卡姆登物业信托 (CPT) 2026年第三季度业绩电话会: 营收指引放缓之际FFO保持平稳

核心要点

• 坎登房产信托（Camden Property Trust）公布2026年第三季度每股核心FFO为1.71美元，较其业绩指引中值高出0.02美元，主要得益于第三方建筑费以及利息和其他收入的增加。
• 实际新签租金下降2.0%，续租租金增长3.6%，综合租金增长率达到1.0%。综合增长率较2026年第二季度的负0.2%环比改善了120个基点。
• 管理层维持全年每股核心FFO中值在6.75美元不变，但在9月经历超出预期的放缓后，将同店营收增长率中值下调至0.0%，并将同店NOI增长率下调至负1.0%。
• Camden完成了以16.25亿美元出售加州物业组合的交易，随后退出了在加州的剩余土地储备。截至11月4日，净负债对EBITDA比率为4.0倍，公司12亿美元的信贷额度未被动用。
• 公司在当季以约3.05亿美元收购了三个社区，使今年迄今的社区收购总额达到7.55亿美元。然而，在利率上升且卖家拒绝所请求的价格调整后，公司取消了另外两笔收购和一项土地购买。
• 管理层表示，阳光带（Sunbelt）公寓竣工量已降至七年低点，供应高峰期已明确成为过去，尽管持续的租金优惠和季节性客流疲软继续限制近期的定价权。

核心财务数据

业务与经营业绩

Camden的同店物业组合在7月和8月的表现符合预期，但9月的租赁来访量疲软程度超出预期。随着进入季节性淡季，公司下调了定价以支持租赁活动和入住率。

多个市场的租金优惠依然普遍存在，从西棕榈滩的约三周免租到奥斯汀的高达两个月不等。管理层将这一压力的大部分归因于开发销售型开发商继续运营新交付的物业，并优先追求出租去化速度。

亚特兰大、佛罗里达州东南部、达拉斯和休斯顿的市况表现更强，较少的租金优惠支撑了入住率和定价。达拉斯第三季度新签租金基本持平，为负0.1%，较2024年的低点改善了700个基点。迈阿密、劳德代尔堡和奥兰多也出现竞争趋缓的早期迹象。

丹佛和纳什维尔表现依然疲软。管理层指出，丹佛约5%的季度营收下滑在很大程度上受到有关公摊公用事业费用二次计费立法限制的影响，预计在2026年将构成约180万美元的不利因素。纳什维尔则受到Camden在该市场两个社区之一开展的大型资本项目造成的干扰。

尽管租金优惠力度较大，奥斯汀的运营状况仍持续改善。新签租金增长率从2024年第四季度的负13.1%改善至2026年第三季度的负2.5%。Camden位于雷尼街（Rainey Street）的物业在季度末的入住率达到98.6%。

住户留存率保持稳固。对于12月和1月到期的租约，续租报价平均上涨4.5%，而新签租约在9月至10月期间出现实质性改善。

资本配置与资产负债表

Camden于7月29日完成了以16.25亿美元出售加州物业组合的交易。所得款项用于偿还债务、资产收购、土地购置、股票回购以及赎回优先票据。

公司动用了9亿美元偿还与此前收购及股票回购相关的债务，1.25亿美元用于8月的一笔收购和土地购置，5000万美元用于股票回购。季度结束后，4.95亿美元用于赎回11月到期的5亿美元优先票据并削减商业票据借款。另有5500万美元保留在现金投资账户中。

Camden已开工建设Camden RTP，这是位于罗利大都会区的一个拥有398套住宅、投资额1.3亿美元的开发项目。公司决定暂不推进纳什维尔的Camden Gulch和丹佛的Camden Baker项目，原因是预期开发回报率不如其他资本配置途径具有吸引力。公司对这两个地块计提了非现金减值准备。

管理层强调，纳什维尔一处现有物业的收购价约为每套37万美元，而在附近地块开发的成本将超过每套60万美元。Camden保留了这块土地，以便在更有利的条件下进行开发。

管理层业绩指引

Camden发布的2026年第四季度每股核心FFO指引为1.63美元至1.67美元，中值为1.65美元。预计较第三季度的下滑反映了季节性同店营收下降、加州资产处置带来的全季度影响，以及建筑费和利息收入减少。这些因素预计将被收购项目的NOI以及利息费用的降低所部分抵消。

全年每股核心FFO指引区间收窄至6.73美元至6.77美元，同时维持6.75美元的中值。第三方建筑费增加、利息及其他收入增长、费用节约以及股票回购预计将抵消同店NOI的下滑。

管理层预计第四季度综合租金增长率将保持微幅正增长，但低于第三季度达到的1.0%。续租增长率预计将维持在3%中段区间，新签租金价格将出现季节性下降。公司未提供2027年业绩指引，但表示目前的预测表明步入2027年时的租金结转效应（rent earn-in）基本持平，较步入2026年时的处境有所改善。

风险与关注事项

• 持续的租金优惠继续对新签租金定价构成压力，尤其是在奥斯汀、丹佛和纳什维尔。
• 9月客流量出现大于预期的季节性下滑，导致对2026年剩余时间的租金、入住率以及其他物业收入假设被下调。
• 利率上升放缓了公寓交易活动，并促使Camden取消了原定的收购计划。
• 管理层估计公寓资本化率扩大了约15至40个基点，这意味着资产价值发生约3%至8%的变动。
• 在第3号修正案出台后，佛罗里达州潜在的房产税变动仍存在不确定性。管理层表示，尚未就对商业地产税可能产生的影响做出定论。
• 高密度项目的开发经济效益依然面临挑战，Camden决定目前暂不推进其在纳什维尔和丹佛的开发项目便印证了这一点。

分析师问答亮点

股票回购与资产收购：管理层表示，与可供收购的资产相比，Camden当前的股票折价更为明显。在杠杆率为4.0倍的情况下，若资产定价变得更具吸引力，公司仍有能力进行更多回购或收购。

收购条件：Camden倾向于反映资本化率扩大接近40个基点的收购定价。在加州资产出售后，公司预计出于税效考虑，2026年无需再进行额外收购。

供应与租金优惠：管理层认为公寓供应高峰期在其主要市场已成过去，预计新入市出租项目的减少将创造更好的经营环境。然而，在季节性客流放缓期间，开发销售型开发商仍在激进地提供租金优惠。

2027年市场分化：管理层预计，随着供应压力缓解、丹佛公用事业费用分摊计费限制带来的负面影响消退，以及纳什维尔造成干扰的大型资本项目完工，Camden各个市场的业绩表现分化程度将有所收敛。

入住率策略：Camden预计第四季度入住率将在95%低段，而第三季度为95%中段。管理层指出，这大致是其在调整租金以保护入住率之前所愿意接受的最大环比降幅。

业绩电话会完整纪要

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完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Kimberly Callahan

Good morning, and welcome to Camden Property Trust Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Kim Callahan, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Joining me today for our prepared remarks are Ric Campo, Camden's Executive Chairman; Alex Jessett, Chief Executive Officer; Laurie Baker, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Ben Fraker, Chief Financial Officer. Stanley Jones, Senior Vice President of Real Estate Investments, will also be available for the Q&A portion of our call. Today's event is being webcast through the Investors section of our website, camdenliving.com, and a replay will be available shortly after the call ends. And please note, this event is being recorded.

Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to advise everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and beliefs. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Further information about these risks can be found in our filings with the SEC and we encourage you to review them. Any forward-looking statements made on today's call represent management's current opinions, and the company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements because of subsequent events.

As a reminder, Camden's complete third quarter 2026 earnings release is available in the Investors section of our website at camdenliving.com, and it includes reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures, which will be discussed on the call. We would like to respect everyone's time and complete our call within 1 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'd be happy to respond to additional questions by phone or e-mail after the call concludes.

At this time, I'll turn the call over to Ric Campo.

Richard Campo

This quarter's music choice followed a decidedly patriotic theme. Tuesday was election day. And as often is the case, about half the voters are happy with the outcome and half are disappointed. But it's important to remember that we live in the greatest country in the world. And that we have more in common than what divides us. To quote country musician Aaron Tippin, "It's a big old land with countless dreams, happiness ain't out of reach. Hard work pays off the way it should. Yes, I've seen enough to know that we got it good."

Camden operates in great markets in our amazing and resilient country. And it's becoming clear that happiness or a recovery is becoming closer at hand in our high-demand, high-growth markets. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Team Camden for their commitment to improving the lives of our teammates, our customers and our stakeholders, one experience at a time.

Alex is up next.

Alexander Jessett

Thanks, Ric, and good morning, everyone. First and most importantly, thank you to our Camden team members for delivering yet another strong quarter. And in particular, thank you to our Camden Builders team who continue to deliver outsized fee income, leading to our third quarter core FFO outperformance. Overall, 2026 is playing out much as we expected, showing definite improvements over 2025, but not quite a full recovery.

On the operations front, Camden was the only S&P 500 multifamily REIT to experience sequential improvement for both new lease rates and blended lease rates each quarter this year, and we were the only one with second to third quarter acceleration. Sequentially, blended effective lease rates improved 120 basis points in the third quarter as compared to a 10 basis point sequential decrease this time last year. And on a quarter-over-quarter basis, blended effective lease rates increased 40 basis points as compared to a 40 basis point decrease for the third quarter of last year. Clearly, things are improving.

Last night, we made slight reductions to the midpoint of our anticipated full year same-store revenue and NOI growth as seasonality kicked in a bit more than anticipated in September. Concessions have remained remarkably sticky, seemingly led by many merchant builders now turned reluctant operators. That said, our current expectations for same-store growth still falls squarely within the original guidance we provided earlier this year, and the midpoint of our guidance for core FFO remains unchanged at $6.75 per share. On a macro level, things are also improving as apartment completions in the Sunbelt markets have fallen to a 7-year low with peak supply firmly in the rearview mirror.

Rising interest rates, commodity prices and labor shortages are further hampering new construction starts to mid-2010s levels or below, meaning we should have a long runway with continued low levels of future supply. Apartment absorption remains robust, with year-to-date figures exceeding expectations across many markets. Market rental prices and vacancy trends are also improving. Effective rents for new units have recovered from their lows, though they remain below peak levels in most markets. And rent growth momentum is increasing. After more than 4 years of rising market level vacancy, occupancy rates are gradually improving and reaching more normalized levels.

Affordability and household income dynamics are working in our favor as well. Wage growth has outpaced rent increases for nearly 4 years, improving affordability overall, and the median rent-to-income ratio is declining, which means renters are less burdened than in previous years. Our resident is financially strong and the U.S. economy remains healthy. At the same time, the time line for 30-year-olds to reach household milestones has lengthened with more living with parents or delaying homeownership. Nearly 20% of adults aged 25 to 34 live with their parents, indicating delayed independence but potential future rental demand.

Turning to real estate investments and the market outlook. Apartment transaction volumes increased over the summer, but the market has recently become muted due to rising interest rates. This led us to make the decision to maximize liquidity for future opportunities by canceling the acquisition of 2 operating communities and 1 land parcel, and we do not anticipate any further acquisitions in 2026. Despite our lower-than-anticipated acquisition volume, based upon our most recent tax analysis, we do not believe we will need to pay much, if any, of a special dividend from our California dispositions. This has been a transformative year for Camden. Some may say, in light of the recent interest rate volatility that we were lucky with our timing of the California sale. But luck favors the prepared and I echo Ric's shout out and thanks to our fantastic team members who are always prepared. I continue to be very proud of and impressed by Team Camden.

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

Laurie Baker

Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everyone. Camden's third quarter net operating income results were in line with forecasted levels with lower operating expenses, partially offset by a slightly greater than anticipated seasonal slowdown during September. Rental rates for the third quarter had effective new leases down 2% and renewals up 3.6% for a blended rate growth of positive 1%. While renewal growth was in line with our expectations, new lease and blended lease growth were at the low end of our anticipated ranges, likely driven by the persistent concessions that remain in many of our core markets and submarkets.

However, as Alex mentioned, our third quarter rental rate growth showed significant improvement over both the first and second quarters of this year and over the third quarter of 2025. New lease growth showed a 130 basis point improvement from negative 3.3% in the second quarter of 2026 to negative 2% this quarter. Renewal rates improved 80 basis points to 3.6% from 2.8% in the second quarter, and we saw 120 basis point sequential improvement in blended rate growth from negative 0.2% last quarter to positive 1% this quarter. Our preliminary October results reflect occupancy in line with last year at 95.2%, with new lease, renewal and blended rates trending better year-over-year and signed leases improving from September to October.

Resident retention remains strong with very low levels of turnover during October. Renewal offers for residents with December and January expirations were sent out with an average increase of 4.5%. Camden's annualized net turnover rate for third quarter 2026 was 42%, improving from 44% in the third quarter of 2025. And move-outs for home purchases remain well below long-term historical rates at 9.5% for the third quarter. Overall, I'm so pleased with how our teams continue to deliver solid results as we move from our peak leasing season into our typical end-of-year slowdown. We remain focused on the fundamentals, staying close to our markets and making thoughtful pricing decisions and executing with consistency and discipline that have always been hallmarks of Camden.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Ben Fraker, our Chief Financial Officer.

Benjamin Fraker

Thank you, Laurie, and good morning, everyone. I will cover our third quarter results, capital allocation, our balance sheet and liquidity and our fourth quarter and full year outlook. We reported third quarter core FFO of $1.71 per share, $0.02 above the $1.69 midpoint of our guidance, driven primarily by higher third-party construction fees and higher interest and other income. Our same-store portfolio performed in line with expectations through the first 2 months of the quarter with greater-than-expected seasonality in September reflected in our revised fourth quarter and full year outlook.

We closed the $1.625 billion sale of our California portfolio on July 29, completing a large component of our 2026 capital recycling plan. Here is how we have used those proceeds: $900 million to repay the debt that funded our earlier share repurchases and acquisitions, $125 million to fund our August operating acquisition and land purchase, $50 million to repurchase shares in August and early September, $495 million after quarter end towards the redemption of our $500 million of senior notes due in November and to pay down borrowings under our commercial paper program, and $55 million remaining in cash investment accounts for general corporate purposes.

On the investment side, we acquired 3 communities during the quarter for approximately $305 million, bringing year-to-date community acquisitions to $755 million. In development, we started construction on Camden RTP, a 398-unit $130 million community in the Raleigh metro area on a site we purchased in May. Separately, we decided not to move forward with the Camden Gulch in Nashville and Camden Baker in Denver development projects at this time as we want to ensure we are allocating capital to projects with the best possible returns. We recorded noncash impairment charges on those 2 sites based upon current third-party estimated market values.

We also recorded a small noncash impairment on our Arts District parcel in Los Angeles. We sold that parcel after quarter end for $10.7 million, and we now have no remaining assets in California. On share repurchases, we bought back $50 million during the quarter at an average price of $105.34. Since the third quarter of 2025, we have repurchased a total of $740 million worth of shares with $248 million remaining available under our current program. On financing, we funded a new $350 million unsecured term loan due July 2027 and paid off a $12 million secured note just before quarter end. After quarter end, we redeemed our $500 million of senior notes at par that had a floating rate of 5.2% using sale proceeds and commercial paper. And we have no significantly dilutive debt maturities coming due over the next 8 quarters.

On liquidity, as of November 4, we had nothing outstanding under our $1.2 billion credit facility as well as $55 million in cash investment accounts. This gives us ample liquidity to fund future cash needs, including the remaining cost of our current development pipeline. With leverage at 4.0x net debt to EBITDA and multiple sources of capital, we have significant financial flexibility.

Turning to our outlook. For the fourth quarter, we are providing core FFO guidance of $1.63 to $1.67 per share, with a midpoint of $1.65 compared to third quarter core FFO of $1.71 per share. This $0.06 per share sequential decline results from $0.01 of lower same-store NOI, resulting from lower seasonal revenues partially offset by lower expenses, $0.06 from a full quarter without NOI from our California dispositions, $0.04 from lower third-party construction fees and interest income, offset by $0.01 from incremental NOI from our 2026 acquisitions and $0.04 from lower interest expense driven by the October repayment of our $500 million senior notes and a full quarter of debt payoffs funded by the California sale.

For the full year, we are maintaining our core FFO midpoint of $6.75 per share with an updated range of $6.73 to $6.77. Relative to our prior outlook, slightly lower same-store NOI is offset by higher third-party construction fees, higher interest and other income and the incremental benefit from our third quarter share repurchases. We are revising our full year same-store guidance to reflect operating trends through the third quarter and our expectations for the remainder of the year. The midpoint of our revised same-store guidance is within the range we gave at the beginning of the year with revenue growth of 0.0% compared to our prior outlook of 0.5%, expense growth of 1.75% compared to 2.5%, NOI growth of negative 1.0% compared to negative 0.6%.

The lower revenue outlook primarily reflects greater-than-anticipated seasonality in the fourth quarter, resulting in slightly lower-than-anticipated rents, occupancy and other property income. Importantly, our expense outlook continues to improve. We now expect full year same-store expense growth of 1.75%. That is 75 basis points better than our prior midpoint and 125 basis points better than our original beginning-of-the-year guidance. The improvement reflects continued expense discipline, including lower repairs and maintenance and property tax savings. We're pleased to maintain our full year core FFO midpoint of $6.75 per share as lower operating expenses and higher third-party fees offset the slightly lower revenues.

To close, this was a quarter of execution. We closed the California sale, we put that capital to work in newer Sunbelt communities. We kept our balance sheet strong and flexible with leverage at 4.0x, and we delivered core FFO above the midpoint of our guidance. Thank you, and we will now open the call to questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question for today will come from Nick Joseph with Citi.

分析师问答

Eric Wolfe

It's Eric here with Nick. You mentioned that you canceled 2 property acquisitions and I think you said one land acquisition. I guess where would you transact today, I guess, in the current capital market environment, sort of what cap rate and IRR? And now that you've built this leverage capacity by paying off your bonds, how should we think about your willingness to take up leverage to repurchase shares?

Alexander Jessett

Yes. So it was interesting. We had those acquisitions under contract. And then obviously, we had the movement in interest rates. And we went back looking for price adjustments. And clearly, the sellers were not quite willing to capitulate to what we were looking for. The way we sort of think about it is, if you look at what's going on with cap rates right now, we think cap rates have probably expanded about 15 to 40 basis points and call that sort of like a 3% to 8% change in value. And so for us, we would like to see it closer to that sort of 40 basis points higher if we were going to buy something. That being said, remember, the reason why we were buying was entirely to maximize the tax efficiency.

And since, based upon our latest tax analysis, we actually don't have to buy anything else. And so based upon that, at this point, I think I'd rather buy shares at a clear discount than buy acquisitions. So that's sort of how I would rank it right now. And if you look at where we are on the leverage side, you're exactly right. Because we did not buy the additional assets, we've got debt-to-EBITDA at 4x. And we've always said that we would be comfortable within a 4 to 5x range. And we also said the reason we want your leverage to be low is because it gives you the opportunity to take advantage of what's out there. And clearly, we think there are opportunities on the share repurchase side, but we also think that we may get some opportunities on the acquisition side maybe next year at better pricing.

Richard Campo

Yes, I agree with that. I think the bottom line is, is that today, our shares are the best value that we see on the board in terms of investments. We acquired $743 million of shares so far. We did $50 million in the quarter. And to Alex's point, I mean, we positioned ourselves to be -- have low leverage, so we can pull the levers on and create value for shareholders that way, and we will.

Operator

Next question will come from Jamie Feldman with Wells Fargo.

James Feldman

I was hoping you could just get a little bit more granular on what changed in your outlook from the last update you gave in September? Like it sounds like concessions were a little higher than you thought. Can you talk more specifically about which markets are driving it? And then as you think about kind of October, November, did things change meaningfully to the upside? Or just how should we just read into that? Because you gave a September update and took it down pretty shortly thereafter?

Alexander Jessett

Yes, absolutely. So when we last gave an update was early September and clearly, September, as we said in the prepared remarks, came in softer than we had expected. A couple of things. Number one, traffic just wasn't there. Now by the way, we typically do see that on for seasonality, but it was better -- it was a greater decline in traffic than we had expected. And when we had the decline in traffic, obviously, you have to reduce your prices if you're trying to increase traffic. And so that's what we were doing. And clearly, what we saw was that concessions were, as we said, just incredibly sticky.

If you sort of look at our markets and you look at the communities in our markets that are offering concessions, they sort of range anywhere from 3 weeks up to 2 months. And if you think about it from the low end, sort of the 3-week side would be considered like West Palm Beach and the 2-month side would be Austin, Texas. But we are seeing those continue, and we didn't see really any drop-off, which is surprising because the third quarter, at least July and August, were so strong that we would have expected to see others start to dial back their concessions and they absolutely did not do it.

Now that being said, the answer to your second part is, we have seen signed new leases improve pretty dramatically in October as compared to September. And when we look at our October numbers and we compare them to October of last year, we're seeing really significant improvements. So I do -- we do expect a little bit of a bounce back in October, but it's unfortunately, if you hit your sort of the shoulder seasons and when you hit it, beginning in September and September is weaker than you expect, that has a run-through effect for the rest of the year.

Operator

The next question will come from Jana Galan with Bank of America.

Jana Galan

Maybe following up on that question. You also mentioned some of these kind of developer-led concessions getting a little bit more aggressive. Just curious if you could kind of call out a few markets. And then there was a little reprieve in rates. Just curious how quickly these adjust?

Laurie Baker

So well, as far as concessions in some of the markets that we talked about, if you look at where the concessions have definitely improved, we're seeing like the strongest market in Atlanta, Southeast Florida, Dallas and Houston. And so where those lower concessions are, we're obviously getting a little more pricing power, and we're having the ability to improve our occupancy.

Now if you look at kind of the weaker markets, we still are continuing to see Denver, Nashville as those that have concessions that have been persistent. Then you talk about -- I know we continue quarter-over-quarter to focus a little bit on Austin because that one in itself has showed our strongest occupancy in the third quarter as well as it was the best occupancy for all of Camden. So not only in just Texas but across Camden. And so when you look at kind of trough to peak, and that's because you've seen these high-supply markets with a lot of concessions, we had our worst quarter, if you look at kind of the lowest rent prices in the fourth quarter of '24 and new lease rates have improved 10.6% to the third quarter this year where our negative lease went from where we saw fourth quarter at negative 13.1% to only negative 2.5% in the third quarter.

So again, where those concessions have been very sticky and they're starting to improve, then we'll be able to maintain a little stronger pricing power. But Rainey Street, again, is one of those properties. It's led the company with finishing strong at 98.6% occupancy, even though you have concessions in the market. So it just depends on exactly the submarket, but continuing to see some strong concessions or a little more than we'd like to see in Raleigh-Durham. You had asked about a couple of those markets, Raleigh-Durham as well as Houston has seen some concessions in the market, but that's another market that we're seeing improvement.

Operator

Your next question will come from Haendel St. Juste with Mizuho Securities.

Michael Linden

This is Mike Donald on with Haendel at Mizuho. My question is, how are blends trending across your portfolio by region? And where are you seeing the most sequential improvement in terms of exit rate from 3Q '26? In your opening remarks, you did call out some improvement sequentially from September to October. So I just wanted some more detail there.

Laurie Baker

Yes. If you look at Dallas, for instance, third quarter versus the third quarter this year versus third quarter of last year, rents have improved across new leases, renewals and blended, both signed and effective. Additionally, new lease rate in third quarter, although slightly negative. We're talking like negative 0.1%, which is basically flat. That has improved 700 basis points from the lowest rate that we saw in 2024. So that's one of the markets we're seeing improvement. Southeast Florida, specifically, if you're looking at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, those are a handful of the markets in Florida that are seeing improvements as well as concessions going down. And it's really suggesting the first signs of easing competition, improving conditions in those markets.

Operator

Your next question will come from Brad Heffern with RBC.

Brad Heffern

Yes. As a fellow Texan, I wanted to get your thoughts specifically on the election, just given you have roughly 1/4 of your NOI here. Do you think anything has changed substantially? I think on one hand, you have protections in the state constitution, the cities were all kind of blue leaning anyway, but then at the same time it is unprecedented when compared to how Texas has been run historically. So I appreciate any comments.

Richard Campo

Sure. Clearly, there was a big change in Texas with every statewide election going to a Democrat that hadn't happened in 30 or 40 years. So there are going to be changes, but the good news is that, generally speaking, Texas Democrats tend to be more middle-of-the-road Democrats than on the coast. And the other thing that I think is important, even though people talk about how Texas has turned blue, it's actually purple because you still have a divided government in the Texas Senate. Republicans still have a 19 to 12 margin in the Senate. And without any bipartisan -- without bipartisan support, nothing will get done in the legislative session this year.

So -- and I think a real positive thing. And I think this is actually -- I've been hearing this nationally and also big time in Texas. And that is that the governor, for example, and the Senator-elect, have both come out real fast after the election and said that they are both focusing on bipartisan support that they want to do better for workers in America, including in Texas. And so I think that is a real positive that's come out of this kind of shocker for Republicans is that is that -- the Democrats are, a, not hardcore progressives and b, they are -- they know they have to work across the aisle to get anything done. So I don't think that you're going to see any dramatic changes in how Texas has operated.

And I think that they understand that they will be held accountable for killing the golden goose if that happens. And so I'm pretty optimistic about how this massive shift to the left is actually what I think is going to be a massive shift to the center rather than a hard right versus hard left shift because in order for them to govern properly, they do have to have bipartisan support.

Alexander Jessett

And I think the other thing I would add to that is if you look at the actual results, the young folks swung really hard to the left. Young folks are typically our renters. And so it will be interesting to see if some of the more unpopular positions that we have in Texas, and popular for young people, if those getting dialed back may actually make Texas even more appealing for young folks to move here.

Operator

The next question will come from Ami Probandt with UBS.

Ami Probandt

What happened with the Denver and Nashville development projects that made them no longer viable? And at the same time, you acquired a land parcel, so how are you thinking about rebuilding the land bank and the attributes of that land parcel that you acquired that made it attractive?

Alexander Jessett

Yes. So we've been talking about the Denver and Nashville land sites on these calls for probably 2 years. And every time I was asked about it, I said the math didn't work. And the math didn't work at those points in time. And we were hoping that we'd find ways to make it so that they did work. And the reality is we just couldn't get there. And what was really interesting and sort of the driver, in particular for the Nashville asset, is that we bought an existing asset directly across the street from our land site. And that's the Gulch.

And so we bought an asset for $370,000 a door, plus or minus. And it would have been north of $600,000 a door to build it. And so we're in the capital allocation business. And so if we can find a way to deliver a better return for our shareholders by buying an asset and not building an asset, that's exactly what we're going to do. And so we've made the decision not to go forward on the Nashville site. Now by the way, that may change in a couple of years. We're certainly not going to sell the land right now because it's a horrible time to sell land. And so maybe we can build it in a couple of years, but it doesn't make sense for us right now.

And the same thing is true for Denver. That -- both of those land sites were bought at the absolute peak. And we look at capital allocation and where we can spend our money, and we think we can spend our money and deliver better returns doing other things, including the land sites that we did buy. Those land sites have much better returns. And by the way, they are less dense developments. And obviously, when you have less dense developments, oftentimes, you can build those for a lot less. And so that's why we think what we did is the right thing to do. And as I said, we'll continue to make sure that we make the appropriate capital allocation decisions for our shareholders.

Operator

The next question will come from Wes Golladay with Baird.

Wesley Golladay

Can you zoom in on the competitive landscape? Are the developers that are offering concessions starting to get to an occupancy point where they can dial back or you start to see fewer lease-ups? I can appreciate that we're in the shoulder season now. But are we getting to a point where you have a better setup for peak leasing season next year?

Alexander Jessett

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you look at peak supply, and I said this in the prepared remarks, peak supply is firmly in the rearview mirror. Absorption in our markets has absolutely led the nation. And so we are definitely getting to the point in time in which merchant builders, et cetera, should be able to start dialing back the concessions. I think a lot of it is -- as I said, you've got merchant builders who really have become reluctant operators, and the builders, they deal in concessions because most of the time they're trying to get something from 0% occupied to 95% occupied. And I do think that's the reason why concessions are remaining as sticky as they are.

And at the same token, you clearly see drop-offs in traffic in the end of the third quarter going into the fourth quarter. And when you have drop-offs in traffic, there's a couple of things you can do. Number one, you can say, listen, I understand that this is entirely seasonality and just sort of hold the course or you can try to get additional traffic in the door by offering concessions or reducing rents. And what we saw was just this really sticky sort of market strategy of continuing to offer concessions, mainly driven by the merchant builders.

Operator

Your next question will come from Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI.

Steve Sakwa

You guys have done a really good job on expense containment this year. As we kind of look to next year, I guess what are the puts and takes that we should be thinking about? Any kind of one-timers realizing insurance may come down again and remain kind of on the softer side? But if we think about taxes and kind of R&M and some of the bigger drivers of expense growth next year.

Alexander Jessett

So while we're not going to give 2027 guidance, what I can say, and I've said before, there are no surprises in 2026 that would lead to a benefit or detriment to what would be a normalized expense growth year next year. So as we get into January, we'll have a better idea of what our expense growth will be, and we'll provide that on our earnings call then. But let's pray for continued low insurance claims worldwide because obviously, I've seen significant reductions in insurance. We saw it this year. We saw it last year. And by the way, this has been light again. And so if that continues through our May renewal, then that's going to be good news for us. And obviously, we'll continue to be aggressive on the property tax side, and that's where we seem to see the biggest benefits.

Operator

The next question will come from Rich Hightower with Barclays.

Richard Hightower

This is a question about '27, but not guidance per se, but you've still got as I look at sort of the rank stack of revenue performance across your market, just obviously pretty wide dispersion in '26 for all the reasons that you've talked about. But do you think that dispersion from top to bottom narrows next year, do you think that we're going to see a similar dynamic that we're kind of seeing right now?

Alexander Jessett

Yes. No, I would absolutely expect it to narrow. And when you look at the results that we have, you can -- that's almost perfectly correlated to when peak supply happened in each of those markets. So since peak supply is, as I said, firmly in the rearview mirror, I would expect to see the results be a lot narrower. You also have to remember that, and I'll pick on Denver for a minute. So Denver, which is showing as our worst revenue growth market, down 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, remember that, that is almost entirely based upon the legislative actions in Denver that didn't enable us to rebill those common area utilities. And we talked about that in the beginning of the year, and we said that, that was basically like $1.8 million of a detriment to us, entirely in Denver in 2026.

And so if you strip that out, you would see that Denver is -- it looks a lot closer to our other markets. And by the same token, if you look at Nashville, Nashville, one of the other markets that's sort of underperforming, we only have 2 communities there, and one of them is going through a fairly significant capital project that is absolutely disruptive. And so that will be finished as well. So expect to see a much more narrow clustering amongst our markets.

Operator

The next question will come from Adam Kramer with Morgan Stanley.

Adam Kramer

I guess just given some of the updated same-store revenue guide and where blended spreads are right now, what would be the sort of earn-in that you guys are expecting for 2027? And then any, I guess, puts and takes to that number as just as you think about sort of what can play out here for the next couple of months?

Alexander Jessett

Once again, we're not going to give 2027 guidance, but I will say that we do expect our earn-in for 2027 based on our current projections, flat as we came into 2026. So positive momentum there from a blended standpoint for the fourth quarter. As Laurie said, we're sending out December and January renewals of 4.5%. So we think renewals will hang in the mid-3% range in the fourth quarter with slight seasonal downtick in new leases. So our blends will be slightly positive, plus or minus in the fourth quarter of this year.

But if you compare this to the fourth quarter of last year, we were absolutely not sending out renewals in the fourth quarter of last year, up 4.5%. So as long as we can sign those, that absolutely sets us up for a stronger first quarter of '27 than we saw in '26.

Operator

Next question will come from Austin Wurschmidt with Key Capital Markets.

Austin Wurschmidt

So typically, you would think about building occupancy this time of the year out of the spring leasing season. And Alex, I think you're the one that hit on some of the merchant developers offering outsized concessions today. But between your revenue management systems or even changes to your manual inputs, I guess how much are you willing to let occupancy slide before you would pull back on rate?

Laurie Baker

Well, I would kind of suggest that we saw a softer finish in September. And that reflected our decision to protect leasing velocity and occupancy as we saw traffic slowing at the end of our peak leasing season. Earlier in the quarter, the team, we had deliberately reduced pricing after we saw some of that weakening, and we ended up improving our closing ratio significantly. So we'll continue to evaluate each market, each property so that we can make very selective pricing decisions as it relates to what would move the market.

We're also focusing a lot on, I think Alex mentioned, as you're trying to drive traffic to these properties, you have to advertise in a way that gets people to show up, and we're hearing that in many of our markets where there are a lot of concessions, renters and prospective renters are taking anywhere -- they're looking at anywhere from 7 to 10 properties before they make a decision, and they're making their decisions based on price, all things being equal. So we're going to continue to evaluate how do we gain pricing power. And you do that by improving your occupancy, and where we can improve occupancy and balance those 2, we'll continue to focus on what makes the right sense from a pricing decision.

Alexander Jessett

And the thing about multifamily, you have to remember that we've got perfect price elasticity, meaning we can always get to 100% occupancy or close to it, we just have to drop rents. And so if you look at what we're doing, we're going to have the fourth quarter occupancy is going to be in the low 95s, and that compares to the mid-95s in the third quarter. So that's pretty much about as far as we're willing to let it drop from a third to fourth quarter comparisons.

Operator

Next question will come from Julien Blouin with Goldman Sachs.

Julien Blouin

I was just wondering what you're expecting in terms of market rent growth across your portfolio next year? And I guess, bigger picture, I was wondering, as you prepare your budgets and guidances for '27, do you anticipate changing the approach at all as it sort of relates to blends and same-store revenue guide? Is there a temptation to perhaps guide more conservatively relative to where sort of adviser forecasts spit out rent growth for '27?

Alexander Jessett

Yes. So we're not giving 2027 guidance. Right now, we're in the middle of our budget process, and going through that discovery period of everything that you mentioned there. So when we get to our fourth quarter '26 earnings call, we'll give guidance, we'll be able to update everyone on that. But when you think about -- renewals are always the best thing we can do. And so what we're going to do is we're going to make sure that we don't get too hot on the renewal side because we want to keep those residents. And then we'll let the new leases sort of be what fills in the blanks.

The other thing, when you ask about being more conservative, listen, every -- we hate bringing our numbers down. That is not something any of us ever want to do. But when we come out at the beginning of every single year, what we give you guys is our budgets based upon the economists we use, based upon the analysis that we put in place, we give you guys our budgets. We don't go through and say, okay, our budgets are x, and so we're going to give you guidance of x minus y, as that has never been our approach.

Operator

Next question will come from Alex Kim with Zelman & Associates.

Alex Kim

On last quarter's call, you talked to how you expected blended rent growth to average roughly 1% to slightly better in second half '26. In third quarter, blends came in at 1%. So that was consistent with that outlook. Are you still expecting roughly 1% blended rent growth in the fourth quarter here? How do you reconcile that leasing performance a bit with the 50 basis point reduction in the full year same-store revenue growth guidance?

Alexander Jessett

So you're correct, we came in at 1% on blended rents in third quarter, which is relatively in line with our expectations. However, for the fourth quarter, as part of the guidance bring-down, we are expecting a lower new lease trade-out than we originally anticipated. So we expect those blends to be slightly positive in the fourth quarter, but not to that 1% level.

Operator

Next question is a follow-up from Ami Probandt with UBS.

Ami Probandt

Maybe a question related to the previous question on the Texas election outcome. Do you expect any changes in Florida property taxes following the Amendment 3 passing? And if so, do you think that this is a 2027 impact? Or is it likely more intermediate or longer term?

Alexander Jessett

So as you're referring to Amendment 3 that requires 60% of the vote to pass, I believe it got 62%. We've been keeping an eye on that because what that's going to do is lower the homestead exemption from a staggered perspective and put a significant hole in the property tax revenues from single-family homeowners. So the question becomes where is that going to come from? We are working closely with the Florida Apartment Association and have a relationship with the Governor-elect, Byron Donalds, and we'll be having to have discussions to educate them on what impact that could possibly have to rent affordability in the state, but nothing has been determined on where -- what taxes are going to happen on the commercial real estate side.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Alex Jessett for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Alexander Jessett

Thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning, and we will see you guys in Atlanta. Take care.

Operator

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