American Homes 4 Rent (AMH) June 3, 2026 Conference Transcript

So, good morning. My name is Hendel St. Just, Reed Analyst with Mizuho Securities. I'm pleased to be here this morning with the management team from American Homes for Rent, a pioneer of the single-family rental industry and one of the leading platforms in the space. This morning, we have with us CEO Brian Smith, CFO Chris Lau, COO Lincoln Palmer. I'm going to turn it over to Brian for some intro remarks. I'll then kick us off with a few questions and open up the floor to questions. So please don't be shy. With that, Brian, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Ando. I'll start with a few thoughts on the business and the regulatory environment before I hand it over to Chris for some comments on our most recent update. 2026 is off to a good start. Demand for single-family rentals and AMH homes in particular has been strong. Our important spring leasing season can be characterized by consistent occupancy and rate gains against the backdrop of excellent expense management. Our entire platform from operations to asset management to development continues to deliver. The team's discipline operating approach and strong local market execution have positioned positioned us well for the year and gives us a lot of confidence as we move through the balance of 2026. On the regulatory front, the legislative process continues to move forward as the House and the Senate are negotiating the final changes to the final housing bill that we hope to see come out shortly. We continue to be highly engaged there, and we feel good about where things currently stand, particularly following the House's decision to remove the Senate's seven-year disposition requirement from their original language. But importantly, American Homes is in a strong position, regardless of the legislative outcome. We have the platform, the scale, and the capabilities to continue to create value through our in-house development program and best-in-class operations. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris. Yes.

So we just put out an update deck back part of last week. Punch line is that spring has been shaping up nicely, just like we were talking about on the first quarter earnings call and as we were hoping for. Notably, we've seen a nice continued build in occupancy. We built another 60 basis points of occupancy from 95.6 in April up to 96.2 in May. just like we were talking about on the earnings call against that that strengthening occupancy we were able to push a touch more on new leases which grew from plus 1.2 in april up to 1.5 in may and then we held steady on renewals just like we were talking about on the call 3-0 in april into may at 3-1 a couple of other quick updates on the expense side of things nothing terribly new to to update folks on just as a reminder it's kind of early in the property tax information kind of calendar at this point we'll have better information over the next kind of month or two the teams continue remain hyper focused on controlling the controllables with respect to the remainder of expenses which they've been doing a great job on so far this year capital plan wise things are going according to plan we continue to execute on this year's moderated development program. We continue to see good activity as we continue to lean into dispositions, and we continue to be thoughtful around share repurchases. Quarter to date in the second quarter, we've now repurchased about $123 million of stock so far. I'm sure we'll get into plenty of other topics, but, you know, take away from a business perspective. Things are feeling good. Spring has been shaping up nicely, and the teams are executing really, really well.

Fantastic, thank you, thank you. Brian, maybe we could start with the regulatory. Certainly, it's front and center, a lot of investor minds, and I know you spent a lot of time in Washington this year. Curious, what is the actual state of play right now? I think the bill is on the Senate floor. I don't know if it's gonna be weeks, months, but I think that I'd heard there's a little bit of pushback from maybe Senator Warren about some of the provisions that are in this bill that weren't in the prior version, namely the removal of the seven-year for sale of development. So, curious what the latest read is on maybe timing, and then more broadly, as you think about the bill, you know, how do you think the read-through for your ability to acquire homes, to trade assets, and then, obviously, the point of contention, the seven-year for-sale provision.

Yeah, so the current state, Congress has been in recess. They returned this week, and they have a lot of other things, obviously, to address. but our understanding is that Senator Thune and Speaker Johnson are an act of negotiations. We were encouraged, as I said earlier, with the House's past housing act that effectively removed the seven-year disposition requirement from the Senate language. There were a couple of other changes as well. importantly to it removed build to rent from from consideration which is very good for us with our internal development program so I think that's a negotiation it's difficult to know exactly what motivations are on both sides but the fact that they're discussing it I think it's important to everybody wants to address housing affordability and supply and I think this bill has some some good provisions that that give us confidence that they'll at least be active dialogue and a decent chance of passing AMH is in a really good position if the house version passes with our build to rent platform and the fact that we have the operating platform to support to really run in concert with with those deliveries the the effect on the overall industry it's it's muted development so far this year all the attention that that our space has gotten specifically on kind of what the level of federal regulations can ultimately be but we are well positioned if it passes and if it doesn't pass to continue to deliver really high quality assets into a pretty robust demand environment specifically if the house version passes there'll be restrictions on MLS purchases but we haven't been active in that space for a number of years and again our growth channels are going to be heavily focused on new development supply and then potentially consolidation from other players who might find the space less attractive without the growth avenues that they thought they had.

That's a really interesting last point. Certainly, as we digest some of the potential outcomes here, certainly seems like they most net-net clearly are positive for your position in this industry, as some of the smaller players you alluded to reassess their options and also know there's a number of players who got into this business five, seven, ten years ago when the cost of debt was lower. So are you, I was going to ask, are you receiving any phone calls? But curious what your read of the temperature from some of these smaller players are. Are you getting inbounds? Anything you were willing to share on that front?

Yeah, I think our team's been active in the space with relationships with a lot of the owners and investors who have come in. Again, people are recognizing the importance of having that operating platform to support the growth and if you don't have that it's difficult to be nimble to to react to whatever regulatory changes occur you know specific to the MLS the restrictions have exceptions for those who can put in a path to home ownership program as an example it's not particularly that channels not attractive to us today but because we have the operating platform and we're nimble if we decided to go that route it would be a quick and easy change but if you're relying on third-party managers and others to execute on the operating side it becomes really difficult so that that's been front and center and then the fact that there just haven't been a lot of trades a lot of community sales and portfolio sales this year makes their exit options more limited so there are a few good things that are playing I think it knew it into our favor should play into our favor but we're watching it very closely it just comes down to the economics relative to cost of capital.

Can I add?

You know, cost of capital is important, but just to underscore, these are really unique value creation opportunities, and if you want a perfect case study, you can look at the portfolio that we consolidated in the second half of 2024, which is really kind of a win-win in terms of value creation all the way around. It was an exit solution to the seller. It was an enhanced resident experience to the residents of all of those homes and unique value unlocking from an AMH perspective as we brought those homes, exactly as Brian was mentioning, that were previously being managed by third-party property managers, you know, an in-place operating margins somewhere in the 50s, which is pretty representative of where smaller scale managers will operate. Over the first 12 months or so of bringing those properties onto our platform, bringing the level of performance up to amh standards those operating margins moved from in the 50s up into the 60s uniquely unlocking value as they come on or came on to the amh platform so of course this needs to all be thought of in the right cost of capital environment the math needs to to math but you know these are very unique you know win-win value creation type of opportunities great color great color appreciate that uh maybe shifting a bit if we could to just the fundamental backdrop here, the setup, seeing the updates, encouraged by what we're hearing with the trends in your portfolio.

So I guess as we think about how the sector's, how the year's evolving, it sounds like it's more or less within your range of expectations, so I'm curious what color you can provide us on kind of the demand, pricing, power, where perhaps the portfolio's performing a bit stronger, is supply having an impact in certain areas, so some color on just the Fundamentals the pricing how the year's evolving so far.

Sure. I'll just give you a few points on how we're thinking about the year so far Hopefully you've all seen the investor update coming out of the beginning of leasing season and The normal season of activity this year in February We've had a consistent build and rate and occupancy Into into May you can see the updates on the the new leasing which turned positive and then and renewals are running in the 3% range for April and May. We're encouraged by the strength of the season. It seems like the prospects this year are a little bit more urgent in the way that they're shopping. We're converting a little bit better than we did last year, translating into some of the positive momentum that you see. We should see some pickup in occupancy into June. I would think about this as kind of the peak of our season, may and june typically is the time of year where we'd see new lease rate growth peak out and then as we move into the back half of the year it's not abnormal to see new leases accelerate slightly so we should come off of the three percent area that we see today into the into the mid threes as we move into the back half of the year and we've we've sent renewals in the into april or excuse me, August and September. As far as the backdrop handle, I think what we would say on the backdrop is probably a consistently improving supply picture. We've seen improvements in most of our markets and notably some nice decreases, which are giving us some indications of some green shoots in some places. Atlanta is an example of where we've seen some improvement over the last the last few months. This is the first time in several quarters where we've seen the rate of growth in that supply start to decrease. I think it's been well noted that the deliveries in many of the different product types and residential have slowed over the last year or so. I think we're starting to see some of the benefit of that in the standing supply. And as we continue to use this demand to consume some of that supply that's in the marketplace today, I think we'll see a nice opportunity in new lease rate growth and occupancy going forward. So overall, we're pleased with the way that the season's shaping up.

We're encouraged by some positive indications on the backdrop overall, and well prepared as we go into the second half of the year from an operations standpoint to take advantage of any of the positive momentum relative to the guide and expectations I think you said it exactly right you know first five months of the year so far pretty similar you know similar ballpark to what we were expecting very much we were expecting the build and occupancy that Lincoln was just talking about very much we are expecting new leases to start in modestly negative territory in the first quarter inflecting positively into the second and then just like Lincoln said you know moderation the typical seasonal bell curve and new leases into the back part of the year uh and then renewals in the first five months or so pretty similar to what we are expecting in the you know three-ish area um you know to lincoln's point as we're looking into the third quarter at this point um you know those are likely going to settle more mid threes or so into the third quarter um you know if anyone were to unpack the components of the guide you would see that the guide contemplates 3-0 on a full year basis uh you know we'd like to see a little bit more data there and those renewals to stick for a little bit longer before we start talking about you know expectations on the full year but the first five months are so pretty similar to what we're expecting good color um wanted to maybe double click on that a bit because we're sitting here today and the portfolio trends are great but

there's some of us who are a little maybe nervous that given what we saw last year and certainly sounds like uh the foot traffic the conversions are are there so curious as you sit here today you know what help us understand what is driving some of that demand in a world of maybe it's higher mortgage rates but there's some concern about you know a weak macro and some of the jobs so as you sit here today it's June your your level of comfort confidence in the near-term outlook given what we saw last year I mean any kind of early indicators or data that you can sure a couple of that give us some confidence that the demand that we see for our product is

sustainable one is it's been relatively consistent for a long period of time despite some of the ebbs and flows in the economy and some of the things you talked about in the job market you know we have a very resilient industry and that people prioritize their housing in their budget so you know there can be a lot of fluctuations around that and people will still pay their rent one of things that really surprised us was how well our portfolio performed during the covid period which would arguably in the last decade is probably one of the most challenging household financial periods we've seen for a long time the other thing that gives us some comfort is the idea that the residents are coming into the portfolio today are well qualified much like they have been in the past we continue to see improvements in income the growth in the income is running north of where new lease rate growth is so people are their incomes are keeping pace with with rent growth we have redundant incomes so two adults typically in the households child the pet those tend to be that tends to be a sticky situation people like to keep their kids in the schools and more importantly if there's any disruption in one type of income or the other we have a second income typically um and then you know as far as the rest of the year and how the year performs um our current residents also are in very great shape bad debt and collections continues to run run very well um close to to historical lows um and then the back half of the year we've talked a little bit about our lease expiration management initiative some of you have heard heard us talk about that over the last several quarters this is the first full year where we're executing on that as we move in the back half of the year we have a much lower expiration profile than we have in the past set that next to slightly improving supply profile and the idea that you know we're controlling expense as well I think it gives us some some comfort going into the back half that but we'll be able to perform extremely well and land the year where we plan, so.

Great, maybe shifting gears, capital allocation, maybe for you, Chris, thinking about the balance sheet, the range of opportunities in front of you today, you've been fairly active on stock buybacks.

There is a unique opportunity to sell homes into the MLS market at fairly attractive cap rates, so curious on your appetite for further buybacks, what that could mean for dispositions and then how does development funding fit into all of this yeah I would say the key word to our view is is balance and as we think about all these different pieces we don't view any of them as either or all of these things if done and kind of thoughtfully constructed the right way in terms of the capital plan all of these things can can live alongside one another and complement each other very nicely. And you can see that reflected in the plan that we came into this year with. For anyone that's unfamiliar, coming into this year, we turned down the pace of our development program coming into 2026. That's one of the many benefits of controlling our development program from end to end. We have the ability to turn it up and turn it down, in this case turn it down, So we reduced the overall level of volume and capital throughput. Within that reduced level of volume, we've allocated a larger portion of projects to our JV pipeline for this year, shrinking the balance sheet capital component of this year's development program such that it is match fundable with proceeds recycled capital from our disposition program, where we see great opportunities to both optimize the existing portfolio, identifying and pruning underperforming properties and or properties that represent, you know, higher and better use of capital elsewhere, selling of those properties to end-user homebuyers via the MLS. On average this year so far we've been disposing of properties and a dispo cap rate range of about 4% or so, recycling that back into our development program. The downsizing or moderating of the development program to be match fundable with disposition proceeds frees up incremental capital in this year's capital plan for other things like share repurchases where we have been active for the past six to seven months at this point you know regularly repurchasing shares fourth quarter first quarter and second quarter to date so far in total over the past six to seven months we've now repurchased about 3% maybe even three percent change of total shares and units outstanding. Again, as a very nice complement to the development program and the long-term value creation there. And then importantly, as we're balancing all of these things, it's very important that we maintain the development program and all of our development program infrastructure. The development program is a major differentiator, value creation source for us, and will be going forward.

And so as we're thinking about navigating this type of capital cost of capital environment balancing all these different things mission critical that the development program maintains in motion in all of our high conviction development markets brian maybe for you you know as we chatting a little earlier um i've seen others in the industry include third-party management mes lending curious on the incremental options that you're either considering or have looked at in the past and how perhaps those two options specifically could or maybe not fit into your playbook sure just for those who might not know we tested a third-party management initiative a few years back focused on large institutional

owners and new build to rent product we worked through it we built the infrastructure the platform is prepared to to turn that on as needed but we felt we had other bigger opportunities with our development program and kind of internal initiatives. So we put that on pause. The way that I would look at third-party management in particular going forward is it's part of the suite of solutions that we can offer to other smaller owners, portfolio owners. And what I mean by that is we have the ability to, as an example, if an owner owned 1,000 houses, 500 of which fit our buy box, to be able to acquire those 500 and then manage the other 500 through the disposition process if that's what the seller would want. So we have a lot of flexibility, and I think we'll use that tool to be an attractive way to get us into acquisition opportunities we might not otherwise have had. In terms of the immediate opportunities for a large-scale move into that just for management-only purposes, it's probably not in the cards right now. But over time, we're going to be looking at those opportunities, maybe ways to license part of our operating platform that have nice margins where we have a real advantage. So over time, it's something that we'll consider, but nothing in the immediate future on a fee-specific basis. In terms of lending, again, we feel like there's so much opportunity and refinements in the way that we're delivering houses and kind of our core right down the middle of the fairway business that that's where our focus is going to remain. Great.

I'm going to pause there and see if there are any questions from the audience. Don't be shy. All right. In the front here.

Worst case is hard to imagine. Again, given some of the stuff that we've been through already and residents prioritizing their rent payments, we typically operated in the sub 1% range on our bad debt. So pre-COVID, you can think of that in terms of 70, 80 basis points. I think we're running 80, 90 right now. So very close to historical lows. And that's been relatively consistent. There was a fluctuation during COVID where we had higher bad debt just because people weren't required to pay rent legally for a period of time. And those of you who follow us over the last several years know that it took a little bit of time to resolve that as we went through that delinquency management process in different jurisdictions that tended to be very local. But again, with a healthy resident and the way that they're performing today, we don't have many concerns about the residents. Do you remember where we peaked, Chris?

This is a total memory test.

Let's see if it matches mine. 150 basis points, something like that?

Yeah, I'd say 150 to 2. anyone else out there yeah we tested it we looked at it we're a very entrepreneurial group we we tested development before we figured out that we could scale it on the 3 p.m. side we had again a focus on build to rent we knew that we were very good at lease up and management and again decided to kind of pivot pivot off of it we've always figured out ways to to get credit to be able to monetize these significant investments we've made in our platform that extend beyond the normal operations. Chris mentioned one before, ability to have that big lift on portfolios that are externally managed, bringing them on balance sheets. So we're really looking at it as a tool to kind of enhance our balance sheet investment. But again, we recognize that with our scale, we have advantages on the leasing side as an example we have hundreds of thousands of inbound inquiries regularly and we're releasing thousands of homes a month so are there ways to to leverage that that interest and that demand elsewhere so we're thinking about it nothing nothing in the immediate term but there's a lot of power to the scale of the platform on the leasing side on on the services side, on the disposition side, things that could provide future opportunity.

And maybe continuing that, I guess it'd be, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the topic of AI, and so as you think about the power of the platform, what you've been able to accomplish the last 10 plus years, but the opportunity ahead, as you assess your data capabilities, overlaying AI, how do you think about that broadly, and maybe any examples of how you're either beginning to implement new programs, maybe some expectations around either margin, impact, or anything you're willing to share on that front?

Yeah, we were prepared for a lot of these advancements in the investments that we made in our data platform a few years ago. We had to make sure that the foundation was set to take advantage of all these new good things, some of which are difficult to even anticipate now. So our current state of AI investment, we're seeing it in a lot of the applications that run through our entire operating platform, but the most major initial forays, initial investments are on the leasing front, where we're using it as the front-end tool to handle all the inbound inquiries and effectively get the prospects into the touring of the home stage unassisted, and then give them a very clear, convenient option to continue to run through the entire leasing process digitally if they if they choose at the same time we've got our sales teams at the ready to provide whatever level of assistance they need the sales and leasing to to bring that prospect home as a resident so it started on the leasing front i've talked about it in the past it's going to form the foundation of our communication platform with our resident multi-channel dual way communication is is a big change off of what people have had traditionally especially in rentals so we see some benefits on that side there are clear operating efficiencies that we're already starting to realize but what we're looking at it from long-term view is what can we deliver because of the AI capabilities that's going to enhance the resident experience and make our houses that much more attractive which would ultimately to result in better renewal rates, longer stays, and more efficiency. So we're trying to take the customer perspective and based on feedback that we're getting from them, deliver new solutions that now are economical because of the advancements in AI. So that's what we're focused on right now. There's a lot of kind of nuts and bolts stuff that's happening under the hood. We've got improvements in the way that we're managing the hundreds of thousands of HOA documents and a lot of things from operating efficiency side, but I think the next phase is what can we do to dramatically improve that resident experience and do it efficiently and economically.

Great. 20 seconds. I don't know if that leaves time for one quick one in the front, Jim.

The maintenance part is really the most important one, I think. So we're looking at solutions to empower our technicians to be experts across all aspects of home maintenance so you know traditionally you might have someone who's really good plumbing or electricity electrician but how do you put the knowledge and tools in anyone's hand to solve this and ultimately it could lead to self performance from from the residents if they have the ability to quickly diagnose order replacement parts and have a clear path to replacement it's easier than having to wait and make appointments for others to come to come visit so those are the types of things that we're thinking about nothing necessarily to announce now but the pace of change is quick and there's a lot of opportunity out there.

Great well that's our time thank you all for joining us and thank you to the team from American Homes for Renford.