Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. (ELS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Citi's 2026 Global Property CEO Conference. I'm Eric Wolfe with Citi Research, and we are pleased to have with us Equity LifeStyle and CEO, Marguerite Nader. This session is for Citi clients only and disclosures have been made available at the Corporate Access desk. [Operator Instructions]. Marguerite, we'll turn it over to you to give some opening remarks, introduce your team and tell investors the top reasons to own your stock today.

Wonderful. Thank you very much, Eric. Appreciate the chance to present today. With me here today are Patrick Waite, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and Paul Seavey, our Chief Financial Officer. There are many reasons to own ELS, and our investor presentation highlights the strength of our long-term performance and the durability of our business model. So first, I'd like to focus on our historical results. Page 2 of our investor presentation shows that we've delivered 14% annualized total return since our IPO more than 30 years ago. This performance is driven by the consistency of our same-store NOI growth. For over 25 years, ELS has averaged 4.5% same-store NOI growth compared to the REIT sector average of 3.3%. That operational strength has allowed us to grow the annual dividend 19% since 2006. These results are compelling on their own, but context makes them even more important. On Page 5 of our investor presentation, we show how ELS compares to both the broader REIT industry and the residential REIT subset. Across normalized FFO growth, dividend growth and balance sheet metrics, we consistently screen among the leaders. We continue that trend in this year's guidance. I think the next question would be, how do we consider that success to be able to be continued? Our performance is highlighted and supported by high-quality locations, favorable customer demographics and a supply-constrained industry. As shown in our revenue mix in our presentation, 91% of our revenue is derived from stable recurring and annual resources. On Page 10, you'll see that our properties are located in premier retirement and vacation destinations. We also benefit from powerful demographic trends. Finally, as highlighted on Page 20 in our industry, our industry has exceptionally favorable supply dynamics. Our portfolio experiences strong demand without meaningful new competing supply in our markets. So in closing, I would say we offer -- ELS offers a rare combination: decades-long leading performance, a geographically diverse portfolio in highly desirable markets, and we are positioned to benefit from continued strong demand and minimal new supply. Now we'd be happy to take questions.

Great. So I think we were kind of joking about this a second ago, but it seems like when the world falls apart a little bit, people really turn to manufactured housing for that stability. But I guess right now, we're seeing very low job growth. We have this uncertainty around AI. But now we've also potentially introduced this sort of higher oil prices, higher gas prices. Can you maybe just talk about whether any of these sort of macro factors that you're seeing today are impacting your results? And then as we think about oil or gas prices potentially being higher, could that potentially impact you at some point?

Sure. I think I'll talk about it generally as it impacts our industry and ELS, and then maybe Paul can touch on the expenses as it relates to the oil and just utility expenses in general. So I would say that ELS is a safe haven. People come to our properties to escape winter, to get away from the northern climates, be within communities where there are like-minded individuals who want to experience the community atmosphere and enjoy the last half of their years. And so I think that just only continues in this environment. As we got here and considered our presentation, we reviewed our guidance and -- for 2025 -- or 2026 continue to see strong numbers as it relates to our guidance as it relates to our revenue and NOI. So reaffirming those numbers. And so I think as it relates to expenses and utilities, I think Paul can cover something as it relates to oil prices.

Sure. When we think about our expense base, utilities are 25% to 30% of our expenses. Electric is the most significant component of that. Primarily it's service to our properties, of course, particularly the RV resorts. We do recapture about 50% -- almost 50% of our energy costs through billing back to our customers, submetering in our communities. But it is something that we pay very close attention to. Our assumption for 2026 in terms of our expenses does have a built-in kind of premium to where CPI was. We have a bit of room, but we are watching closely what's happening globally and how that might impact our utility expense going forward.

Got it. And then maybe just starting with RV. I think last year, you had a little bit higher turnover. It sounds like based on your guidance, you expect to actually see maybe even a little bit of improvement this year, so maybe a little bit of an occupancy build. Maybe just help us understand sort of where you are in the process of renewing those customers? Are you running ahead, behind, in line? And I don't know if it's too early to know at this point, but sort of where you are within the Northeast property specifically because I think we're getting sort of closer to that season?

Yes. Let me start by addressing the annual, the biggest component of our RV revenue. We've always focused on those longer-term stays. We continue to see consistent demand for the RV annual business as we move into 2026. Eric, as you mentioned, last year in the second quarter, we saw an elevated level of attrition in our RV annual, particularly in markets in the North and Northeast. We attribute that to some normalization following COVID with those longer-term stays. Attrition that otherwise would have occurred earlier was delayed. We worked our way through that attrition. And as I mentioned on the last call, in the back half of 2025, we saw positive trends. And for the 6 months ending 2025, we increased our annuals by 500. So seeing that consistent demand coming into 2026, we view that favorably. With respect to the seasonal and the transient, and maybe Paul can talk a little bit about how it rolls through guidance. But I'd say that as we saw colder weather set in through the winter, we did see some positive trends as we work through that early parts of the quarter. How that's going to translate for those seasonal customers in the Sunbelt into the 2026 and 2027 winter season, it's early to say, but I think we're -- the trends that we see currently, we consider to be favorable relative to the trends that we saw last year.

And I always try to get -- put numbers around it. And you can just tell me if it's like a stupid question because I think I've tried it before, I'm going to try it again. I guess what I'm trying to understand is for -- you have 34,000 annual RV sites. At this point, are you 20,000 of the way through kind of the annual like acceptance? Like I'm trying to understand sort of where you are in the process? How much information you know at this point? How much things could change between now and, say, second quarter earnings? Obviously, the further along you are through that, like if you've already had 80% acceptance of -- you are 80% of the way through the process, things aren't going to change that much. So I'm just trying to understand sort of what could really change between now and the second quarter? How far you are through the process on the annual side, specifically, not anything else, just annual?

Yes. And I think, Eric, it's difficult to say the percentage. So I would just say it like this, and I think this is -- Patrick covered this a little bit, but it's really what's happening in March and April. The customers are making those decisions then. What we've seen so far supports the guidance that we've put forth, and then we'll be able to update on the -- on our earnings call in April and then further update in the July call.

And then on the seasonal side, it was terrible winter. That's partly why I sound like this. Why -- I guess it wouldn't be too early to know that part of it, though, right? Because I mean, at this point, I think, is normally when you're starting to see that seasonal customer say, it was bad winter, let's extend my vacation by 2 weeks. How much of that have you seen? Are you encouraged by what you're seeing in terms of the extensions of the stays on the seasonal side?

Sure. What we've seen so far, and we issued our guidance a few weeks ago. And at that time, we had the benefit of January. So that's 1/3 of quarter. We already kind of know where we're at. So we felt very comfortable issuing that guidance, and we continue to be comfortable with that guidance. As it relates to extensions, that really starts to happen as you head into the end of March and when people start to consider what does April look like in the north. If the northern climates are seeing snow in April or just difficult weather, we see our customers saying, let's extend another week or 2. And so that's really where we see those extensions. That doesn't happen right now. It happens closer to the time when they intended to head back. Right now, they're enjoying this wonderful weather that you see here. February and March is a great -- great months for us, and our customers are just enjoying being down here. And then as we head into the end of March, we start reminding more and more about here's the extension, here's the opportunities for you to stay longer with us.

And is this the same true? And I think -- I can't remember the exact percentage, but I think it's maybe like 1/3 or maybe 50%. You can tell me how much it is of your reservations for next year's season among your Canadian customers, typically comes like in the current year, right? The people that are leaving, they say, "Okay, I would like to come back next year." They make a reservation for next year. Can you talk about sort of the pacing of that reservation process so far? How many of your Canadian customers are saying they want to come back versus perhaps what you expected or where it was at this time last year?

Sure. I would say relative to both all of our customers, Canadian and our American customers, we're pacing ahead on what you refer to as our early bird reservations. So those are the reservations for next year. So we're talking about the January through March of 2027 and we're pacing ahead. But there's also more clarity as we make our way through the season on that number. So we'll have a better idea as we head into April, where we end up on that early bird. And then, of course, there's reservations that come after that, and that comes closer to when you head into September, October as people start making reservations for the next year.

And then maybe just to finish off the discussion on the RV side. I guess, transient, it's sort of pacing in line with what you thought. Maybe just any sort of -- I know it's impossible to sort of predict beyond a certain point, but you did make a comment on the call that the bookings were looking favorable to last year. So maybe just talk about sort of what you've seen in the first quarter and then looking forward, the bookings and the bookings pace compared to last year?

Sure. So as you know, the transient -- our transient revenue is really concentrated in the second and third quarter and it has a very short booking window. I think one of the things that we focused on during our earnings call was the fact that the 3 holiday weekend -- the 3 major holidays in the summer fall on weekends, which is very positive for us. So you're able to get a 3-day weekend from a booking revenue perspective. Additionally, America is celebrating its 250-year anniversary. I don't know how many people in this room were around for the 200-year anniversary, but I was, and it was very exciting and people got really embraced the whole view of celebrating America, and I think there's a lot of buildup energy around that and being at a campground is a perfect way to celebrate the birthday of America.

And then switching over to MH. I think 50% of your portfolio around there, correct me if I'm wrong, is in Florida. And I guess I look at the occupancy opportunity there, and I'm just wondering if you think we're going to start seeing that occupancy sort of increase throughout this year. I know you don't put it into your guidance. And then I guess the second part of my question is, you look at the percentage of actual rentals that you have in your community versus those that own, and it's very, very small. I guess why not just try to increase sort of the number of rentals in your community to get more people in there and then try to convert them to homeowners? Or maybe you're already doing that, but it seems like there's definitely a focus on trying to have as least rentals as possible. Correct me if I'm wrong in that.

Sure, sure. So why don't I handle the rental question? And then Patrick, maybe you can touch on just MH occupancy. So as it relates to the rental program, prior to 2008, our rental program was about 2% to 3% of our occupancy. As we headed into 2008 and we saw that we were having some difficulty selling homes, we decided that we need to look at this rental program a little bit deeper and get a better understanding of it, the house -- the things we should do, the things we shouldn't do. At that time, we learned a lot, and we increased our rental program to about 9% of our total occupancy. In the ensuing years, we saw that there was an opportunity for us to sell those homes. And the business model is us owning the land -- ELS owns the land and a resident puts their home on our land. That's an important piece of the business model. And so as we saw the opportunity to continue that model and decrease the size of our rental program, we took an opportunity to do that. So we went from 9% down to 3%. And what that does, in my mind, that gives us flexibility. So we have the opportunity to grow. If you're already at 9%, growing from that point can be a little bit more difficult than impact the quality of the portfolio of the properties. So we -- this was a long-term plan for us. It slowed down some occupancy growth because you can -- rental growth is easier, quicker, but it has some back-end issues that you need to focus on. So right now, we're at 3%. We have the ability to grow. And in certain markets, we're just, as you say, kind of a rental conversion. Where that's appropriate, we will do that. So I think you'll see more of that, but we're glad that we're at that 3% and being able to work into that. And maybe Patrick touch a little bit on the occupancy.

Yes. I think a helpful takeaway just to understand demand. Our new home sales on an annualized basis right now are running at about 500. That was considered a good number pre-COVID, 500 to 600 new home sales. As we went through COVID, there was a higher level of demand. So we had an elevated period of new home sales. But we're seeing consistent demand with respect to our kind of historical trends. And I think it's reasonable to assume that we can increase occupancy on a long-term basis, and we've proven that over our long history. One thing that I'd point out is that we continue to develop both on the MH side and on the RV side. And I'd encourage everybody to -- when we're talking about occupancy, look at the number as opposed to the percentage because when we complete development sites, those vacant sites come into our denominator and the percentage will be diluted somewhat. That said, the optics appear to be unfavorable, but it's actually more opportunity for us to continue to grow our occupancy.

And I think it's important to note the home sale prices that we have relative to other home sale prices in the market are significantly lower, which gives us a real advantage and the quality of the homes just improve every year. So that's another positive thing that we have as we work through our leads that we get every day.

Do you consider that home sale business like a profit generator for the company? Or is it more just a tool to actually encourage people to come in and stay with you for 10 years? I guess how do you think about the ability to generate actual profit from home sales versus just trying to get -- taking less profit to incentivize people to come in?

Right. For us, it's about filling our communities with high-quality homes and high-quality residents. And in the end, what you see is usually we're at a breakeven on the home sale, but really focused on the underlying rent, what is the fair market rent for us to charge and focusing on that continuing rental stream.

And then I guess, at least my understanding of the recent legislation and some of the things that have been done on the housing side is that you now have the ability to offer sort of more flexible type of home structures, maybe 2 story, other things. Correct me if I'm wrong. But let me know if you -- did you see any sort of material impact from the legislation that's come out over the last 6 months? And also on the -- we're talking more on the positive side. But on the negative side, is there any sort of like obsolescence of sort of homes that before might have been viable, but now given current standards and options that people would just say, I don't want to live in that type of home?

Right. Well, with us here today is the Chairman of the manufactured housing industry. So I will let Patrick touch on that. I'll touch on the first part of your question. As it relates to the obsolescence, there are certainly homes in our communities that are 1970s model homes. Many of those homes have been refurbished just like you would see on the single-family side from the inside out: new kitchen, new bathrooms, virtually a brand-new home. So the age of the home isn't necessarily the driver for obsolescence or where a home would have to be removed from the community. But maybe, Patrick, you could touch on some of the legislation.

Yes. So the road to housing on the Senate side and 21st Century Housing on the house side have been moving forward for some time. Overnight, they made another step forward with respect to a Senate vote. So those bills are working through a consolidation and would expect them to continue to move forward. I'd highlight that over the last 5 to 7 years, The Manufactured Housing Institute and our members have been more and more present in Washington, D.C. Manufactured housing is now regularly discussed alongside of the priorities for affordable housing. I think that's good for the industry, it's good for the manufacturers, it's good for single-family developers who use manufactured housing, and it's good for us as land lease community owners. Eric, with respect to the question on the flexibility of manufactured homes, the factory-built homes under the HUD standard, there was introduced and it's part of the legislation that was voted on yesterday, chassis removal. So just for those that -- I guess I'll lay out real quickly the basics of a manufactured home. The manufactured home goes through several stages. It's just standard construction line that you'd see in car manufacturing as well. You start with the chassis, you finish the floor, it goes to the next stage, you start working on interior walls and finishes, then you get the exterior walls, roof, et cetera. And then the home is transported to the place that it's set for the rest of its life. It's a little bit of a misstatement that they're mobile. They're mobile in the sense that they're built in a factory and then they're set in their location the same way that you would a site-built home. The distinction with the chassis that is in the new legislation is there's an option to complete that home. And when it's set on its final location, it won't have the permanent chassis. So with respect to one story, there will be a more flexibility around the elevation of the home, the appearance of the home. And we would anticipate adoption or more readily adopted approvals for that type of housing in infill locations in urban and suburban locations as well as when we're proposing manufactured housing as the affordable housing in these locations, approvals that are more consistent with building codes and their experience in locations across the country. The other thing it provides for is multistory. So you can do a 2-story home. That higher density would be helpful in higher-cost locations where the alternative cost would warrant a higher density on any particular plot. With respect to land lease communities, potentially some flexibility with respect to the aesthetic of the homes, for us, given that we've been focused on age qualified for decades, we're probably going to remain focused on 1 story as opposed to 2 story, given our core customer is generally not looking to add staircases and flights of stairs to their retirement housing. There are going to be also some anticipated cost savings as well just with respect to the materials and the final finish on the homes.

And then maybe, Eric, Paul could touch on some of the financing that's out there relative to manufactured housing.

Sure. There hasn't -- despite efforts, there hasn't been much movement on the available financing. Chattel financing has been available for years. The government through Fannie and Freddie have tried to promote programs. They have achieved some success in situations where customers own the land as well as the home, but not for programs in land lease communities. So it remains available on a limited basis to customers, and it's relatively high priced as compared to conventional mortgage financing. For ELS, our customers, 95% of them pay cash for their house. So it's less relevant for us though it is certainly important for the industry.

And I guess I was asking it partly because I was thinking that maybe there's an opportunity at some point if you can lower the cost. You said before that. It's not -- you don't really think of the home sale business is a profit driver. It's really a tool to get people in. I guess, is there an opportunity to lower the cost of what you're selling, improving the affordability, thus getting more residents to come to your properties?

Since we haven't seen this enacted yet, as Patrick said, this is just being voted on now. So my expectation is that, the removal of the chassis will reduce our home cost and I assume that the manufacturer will send that down to us in terms of increasing the profitability. It's not a large number overall, and I don't think it's going to be a driver of additional home sales.

Maybe last question on MH. We've seen pretty dramatic change in job growth. At least from the results, we haven't seen really anything in your results. Maybe just talk about your all-age portfolio. Are there parts of your portfolio that are actually seeing an impact from the sort of lower job growth? Or is it more insulated based on sort of the type of communities that you have there?

Sure. So 70% of our portfolio is age-restricted and 30% is all age. But of the 30% that is all age, roughly 2/3 is kind of vacation destination locations, Rehoboth Beach kind of locations where people are using it as their second home and their families using it as their second home. So not -- we haven't really seen any impact. We continue to show incredibly low delinquency rates. Our customers are very cognizant about paying the rent, and we're cognizant about making certain that we give them the benefit of all of the capital that we spend at the property and focused on delivering results for them.

And then I guess switching to membership and campground business. What is your core customer there? We don't talk about it quite as much as the other parts of your business. Has that core customer changed at all over time? And I think your most recent guidance implies a bit of a step-up in growth or improvement in growth. Can you just talk about what's driving that?

Sure. So within the Thousand Trails system, it's made up about 80 properties with 24,000 sites, and we have 100,000 roughly members. The members haven't changed in terms of the demographics over time. They are -- the Thousand Trails member starts out as a traveler. They're really interested in going to many different locations. That's the purpose of the membership, the ability to go from property to property. It's about a dream. It's about the ability to have the freedom to go out on the road and kind of go from property to property, both experiencing the property, meeting new people. And I think that's really what the customer is all about. I'd say that roughly half of them are traveling with their families and half are couples traveling alone and their families are grown in their home locations. So that hasn't -- and that demographic hasn't changed too much over time. What we do see is people moving from the membership model to where they're traveling around a lot to then settling down. And they -- after they visited a lot of our properties, they've figured out the one that they really like and then they'll settle down and they'll become an annual. And you see that in our -- our membership table shows the number of annuals within our properties, and that has grown significantly over time. What you were referring to on the membership revenue increasing, what we did last year in 2025, at the end of '24, beginning of '25, we rolled out a new upgrade program, which allowed our members to upgrade for an additional dues payment. So increase the subscription fees or dues fees in exchange for getting additional benefits such as being able to book early for the holiday weekends, stay longer. We have -- at Thousand Trails, we have this -- at the base price, you have the -- you have to have -- be out of the system for a certain amount of time. This allows you to stay in the system so you can kind of go from property to property without having to leave the system. And so with those benefits, I think our customers and our members have found that those benefits are really interesting. And so that's where you see that increase in that revenue line item.

And I'm not going to be the one that knows whether oil prices are going higher or lower, they're staying there, impact on gas prices. But maybe you can talk about when you've seen gas prices rise quickly over time, has that impacted any part of the membership business? Has it impacted any part of your transient business? Just anything on sort of where you see those changes, whether it impacts any part of your portfolio at all?

Sure. So we've certainly experienced a lot of different oil prices and gas prices over the last 25 years since we've been in the RV industry. And we've looked and as gas prices are rising, we're wondering what's going to be happening. Are the transient bookings going to be coming down. And what we kind of continue to go towards on that is that it's really a focus on what's happening with the weather, and it's not the gas prices because really, our customers are traveling between 60 to 90 miles. So that additional dollar amount is not that much relative to kind of their alternatives if they were going to go stay at a hotel or do something else. The RV is packed. All of the -- the food is in there, the kids' toys are in there, they're ready to go. It's not great to have it as a headline news, but we haven't seen in our long history that it is the reason that people are choosing to not visit our properties.

There's a question here from the audience. There's been much discussion around selling or repurposing federal land to address housing affordability. Could any of this land be zoned or structured for manufactured housing? Have you had any preliminary conversations with policymakers or agencies about federal land being used for MHCs?

Yes. I think that there is certainly federal land available. There are federal campgrounds that are available that whether or not the highest and best use is in the hands of the federal government, I think, is a question. I think there are opportunities. I would say that it really ends up being more of a local level discussion. And zoning and restrictions within the local level really haven't seen it kind of rise to a federal discussion on those lands, although it's a great idea, but we haven't seen much progress.

I guess how much land do you guys own today that's not sort of utilized?

We have 6,000 vacant acres adjacent to our properties, primarily 85% of that is adjacent to our RV parks.

Right. So 85%. And I guess now my question there is, if acquisitions are going to be few and far between, just given people don't want to sell good properties, good cash flowing businesses, is there an opportunity to sort of expand what you're doing, I guess, expand the expansions. If you have that much sort of unutilized land and you have that much demand, why not be more aggressive in terms of your expansions?

Yes. We -- I mean let me answer that first in the context of as we go through just the natural cycle of working through our development pipeline, we've developed or delivered between 500 and a little over 1,000 sites on a run rate basis over the last 5 or 6 years. Total, it was just over 5,000 sites. I've been asked why did you pull back on development in a particular year, and it's really not related to a pullback. It's just related to when you put a 12-month calendar year over a development pipeline, those results are going to ebb and flow depending on the time line to bring projects to completion. We're focused on continuing on that path. I mean you can see in our deck that our stabilized returns are in the 7% to 10% range. It's very favorable investment. It's low risk with respect to any development project because I have a going concern business. I have an embedded, either resident or customer base for referrals. So we're focused on being closer to the 1,000 than the 500. But we have a long pipeline of projects that we're consistently working on, and I would expect that we're going to continue to deliver in that range.

And are they already like -- I mean, sort of like ready to go zoned and sort of there's no sort of permits and other things that you have to go through before you can do that? Or what's the process?

Yes, it's the entire range. There are some of that are closer to shovel-ready than others. There's a slide in the deck -- pictures in the deck of a project that we have in Sarasota. That was an adjacent parcel of land that we acquired was zoned single-family. We went through a rezoning and entitlement process to get approval for manufactured housing. That process took probably 18 months. The development is going to take another 6. And then at a project of that scale, we'll probably reach stabilized occupancy in 2 years. It's at 40 to 50 sites. We had a project identical to it and scale on the other side of the property that we completed previously, and it was the same fact pattern. We acquired single-family land -- zoned single-family and went through the entitlement process. The time line depending on the jurisdiction, really varies significantly.

All right. Rapid fire. What will same-store NOI growth be for the MH sector in 2027, so next year?

Similar to this year.

Will there be the same, more or less MH RV, I guess, marina companies at this time next year in the public space?

Same.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.