question-and-answerGood day, everyone, and thank you all for joining us to discuss Equity LifeStyle Properties' first quarter 2020 results. Our featured speakers today are Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO, Paul Seavey, our Executive Vice President and CFO, and Patrick Waite, our Executive Vice President and COO. In advance of today's call, management released earnings. Today's call will consist of opening remarks and a question and answer session with management relating to the company's earnings release. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Certain matters discussed during this conference call may contain forward-looking statements in the meaning of the federal securities laws. Our forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risks and uncertainty. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G.
Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, our supplemental information, and our historical SEC filings. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Marguerite Nader, our President and CEO.
Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. To begin, I wish everyone on the call the best in these challenging times. Before we discuss our results, I want to say thank you to the entire ELS team for the work they have done and continue to do since the COVID-19 crisis began. We have adapted procedures with the safety of our employees and customers in mind, while also continuing to serve our residents and customers in a difficult environment. We have seamlessly transitioned to work from home in our corporate and regional offices. The effort and dedication that our teams have shown during these past five weeks is admirable. We have successfully navigated through new regulatory protocols and operating environments at an impressive pace while maintaining our high-quality standards. I am proud of our team. Our first quarter was strong, with an NOI growth rate of 5.2%.
We saw strong demand on the MH side of the business, with a 4.9% increase in rental revenue. We wrapped up our snowbird season and have a total RV revenue growth rate of 4.8%. The drivers of that revenue were a 7.4% growth rate in annual revenue, a 7% growth rate in seasonal revenue, and a 7.6% decline in transient revenue. Let me first address our MH business. Since the middle of March, we have taken steps to increase social distancing, include closing the common area amenities, and opening our offices by appointment only. We have been, and remain, focused on ensuring the health and well-being of our employees, residents, members, and guests. Our customers have appreciated the importance of these steps and have followed the new guidelines. We have an occupancy rate of 95% in our core portfolio.
We have often focused on the occupancy rate, but at this time, I think it's important to focus on the quality of our resident base. Our residents are homeowners who have generally paid cash for their home. Our residents are committed to their communities, they care about the community, and they actively display a pride of ownership in their home. Our overall occupancy consists of less than 6% renters. We see our renters as future owners. In 2019, 33% of all home sales were the result of a renter conversion. In April, we saw continued strength in our MH platform, with 96% of our residents paying us timely. We have a deferral plan in place for April rental payments for those residents facing financial hardship due to the impact of COVID-19.
Moving to our RV business, we have had an acquisition strategy over the years of buying RV resorts that are heavily focused on annual and seasonal revenue streams. 80% of our RV revenue is longer-term in nature, and 20% comes from our transient customers. Our properties have been impacted by local shelter-in-place orders, which call for reduced or eliminated travel activity inside a jurisdiction. Our RV annual customer generally has developed roots at the community. The annual customer tends to own a park model, resort cottage, or has an RV on the site that has add-ons that create a more permanent footprint. For the first quarter, the annual revenue grew by 7.4%, comprised of 5.8% rate and 1.6% occupancy. Our northern RV resorts generally open in April. Our annual customers at these locations pay a deposit in advance and then complete their payment when they arrive for the season.
These are summer homes and weekend getaways for our customers. This year, the opening of 46 of our RV resorts has been delayed until at least the end of April. While we have begun collecting the annual rent due, the delay in opening has caused a change in the normal payment pattern for these customers. Our seasonal revenue stream comes from customers who have a reservation of 30 days or more. Our seasonal revenue primarily comes from our Sunbelt locations, with 70% of the revenue generated between November and March. The first quarter, which represents half of the full-year anticipated seasonal revenue, grew by 7%. The second-quarter seasonal revenue is generally our slowest quarter, with approximately 15% of the overall seasonal revenue in 2019 occurring in the second quarter. For April, we have seen a decline in seasonal revenue as described in our press release.
Our transient business represents under 6% of our total revenue. We have always said that this piece is the most difficult to forecast. Our transient customer stays with us an average of three nights. The transient business serves an important role for us as we seek to convert that transient customer to a seasonal or annual customer. Most of our RV resorts have a small portion of their overall revenue stream focused on the transient business, which becomes a lead generator for the rest of the business. Towards the end of March, we stopped accepting transient reservations for the remainder of March and all of April. As a result of following shelter-in-place orders, we reduced activity to protect our employees and residents from any potential risk associated with transient traffic.
At this point, the shelter-in-place orders are limiting our ability to accept transient reservations. With respect to our membership business, we have seen strong demand from the members during this pandemic. As shown in our supplemental, cash receipts are similar to last year at this time. We made the decision to withdraw guidance because we are operating under unprecedented conditions and thought it would be more meaningful for us to provide an outlook when there are updates to regulatory protocol. Our business has held up extremely well during these circumstances. We are seeing the best of humanity from our employees, residents, guests, and members. We have often described the sense of community at our properties, and we have seen this in full display over the past month. We've seen neighbors caring for neighbors, working together to support the greater community.
The demand is high for our properties, as seen by our April results. Based on feedback that we have received, our customers are very much looking forward to enjoying the outdoors lifestyle at our properties this season. I would like to close by again thanking our employees, residents, and customers. The ELS team has reacted to an evolving climate in an impressive manner, and for that, I am grateful. I will now turn it over to Paul to walk through the numbers in detail.
Thank you, Marguerite, and good morning, everyone. I will provide an overview of our first quarter results, highlight operating performance in April, including the results of our recent annual property and casualty insurance renewal, and discuss our balance sheet and liquidity position. For the first quarter, we reported $0.59 normalized FFO per share. Our results reflect the initial impact of COVID-19, which primarily affected our transient RV business. Core MH rent growth of 4.9% includes 4.4% rate growth and approximately 50 basis points related to occupancy gains. Core RV rental income from annuals and seasonals outperformed expectations for the quarter. Our transient revenues, which were pacing ahead of guidance through February, ended the quarter down 7.6% compared to last year. As Marguerite mentioned, we began closing our reservation grid to incoming customers in mid-March.
First quarter membership dues revenue, as well as the net contribution from upgrade sales, were higher than guidance. Dues revenues increased 6.1% as a result of rate increases and an increase in our paid member count of 4.3%. During the quarter, we sold approximately 3,200 Thousand Trails camping passes. We upgraded 727 members during the quarter, 15% more than the first quarter last year. Core utility and other income was in line with guidance for the quarter and includes the year-over-year increase in real estate tax passthroughs resulting from the Florida reassessments we discussed in January. First quarter core property operating maintenance and real estate tax expenses were unfavorable to forecast, mainly as a result of higher-than-expected R&M expenses. We incurred expenses to recover from storms in California and certain northern properties.
In summary, first quarter core property operating revenues were up 5.4% and core NOI before property management increased 5.2%. Property operating income from the non-core portfolio, which includes our marina portfolio as well as assets acquired during 2019, was $2.8 million in the quarter. Overall, the acquisition properties continue to perform in line with expectations. Property management and corporate G&A were higher than guidance in the quarter because of the timing of expenses related to certain administrative matters. Other income and expenses generated a net contribution of $1.4 million for the quarter. Ancillary retail and restaurant operations were impacted by COVID-19 and were lower than expected. Interest and related amortization was $26.1 million and includes the impact of the refinancing we completed during the quarter.
I'll provide some detail on this transaction shortly when I discuss our balance sheet. We included a COVID-19 update with our earnings release and supplemental financial information. In addition to describing our operational response to the pandemic, the update highlights cash collections and liquidity as indicators of April performance. In our MH properties, we've collected 96% of April rent. The collection rate is net of approximately $180,000 of rent deferral requests we've approved. Our largest population within the MH portfolio, age-qualified properties, have the highest collection rate at 97% collected. Our renter population, while a very small portion of our portfolio, has the lowest rate of collection, with approximately 91% collected. At this time of year, our RV collection efforts are focused on the northern resorts' annual customers as they typically are returning to begin their season of camping.
As detailed in the update, 46 of these properties have delayed openings, which has affected typical payment patterns. To date, we have collected approximately 61% of the April and May annual RV renewals as compared to 71% collected at this time last year. Our seasonal revenue in April was impacted by cancellations as certain customers chose to leave early. However, we also saw customers extend their stays and are currently showing a revenue decline of 12% in April. My last update relates to our recent property and casualty insurance renewal. On April 1st, we completed the renewal of our property general liability, workers' comp, and other ancillary insurance programs. While terms and conditions are substantially similar to the expiring policies, adverse market conditions resulted in a higher-than-expected premium increase of 27%.
The resulting insurance expense for the remainder of the year is approximately $1.1 million higher than our expectation. Now I'll discuss our refinancing activity in the first quarter, highlight current secured debt market conditions, and provide some comments on our balance sheet, including our current liquidity position. During the quarter, we closed a $275.4 million secured facility with Fannie Mae. The loan has a fixed interest rate of 2.69%, which is the lowest coupon we've seen on a secured 10-year deal in the MHRV space. With the proceeds, we've repaid our secured debt maturing in 2020, which carried a weighted average interest rate of 5.2%, and the outstanding balance on our line of credit. The remaining proceeds funded working capital, primarily our expansion activity. As I provide an update on the secured debt market, bear in mind that the current environment is quite volatile.
Conditions have been changing rapidly, and we anticipate they'll continue to do so for some time. That said, current secured financing terms available for MH and RV assets range from 55%-75% LTV, with rates from 3%-3.75% for 10-year money. As we have seen in challenging times in the past, sponsor strength is highly valued by lenders, and ELS continues to be highly regarded. High-quality, age-qualified MH will command preferred terms from participating lenders. As mentioned in our earnings release, subsequent to quarter end, we borrowed $100 million from our line of credit. In these uncertain times, we decided it was prudent to increase our available cash balance. As noted on our COVID-19 update page, we have a current available cash balance of $126 million, with no debt maturing in 2020.
We continue to place high importance on balance sheet flexibility, and we believe we have multiple sources of capital available to us. Our debt to EBITDA and our interest coverage are both around 4.9 times. The weighted average maturity of our outstanding secured debt is almost 13 years. Now we would like to open it up for questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star, then one on your touchtone telephone. To withdraw your question from the queue, please press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Nicholas Joseph with Citi. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Just on the transient RV revenues, wondering if you can break out the percentage of the total year that's Memorial Day and then July 4th, and then Labor Day weekends.
Yeah. I think, Nick, as we laid out in the supplemental, you can see the contribution from prior year. At this point, I think that you would look to those numbers as the indicator of the amounts.
I think as we've said in the past, so not talking about the future here, as we said in the past, Memorial Day represents about a third of our overall Memorial Day traffic or our overall May transient traffic.
Okay. Memorial Day is a third of the May, and then that's in the supplemental in terms of each of the months in the second quarter.
Right.
Thanks. I'm just wondering if you have a sense on the private side of if your experience so far, both on the MH and the RV is similar to what you expect on the private side, or do you expect additional stress there that may ultimately lead to different acquisition opportunities on the other side of this?
Yeah. It's interesting, Nick. One of the things that's happened during this pandemic is there's been a lot of discussion with operators. We've kind of gotten together to talk about what's happening so that we have an appreciation since we're kind of all in this together. From that, and certainly some of the smaller operators, I think there may be an opportunity. Right now, it's more about exchanging best practices and really being just good community stewards at this point. Should there be something that comes out as a result of that because people are interested in selling it, that could be interesting.
Thanks.
Thanks, Nick.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Joshua Dennerlein with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Hey, Marguerite. Hey, Paul.
Hello, Joshua.
Hope you're doing well. Yeah, curious on the, it looks like you canceled the April notice for the MH increase. What percent of the portfolio is subject to that kind of April notice? Do you have any expectations on going forward if that's something like as the pandemic passes, you'd be able to push through?
The suspension, yes, took place in April. When you think about our rent increase process overall, those notices are generally sent 90 days prior to the effective date. The April notices generally suspended increases that would've been effective August 1st. Just keep in mind that rent increase calendar, therefore, it's kind of a fiscal calendar. September through August are the notice dates for increases that would be effective January through December. We had sent notices to more than 70% of our MH residents by the time we got to April. April, the month itself, is a relatively small percentage, kind of single-digit type percentage. The notices that we had sent prior to April were consistent with the 4% rate growth that we had expected.
When you think about math, if you want to kind of figure out what it might translate into, just the math would suggest maybe 50 basis points on our expected rate growth.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that.
Sure.
You enacted a rent deferral program. Was that for MH and RV or just the MH side? Has anyone at this point requested to defer April rent?
Yes, Patrick. The deferral program was rolled out for April rent, and it provided the opportunity initially in MH for a resident to request a deferral of a part or all of April rent to be repaid over the following three months. We have a small number of requests from our RV annual base across the portfolio, but that's a small number relative to the total, which on the MH side is in the neighborhood of $180,000 to $200,000, which represents a few basis points, 30, 40 basis points on total collections.
The way we got to that policy was in really, hearkening back to my answer in the last question, is just having conversations with owners and operators and trying to have an understanding of what others were doing, how we thought it was going to impact our properties, and we think it's worked out very well. It is for those who have been impacted by COVID-19, those are the results of what we've seen so far.
Okay. Thank you. Just one follow-up on that. Have you guys thought about having the same program for May? Too early at this point?
Yeah, I think it's a little bit early. As we thought about coming out with our call, we wanted to come out at the same time we normally do. We'll certainly provide updates as we have updates.
Okay. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Josh.
Thanks, Joshua.
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Can you just clarify your decision to open the Northern RV resort and also to accept transient RV reservations? Would that be based solely on the state and local shelter-in-place regulations, or will this be, in any case, more of a company-wide decision?
No, the state shelter-in-place orders were really the large part of the impetus for the decisions we made regarding reducing traffic at our RV parks or the transient traffic. We're working with local counties on their particular order because in some cases, they may be more restrictive than the state. It's all regulatory protocol. We're working with states and local counties for them to allow that activity. We're ready to go once that happens. In instances, like I said, some are pushed to the end of April, which is only 10 days away or nine days away, whatever that is.
Do you anticipate potentially being more conservative than the state regulations, opening later than their recommendations?
No, we would anticipate going along with the regulatory protocol, similar to what we've done in every aspect of this during these last five weeks in terms of our systems that we put in place, and we're operating under the guidelines that we've been given, and we would continue to do that. We would see that they would be opening as soon as there is daylight for that to happen from the standpoint of the states or those counties.
The 7.6% decline in transient revenue that you experienced in the first quarter, how much of that was demand-driven versus your decision to halt reservations?
It was primarily our decision in that it was towards Patrick, correct me, I think it was towards the middle of March or March 18th or something, where we just said, "This seems like an opportunity for us that we would prefer to kind of stop the traffic going in and out." We made that decision, and I think it proved to be the absolute right decision for our customers and for our employees. It was a couple of weeks after that decision was made, the shelter-in-place orders were put in place across the states.
Once you start accepting reservations again in transient, do you anticipate demand being there, or I'm just wondering if there's any way that you could track customer demand or leads in transient RV?
We are seeing a real desire to get out and camp. We're seeing a desire for people to be outdoors. What's holding them back is the shelter in place. We don't see any decrease in demand. If anything, an increase in excitement of getting outside, getting out of the four walls of their home.
Marguerite, you mentioned the strong demand in Thousand Trails during the pandemic. Can you remind us what the customer experience is like today? Are members allowed to go physically into your camping grounds?
Sure. There's many TT members right now who have been able to use the system, and they're actually currently sheltering in place at our properties. I think that's been positive, and they've been very pleased about being able to do that. In all instances, we've actually reduced the regulation or rules around the amount of time that one can spend in a particular property, and that has been very well received. That was just another way for us to reduce the movement around the system and around the country.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, John.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Todd Stender with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thanks. I hope you guys are all well.
Yes, thank you. You too. Good morning.
Good morning. Thanks. Guess kind of moving towards home sales. Q1 numbers, especially with new homes, were pretty solid. Can you maybe speak to March as the COVID news certainly took hold and maybe looking back at rental conversions, how you think that looks going forward?
Sure. Let me just comment on the quarter first. It was a solid quarter for new home sales, up 70% year-over-year. We saw broad strength across the portfolio. Florida had a very good quarter, as did Arizona, Nevada. Really across all of our northern markets as well. From a demand perspective, coming out of the quarter, it's been very favorable. From a renter conversion perspective. Keep in mind, we also look at existing residents, either upsizing to a new home or downsizing to a smaller home. Total conversions were 27% for the quarter. That's kind of in the range that's been consistent over the last several quarters, called 25%-30%. Three-quarters of those were conversions of renters who were either renting a ELS home or renting another home on site.
Still a very sticky customer and very much interested in buying homes and setting up long-term residency at our communities. How that's going to translate into shelter in place and moving out of shelter in place, it's difficult to say. We do continue to see that solid demand profile coming out of the quarter.
Yeah, Todd, we were pretty excited originally to talk about the new home sales because I think our team did a great job in new home sales in the quarter. Obviously, there were other things that took precedent to discussing. The team did a great job on new home sales in the quarter.
Great. Okay, that's helpful. Then, Paul, just with the rent deferrals, how are you accounting for that? We certainly see it with retail. We cover the triple net lease space. With a certain level of certainty, if you think you can collect rent, you certainly book it in FFO. How do you look at that from a resident standpoint and their cash?
Right. That's certainly a relevant question. I'd say for us, Todd, it is an extremely small number, as we've talked about. We're evaluating it just in the ordinary course as we take a look at collectability, and would otherwise offset our revenues if and when we determine it's not collectible. Again, it's 30 to 40 basis points.
I think it will be important as we turn the calendar to May, certainly each one of these deferrals signed an agreement. As we turn the calendar to May to see how the May payments are coming in, that will inform our views as well.
Okay, got it. Just last one. When it comes to business interruption insurance, certainly we see this with you guys when hurricanes hit and events like that, but policies generally don't cover or they only apply to property damage, and they don't apply to maybe pandemics. Do you have any context there with how this applies to you guys?
Yeah, I think generally speaking, your comments are accurate. I do think this is an area that has been the subject of quite a bit of discussion, so it remains to be seen. With respect to the policies bound April 1st, I think there was clarification in the language. As to policies in place prior to the pandemic, it'll probably continue to be a topic of discussion.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks, Todd.
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Pawlowski with Green Street. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Good morning. Paul, just maybe a follow-up question on the impact of the suspension of the MH rent increases. Is it 50 basis points on total portfolio MH rate growth for 2020? Did I interpret that correctly?
Yeah, Again, right, I'm trying to be careful with respect to guidance since we withdrew it, but just the math based on the number of notices remaining and the timing of their effectiveness in 2020, yeah, it's about 50 basis points from our expected growth of 4%.
Got it. Okay. Patrick, curious for some commentary on what you're seeing on the occupancy side on the MH and split between age-restricted and family. Are you seeing any markets in either segments in April? Is occupancy declining anywhere? Any sense of magnitude if so?
I think it's early to say with respect to April, but maybe just going up a level and just looking at the composition of our all-age and our age-qualified portfolio. Overall, we're 70% age-qualified. The average age of that resident is in their early 70s. It's a baby boomer. They're retired. The average age in our all-age portfolio is in their late 50s. That skews a little higher because of the locations that we have in retirement destinations and just the amenities and the activities around our properties overall. Even in the age-qualified, we tend to skew towards baby boomers and retirees.
Whose income is really based on retirement savings, Social Security, and less so on employment and paychecks. They tend to be very resilient in periods of job disruption. I did, in my previous company, run a large all-age portfolio, and the job disruption in the Great Recession ended up resulting in an increasing vacancy over a period of time that was then replenished over time as the economy stabilized, and we had residents either relocating to different markets or different states in order to seek employment. We also saw people kind of moving down to a more affordable housing choice. For our portfolio, again, 70% age-qualified properties, and for all-age properties behaving in many ways similar to age-qualified, I don't see the driver of the job disruption having as great an impact.
Okay, understood. I guess the quick or just maybe the succinct question is just given the sheer number of layoffs you see today, is it reasonable to expect that your family community sees some diminution in occupancy, or you really wouldn't underwrite that from what you see on the ground today?
I think that what you're seeing on our family community skew towards the older, as Patrick mentioned. Certainly, when you look at Nevada, for instance, you're seeing currently high unemployment rates there. We have properties there. I'd say by region you would look at it. I think that there certainly will be some impact in those locations. We do skew towards the older demographic, even on the family side. I think that's what will decrease the impact.
Just to frame that, John, Nevada as an example, is right around 5% delinquent for April. As Patrick says, it's early, and we're trying to read tea leaves here, but there's a lot to watch.
And then the timing with which-
Sure.
Nevada is a function of the casinos, et cetera, coming back and when that happens and that type of thing. We're focused on all of it, but it's a relatively small piece of our business.
Okay. No, understood. Maybe one last one from me, Paul. I know the expense savings are probably going to be minimal, at least in the first half of the year. Can you give us a sense of magnitude? What does the playbook look like in the second half of 2020 and 2021? If demand remains low in the RV, what kind of expense levers are there to pull in the second half? Can you humor us with a rough dollar number of cost savings that you're proactively looking to grab in the back half of this year or early 2021?
Well, I can focus on the first part of your question. The last part of your question, I'll probably set aside for another day. Just broadly, when you think about our overall property operating and maintenance expenses, when you exclude the real estate taxes, that's about 80% of our expense base. Inside of that, about 10% are fixed, so insurance premiums, software, and other expenses that support the business. When you think about the remaining 90% that have some level of variability, I think you focus on the RV, which I think is right, because to the extent the MH portfolio maintains a consistent level of occupancy, we wouldn't see much variability there. Inside RV, depending on the date when the normal operations resume, there's something of a built-in hedge in expense line items like payroll and utilities.
R&M and admin, they could see reductions as well. There could be just lower spend on supplies and other items that are needed for run rate operations. That's how I frame it, but I'm going to stop before I try to suggest a dollar amount or impact.
I think, John too, I think we've talked about this before, just from considering an example. A highly transient property, a highly transient RV property, comes with it a higher level of payroll, just because there's generally more activities, there's more people checking in and checking out. You need more people to do that. There's a direct correlation. If you're not seeing that, I wouldn't say we're not seeing, because the demand, I think, is definitely there. If we're not able, okay, then you have that kind of immediate adjustment to payroll just because there's just not the activity level there. That's where I would see it being able to impact with the staffing.
Okay, great. Thank you for the time.
All right. Thanks, John.
Thanks, John.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Samir Khanal with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning, Marguerite. I guess just a clarification. I got on the call a little bit late. I apologize. On the RV annuals, I think in the press release, you said for the April and May lease renewals, you've collected 61% of sort of the installment rent payments, which are 10% below same time last year. I'm just trying to clarify, does that mean you're sort of losing customers here, or does that mean collections are coming in, you anticipate collections to come in sort of at a later date here?
I think what it highlights is the payment schedules for the RV annual customers that differ based on their renewal date. The focus at this time of the year, Samir, is those April and May renewals mainly consists of the northern RV resorts, and those customers tend to make their installment payments when they arrive at the beginning of the summer season.
Okay.
The closures that we noted have affected the timing of those payments. We are pleased to be in a place where we've collected more than 85% of what we had collected last year at this time.
Just to follow up, I kind of touched on this in the beginning, but when our customers leave after the summer, they provide a deposit, as Paul's mentioned. They leave their park model, their resort cottage, their RV on-site at the property in return for the following season. The first few weeks of every season are really generally a time for our customer to prepare their second home for the summer season. The activity of the property really starts to accelerate as the summer weather moves in. That's kind of what we're seeing. As we are making calls to our customers, we're seeing a lot of people very anxious to come and get out of their locations where they are and come to our properties.
Okay. Thanks for that.