, it's a function of well, managing the taxable piece, creating the right type of glide path, and return profile over time, balanced with, you know, retention of cash flow coming out of the business for reinvestment opportunities. Ultimately, it's a balance between all of that, and is influenced by the level at which we're disposing of homes these days.
I guess on that point, you just mentioned the $500 million of dispositions at midpoint of your guidance. W hat is a sort of good cap rate expectation around that?
high threes to four area. That's about where we're selling today and kind of the environment that we see kind of in front of us for 2026.
That's like an economic cap rate, including, you know, CapEx? Is that just a pure sort of nominal based on NOI? I guess, does that include closing costs, like seller fees, you know, title, all those things?
Essentially, that's an all-in number. Think of it as, you know, the value at which we're selling to end user buyers via the MLS. Think about it in terms of an all-in number of where we are selling to the end user buyer within cash flow assumptions, assuming if you had a third-party investor buyer purchasing that home, where market rents would screen and kind of a market rate cost structure, including a reserve for CapEx coming to an economic yield.
Okay, it's economic yield.
Correct.
Okay.
Yeah.
Is there a way for us to think about it on a nominal basis just so we can sort of model earnings?
Yeah. You know, a typical third-party investor buyer would model anywhere between 30 and 50 basis points of CapEx reserve in that economic yield.
Okay. I guess you brought this up a moment ago in terms of one of the reasons why you grew the dividend by 10%. Is there a certain amount that we can think about that you can sell each year? I know it depends on the tax basis of what you're actually sellin Just generally, if there's a certain amount that we can think about you can sell each year without having to do, like, a special dividend or get into sort of tax consequences from selling.
It's a tough question to answer quantitatively. I'm not trying to dodge the question. There's just a lot of things that go into it. You know, I would say the level that we're at right now is already kind of planned into the tax strategy and kind of dividend glide path that you've seen. We could turn that up a little bit further from where we are, kind of all else held constant. It's also a function of how much we are 1031 i nto the development program.
Keep in mind, you can only 1031 exchange into the balance sheet component of the development program as we are increasing the proportion of development going into joint ventures. Obviously, that decreases the amount of assets that you can be 1031ing into. I would say the simple answer is there's still some room from a tax perspective before we would need to get into special distribution territory.
Okay. You have this policy, and I think it's, you know, good ethical moral pro- policy, but that you only sell homes when people are moved out, right? I guess, you know, sort of my question is, you know, given that there's, you know, legislation, and I guess, you know, I'll read through the full draft later, but, you know, there's a legislation around, you know, you can't grow your portfolios beyond a certain amount unless it's, you know, sort of an exception. You know, do you start to rethink that policy, I guess, at all? As long as that lease is being honored by the buyer, right? It's someone that's buying it and, you know, honoring the lease for the extension of the term. You know, could you reconsider that policy?
It seems like it really does sort of limit what you can sell, right? Y ou're very limited to the 25% or so of people that turn over each year. Could you reconsider that policy? You know, hopefully, that would allow you to sort of sell what you want.
I think it's a product of a couple of different things. One, there's a difference in value of a vacant home to an end user versus what the income stream that home's gonna produce. When you consider the type of assets that we're selling, the non-core assets, the assets that might not be as well located, characterized in some cases by really very high HPA, the rent didn't follow, maybe not optimal size. There's a bunch of different reasons. The ones that we're selling, the ones that are good disposition candidates, have that particular yield profile. That yield profile is not necessarily indicative of the rest of the portfolio. The question could lead to offering the ability to buy to some of our residents for those tagged houses as well.
That's something that we've talked about internally, and we've run some internal programs in the past to offer the residents the opportunity to buy, and there's some savings on transaction costs and whatnot. We haven't seen a very significant uptake in that. I think the largest program that we ran had an uptake in the sub 5% area. But it is something that we're considering and taking a look at. It was most appropriate in our strategy to exit a specific market. We did put it through that wringer. But it's something that we're thinking about, and it may be more relevant in the context of whatever legislation ultimately gets passed. At this point in time, we still really like the asset management and disposition program that we have planned for the year.
I guess, why do you think the uptake on that program where you're selling to the resident is, you know, 5% or less? Is it a down payment issue? Obviously the total cost, including, you know, mortgage and insurance and everything else is much higher. Is there specific reasons that the tenants cite that they, you know, don't transact?
It's probably a little bit of all of the above. The cost to own, there's a big gap between cost to own and cost to rent at our current rent levels. A down payment is clearly important. Some people just would prefer to rent and not have that particular obligation. There are a bunch of different reasons. We were surprised at how low the uptake was. In this specific example, we offered a discount to market value, the lesser of a discount to market value or a discount to appraised value. We were exiting California. We thought that would be the quickest way to process through. I was surprised at the low level of uptake, and it was in a different interest rate environment as well.
The gap between cost to own and cost to rent wasn't as wide as it is today. There's a number of different contributing factors that, again, lead us to believe that the current disposition path is the best for us and the most realistic too.
Got it. I guess for those that, you know, because you have a certain percent that move out to purchase a home every year, do they just not buy the...? I mean, I guess you're continuing to rent that home. I guess my question is, if you have, like, 20% of people that are moving out to each year to purchase homes, you know, could you just sell it to them, right? I mean, they're moving out anyways, you know.
It's possible. Again, people are moving out because they're moving out of market. There's a lot of other factors that come into play for those decisions. It's difficult to identify exactly which ones are going to make that choice in advance of them making that choice. Short of offering everyone the opportunity, it'd be very difficult to hone down on which specific ones fit our disposition profile, and also the timing was right for the resident to purchase in light of all the life events that might drive that decision.
I guess maybe on the buybacks, you know, as you said, you've been a buyer in size of your stock. You're funding it through dispositions. I guess hopefully the stock price improves, I guess. If it doesn't, you know, would you be willing to take up leverage a bit? Would you be willing to sort of take down development, sort of CapEx for next year and forward years? Maybe just talk about sort of your willingness to be the buyer of your stock and how that might impact other parts of your business.
Yeah. You know, I would say we're committed to the quality of the balance sheet. That's critical. We are totally comfortable taking leverage up to target leverage in the mid-fives. We're a little bit below that currently, so there's some capacity there. Development, yes. You know, again, we control the entire development life cycle end to end. We have the ability to throttle up and throttle down like we have done already. Additionally, we've got, you know, a robust joint venture pipeline that we can continue to kind of, you know, have discussions and toggle between. The answer is yes. You know, obviously, there are limits to how much you can kind of throttle, but yes, absolutely.
you know, as we think about kind of the next kind of funding area or source of opportunity, we would look to dispositions, right? There is, yes, naturally an upper limit to how much can be accomplished in one given year, but we will continue leaning in as much as we possibly can. I would remind of two things. One, keep in mind that the balance sheet is fully unencumbered at this point. We recently freed up 20,000 homes that were previously collateralized by securitizations for the past decade. Those were paid off over the course of 2024 and 2025. There's, you know, a meaningful portion of asset management and recycling opportunities that are now freed up out of those previously collateralized pools. That's one.
Two, you know, we did a great job outperforming our expectations last year in terms of where we started the disposition outlook at the beginning of the year. We started 2025 contemplating $400 million-$500 million of dispositions. You probably all recall that as we got into the back half of the year, we were speaking to the high end of that range, and ultimately, we ended the year at $573 million of disposition proceeds last year. You know, our objective for this year is going to be to continue to lean as in as much as possible.
Maybe on development, I think you quoted sort of initial yields around 5.3% for this year for what's delivering. You know, obviously, your cost of capital has changed. Your equity price has gone down. Interest rates have come down, so your debt cost's, you know, presumably down. I guess overall cost of capital has gone up a bit. Can you just talk about sort of the value creation that you see out of that pipeline and why you're still committed to it, even as sort of development yields have come down into the low five range?
I think the key factor is, you know, the driver for those yields coming down a little bit below expectations. It has to do with the overall re-rate and rent environment. We think over time that that'll recover, but it's not immune to the other pressures that we're seeing across residential. This particular point in time, the 5.3% is where we're entering. This is upon delivery, first lease. We're doing a good job of managing the matching the delivery cadence to level of demand. Those returns, there are no concessions being offered on the rental side on those. What you see is what you get during the active development process.
We have strategies to improve those yields over time, especially as we replenish the land pipeline. The outlook for this particular year though is what we have in play, active communities developing, and that's the 5.3 expectation or similar last year is where we sit. On land that we're bringing into the pipeline to replenish that supply, we've got some initiatives in play that we think can drive down the overall cost basis without sacrificing on the revenue side. The key to those yield improvements is getting that total investment cost down, and we're doing that through. The complex of land in the current market is a little bit different. We're seeing opportunities to get VDLs, Vacant Developed Lots, which is much quicker to the vertical construction side.
It cuts down that carrying cost and lets us hold the land for a much shorter period. We have other initiatives on site plan and floor plan optimization that will allow us to have, you know, similar quality, but be able to deliver at a lower price. We've controlled the vertical construction cost very well from 2024 to 2025, running flat basically, and with the expectations that'll continue flat into 2026. There are a number of good things at play, coupled with kind of a return to normalcy on the rent side, gives us a lot of confidence going forward. The outlook for the near term is as we've talked about.
Thanks. One of the key themes we've been exploring with every company is just the deployment internally of AI, to find different efficiencies. Curious from your side, where you're seeing the best opportunities today and how you're actually doing that. Is it building yourself? Is it partnering? Is it buying?
Yeah. It's a very good pertinent question. To date, we've talked about it a little bit, but our first real AI initiative was focused on the front end of the leasing platform. We partnered with a third-party provider, but we have a highly customized internal system. Effectively what it's doing is it's taking all of the inbound demand, phone calls, electronic submissions, and working the prospects through the system into the touring and the check-in of the actual house. At that point, they have a clear choice to either continue on a self-service basis or have assistance from some of our sales, licensed sales agents or leasing agents. It's been very effective. It allows us to have no wait times on queues, 24/7 phone calls.
The initial implementation has gone extremely well. It's used across our entire system, and we've seen some efficiencies not only on the cost side, but on execution. We built a better process and done it economically. That was number 1. That same system will form the foundation for our communication platform with our residents, which is really important, the way that they speak with the property managers, the way that they order service. It's really the foundation for a key information exchange that'll end up driving a lot of other efficiencies. Outside of that, we have some other initiatives that we've utilized third parties, some stuff that won't have a huge impact initially, but it's very clear, discrete investment and a very nice return.
HOA management, and a couple of other small pieces. We're actively looking into applications that will improve the efficiency of the services platform, and then really trying to crack the code on how to properly market.
This session has gone into session. We'll give you 10 minutes.
in this environment.
Thank you. Really quickly, rapid fire. Same store annual growth for single-family rentals next year in 2027?
Low single digits.
3?
Yeah, in that range. In that range.
Okay. More, fewer, the same number of public companies within the SFR next year?
Same.
Thank you.