Camden Property (CPT) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Date

Friday, May 1, 2026, at 11 a.m. ET

Call participants

Executive Chairman — Richard J. Campo
Chief Executive Officer — Alexander Jessett
President and Chief Operating Officer — Laurie A. Baker
Chief Financial Officer — [Name Unspecified]
Executive Vice Chairman — D. Keith Oden
Senior Vice President, Real Estate Investments — Stanley Jones
Senior Vice President, Investor Relations — Kimberly A. Callahan

Takeaways

Core FFO per share -- $1.70, $0.04 above guidance midpoint, with $0.01 from lower bad debt and higher collections, $0.02 from expense savings, and $0.01 from earlier third-party construction fee income.
Non-core FFO charges -- $58.2 million, primarily due to a $53 million class action lawsuit settlement and $4.9 million investment losses from two climate technology funds.
Guidance: fiscal 2026 core FFO per share -- Confirmed at $6.75 midpoint; assumes no further share repurchases.
Guidance: second quarter 2026 core FFO per share -- Expected range of $1.65 to $1.69, a $0.03 sequential decline at midpoint, mainly from a $0.04 same-store NOI decrease partially offset by $0.01 net acquisitions.
Same-store revenue guidance -- Midpoint reaffirmed at 0.75% for 2026; same-store expense guidance midpoint also reaffirmed at 3%; NOI midpoint unchanged at -0.5%.
Occupancy -- April at 95.4%, up from 95.1% in the first quarter.
Blended lease rates -- April blended rates improved by 100 basis points over first quarter levels.
Bad debt -- First quarter bad debt below 40 basis points, the lowest since the onset of COVID-19.
Turnover rate -- Annualized net turnover 30%, among the lowest in company history.
Renewal offers -- May to July increases sent at mid-3% range; typically achieve about 50 basis points below offer level.
Share repurchases -- $423 million repurchased in the first quarter at $104.08 average price per share, following $271 million in 2025; total of $693 million repurchased in advance of California sale at 6.4% FFO yield.
California portfolio sale -- In diligence with a single buyer for entire portfolio; targeted close in June or early July; modeled at $650 million in proceeds earmarked for repurchases and 1031 exchanges.
Asset disposition -- 40-year-old Dallas property sold for $77 million, generating 12% unlevered IRR over hold period.
Recent acquisitions -- Camden Alpharetta (269 homes, Atlanta) and Camden at Lake Nona (288 homes, Orlando) acquired post quarter-end for $170 million combined.
Acquisition pipeline -- Recently awarded $250 million in new deals toward $1 billion acquisition goal.
Revolving credit facility -- $1.2 billion facility recast, maturity extended four years, pricing lowered 15 basis points.
Bond issuance -- $600 million 10-year unsecured bonds issued at 5% all-in effective rate.
Sunbelt market supply -- New supply down 50% from peak in most markets, with Dallas, Houston, and Austin leading national job and population growth.
Concessions -- Management said, "we are seeing concessions come down fairly meaningfully in most of our markets" as new supply pressure abates.

Risks

Non-core FFO charges -- $58.2 million in the first quarter, driven by a $53 million class action lawsuit settlement and $4.9 million climate technology fund losses.
Guidance: sequential decline -- Second quarter 2026 core FFO per share guidance midpoint is $0.03 below first quarter, citing a $0.04 same-store NOI decrease.
Houston performance -- Alexander Jessett said, "Houston’s consumer sentiment has fallen pretty dramatically in 2026 as compared to 2025. I think a lot of that is around some of the effects of immigration, which does have a huge impact in Houston. That negative customer sentiment is having an impact on the way the Houston consumer spends their money, and that impacts rent. But if you get past the sentiment issue—and humans are incredibly resilient with an ability to return to the positive really fast—the underlying data is strong. There is a lot of job creation and population growth. Our consumer is doing really well. Our rent-to-income in Houston is 16%, one of the lowest in our entire portfolio. The consumer is there, the consumer has the ability to spend more money, and supply has come down pretty dramatically. Houston will get better. It is just a sentiment issue."

Summary

Camden Property Trust (CPT 0.54%) emphasized disciplined capital allocation, confirming the $6.75 core FFO per share outlook for fiscal 2026 and signaling no new share repurchases in revised guidance. The company advanced its California portfolio sale, stating it remains in diligence with a single buyer and expects closing by early July, targeting $650 million in proceeds for redeployment through 1031 exchanges and prior share buybacks. Camden reported a notable sequential improvement in April occupancy and blended lease rates compared to the first quarter, consistent with management’s forecast of a demand-driven rebound as new supply moderates across its key Sunbelt markets.

Management linked improved first-quarter bad debt to higher 2026 tax refunds for residents and enhanced credit screening, but does not expect this benefit to persist beyond the season.
Renewal lease offers for peak summer months are being sent at mid-3% increases, with actual achievement expected slightly lower due to measured pricing power and market mix.
Urban assets outperformed suburban by 70 basis points on revenue last quarter due to supply contraction being fastest in urban areas.
Camden continues deploying capital, acquiring properties in Atlanta and Orlando, and has secured $250 million of pipeline acquisitions toward a $1 billion reinvestment goal post-disposition.

Industry glossary

Blended lease rates: The weighted average percentage change for both new and renewal leases signed during a period, relative to prior leases on the same units.
Cap rate: The initial annual return on a real estate investment property, calculated as net operating income divided by property purchase price.
FFO (Funds from operations): A REIT-specific measure representing net income plus depreciation and amortization, excluding gains or losses from property sales, used to evaluate REIT operating performance.
Same-store NOI: Net operating income generated from properties held and in operation for the full periods being compared, allowing for like-for-like performance assessment.
1031 exchange: A tax-deferral mechanism allowing REITs to reinvest proceeds from a property sale into similar properties without immediate capital gains taxation.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Kimberly A. Callahan: Good morning, and welcome to Camden Property Trust First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I am Kimberly A. Callahan, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Joining me today for our prepared remarks are Richard J. Campo, Executive Chairman; Alexander Jessett, Chief Executive Officer; Laurie A. Baker, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Unknown Executive, Chief Financial Officer. D. Keith Oden, Executive Vice Chairman, and 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 first 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 that 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 Richard J. Campo.

Richard J. Campo: Good morning. Our theme for today’s pre-call music is “Change.” We recently announced some important changes to Camden’s executive team. With the promotions of Alexander Jessett, Laurie A. Baker, and Unknown Executive, we continued our longstanding commitment to succession planning featuring Camden’s homegrown talent. This will ensure the continuity of Camden’s family values, institutional knowledge, and unique culture. Alex, Laurie, and Ben each bring 25-plus years of tenure at Camden to their new leadership roles. And in the words of REO Speedwagon, I will be here when you are ready to roll with the changes. These promotions will ensure that Camden will be ready to roll with the changes in the years ahead.

But one thing that never changes is Camden’s commitment to workplace excellence, which was recently reinforced by our place on the Fortune Best Places to Work list in America for the nineteenth consecutive year, ranking number 13 this year. 96% of our employees say Camden is a great place to work, which has led to the highest customer sentiment scores that we have ever seen. The macro case for improving apartment fundamentals continues to be strong. New supply has peaked and has been cut in half in most of our markets. First-quarter apartment net absorption was one of the best since 2016 despite slow job growth and tepid consumer sentiment.

Apartments provide consumers with a compelling low-housing-cost alternative to owning a home. I want to give a big shout out to Camden team members for continuing to improve the lives of our teammates, our residents, and our stakeholders one experience at a time. Next up is no stranger to you, but our new CEO, Alexander Jessett.

Alexander Jessett: Thanks, Rick, and good morning. As Ben will cover in detail, we had a strong first quarter. Much of the outperformance was timing related, and we are looking forward to seeing how our peak leasing season unfolds throughout the remainder of this quarter and next. In the first quarter, we recorded our lowest bad debt level since the onset of COVID-19, at less than 40 basis points. We attribute this in part to income tax refunds received by many of our residents, combined with their continual financial strength and the impact of our enhanced resident credit screening. For middle- and higher-income earners, 2026 tax refunds are up approximately 10% over last year, creating enhanced spending power.

Despite headline reports of declining consumer sentiment, the data illustrates the financial health of our target demographic remains strong, with spending up 3% year-over-year, primarily on services and retail. Our renters pay a low 19% of their income toward rent, allowing them additional discretionary funds often not seen in the more expensive coastal markets. On the demand side, our markets remain strong. CBRE’s latest headquarter relocation study, which covers 725 public announcements between 2018 and 2025, shows activity accelerating in 2025 and concentrating on a short list of metros. Dallas–Fort Worth remains a top destination with more than 100 headquarter relocations since 2018.

In 2025 alone, the metro added another 11 interstate or international headquarters from higher-cost markets, including Los Angeles, the Bay Area, New York, and Chicago. Additionally, for the twelve months ended January, Dallas led the nation in absolute job growth, followed by Houston at number two, and Austin at number four. On a percentage basis, Austin led the nation with most of our markets in the top 30. The Houston metro area led the nation last year in population growth, with just under 127 thousand new residents added in the twelve-month period ending 07/01/2025. That equates to one new resident every 4.1 minutes, or 347 new residents each day.

Among the top 10 metros with the largest population gains, only the Dallas–Fort Worth metro came close, with roughly 124 thousand new residents. No other metro added even half as many. This disparity highlights Texas’s appeal to workers and families supported by relatively strong job markets, lower cost of living, and the absence of a state income tax. Beyond Dallas–Fort Worth, the CBRE relocation study showed a group of Sunbelt and growth markets emerging as consistent headquarter winners. It highlighted Miami, Austin, Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix, Tampa, Atlanta, and Raleigh–Durham as rising contenders with a pro-business climate, including tax advantages, labor availability, and lower costs. The decades-long trend of domestic migration to the Sunbelt normalized in 2025, not disappeared.

In fact, WIN’s migration tracker shows domestic migration reaccelerating in 2026 as compared to 2025 in most of our markets with sequential annual increases over 10% in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Phoenix, and Tampa. Camden is in the right high-demand markets, ready for the upcoming lower-supply environment. Turning to the real estate front, our California sales process is progressing on schedule. As we shared previously, we have had strong interest, with over 230 companies signing confidentiality agreements. We are currently in the diligence process with one buyer for the entire portfolio, with an anticipated close date in June or early July.

If it does not work out with this buyer, there are other strong buyers who could step in, although with a later closing date. At this point, we are not going to comment further on the potential buyer or the sales price other than to say it is in line with expectations. We continue to assume approximately 60% of the sales proceeds will be reinvested through 1031 exchanges into our existing high-demand, high-growth Sunbelt markets. The remainder of the proceeds, modeled at $650 million, has been used for share repurchases in late 2025 and year-to-date 2026.

During the first quarter, we disposed of a high CapEx, 40-year-old community in Dallas for $77 million, generating an approximate 12% unlevered IRR over an almost 30-year hold period. After quarter end, we acquired Camden Alpharetta, a 269-home apartment community in the Atlanta, Georgia metro area, and Camden at Lake Nona, a 288-home apartment community in the Orlando, Florida metro area, for a combined $170 million. We are actively underwriting several other acquisition opportunities and remain confident we can effectively deploy the 1031 proceeds from the California sale. However, as I previously noted, the timing of the exchanges can add considerable variability to our 2026 earnings, as we do not receive the sales proceeds until we complete the exchanges.

I will now turn the call over to Laurie A. Baker, our President and Chief Operating Officer.

Laurie A. Baker: Thanks, Alex. Camden’s operating performance to date is generally in line with our expectations. While our first-quarter results were slightly ahead of budget, the outperformance was mainly driven by timing-related items. Overall and as expected, we saw slow but steady improvements across our portfolio as we moved through the first quarter and into the beginning of peak leasing season. Our preliminary results for April are on track, with modest improvements in both occupancy and blended lease-rate growth compared to the first quarter. Turnover remains exceptionally low, and our first-quarter 2026 annualized net turnover rate of 30% was one of the lowest in our company’s history.

This is in part due to minimal move-outs related to home purchases, which accounted for 9.2% of our total move-outs this quarter. But it also reflects record levels of resident retention, which are a testament to Camden’s unwavering focus on customer service and providing living excellence to our residents. We will continue to focus on renewals and retention going forward, helping us protect and maintain occupancy and mitigate expenses related to unit turnover. Renewal offers for May, June, and July were sent out with an average increase in the mid-3% range.

Our team at Camden remains committed to this year’s rallying cry of “smarter, faster, better,” which means smarter in leveraging data, insights, and AI to drive better outcomes, remove repetitive tasks, and improve our margins; faster with AI to enable quicker, more efficient service for our customers and teams; and better by amplifying our people and improving the customer experience, as reflected in our highest customer sentiment score to date in the first quarter. I will now turn the call over to Unknown Executive, Camden’s Chief Financial Officer.

Unknown Executive: Thanks, Laurie, and good morning, everyone. I will begin with our capital markets activity from the quarter, followed by a review of our first-quarter results and our outlook for the second quarter and remainder of the year. During the first quarter, we continued to take disciplined actions to further strengthen our balance sheet and enhance our long-term financial flexibility. We proactively recast our $1.2 billion revolving line of credit, extending its maturity four years while preserving attractive covenant terms and lowering all-in pricing by 15 basis points. The recast enhances our liquidity position and reflects the continued support we receive from our bank partners.

During the quarter, we also issued $600 million of 10-year unsecured bonds at an all-in effective rate of 5%. This issuance allowed us to lock in long-term fixed-rate financing, extend our weighted average debt maturity, and reduce near-term refinancing risk. As Alex previously mentioned, we were active with our share repurchases during and subsequent to the quarter, with share repurchases of $423 million at an average price of $104.08 per share. These repurchases, along with $271 million in repurchases completed in 2025, reflect our disciplined and opportunistic capital allocation approach as our shares trade at a significant discount to NAV. While we will continue to monitor our share price performance, our updated full-year 2026 guidance assumes no other share repurchases.

As a result of these actions, we ended the quarter with strong liquidity, well-laddered maturities, and leverage metrics that remain comfortably within our long-term targeted range. Turning to our first-quarter results, we delivered a solid start to the year. For the first quarter, core FFO was $1.70 per share, which exceeded the midpoint of our guidance by $0.04 per share. The outperformance compared to guidance was driven by $0.01 from higher revenues from our operating properties, primarily attributable to lower-than-anticipated bad debt and higher collections on delinquent rent. Another $0.02 resulted from property expense savings, which were largely timing related and not indicative of a change to our full-year expense outlook.

The remaining $0.01 of the beat was due to the timing of third-party construction fee income, which we had previously expected to earn later in 2026. Operating conditions during the quarter tracked our expectations for lease trade-out and occupancy. Additionally, outside of our core operating results, we recorded $58.2 million of non-core FFO charges, most of which were related to the previously disclosed $53 million class action lawsuit settlement detailed in the 8-K furnished on April 9. The remaining charges were primarily due to $4.9 million of anticipated investment losses from two climate technology funds.

Turning to full-year 2026 same-store guidance, while we experienced better-than-expected bad debt and delinquency results during the first quarter, we believe it is premature to extrapolate one quarter’s performance into a full-year trend, particularly given market variability. As a result, we are reaffirming the midpoint of our full-year same-store revenue guidance at 0.75%. Similarly, the first-quarter expense outperformance was largely timing related, so we are reaffirming the midpoint of our same-store expense guidance at 3%. With the midpoints of both revenue and expense guidance unchanged, the midpoint of our same-store NOI guidance remains unchanged at -0.5%.

Our same-store guidance continues to assume improving lease trade-out fundamentals as we enter peak leasing season, along with moderation in new supply pressure as the year progresses. With no change in our expected same-store results, and transaction volume and timing in range of our original plan, we are keeping the midpoint of our full-year core FFO per share guidance of $6.75. We also provided guidance for the second quarter of 2026. We expect core FFO per share for the second quarter to be within the range of $1.65 to $1.69, representing a $0.03 per share sequential decline from the first quarter at the midpoint.

This anticipated decline is driven by a $0.04 sequential decrease in same-store NOI, as higher expected revenues during our second quarter are offset by the seasonality and timing of certain repair and maintenance expenses and the timing of our annual merit increases. This $0.04 same-store NOI decrease is partially offset by $0.01 of additional non-same-store NOI from our completed and projected net acquisitions. In closing, Camden remains in a strong financial position. Our balance sheet strength, ample liquidity, and disciplined capital allocation provide us with meaningful flexibility as operating conditions evolve. We will now open the call for questions.

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from Eric Jon Wolfe with Citi. You may go ahead.

Eric Jon Wolfe: I think you said that April blends were modestly better than the first quarter, which I think came in at around -1.4%. But you also said that April was generally in line with your expectations and what you had in guidance thus far. Could you maybe just talk about the ramp that you expect for the rest of the year? It would seem like, based on your guidance, that you expect a pretty big ramp. I was just curious when you expect to see that and if you see any early signs of that increase in spreads based on your Street data. Thanks.

Alexander Jessett: Yeah, absolutely. So let us sort of frame it. Let us first talk about occupancy. April occupancy is right around 95.4%. That compares to 95.1% in the first quarter, so that is a pretty considerable increase. And then when you look at blended rates, blended rates for us in April—we are certainly not giving interim data because I do not want our peers to smack me—but we are seeing blended rates up about 100 basis points in April as compared to what we saw in the first quarter. So all of that is in trend and absolutely positive.

If you look at how we are thinking this is going to lay out for the rest of the year, what we are anticipating is a pretty strong third quarter with the hope that, at that point in time, we have got enough of the new supply absorbed, and then that leads into an atypically better fourth quarter than what you would normally see because you have got supply coming down so dramatically. So that is what is built into our numbers. I will tell you at this point in time, we are feeling pretty good about how April is shaking out, and we are certainly seeing several of our markets that I would classify as showing green shoots.

The markets that are jumping out to me would be Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Nashville, Raleigh, and Southeast Florida. We think those are going to be the markets that will really lead us in this return to normalcy as all of that excess supply is absorbed.

Operator: The next question comes from James Colin Feldman with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

James Colin Feldman: Great. First, congratulations, everyone, on all the changes. Excited to see what comes next. I guess as we think about going back to those comments, can you talk about concessions—how have they been trending? And then as you think about the ramp you expect to see for the rest of the year, your expectations for concessions coming in and how that helps?

Alexander Jessett: Yeah. As you know, we do not offer concessions. So what we are doing is we have to look and see what is out there in the marketplace. The good news is that we are seeing concessions come down fairly meaningfully in most of our markets, and once again, that is really tied to supply. If you look at the vast majority of our markets, new supply is down 50% since peak. Because of that, you are no longer in a situation where you have a lot of developers trying to go from 0% occupied to 95% occupied and offering every single concession possible to get you there.

So we are seeing concessions come down pretty considerably in most of our markets. The easiest way and best comp I have for that is the one asset we have in development, which is our Village District community in Raleigh. We always assume you are going to give one month free in a new lease-up, and that is to compensate for the fact that there is construction activity, etc., going on. We are offering a concession there, but it is not much over that one month. What that really tells you is that concessions are starting to get into check in our markets.

Operator: The next question comes from Austin Todd Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Austin Todd Wurschmidt: Lori, I think you indicated asking rates on renewal leases are going out in the mid-3% range. I think last quarter you were sending out around 3% to 3.5% and achieved closer to or just below 3%. Just curious what the take rate has been from the asking versus achieved, and do you think that starts to narrow a little bit as you get into the peak leasing season, as it sounds like things have picked up a bit?

Laurie A. Baker: Yeah. We saw that in the first quarter—going out with the range in the mid-3%s, and I think we reported that last quarter. We saw just a little bit of price sensitivity in the first few months of the year, but we are now starting to see in our May, June, and July lease renewals that we are able to get a little bit more of an increase in those numbers. With our renewals being so high, we are feeling pretty good about landing right around the same range of usually 50 basis points below where we send offers.

As we have the opportunity to push in markets where we are getting a little more pricing power, we will continue to do so. In the markets where there are more concessions and supply, we may not be able to get to those top-line numbers that we are going out at, but we feel pretty good about the conversations we are having. It has a lot to do with how well we take care of our residents and explaining to them the costs associated with moving, the product we provide, and the service level we provide. Those conversations typically go pretty well.

Our teams are very focused on explaining what the concession market is and how our net pricing equates to that. So we are feeling good about, as we said earlier, going out with the mid-3%s and a little higher as we get into our peak summer.

Operator: The next question comes from Stephen Thomas Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Stephen Thomas Sakwa: Thanks. I wanted to ask maybe a portfolio size question. There have been some stories about industry consolidation. At your portfolio size, as you think about the data you gather from your existing assets, do you think that data would be better if you were two, three, or four times bigger? And how are you using other data sources to think about pricing today?

Alexander Jessett: We try not to comment on rumors about mergers and acquisitions that are out there. Point number two, we are very fortunate—and the investor community is very fortunate—that leadership at all companies is really good. Whatever decisions other companies make, we have to believe are right for them. For us, the way we think about this is that bigger is not better; better is better. If you look at long-term trends, there is absolutely no correlation between the size of the company and total shareholder return. On data, with the scale we have, we have enough information and enough data to make the appropriate decisions across every aspect of our business.

I do not think that if we were two or three times the size we are, we would see any significant increase in our ability to collect, analyze, and utilize data. We have perfect clarity into our information. We are a good-sized company with a lot of units to observe, and we can see how those units and our consumers are behaving. I am not sure there are any real significant improvements on the data side that come merely from being considerably bigger.

Operator: The next question comes from Jana Galan with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Jana Galan: Thank you. Maybe a question on acquisitions as you prepare to deploy the disposition proceeds. Can you talk about cap rates in the Sunbelt markets you typically underwrite, year-one rent growth, and if you are seeing more opportunity in kind of core products or in unstabilized or lease-up assets?

Alexander Jessett: Sorry, could you repeat your question? You cut out in the middle and I missed the first part.

Jana Galan: Sure. On acquisitions, what cap rates are you seeing out there, how are you underwriting year-one rent growth, and are you seeing more opportunity in stabilized assets versus unstabilized or lease-up assets?

Alexander Jessett: Transaction volumes are still clearly below pre-COVID levels but today are trending in line with where we were in 2025. We are evaluating a number of opportunities as we look to redeploy the proceeds from the California transaction. We are not seeing a lot in terms of lease-up acquisition opportunities this year. Sellers with properties in lease-up are really trying to get them to a point of stabilization before they go to market to create as much liquidity for that asset as possible. From a pricing standpoint, cap rates have really been stable over the last 18 months. Trades for newer, well-located properties in the Sunbelt are in the 4.5% to 5% range and have been for some time.

That is certainly what we are seeing.

Operator: The next question comes from Richard Anderson with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Richard Anderson: Thanks. Good morning and congrats to everyone for all the moves. Very exciting. On the cadence of the recovery from here, if we were sitting here this time last year, we probably would have thought by now we would be seeing more CPI-plus growth, particularly out of new leases. It seems like that got delayed a year given the tail of supply. How do you think the cadence of the growth recovery will be as we get into 2027? Is it more of a hockey stick like we saw in 2022—I would hope not—or more of a gradual improvement as supply burns off?

Alexander Jessett: Absolutely. If you go back and look at 2025, we had a little bit of a head fake because in 2025, April looked fantastic and then things just stopped pretty quickly, largely tied to factors we know. If you look at what we are assuming, we are assuming that this recovery could look a lot like what we saw coming out of the GFC. We saw several years of really considerable growth. In 2011, our NOI was up about 7%. In 2012, it was up 9%. In 2013, it was up 6%. You could see something similar. On cadence, we are anticipating a bit of a hockey stick in the latter part of 2026 as we get through this absorption.

Then, when you get into 2027—not giving guidance—but if you look back at what we saw coming out of the GFC, it becomes steady but strong growth on a go-forward basis.

D. Keith Oden: I would just add some numbers around completions in Camden’s markets. The cadence looks like in 2025 we had 200 thousand completions. That drops to about 140 thousand–150 thousand this year, drops to 135 thousand in 2027, and down to 120 thousand in 2028. It is very hard to change the trajectory of that completion number because if it is not already under construction, it is not coming by 2027.

Operator: The next question comes from Bradley Barrett Heffern with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Bradley Barrett Heffern: Thanks, everybody. Congratulations on all the promotions. Glad to see the music is sticking around amid all the changes. Going back to the 1Q blends, typically we see a jump sequentially in the first quarter. Your peers have generally reported that. Last year was 100 basis points higher or so in the first quarter. It sounds like that was already assumed in guidance, but why did you not expect or see that sort of normal seasonal pattern?

Alexander Jessett: First thing is, the music is not going anywhere. Love our music, and expect to see that for, to the point whenever I am handing it over to somebody else. On the first quarter, we were making sure we were setting ourselves up appropriately for the rest of the year, and we feel good about how the quarter unfolded. It was in line with our expectations and guidance. There will be a lot of comparison between multifamily companies—we understand that. We are all in different markets. In the markets where we overlap with competitors, in particular one competitor, we outperformed in most of those markets.

However you get there on the revenue side, our revenue results we feel really good about, and we feel we are doing the right thing to set ourselves up for a successful second, third, and fourth quarter. Our April results are doing very well as we just discussed, so we feel very good about the trend.

Operator: The next question comes from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Haendel St. Juste: Congrats on the promotions and thanks for taking my question. On buybacks and capital deployment: you repurchased the $650 million you outlined on prior calls, and you have another couple hundred million or so of capacity in the buyback. Can you talk more about capital allocation from here and your interest in more buybacks? Are they more dependent on incremental dispositions beyond the SoCal sale? Could you shift capital from acquisitions to more buybacks? Also, please remind us of the tax limitations regarding 1031s. Thanks.

Unknown Executive: Sure. Between 2025 and 2026, we bought back $693 million in advance of our California sale at an average price of $105 and change. That represents a 6.4% FFO yield, which has been an excellent allocation of our capital. As I said in my prepared remarks, we are going to continue to monitor our share price performance, but as of now, for our transaction plan, we have no additional share repurchases in our 2026 guidance. As far as taxable room, we have planned for $1 billion in acquisitions, which is about the amount we need to maximize the use of proceeds to offset any additional special distributions we would need to make.

I will point out that just because we do not have any other share repurchases in our guidance, that does not mean we will not do any additional share repurchases. We have plenty of capacity on our balance sheet and with our leverage once the California transaction closes to do more share repurchases. That is absolutely an opportunity for us as we go forward.

Operator: The next question comes from John P. Kim with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John P. Kim: Thank you. On the Southern California portfolio sale—I know you do not want to get into the details—but what is the rationale for selling to one buyer for the entire portfolio rather than splitting up the portfolio where you might have gotten better pricing? And given the amount of interest you have gotten, why not more actively pursue acquisitions ahead of closing?

Alexander Jessett: We had a lot of interest on the portfolio, individual asset, and sub-portfolio sides. We believe that picking the one buyer we have picked limits our execution risk while maximizing proceeds. It is important to note there were a lot of buyers clustered together, and we made a choice based on the strength of the buyer. Could we have maybe maximized proceeds by splitting it up? Maybe a little bit, but it would have introduced additional risk that did not make sense to us. As I noted in prepared remarks, even though we have picked the buyer and are still in diligence, the good news is that there were and are several buyers around.

I think several buyers are hoping our current buyer falls out—we do not think that is going to happen. On opportunities for more acquisitions, we are really active right now. In the last couple of weeks, we have been awarded $250 million worth of acquisitions. That gets us pretty close to halfway toward our $1 billion goal. There is a lot out there, and right now we are the prettiest buyer in the market. Everyone is coming to us and showing us opportunities because they know we have the capacity to close and that we are for real. I am expecting we will come out with a really great additional portfolio to enhance what we have today.

Feeling really good about the acquisition opportunities and the California process.

Operator: The next question comes from Alexander David Goldfarb with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Alexander David Goldfarb: Good morning and congrats all around, Alex, Laurie, and Ben. Question about demand and supply. You and other Sunbelt players have commented that certain markets are rebounding and showing strength, but overall it is still going to be a tough market until later in the year. Is this a matter of a lot of projects from last year that had slow lease-ups leaking into this year, or is it that you need faster jobs? Basically, is this a jobs issue or a supply issue? If supply, were projects delayed or just slower to lease?

Alexander Jessett: I am going to hit the most important point first: Rick and Keith are not going to be let out of skits—I fully anticipate seeing them dressed up on a continual basis. This is entirely a supply story. Demand in our markets is incredibly strong. As I laid out in the prepared remarks, you can look at domestic migration, job creation, and corporate headquarter relocations—all favor our markets over the coasts. This is a matter of absorbing the existing supply that is out there, which is why we feel very good about how the latter part of 2026 should end up as that excess supply is absorbed. In our markets, supply is down 50% from peak.

On a year-over-year basis in most of our markets, supply is down anywhere between 20% and 60%. Once that supply is absorbed, we are going to have very healthy revenue growth.

Operator: The next question comes from Analyst with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Good morning. This is Derek Metzler here with Adam Kramer. My question is about the difference in Class A versus Class B (or affordable by comparison) product and urban versus suburban product. As supply comes down, and since it is mostly Class A high-quality product supply that is coming down, how do you see the outlook for the Class A versus Class B and other products in your portfolio and across your markets performing over the next few quarters or years in the better supply environment?

Alexander Jessett: A’s versus B’s for us right now is pretty flat. Where we are seeing the delta is suburban versus urban. On the revenue side last quarter, our urban assets were 70 basis points better than our suburban assets. Again, this is entirely a supply story. In our markets, apartment supply is falling fastest in urban areas, and because of that, that is where we are seeing additional pricing power. It is statistics like that which make us feel very good about our ability to get positive rent growth as we move through the year. Once supply falls in the urban areas, it is going to fall in the suburban areas as well.

We will get it all absorbed, and that should lead to continued strength as we go throughout the year.

Operator: The next question comes from Michael Goldsmith with UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Goldsmith: This is Amy on with Michael. We wanted to touch on Houston, where occupancy was down pretty materially year-over-year in the quarter. What is the outlook for that market, and do you think the recent higher gas prices could have any positive impact there?

Alexander Jessett: Houston is a really interesting market. If you look at the fundamentals, they are fantastic. When you look at the results, they are not as great. There is interesting data around consumer sentiment that seems particular to Houston. Houston’s consumer sentiment has fallen pretty dramatically in 2026 as compared to 2025. I think a lot of that is around some of the effects of immigration, which does have a huge impact in Houston. That negative customer sentiment is having an impact on the way the Houston consumer spends their money, and that impacts rent. But if you get past the sentiment issue—and humans are incredibly resilient with an ability to return to the positive really fast—the underlying data is strong.

There is a lot of job creation and population growth. Our consumer is doing really well. Our rent-to-income in Houston is 16%, one of the lowest in our entire portfolio. The consumer is there, the consumer has the ability to spend more money, and supply has come down pretty dramatically. Houston will get better. It is just a sentiment issue.

Richard J. Campo: Let me add to that. When you think about consumers today—and Houston is a great example—immigration is a big issue and definitely stressing a lot of folks out, especially since Houston is the most diverse city in America. We have a minority majority of Hispanic residents, and 25% of our population is foreign-born. Consumer sentiment generally across the country is not great, but job growth, wage growth, and consumer spending are good. The consumer is kind of stressed about a lot of things—number one, inflation. Housing prices in Houston have gone up 60% since the pandemic. People say, “It used to be affordable here,” and that is bothering consumers. Nationwide, housing costs are up.

Apartment rents have been flat for 36 months, but housing prices continue to be up and interest rates were up. Political uncertainty has also created tension. The interesting part is the consumer is actually doing really well. The feeling they have is bad; the underlying consumer strength is good. That tension and uncertainty are making them slower to make housing decisions and to move around, so you have less mobility than you would normally have. Another interesting thing is what has happened to recent college graduates—there has been a “failure to launch” for about 10% to 12% of those graduates.

Stats on people living at home show about a 900,000 increase in 20- to 25-year-olds living at home or with roommates today versus pre-COVID. It is a weird place: the world is good, but from a consumer perspective they are fairly uncertain.

Operator: The next question comes from Richard Allen Hightower with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Richard Allen Hightower: Good morning. I want to combine two categories into one question. Thinking about the earlier question on the benefits of scale and data and how that informs revenue management, and the fact that you and several of your peers have put the RealPage lawsuit stuff in the rearview mirror—revenue management around that topic has already changed throughout the industry. Help us understand when you combine those two threads what has changed about the way units get priced, how you use information, how the competitive marketplace uses information in a different way, and whether anything has really changed fundamentally on the ground since then?

Alexander Jessett: On RealPage, we did come to an agreement in terms, but it is not entirely in the rearview mirror yet. We have a little ways to go, and hopefully we can stop talking about it in the next couple of quarters. On revenue management, it relies a lot on your existing data—existing units, the amount of tours, how long a particular unit has been on the market, and the occupancy of your community. Fundamentally, sure, there have been some changes, but we do not think any of those changes will have a negative impact on us. Importantly, we have a full-time revenue management department that does nothing all day but price our individual units.

The software is a tool that our humans use. Our team is constantly repricing every single day, looking at recommendations, etc. Five or ten years ago, whenever we bought a community using YieldStar or other software that was just “turned on” without human interaction, we loved buying those because we knew we could come in and use our talents, resources, institutional knowledge, and data to make it perform far better than software alone. We have all been using compliant software for quite some time, and we feel good about our resources and the way we will price our real estate. We do not expect any negative impact whatsoever.

Laurie A. Baker: I would add that the benefit we have today is new operating models and tools, including AI. We have a BI team that works with our on-site teams and the revenue team to provide data via dashboards and gain more insights to make in-the-moment, real-time decisions in the field. Our revenue team has been involved since the very beginning and has deep insight into what is happening with all of our properties. With weekly and daily information, we can price even better. Our strategies are driven by what is happening in a submarket or at a local community, informed by external circumstances, but ultimately dictated by our on-site data about occupancy, traffic, and leasing velocity.

Operator: The next question comes from Analyst with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to go back to the tax refund benefit. Do you think that has been a big driver of the April sequential improvement in blends, given that up until this point it did not sound like we were seeing the typical seasonal uplift? How do you think about the duration of that benefit into future months?

Alexander Jessett: It is interesting when you look at the data. You saw a large increase in tax refunds, and people spent it on a couple of things. One was paying down debt—which, to quote someone else, is somewhat un-American—and that is a one-time benefit. They also spent it on discretionary items like restaurants and retail shopping. They are absolutely spending the money. I do not think that is the driver of the April uptick. I think the driver is hitting the typical leasing season and the continued absorption of supply. I do think it was a large component of our bad debt outperformance in the first quarter.

Operator: The final question comes from Alex Kim with Zelman & Associates. Please go ahead.

Alex Kim: Hi. Congrats to everyone on the moves, and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the development environment and the economics you are seeing, particularly in relation to your capital allocation strategy. Where does development sit relative to acquisitions and potentially share repurchases? And then more specifically on Camden Baker, given that Denver seems to be a bit slower in its recovery in revenue and operating fundamentals?

Alexander Jessett: If you look at the best uses of our capital today, number one is share repurchases—though we are limited on how much we can buy back if we are using dispositions to fund that. Once you get past that, developments and acquisitions are a bit of a toss-up. Three years ago, development was absolutely better than acquisitions. Today, you can buy real estate at a discount to replacement cost almost everywhere, which means acquisitions become an incrementally better use of capital from 10,000 feet. When you dig into the numbers, there are environments and locations where development makes more sense, and we will continue to do developments.

We have other land sites we control—at this point, we control three additional land sites we have not purchased. We intend to buy those this year, and they will be developments we believe will create significant value for our shareholders. But that is three development land sites versus buying $1 billion of stabilized assets, so that should answer the broader allocation question. On Baker, it has been sitting in our pipeline for quite some time. The reason it has not started is the math is not that great at this point. We are in no hurry to start something that is not right for our shareholders. Baker is in the central area of Denver, which is really soft right now.

We need to see improvements in that area. If we see improvements, we will start that development; if we do not, we will not. We are committed to doing what is right for our shareholders and using our capital to create the best investments.

Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Richard J. Campo for any closing remarks.

Richard J. Campo: Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to seeing all of you really soon, and hope everybody has a great weekend. Take care.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.