Welcome to Bank of America's 2026 Global Real Estate Conference. I'm Jana Galan, BofA's residential REIT analyst, and we're thrilled to have with us from AMH, CFO Chris Lau, Chief Operating Officer Lincoln Palmer, and Investor Relations Nick Fromm. I'll turn it over to Chris for opening remarks, and then we can jump into Q&A. Sure. Just to get us going, from a high level, I would say that the business is performing really well. I think we would've all seen that in the quarter. Leasing activity has continued to remain solid. The teams are executing super well. You saw that translate into a three penny bump to the guide on a full-year basis at the midpoint. We're now expecting FFO growth to be north of 4%, 4.3% actually, which continues to be at the very top of the residential pack. Since the end of the quarter, we've just put out a July and August update. It hit the website back half of last week. I would say the right takeaway there is that things are going according to plan. New leases, importantly, continue to remain in positive territory. Moderating a touch with seasonality, just like we were expecting, from 1.6% in July to 80 basis points in August. Renewals held steady at 3.3% in both months. Occupancy was 96.1% in July, 95.9% in August. Again, kind of trending just as we were expecting it to. On the expense side of things, I think everyone has probably seen that expenses very much have been a bright spot this year. The team has done a fantastic job controlling the controllables. Property taxes for this year trending below long-term average. Latest midpoint of the guide is 2.75% growth this year. That's below long-term average, which is more like 4%-5%. Real-time update there for anyone that's familiar with how property tax information flows over the course of the year. The end of summer, early fall is the time where we start to hear back on the results of the appeals process. I can't put any numbers to it yet, but we are starting to begin to get back some of those appeals results. Directionally, I will say that we're starting to see some results come back that feel like they're a little bit in what I would characterize as good guy territory. We still need to collect more information. Importantly, property tax rates come out later this year, fourth quarter. But by the time we report the third quarter, we should have pretty good visibility on values. Like I said, so far so good in terms of what we're seeing. Capital plan wise, nothing terribly new to report there. We continue to execute on this year's moderated development program. Importantly, that is sized in a way that the balance sheet component is match fundable with recycled capital coming out of the disposition program. That, like we talked about at the beginning of the year, has freed up incremental capital capacity this year for other things like share repurchases as an example. I'm sure everyone saw that we were very active on share repurchases in the first five to six months of this year. Fast-forward to the middle of this year, it felt like the stock was moving in the right direction for at least a period of time. Obviously, everything has pulled back over the last week and change or so. It continues to be something very top of mind that we're watching very closely again. Then, final high level update. Since many of us would have spoken at least live last. Obviously, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has now passed. Since passing in July, the latest update is Congress has delegated it down to the respective agencies, Treasury, HUD, et cetera, for the actual detailed rule writing process, that is targeted to take place over the course of this calendar year. We'll see how much gets done by the end of this calendar year before going into effect at the beginning of 2027. Key takeaway there is that from an industry perspective, we now have pathway to clarity, which we've all been looking for. Then from an AMH perspective, I would say that the AMH strategy has probably never been more differentiated than it is currently. Considering the fact that our two primary growth channels being internal AMH development and portfolio consolidations are both protected and specifically allowed under the new law. High level wise, I'll probably pause there. Main takeaways, like I said, business is performing well. The third quarter to date update is that things are going according to plan, and the team is hyper-focused on executing to the best of their and our ability into the balance of the year. Thank you so much, Chris. Maybe just starting with the policy since that's been so forefront this year. Definitely outcome of 21st Century ROAD to Housing for you and your sector is much better than feared, and pretty much business as usual. I would be curious if there's anything in the midterms that you guys are watching, concerned, being talked about. Just like everyone else, we're watching it very closely. For the most part for this year, any of the states that we operate in, essentially those states are out of session for this year. We're very focused at the state and local level going into 2027. Quite frankly, that's kind of business as usual for us, right? Housing ultimately is governed state and local level. As many of you know, we have invested heavily into our own government affairs team starting years ago at this point. Their day job is really focusing on educating, advocating at the state and local level. This was really the first year where we essentially redirected their efforts to the federal level. Now that Road to Housing is "behind us," they can essentially get back to their day job at the state and local level. The simple answer is, no, nothing to call out right now, recognizing that the states that we operate within are adjourned for this year. Could you clarify your comment about an internal development portfolio consolidation in the context of Road to Housing for you means what? Sure. You probably recall, we've talked for years about the fact that there are a large number of assembled medium, small to medium-sized portfolios out there. Think of it, thousands to couple thousand unit portfolios are the sweet spot. For the last probably year or two, we've been talking about the fact that many of those portfolios are going to need liquidity at some point, and very likely could be great consolidation opportunities for us. You can use the portfolio that we consolidated in 2024 as the perfect example of what those portfolios look like. Couple thousand units. That portfolio in particular was managed by a couple of different regional property managers that operated that portfolio to the best of their ability, but below the AMH level of operational performance. Just to give you an example, when we acquired that portfolio, operating margins were call it in the mid-50s. We brought it onto our platform, brought it up to our standards within about 12 months or so. Operating margins moved up into the mid-60s. That means that the initial in-place cap rate that we bought that portfolio at, which was a 5% to very low 5%, expanded up into the high 5%, close to 6% once brought up to our operating standards, again, creating value coming onto our platform. That's the type of opportunity that we've been talking about for the last year or two. My point on the impact of the new 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is for many of those portfolios that had ambitions to get larger and have the ability to continue to grow, it's going to be much more difficult for them to do so in today's environment without access to the MLS and to be determined access to being able to buy from builders that we think will translate into, over time, increased seller motivation as they're looking to liquidate and monetize those portfolios. It's not going to happen overnight. Our best guess is over the next probably 12 to 18 months, we'll start to see some of this play out which is perfectly fine for us. Obviously, the cost of capital off the balance sheet today isn't exactly where we would want it to be for these types of portfolio consolidation opportunities. We're going to watch it closely as we get into 2027. In the right cost of capital environment, there's a lot of value to be unlocked and created in these types of consolidation opportunities. The act you can buy and they can't. Just refresh on the Yeah. The details are the definition of a large institutional investor ended up being 350 units or larger. Why 350? No one really knows. That is where it landed. If you are 350 units or larger, as a practical matter, you really cannot buy off of the MLS anymore. That is the key distinction here. Theoretically, you can subject to certain exceptions if we can get into the details of, but the punchline of it is there are economic costs that would come with acquiring off of the MLS that as a practical matter, if you are a defined large institutional investor, it is not really going to be a viable growth channel anymore. To your point on portfolio transactions, under the law, transactions between portfolio owners of 350 units or larger are allowed from one owner to another, meaning consolidation. So just to confirm, does this tie to your sentence you said or statement, "We now have clarity. I just want to make sure, have you fleshed that out completely or is there anything else to elaborate on? Because talking to a lot of folks post-Nareit, there was some excitement and then a lot of generals are still, they are not seeing the clarity. Is there anything else to mention to folks? The key clarity, some of the early concepts that were being discussed, like forced divestiture requirements, totally removed. Pure clarity on that. Clarity on development being specifically carved out and protected, which essentially is a direct acknowledgment of the fact that all forms of new supply, both for sale and for rental, are very important in terms of solving housing in and across the country. Key clarity on the ability to consolidate portfolios is very important. So that is really what we mean by clarity, right? Taking some of the early stage things like forced divestiture completely off of the table, really reinforcing the AMH strategy. And then, of course, yes, there are still pieces that need to be defined throughout the remainder of the specific rule-writing process that will be a little bit more relevant to others, and in particular, some of the small and medium-sized portfolio owners and operators. But good clarity for strategies specifically like AMH. This is what you're saying HUD is now going to go through over the coming months. By early 2027, we'll know for sure, I guess. Or no, go ahead. Let me asterisk the word choice "for sure." That's the objective. Our political experts would tell us that for a law of this size, it is not uncommon for this type of rule-writing process to take upwards of 12-18 months on average. Congress is endeavoring to accomplish this in more like six months. The experts would say that's a pretty ambitious timeline, so we'll have to see exactly how much of this is ultimately defined by the start of the new year. But that's the objective, and like I said, we're going to have to keep everyone updated. But again, the important pieces. Bigger picture, nothing like forced divestiture, reinforcement of development portfolio consolidations. Those are not subject to interpretation in the rule writing process. It's more of the finer details in terms of how some of the other things are going to go effectively into law. Right. So for those who are looking for 100% clarity, while the fine details will be worked out, none of that should impact AMH and how you're operating and developing and potentially doing portfolio acquisitions. Correct. On operating, developing, managing of the balance sheet, et cetera. The portfolio consolidations, part of that, I think, will be contingent on how some of the rule writing process plays out. The body language, if you will, that we're getting from other portfolio owners out there is they're waiting to see what the rule writing process looks like. They're waiting to see how others react. They're waiting to see how home builders respond and their willingness to continue to sell to institutional buyers before they recalibrate their strategy and plan. I would say yes, with respect to everything other than the portfolio consolidation piece, where as we know right now, there's a pretty wide bid-ask spread in the market for portfolio consolidations. The portfolio owners need to see a little bit more of that clarity before we think we start to see more motivation from a pricing perspective. My recollection is, you mentioned it a little bit, that you can buy off MLS if you put in CapEx. You sort of referred to it as not economically viable. Why? The two main exceptions that would allow you to, as a large institutional investor, so 350 units or larger, you can continue to buy off of the MLS if you meet one of a couple of exceptions. The two main ones are you're acquiring a home that is not currently up to code. That typically would not be the type of property someone like an AMH would be targeting. It's not up to code, and it requires substantial investment to bring it up to code, meaning obviously economic investment. That's number one. The second main exception is you can acquire that property if you include it in some type of home ownership support program. That is currently being defined in terms of what actually that means, but it is something along the lines of the institutional investor that purchases that home has to include that home or the resident in that home in some type of program that they are funding, the purchaser of that home that they are funding, that will ultimately support that resident's journey towards home ownership, whatever that may mean. Again, economic cost to it. I think my comment is, as a practical matter, pretty much everyone is viewing the MLS exceptions as likely meaning not economically viable in terms of MLS being a true growth channel the way that it used to be. How frequently were you buying from the MLS before? From an AMH perspective, we've not been an active purchaser off of the MLS for years at this point. That goes back to my point about the fact that the AMH strategy is essentially unchanged in that we've not been a meaningful purchaser off of the MLS for years. And the primary growth from an AMH strategic perspective has been internal development supplemented or to be supplemented by the opportunity to create value as we hopefully consolidate portfolios down the road in the right cost of capital environment. Development is the clear path. How do you lean even further into the development? And maybe talk about some of the expertise or things you've learned over the years versus, let's say, the home builders and what they're doing. Sure. Let me start and then maybe you talk about some of the things that differentiate one of our development homes on the ground relative to what we're seeing from others or even scattered site. Yes, we have invested heavily into our development program for years at this point. We have been the largest integrated developer and operator of single-family build to rent homes for a number of years at this point. Actively developing in call it 15 markets or so across the portfolio. In today's environment, it's a little bit of balance, Jeff, to your point, in terms of how do you grow it from here. Look, the reality is for anyone in our industry, if you want to have sightline to predictable growth over time, it needs to be through newly constructed product. Obviously, the MLS is not realistically going to be a viable channel. Again, we'll need to see how the builders kind of respond after the final language is written. Portfolio consolidations, as much as we love them from a value unlocking perspective, they're episodic. If you want true sightline to predictable growth, it needs to be coming through development, which again, really differentiates the AMH development program. In terms of the sizing of it, look, we would love to ramp the sizing of it. Many markets across the country need more housing, especially the type of housing that we're building in the location that we're building at the quality that it's being constructed. The challenge becomes obviously the cost of capital environment that we're operating in right now. The balanced approach that we've taken this year is ensuring that we keep the development program and development machine running in all of our markets. That's very important strategically for the longer term. Sizing it appropriately in this type of environment, like I was talking about a couple of minutes ago. What that means is we've moderated the sizing and volume of the program overall this year. We can do that because we control the entire program end to end. We have allocated a larger proportion of this year's pipeline to our joint venture partners. As we're thinking about 2027, that discussion with our joint venture partners is very active right now in terms of proportion of pipeline to be matched with JV capital. That could be one way to expand the development program further going forward as we think about this type of cost of capital environment. Jeff, it's ultimately a balance, right? Continuing to invest into, keep the development program operating and running in our markets, but doing it appropriately in this type of cost of capital environment and thinking about the best matching of balance sheet match funded capital from dispositions from the balance sheet, and then the mix of right JV capital complement from a sizing perspective. In terms of some of the things that we're doing, Lincoln's got great perspective. Can I ask just one follow-up on that? Yeah. Because I think years ago you were contemplating something similar to what, let's say, I think what Prologis has with the open-end fund developing maybe assets that your cost of capital is there, but open-end fund creates that cost of capital, develop for fees, maybe maintain some ownership, put it into the fund, and really take advantage of what some of the, and now today, the banks are looking to offer to develop. Is that still a possibility, or you're strictly focused on the JVs? Rewinding a little bit, we maybe have discussed as just kind of like an idea starter or something open-ended wise. Those discussions never really went that far. I would say that the style of JV relationships we've had to date has been a great kind of strategic and stylistic match for what we're trying to accomplish via the development program. With the balance sheet, what we've been able to accomplish, in particular with one of our largest joint venture relationships, is it's structured as an evergreen vehicle. We've talked a lot about this, but it truly is an evergreen joint venture. We're 20%, our partner is 80%. It does not have an end date. After that pipeline of homes is developed and stabilized, we go through and we synthetically crystallize the promote. If anyone's familiar with a traditional JV, think of it, you would go through and value the portfolio, just like if you were going to hypothetically sell it. You calculate what the promote payment would be through the promote waterfall, and rather than paying it to us in cash like you would in a typical finite lives JV, we go through and reset our capital account. So our 20% goes up by whatever that promote payment would be. Our partner's 80% would go down by whatever that promote payment would be, and we live on into perpetuity. The great thing about that is it fits our investment timeframe, right? These are communities that we are building with a very long timeframe and mindset. It enables us to create and realize the value from the development program without the need to monetize anything. Very interestingly, it takes that promote payment and locks it into ongoing cash flow stream from that venture, as opposed to a one and done cash promote payment. Which is great, it's a validation of the vehicle, but how do you really ascribe value to that when it's a single cash payment event? At the project level before JVs, tell us about development costs and returns, and does it vary by region? Apologies. Maybe even more broadly in terms of capital allocation. Stocks may be low implied six cap rates, so that's one option with buybacks. Then if you can talk a little bit about the investment yields on development. I know there's a bit spread right now, but what do the smaller portfolios, what do they hope to achieve? Yeah. In no particular order, no question that the stock is attractive. You saw us active earlier in the year. The reason why we developed this year's capital plan the way that we did is to create incremental capacity for things like buybacks. From this point forward, there's some leverage capacity on the balance sheet. Dispositions are going well this year. We continue to have remaining board authorization as we continue to watch the stock closely. Tying that to the development program and construction costs, it's a huge focus of ours. We talk a lot about, and I'm sure everyone has heard, our objective to continue to influence and migrate development yields higher over time. The program right now is delivering. Second quarter deliveries I think were a 5.4. We absolutely want to see that higher. The way that we're thinking about it is, it's a funny way to characterize it, but we're really attacking it from all angles to migrate those yields higher. Part of it is attacking the existing pipeline. The way that we do that is through the absolute most disciplined construction cost controls we can deliver. The team has done a fantastic job on that. If you look at the cost to vertically construct a home this time of year compared to a year ago, those vertical construction costs are basically flat year-over-year. That is a function of the team doing a really good job managing the supply chain, our trades, labor base, et cetera, along with the fact that we continue to just mature and get better as a builder. The objective is to as tightly control those development costs as possible. Hopefully, at some point, we see a re-acceleration in market rents. As construction costs are controlled, we hopefully see some level of re-acceleration in market rents. Mathematically, that translates into yield expansion with respect to the existing pipeline. The other way that we are attacking it is right now, as you all probably know, we have not been a large acquirer of land recently. In fact, over the last 12-18 months, we have actually been a net seller of land. But for the small amount of land that we are underwriting, in today's land environment, along with everything else I just talked about from a cost controls perspective, new deals are penciling at the 6% + area. Even though we have not needed to add a ton of land to the pipeline, there are some markets where we are going to need to be sprinkling in backfilling of land positions, and that is our opportunity to be sprinkling in higher yielding new vintage projects, if you want to think of it that way, mixing into the development program as we are attacking the existing pipeline, again, towards the objective of migrating yields higher. And maybe just where we are in terms of kind of expectations of the smaller portfolio. Oh, yield wise? Yes. Oh, I cannot comment on where yields are currently just because nothing is actively trading. I can use our last portfolio that we acquired in 2024 as an example. Obviously, things will have changed since then. But to give you a kind of a frame of reference or magnitude in terms of the value to be unlocked there, I think I just mentioned this a couple of minutes ago. We acquired that portfolio at an in place kind of five to very low five. What is bringing it onto our platform and up to our standards, that expanded up into the high fives, probably even close to six. Just kind of giving you a frame of reference in terms of the value that can be created by bringing things onto the AMH platform. In terms of where portfolios would price today, it is really tough to say because things are a little bit in a wait and see again for a lot of the rule writing to play out. Then maybe thank you very much for providing a kind of operational update heading into the conference. Would love to hear kind of how peak leasing season played out relative to your expectations. I know you also played around a little bit with the lease expirations and kind of how that- Sure. I thought you were going to let me off the hook here. Peak leasing season went extremely well this year. As you know, we have been planning for quite a while around the lease expirations. Those are layered two thirds into the first half of the year now, one third into the back half. This year was a challenging environment for a couple of reasons. One, we had more expirations this year than we ever have. That translated into more move-outs, albeit still high retention. The higher move-outs related to the expirations, and that challenged our operating teams, who did a fantastic job getting those houses turned very quickly back on the market. We had a couple of record leasing months. That was very encouraging to see, and maybe more notably, the operational results extended a little bit later in the season this year just due to those efforts. Chris mentioned that we saw rates directionally increase, not a large magnitude, but from June into July. That is abnormal, and we are still in positive territory for the year. Very encouraged with the way that the first half went. The other thing I should give the teams credit for is just the remarkable job that they did on managing expenses through that entire background. As we get into the back half of the year here, expirations are going to be lower. We still plan to see new lease rate growth on a full-year basis in this latest range. As we continue to see a little bit of moderation, we are planning for a flatter curve also on occupancy in the high 95% area on a full-year basis. Renewals are steady right now in the low to mid 3s, and we expect to see those trickle higher over the next few months as we come into the first part of the year. The goal for the business now is looking to 2027. The setup coming into peak leasing season, or beginning of leasing season in January and February, is extremely important to us and in a lot of ways defines the year for the business. If you remember, we came into 2026 with around 95% occupancy. We expect to come into 2027 in a much better position than that. That should support to the extent that market rate growth participates, then it should support some rate growth on both the new and renewal side. I guess how can we think about kind of the 2027 earn-in from everything you have kind of accomplished year-to-date? Yeah. Do you want to talk to the components of our earn-in, Chris? I thought you were still on the hook. No. Just as a reminder, earn-in rolling into 2026 was, call it mid ones or so, 1.5%. I am hesitant to overly quote where we think earn-in is going to be going into 2027 just because it depends on where spreads land for the next couple of months. Not out of the question that it could land a touch lower. If you take the midpoint of the guide, it would imply something a touch lower than what we rolled into 2026 with. I think there is going to be a number of different kind of flips and takes as we think about the building blocks for 2027. Earn-in is one piece. Occupancy is another piece. Keep in mind occupancy this year comped negatively a little bit relative to 2025, 25 basis points or so. Just like Lincoln was talking about, the objective, especially with the benefit of the optimized lease curve is to come into 2027 in a better and stronger occupancy position, which is beneficial both from statement of the obvious occupancy position. Pricing position coming into the new year. Probably the thing that we focus ourselves on more is market rent growth. We can talk about earn-in, and earn-in is very important, no doubt, in terms of the building blocks to revenue growth. Earn-in is also kind of the current year's impact from last year's activity. Market rent growth is much more of a reflection of what is going on in the here and now, especially from a leading indicator perspective. I guess we did not talk a ton about supply, but to steal Lincoln's punchline, the takeaway is that there are many different aspects of supply that very much feel like they are moving in the right direction over the course of 2026. Are we going to sit here and call bottom and get the crystal ball out at this point? No, not yet. But the right takeaway is it feels like supply is moving in the right direction. It is also we are hesitant to try to crystal ball market rent growth for 2027 at this point, but if we want to just reference someone who is in the business of crystal balling that type of stuff, if you want to use John Burns' data as an example. John Burns views 2026 market rent growth in the low ones. His current estimate for 2027 is the high ones. Obviously, it's not a quantum leap year-over-year, but directionally, he is thinking that market rent growth is moving in the right direction. We'll formulate our views on that over the next couple of months before we initiate the guide for next year. That's one of the pieces that we like to focus on because obviously it's more of a reflection of the current environment. What's the data on supply? The data on supply. The data on supply. If you heard my comments on the second quarter earnings call, supply generally moving in the right direction. Meaning we saw in second quarter the first reduction in overall supply. I know this is very market specific, and I can get into a couple details. We saw the first reductions in overall supply in single-family rentals for the first time in several quarters. By several I mean eight or nine potentially, depending on the market, of course. That was encouraging to see. Notably, we saw some improvements in some markets that have been a little bit challenged over the last 12 months. Florida's one of those. Again, on the single-family side, we've seen reductions in all three of our markets, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa. Texas markets are another one that we've been watching very carefully. They seem to be more challenged on the multifamily side. Not as clear reduction in the multifamily in some markets like San Antonio, but it does seem like it's peaked and the permits and kind of completions have moderated. We're encouraged by that. The other one that we're watching very carefully is Phoenix. Build to rent inventory there has been a big issue. Probably a little bit of reprieve from the regulatory air gap that's been created in the last few months. Slowing of investment in that market. We're encouraged that it's moving in the right direction. I think you layer that in with everything that Chris was talking about. We have good supply trends. We've set up the business in the right way for the back half of the year with the expirations. Slightly increased view on new lease rates going into the first of the year. We have a very positive outlook on 2027 so far. Right. Any quick takes on shadow supply? Yeah, I have some quick takes on shadow supply. We've talked about this quite a bit over the last couple of days. It's been a topic of conversation for several months now, especially in the higher interest rate environment. Especially given what's happened over the last several weeks, maybe renewed interest there. It's very difficult to separate out the shadow supply from the aggregate single-family rental supply in the market because most of those are coming into the market under professionally managed banners. So it's difficult to differentiate the house that someone may have converted from for sale yesterday from the house that's managed by the same company that was converted three years ago. We're watching it very carefully. The encouraging thing is if as we're seeing the overall aggregate supply come down, if there is continued pressure from shadow supply, either that component is remaining consistent and it's being overshadowed by the reduction in the rest of the mom and pop inventory in the market. Or they're all coming down together. We're encouraged by what we're seeing there. We do have some view into the institutional supply as well, whether that's public or private individuals that, or businesses that have larger amounts of inventory, and that seems to be easing in most markets. Fortunately, we're out of time, but we have three rapid fire questions we're asking all the REITs. Number one, if long-term rates stay higher for longer, which has the biggest impact on your sector's earnings? Higher refinancing costs, lower transaction activity, or less new supply? Definitely refinancing costs. Selfishly, I will say we don't have any debt maturities until 2028. So I would maybe select transaction activity. I selfishly would select supply. Over the next three years, will third-party capital become a more important source of growth for public REITs than balance sheet capital? Over what time frame? Next three years. Probably will. For your sector, will 2027 same-store NOI growth be higher, the same, or lower than 2026? Higher. Great. Thank you so much, Chris and Lincoln. Appreciate the time.