Good morning, and welcome to Camden Property Trust's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I am Kim Callahan, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Joining me today for our prepared remarks are Ric Campo, Camden's Executive Chairman, Alex Jessett, Chief Executive Officer, Laurie Baker, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Ben Fraker, Chief Financial Officer. Stanley Jones, Senior Vice President of Real Estate Investments, will also be available for the Q&A portion of our call. Today's event is being webcast through the Investors section of our website at camdenliving.com, and a replay will be available shortly after the call ends. Please note, this event is being recorded. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to advise everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and beliefs.
These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Further information about these risks can be found in our filings with the SEC, and we encourage you to review them. Any forward-looking statements made on today's call represent management's current opinions, and the company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements because of subsequent events. As a reminder, Camden's complete Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Release is available in the Investors section of our website at camdenliving.com, and it includes reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures, which will be discussed on the call. We would like to respect everyone's time and complete our call within one hour, so please limit your initial question to one, then rejoin the queue if you have a follow-up question or additional items to discuss.
If we are unable to speak with everyone in the queue today, we would be happy to respond to additional questions by phone or email after the call concludes. At this time, I will turn the call over to Ric Campo.
This quarter's music choice followed a decidedly patriotic theme. Tuesday was election day, and as often is the case, about half the voters are happy with the outcome and half are disappointed. But it is important to remember that we live in the greatest country in the world, and that we have more in common than what divides us. To quote country musician Aaron Tippin, "It's a big old land with countless dreams. Happiness ain't out of reach. Hard work pays off the way it should. Yeah, I've seen enough to know that we got it good." Camden operates in great markets in our amazing and resilient country, and it is becoming clearer that happiness or a recovery is becoming closer at hand in our high-demand, high-growth markets.
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Team Camden for their commitment to improving the lives of our teammates, our customers, and our stakeholders one experience at a time. Alex is up next.
Thanks, Ric, and good morning, everyone. First and most importantly, thank you to our Camden team members for delivering yet another strong quarter. In particular, thank you to our Camden Builders team, who continue to deliver outsized fee income, leading to our third quarter core FFO outperformance. Overall, 2026 is playing out much as we expected, showing definite improvements over 2025, but not quite a full recovery. On the operations front, Camden was the only S&P 500 multifamily REIT to experience sequential improvement for both new lease rates and blended lease rates each quarter this year, and we were the only one with second to third quarter acceleration. Sequentially, blended effective lease rates improved 120 basis points in the third quarter, as compared to a 10 basis point sequential decrease this time last year.
On a quarter-over-quarter basis, blended effective lease rates increased 40 basis points, as compared to a 40 basis point decrease for the third quarter of last year. Clearly, things are improving. Last night, we made slight reductions to the midpoint of our anticipated full-year same-store revenue and NOI growth, as seasonality kicked in a bit more than anticipated in September. Concessions have remained remarkably sticky, seemingly led by many merchant builders now turned reluctant operators. That said, our current expectations for same-store growth still fall squarely within the original guidance we provided earlier this year, and the midpoint of our guidance for core FFO remains unchanged at $6.75 per share. On a macro level, things are also improving, as apartment completions in the Sunbelt markets have fallen to a seven-year low, with peak supply firmly in the rearview mirror.
Rising interest rates, commodity prices, and labor shortages are further hampering new construction starts to mid-2010s levels or below, meaning we should have a long runway with continued low levels of future supply. Apartment absorption remains robust, with year-to-date figures exceeding expectations across many markets. Market rental prices and vacancy trends are also improving. Effective rents for new units have recovered from their lows, though they remain below peak levels in most markets, and rent growth momentum is increasing. After more than four years of rising market-level vacancy, occupancy rates are gradually improving and reaching more normalized levels. Affordability and household income dynamics are working in our favor as well. Wage growth has outpaced rent increases for nearly four years, improving affordability overall. The median rent-to-income ratio is declining, which means renters are less burdened than in previous years.
Our resident is financially strong, and the U.S. economy remains healthy. At the same time, the timeline for 30-year-olds to reach household milestones has lengthened, with more living with parents or delaying homeownership. Nearly 20% of adults aged 24- 34 live with their parents, indicating delayed independence, but potential future rental demand. Turning to real estate investments and the market outlook, apartment transaction volumes increased over the summer, but the market has recently become muted due to rising interest rates. This led us to make the decision to maximize liquidity for future opportunities by canceling the acquisition of two operating communities and one land parcel, and we do not anticipate any further acquisitions in 2026. Despite our lower-than-anticipated acquisition volume, based upon our most recent tax analysis, we do not believe we will need to pay much, if any, of a special dividend from our California dispositions.
This has been a transformative year for Camden. Some may say, in light of the recent interest rate volatility, that we were lucky with our timing of the California sale. But luck favors the prepared, and I echo Ric's shout-out and thanks to our fantastic team members who are always prepared. I continue to be very proud of and impressed by Team Camden. I will now turn the call over to Laurie Baker, our President and Chief Operating Officer.
Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everyone. Camden's third quarter net operating income results were in line with forecasted levels, with lower operating expenses partially offset by a slightly greater-than-anticipated seasonal slowdown during September. Rental rates for the third quarter had effective new leases down 2% and renewals up 3.6% for a blended rate growth of positive 1%. While renewal growth was in line with our expectations, new lease and blended lease growth were at the low end of our anticipated ranges, likely driven by the persistent concessions that remain in many of our core markets and sub-markets. However, as Alex mentioned, our third quarter rental rate growth showed significant improvement over both the first and second quarters of this year and over the third quarter of 2025.
New lease growth showed a 130 basis point improvement from negative 3.3% in the second quarter of 2026 to negative 2% this quarter. Renewal rates improved 80 basis points to 3.6% from 2.8% in the second quarter. We saw a 120 basis point sequential improvement in blended rate growth from negative 0.2% last quarter to positive 1% this quarter. Our preliminary October results reflect occupancy in line with last year at 95.2%, with new lease, renewal, and blended rates trending better year-over-year and signed leases improving from September to October. Resident retention remains strong with very low levels of turnover during October. Renewal offers for residents with December and January expirations were sent out with an average increase of 4.5%. Camden's annualized net turnover rate for third quarter 2026 was 42%, improving from 44% in the third quarter of 2025.
Move-outs for home purchases remain well below long-term historical rates at 9.5% for the third quarter. Overall, I am so pleased with how our teams continue to deliver solid results as we move from our peak leasing season into our typical end-of-year slowdown. We remain focused on the fundamentals, staying close to our markets, making thoughtful pricing decisions, and executing with consistency and discipline that have always been hallmarks of Camden. With that, I will turn the call over to Ben Fraker, our Chief Financial Officer.
Thank you, Laurie, and good morning, everyone. I will cover our third quarter results, capital allocation, our balance sheet and liquidity, and our fourth quarter and full-year outlook. We reported third quarter core FFO of $1.71 per share, $0.02 above the $1.69 midpoint of our guidance, driven primarily by higher third-party construction fees and higher interest and other income. Our same-store portfolio performed in line with expectations through the first two months of the quarter, with greater-than-expected seasonality in September reflected in our revised fourth quarter and full-year outlooks. We closed the $1.625 billion sale of our California portfolio on July 29, completing a large component of our 2026 capital recycling plan.
Here is how we have used those proceeds: $900 million to repay the debt that funded our earlier share repurchases and acquisitions, $125 million to fund our August operating acquisition and land purchase, $50 million to repurchase shares in August and early September, $495 million after quarter end toward the redemption of our $500 million of senior notes due in November and to pay down borrowings under our commercial paper program, and $55 million remaining in cash investment accounts for general corporate purposes. On the investment side, we acquired three communities during the quarter for approximately $305 million, bringing year-to-date community acquisitions to $755 million. In development, we started construction on Camden RTP, a 398-unit, $130 million community in the Raleigh metro area on a site we purchased in May.
Separately, we decided not to move forward with the Camden Gulch II in Nashville and Camden Baker in Denver development projects at this time, as we want to ensure we are allocating capital to projects with the best possible returns. We recorded non-cash impairment charges on those two sites based upon current third-party estimated market values. We also recorded a small non-cash impairment on our Arts District parcel in Los Angeles. We sold that parcel after quarter end for $10.7 million, and we now have no remaining assets in California. On share repurchases, we bought back $50 million during the quarter at an average price of $105.34. Since the third quarter of 2025, we have repurchased a total of $740 million worth of shares, with $248 million remaining available under our current program.
On financing, we funded a new $350 million unsecured term loan due July 2027 and paid off a $12 million secured note just before quarter end. After quarter end, we redeemed our $500 million of senior notes at par that had a floating rate of 5.2% using sale proceeds and commercial paper. We have no significantly dilutive debt maturities coming due over the next eight quarters. On liquidity, as of November 4, we had nothing outstanding under our $1.2 billion credit facility, as well as $55 million in cash investment accounts. This gives us ample liquidity to fund future cash needs, including the remaining costs of our current development pipeline. With leverage at 4.0x net debt to EBITDA and multiple sources of capital, we have significant financial flexibility.
Turning to our outlook, for the fourth quarter, we are providing core FFO guidance of $1.63-$1.67 per share, with a midpoint of $1.65, compared to third quarter core FFO of $1.71 per share. This $0.06 per share sequential decline results from $0.01 of lower same-store NOI, resulting from lower seasonal revenues partially offset by lower expenses, $0.06 from a full quarter without NOI from our California dispositions, $0.04 from lower third-party construction fees and interest income, offset by $0.01 from higher incremental NOI from our 2026 acquisitions, and $0.04 from lower interest expense driven by the October repayment of our $500 million senior notes and a full quarter of debt payoffs funded by the California sale.
For the full year, we are maintaining our core FFO midpoint of $6.75 per share, with an updated range of $6.73-$6.77. Relative to our prior outlook, slightly lower same-store NOI is offset by higher third-party construction fees, higher interest and other income, and the incremental benefit from our third quarter share repurchases. We are revising our full-year same-store guidance to reflect operating trends through the third quarter and our expectations for the remainder of the year. The midpoint of our revised same-store guidance is within the range we gave at the beginning of the year, with revenue growth of 0.0% compared to our prior outlook of 0.5%, expense growth of 1.75% compared to 2.5%, NOI growth ofm negative 1.0% compared to negative 0.6%. The lower revenue outlook primarily reflects greater-than-anticipated seasonality in the fourth quarter, resulting in slightly lower-than-anticipated rents, occupancy, and other property income.
Importantly, our expense outlook continues to improve. We now expect full-year same-store expense growth of 1.75%. That is 75 basis points better than our prior midpoint and 125 basis points better than our original beginning-of-year guidance. The improvement reflects continued expense discipline, including lower repairs and maintenance and property tax savings. We are pleased to maintain our full-year core FFO midpoint of $6.75 per share as lower operating expenses and higher third-party fees offset the slightly lower revenues. To close, this was a quarter of execution. We closed the California sale, we put that capital to work in newer Sunbelt communities, we kept our balance sheet strong and flexible with a leverage at 4.0x , and we delivered core FFO above the midpoint of our guidance. Thank you, and we will now open the call to questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question, and if you have additional questions, you may re-enter the question queue. Our first question for today will come from Nick Joseph with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hey, it's Eric here with Nick. Thanks for taking our question. You mentioned that you canceled two property acquisitions, and then I think you said one land acquisition. I guess, where would you transact today, I guess, in the current capital market environment, what cap rate and IRR? Now that you've built this leverage capacity by paying off your bonds, how should we think about your willingness to take up leverage to repurchase shares? Thanks.
Yeah. It was interesting. We had those acquisitions under contract, and then obviously we had the movement in interest rates, and we went back looking for price adjustments, and clearly the sellers were not quite willing to capitulate to what we were looking for. The way we sort of think about it is, if you look at what's going on with cap rates right now, we think cap rates have probably expanded about 15 to 40 basis points, and call that sort of like a 3%-8% change in value. For us, we would like to see it closer to that sort of 40 basis points higher if we were going to buy something.
That being said, remember that the reason why we were buying was entirely to maximize the tax efficiency, and since based upon our latest tax analysis, we actually don't have to buy anything else. Based upon that, at this point, I think I'd rather buy shares at a clear discount than buy acquisitions. That's sort of how I would rank it right now. If you look at where we are on the leverage side, you're exactly right. Because we did not buy the additional assets, we've got debt to EBITDA at four times, and we've always said that we would be comfortable within a four to five times range. We also said the reason why you want your leverage to be low is because it gives you the opportunity to take advantage of what's out there.
Clearly, we think there are opportunities on the share repurchase side, but we also think that we may get some opportunities on the acquisition side maybe next year at better pricing.
Yeah, I agree with that. I think the bottom line is that today our shares are the best value that we see on the board in terms of investments. We acquired $743 million of shares so far. We did $50 million in the quarter. To Alex's point, I mean, we positioned ourselves to have low leverage so we can pull the levers on and create value for shareholders that way, and we will.
The next question will come from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. I was hoping you could just get a little bit more granular on what changed in your outlook from the last update you gave in September. It sounds like concessions were a little higher than you thought. Can you talk more specifically about which markets are driving it? Then as you think about kind of October, November, did things change meaningfully to the upside or just, how should we just read into that? Because you gave a September update and took it down pretty shortly thereafter.
Yeah, absolutely. When we last gave an update was early September, and clearly September, as we said in the prepared remarks, came in softer than we had expected. A couple of things. Number one, traffic just wasn't there. By the way, we typically do see that for seasonality, but it was greater decline in traffic than we had expected. When we had the decline in traffic, obviously you have to reduce your prices if you're trying to increase traffic. That's what we were doing. Clearly what we saw was that concessions were, as we said, just incredibly sticky. If you sort of look at our markets and you look at the communities in our markets that are offering concessions, they sort of range anywhere from three weeks up to two months.
If you sort of think about it from the low end, sort of the three-week side would be considered like West Palm Beach, and the two-month side would be Austin, Texas. But we are seeing those continue, and we didn't see really any drop-off, which is surprising because the third quarter, at least July and August, were so strong that we would have expected to see others start to dial back their concessions, and they absolutely did not do it. That being said, the answer to your second part is, we have seen signed new leases improve pretty dramatically in October as compared to September. When we look at our October numbers and we compare them to October of last year, we're seeing really significant improvement.
We do expect a little bit of a bounce back in October, but unfortunately, if you hit the shoulder seasons, when you hit it beginning of September and September's weaker than you expect, that has a run-through effect for the rest of the year.
The next question will come from Jana Galan with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Maybe following up on that question, you also mentioned some of these kind of developer-led concessions getting a little bit more aggressive. Just curious if you could kind of call out a few markets. Then there was a little reprieve in rates. Just curious how quickly these adjust.
Well, as far as concessions in some of the markets that we talked about, if you look at where the concessions have definitely improved, we're seeing the strongest markets in Atlanta, Southeast Florida, Dallas, and Houston. Where those lower concessions are, we're obviously getting a little more pricing power, and we're having the ability to improve our occupancy. Now, if you look at kind of the weaker markets, we still are continuing to see Denver and Nashville as those that have concessions that have been persistent. Then you talk about, and I know we continue quarter-over-quarter to focus a little bit on Austin, because that one in itself has showed our strongest occupancy in the third quarter, as well as it was the best occupancy for all of Camden Property Trust. So, not only in just Texas, but across Camden Property Trust.
When you look at kind of trough to peak, and that's because you've seen these high supply markets with a lot of concession, we had our worst quarter, if you look at kind of the lowest rent prices in the fourth quarter of 2024, and new lease rates have improved 10.6% to the third quarter this year, where our negative lease went from where we saw fourth quarter at negative 13.1% to only negative 2.5% in the third quarter. Again, where those concessions have been very sticky and they're starting to improve, then we'll be able to maintain a little stronger pricing power. Rainey Street, again, is one of those properties. It's led the company with finishing strong at a 98.6% occupancy, even though you have concessions in the market.
It just depends on exactly the submarket, but continuing to see some strong concessions or a little more than we'd like to see in Raleigh-Durham. You had asked about a couple of those markets, Raleigh-Durham, as well as Houston has seen some concessions in the market, but that's another market that we're seeing improvements.
Your next question will come from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi there. This is Mike Han with Haendel at Mizuho. My question is, how are blends trending across your portfolio by region, and where are you seeing the most sequential improvement in terms of exit rate from 3Q 2026? In your opening remarks, you did call out some improvement sequentially from September to October, so I just wanted some more detail there.
Yeah. If you look at Dallas, for instance, third quarter versus the third quarter this year versus third quarter of last year, rents have improved across new leases, renewals, and blended, both signed and effective. Additionally, new lease rate in third quarter, although slightly negative, we're talking like negative 0.1%, so we're just basically flat. That has improved 700 basis points from the lowest rate that we saw in 2024. So that's one of the markets we're seeing improvement. Southeast Florida, specifically if you're looking at Miami or Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, those are a handful of the markets in Florida that are seeing improvements as well as concessions going down. It's really suggesting the first signs of easing competition, improving conditions in those markets.
Your next question will come from Brad Heffern with RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hey, everybody. Thanks. As a fellow Texan, I wanted to get your thoughts specifically on the election, just given you have roughly a quarter of your NOI here. Do you think anything has changed substantively? I think on one hand, you have protections in the state constitution. The cities were all kind of blue-leaning anyway, but then at the same time, it is an unprecedented swing compared to how Texas has been run historically. So, appreciate any comments.
Sure. Clearly, there was a big change in Texas with every statewide election going to a Democrat that hadn't happened in 30 or 40 years. There are going to be changes, but the good news is that generally speaking, Texas Democrats tend to be more middle-of-the-road Democrats than on the coasts. The other thing that I think is important, even though people talk about how Texas has turned blue, it's actually purple, because you still have a divided government. In the Texas Senate, Republicans still have a 19 to 12 margin in the Senate, and without bipartisan support, nothing will get done in the legislative session this year.
I think a real positive thing, and I think this is actually, I've been hearing this nationally and also big time in Texas, and that is that the governor, for example, and the senator-elect have both come out real fast after the election and said that they are both focusing on bipartisan support, that they want to do better for workers in America, including in Texas. I think that is a real positive that's come out of this kind of shocker for Republicans, is that the Democrats are, A, not hardcore progressives, and B, they know they have to work across the aisle to get anything done. I don't think that you're going to see any dramatic changes in how Texas is operated, and I think that they understand that they will be held accountable for killing the golden goose if that happens.
I'm pretty optimistic about how this massive shift to the left is actually what I think is going to be a massive shift to the center, rather than a hard right versus hard left shift, because in order for them to govern properly, they do have to have bipartisan support.
I think the other thing I would add to that is if you look at the actual results, the young folks swung really hard to the left. The young folks are typically our renters, so it will be interesting to see if some of the more unpopular positions that we have in Texas, unpopular for young people, if those getting dialed back may actually make Texas even more appealing for young folks to move here.
Your next question will come from Ami Probandt with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks. What happened with the Denver and Nashville development projects that made them no longer viable? At the same time, you acquired a land parcel, so how are you thinking about rebuilding the land bank and the attributes of that land parcel that you acquired that made it attractive?
Yeah. We've been talking about the Denver and Nashville land sites on these calls for probably two years, and every time I was asked about it, I said, "The math didn't work." The math didn't work at those points in time, and we were hoping that we'd find ways to make it so that they did work, and the reality is, we just couldn't get there. What was really interesting and sort of the driver in particular for the Nashville asset is that we bought an existing asset directly across the street from our land site, and that's The Gulch. So we bought an asset for $370,000 a door, plus or minus, and it would have been north of $600,000 a door to build it.
We're in the capital allocation business, so if we can find a way to deliver a better return for our shareholders by buying an asset and not building an asset, that's exactly what we're going to do. We've made the decision not to go forward on the Nashville site. By the way, that may change in a couple years. We're certainly not going to sell the land right now because it's a horrible time to sell land. So maybe we can build it in a couple years, but it doesn't make sense for us right now. The same thing is true for Denver.
Both of those land sites were bought at the absolute peak, and we look at capital allocation and where we can spend our money, and we think we can spend our money and deliver better returns doing other things, including the land sites that we did buy. Those land sites have much better returns, and by the way, they are less dense developments, and obviously when you have less dense developments, oftentimes you can build those for a lot less. So that's why we think what we did is the right thing to do, and as I said, we'll continue to make sure that we make the appropriate capital allocation decisions for our shareholders.
The next question will come from Wes Golladay with Baird. Please go ahead.
Hey, everyone. Can you zoom in on the competitive landscape? Are the developers that are offering concessions starting to get to an occupancy point where they can dial back, or are you starting to see fewer lease-ups? I can appreciate that we're in the shoulder season now, but are we getting to a point where you have a better setup for peak leasing season next year?
Absolutely. Absolutely. If you look at peak supply, I said this in the prepared remarks, peak supply is firmly in the rearview mirror. Absorption in our markets have absolutely led the nation, so we are definitely getting to the point in time in which merchant builders, et cetera, should be able to start dialing back the concessions. I think a lot of it is, as I said, you have merchant builders who really have become reluctant operators, and merchant builders, they deal in concessions because most of the time they are trying to get something from 0% occupied to 95% occupied. I do think that is the reason why concessions are remaining as sticky as they are.
At the same token, you clearly see drop-offs in traffic in the end of the third quarter going into the fourth quarter, and when you have drop-offs in traffic, there is a couple things you can do. Number one, you can say, "Listen, I understand that this is entirely seasonality," and just sort of hold the course, or you can try to get additional traffic in the door by offering concessions or reducing rents. What we saw was just this really sticky sort of market strategy of continuing to offer concessions, mainly driven by the merchant builders.
The next question will come from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. You guys have done a really good job on expense containment this year. As we kind of look to next year, I guess, what are the puts and takes that we should be thinking about? Any kind of one-timers? I realize insurance may come down again and remain kind of on the softer side, but how should we think about taxes and kind of R&M and some of the bigger drivers of expense growth next year?
While we are not going to give 2027 guidance, what I can say, and I have said before, there are no surprises in 2026 that would lead to a benefit or detriment to what would be a normalized expense growth year next year. As we get into January, we will have a better idea of what our expense growth will be, and we will provide that on our earnings call then.
Let us pray for continued low insurance claims worldwide, because obviously, I have seen significant reductions in insurance. We saw it this year, we saw it last year, and this has been light again. If that continues through our May renewal, then that is going to be good news for us, and obviously, we will continue to be aggressive on the property tax side, and that is where we seem to see the biggest benefits.
The next question will come from Rich Hightower with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. This is a question about 2027, but not guidance per se, but you still got, as I looked at sort of the rank stack of revenue performance across your markets, just a obviously pretty wide dispersion in 2026 for all the reasons that you have talked about. Do you think that the dispersion from top to bottom narrows next year, or do you think that we are going to see a similar dynamic that we are kind of seeing right now? Thanks.
Yeah. No, I would absolutely expect it to narrow. When you look at the results that we have, there's almost perfectly correlated to when peak supply happened in each of those markets. Since peak supply is, as I said, firmly in the rearview mirror, I would expect to see the results be a lot narrower. You also have to remember that, and I'll pick on Denver for a minute. So Denver, which is showing as our worst revenue growth market, down 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, remember that that is almost entirely based upon the legislative actions in Denver that didn't enable us to rebill back common area utilities. We talked about that in the beginning of the year, and we said that that was basically like $1.8 million of a detriment to us entirely in Denver in 2026.
If you strip that out, you would see that Denver looks a lot closer to our other markets. By the same token, if you look at Nashville is one of the other markets that's sort of underperforming. We only have two communities there, and one of them is going through a fairly significant capital project that is absolutely disruptive. That will be finished as well. So expect to see a much more narrow clustering amongst our markets.
The next question will come from Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, great. Appreciate the time. I guess just given some of the updated same-store revenue guide and where blended spreads are right now, what would be the sort of earn-in that you guys are expecting for 2027? Then, any, I guess, puts and takes to that number as you think about sort of what could play out here for the next couple months?
Once again, we are not going to give 2027 guidance. I will say that we do expect our earn-in for 2027 based on our current projections flat as we came into 2026. So, positive momentum there from a blended standpoint for the fourth quarter. As Laurie said, we are sending out December and January renewals at 4.5%. So, we think renewals will hang in the mid-3% range in the fourth quarter with slight seasonal downtick in new leases, so where our blends will be slightly positive, plus or minus, in the fourth quarter of this year.
But if you compare this to the fourth quarter of last year, we were absolutely not sending out renewals in the fourth quarter of last year up 4.5%. So, as long as we can sign those, that absolutely sets us up for a stronger first quarter of 2027 than we saw in 2026.
The next question will come from Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Typically, you would think about building occupancy this time of year out of the spring leasing season. Alex, I think you are the one that hit on some of the merchant developers offering outsized concessions today. But between your revenue management systems or even changes to your manual inputs, I guess, how much are you willing to let occupancy slide before you would pull back on rate? Thanks.
Well, I would kind of suggest that we saw a softer finish in September, and that reflected our decision to protect leasing velocity and occupancy as we saw traffic slowing at the end of our peak leasing season. Earlier in the quarter, the team, we had deliberately reduced pricing after we saw some of that weakening, and we ended up improving our closing ratios significantly. We will continue to evaluate each market, each property, so that we can make very selective pricing decisions as it relates to what would move the market. We are also focusing a lot on, I think Alex mentioned, as you are trying to drive traffic to these properties, you have to advertise in a way that gets people to show up.
We are hearing that in many of our markets where there are a lot of concessions, renters and prospective renters are taking anywhere, they are looking at anywhere from seven to 10 properties before they make a decision, and they are making their decisions based on price, of all things being equal. So, we are going to continue to evaluate how do we gain pricing power, and you do that by improving your occupancy. Where we can improve occupancy and balance those two, we will continue to focus on what makes the right sense from a pricing decision.
The thing about multifamily you have to remember is that we have got perfect price elasticity, meaning we can always get to 100% occupancy or close to it. We just have to drop rents. If you look at what we are doing, we are going to have the fourth quarter occupancy is going to be in the low 95s, and that compares to the mid-95s in the third quarter. So, that is pretty much about as far as we are willing to let it drop from a third to fourth quarter comparisons.
The next question will come from Julien Blouin with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. I was just wondering what you are expecting in terms of market rent growth across your portfolio next year. I guess bigger picture, I was wondering, as you prepare your budgets and guidances for 2027, do you anticipate changing the approach at all as it sort of relates to blends and same-store revenue guides? Is there a temptation to perhaps guide more conservatively relative to where sort of advisor forecasts spit out rent growth for 2027?
Yeah, so we are not giving 2027 guidance right now. We are in the middle of our budget process and going through that discovery period of everything that you mentioned there. So, when we get to our fourth quarter 2026 earnings call, we will give guidance. We will be able to update everyone on that.
But when you think about renewals are always the best thing we can do. So, what we are going to do is we are going to make sure that we do not get too hot on the renewal side, because we want to keep those residents. Then we will let the new leases sort of be what fills in the blanks. The other thing, when you ask about being more conservative, listen, we hate bringing our numbers down. That is not something any of us ever want to do. But when we come out at the beginning of every single year, what we give you guys is our budgets based upon the economists we use, based upon the analysis that we put in place. We give you guys our budgets.
We do not go through and say, "Okay, our budgets are X, so we are going to give you guidance of X minus Y." That has never been our approach.
The next question will come from Alex Kim with Zelman & Associates. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. On last quarter's call, you talked to how you expected blended rent growth to average roughly 1% to slightly better in second half 2026. Third quarter blends came in at 1%, so that was consistent with that outlook. Are you still expecting roughly 1% blended rent growth in the fourth quarter here, and how do you reconcile that leasing performance a bit with the 50 basis point reduction in the full year same store revenue growth guidance?
You're correct. We came in at 1% on blended rents in third quarter, which is relatively in line with our expectations. However, for the fourth quarter, as part of the guidance bring down, we are expecting lower new lease trade out than we originally anticipated. So we expect those blends to be slightly positive in the fourth quarter, but not to that 1% level.
Your next question is a follow-up from Ami Probandt with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the follow-up. Maybe a question related to the previous question on the Texas election outcome. Do you expect any changes in Florida property taxes following the Amendment 3 passing? If so, do you think that this is a 2027 impact, or is it likely more intermediate or longer term?
As you are referring to Amendment 3 that required 60% of the vote to pass, I believe it got 62%. We have been keeping an eye on that because what that is going to do is lower the homestead exemption from a staggered perspective and put a significant hole in the property tax revenues from single family homeowners. The question becomes, where is that going to come from? We are working closely with the Florida Apartment Association, who has a relationship with the Governor-elect, Byron Donalds, and we will be having that discussions to educate them on what impact that could possibly have to rent affordability in the state. Nothing has been determined on what taxes are going to happen on the commercial real estate side.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Alex Jessett for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you everybody for joining us this morning, and we will see you guys in Atlanta. Take care.
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.