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10 Takeaways From REIT Earnings Calls
As Q2'26 earnings calls wrap up for the apartment and SFR REITs, here are the highlights and themes that stand out.
Jay Parsons
August 12, 2026
Today’s edition sponsored by: JPI, Authentic, Hawthorne Residential Partners, TeleCloud, and The Kirkland Company.
Top 10 Takeaways and Highlights from Apartment and SFR REIT Earnings Calls
Another quarter gone by, another round of earnings calls. Sadly, we had fewer this quarter — with Elme liquidating, Veris taken private, and Equity Residential and AvalonBay going quiet as they finalize their merger. Still, the other REITs provided us ample color to help gauge the state of the market today for both multifamily and SFR.
Here are my top 10 takeaways from the Q2’26 calls that just wrapped up. As always, this is for informational purposes only. Not investment advice whatsoever.
Also: Check out the latest episodes of The Rent Roll podcast recapping the apartment REIT calls (featuring special guest and Camden CEO Alex Jessett), as well as an upcoming podcast (releasing tomorrow, Aug 13) on the SFR REITs. Find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Amazon.
Our top 10 takeaways and highlights:
#1: The SFR REITs exhale as ROAD drama comes to an end
Investors hate uncertainty. And when President Trump tweeted out back in January that “homes are for people, not corporations” (as if renters aren’t people, too), that one comment froze up SFR capital markets and dominated every discussion around the SFR REITs for the first half of this year. When a compromise version of the bill finally passed (with no forced sale requirements and no limits on BTR construction), Invitation Homes and AMH (as well as their peers in the private sector) could finally exhale and move on.
As Bryan Smith, the CEO of AMH said, it “allows the industry to move forward with greater certainty.” His peer, Invitation CEO Dallas Tanner, said the same thing: It provides “greater clarity for our business and the broader housing industry.”
“It definitely froze capital. And I don't want to give the impression that capital is thawed, but it's starting to poke its eyes up and sort of say, ‘Okay, how can we participate in this sector? How could we be meaningfully committed to creating new supply?’”
#2: AvalonBay and Equity Residential get closer to putting a ring on it
AvalonBay and Equity Residential skipped earnings calls this quarter as they focus on finalizing what they’re calling a “merger of equals.” But they still shared plenty of news recently:
New name: The combined company will operate under the name “Vivmark Residential,” and trade under the VMRK symbol on the NYSE. Nice to see outgoing EQR CEO Mark Parrell leave his “mark” on the new firm (literally) as he retires and AvalonBay CEO Ben Schall heads up the new entity.
There was a mystery third wheel! I recently shared the story (through public filings) about a mystery third wheel in the EQR-AVB merger. Both REITs had previously courted a different REIT before deciding to come together.
AVB and EQR say the merger will bring synergies and additional value, and that may eventually prove true. But so far, Wall Street hasn’t rewarded them — with both stocks down slightly since the May announcement, while the market overall (DJIA) is up 7% over the same time period.
#3: REITs reported improved momentum (more green shoots!) in the Sun Belt
This was true for the apartment REITs and the SFR REITs alike. And some of you may read this and think: “They’ve been saying this for the past two quarters!” And that’s true. But make no mistake: No one is saying that Sun Belt apartments are surging again, or even that they’ve fully recovered. What they’re saying mirrors what we’re seeing in third-party data: We continue to see improved momentum, we’re trending in the right direction.
On Camden’s earnings call, the term “green shoot” was used 13 times.
On MAA’s call, we heard the word “momentum” 19 different times. But CEO Brad Hill also acknowledged: “While recovery in new resident lease rates is showing improvement, the pace is slower than we would like,” citing low consumer sentiment and the last remnants of the supply wave.
IRT’s Jim Sebra: “Seven markets had positive new lease trade-outs during the second quarter. Eleven were positive in July. And so far in August, 13 markets are seeing positive new lease spreads.”
NexPoint’s Matt McGraner: “Blended trade-outs went from negative 1.7% in April to negative 1.2% in May to negative 50 basis points in June. And it turned positive at about 30 basis points in July… That is the first positive blended print since early 2025 for us. It is just 1 month, but encouraging nonetheless.”
AMH and Invitation reported broadly similar themes for SFR in the Sun Belt, with both highlighting Tampa as an improving market. INVH also gave shoutouts to Orlando and Phoenix, while AMH said Atlanta was still sluggish.
MAA’s Tim Argo said they’re seeing strong performance in Norfolk, Richmond, Charleston, Greenville and DC, as well as material momentum in Atlanta and Dallas.
MAA, Camden and UDR all highlighted Austin — which has been the punching bag in recent years — as a market where rents are still falling, but the pace of cuts is moderating significantly.
UDR called Dallas their top-performing Sun Belt market, while NexPoint called out Raleigh.
“I know we are all looking for green shoots, and they're becoming plentiful. Sequentially, signed blended lease rates improved 160 basis points in the second quarter as compared to a 70 basis point sequential increase this time last year. In July, almost 50% of our communities had positive signed new leases, up from only 20% in March… The majority of our communities in Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Raleigh and Southeast Florida achieved positive signed new lease growth in July and approximately half of our communities in Houston, Orlando and Washington, D.C., did, as well. ”
#4: What Re-Accelerating Inflation?
This was interesting. There have been a lot of worries about re-accelerating inflation, higher costs, but every single apartment and SFR REIT reported the opposite – positive expense trends, expenses growing less than expected, and across a broad range of categories.
UDR’s Mike Lacy: “We improved our full year midpoint by 50 basis points to 3.25%. This was driven by constrained growth across repairs and maintenance, real estate taxes and insurance.”
MAA’s Tim Argo said operating expenses came in lower than expected. What drove that? MAA’s Clay Holder said “Repair and maintenance and personnel costs were the primary drivers of our expense favorability during the quarter.”
Essex’s Barb Pak: “Operating expenses came in lower than expected, which was driven by $0.03 of favorable property taxes, mainly due to successful Prop 8 appeals that are onetime in nature.”
Camden too said expenses are coming in below expectations. Camden’s Ben Fraker said “The expense improvement is primarily driven by better utility performance, including lower water consumption, improved trash contract pricing, favorable insurance subrogation recoveries and insurance renewal pricing that came in better than originally anticipated.”
Centerspace said their expenses were down 10 bps year-over-year, and IRT had favorable comments too.
Tim Lobner at Invitation: “On the expense side, the best news is on the controllables, where expenses we manage on a day-to-day basis were down 1% year-over-year. It's a really good reflection of how our teams are running the business. Fixed costs, including property taxes and insurance, increased by only 3.5% year-over-year.”
AMH’s Chris Lau said AMH was “impressively holding year-over-year controllable expense growth to less than 1%.” Also: AMH lowered their expense guidance by 75 basis points to 2%.
“The expense side is where we're picking up real ground. We're lowering our full year same-store expense growth outlook by 140 basis points to about 2.1% at the midpoint from 3.5% originally. It's broad-based. Every market in the portfolio is now guiding to lower expense growth than we assumed at the start of the year, led by real estate taxes, insurance and continued payroll discipline from the centralized operating model.”
#5: No signs of financial distress among renters
Here’s another one where the narrative isn’t aligning with the data. A lot of worries right now about the financial health of the American consumer. Naturally that leads to concerns about renters. But in Class A/B, professionally managed apartments, the story continues to be very encouraging, affordability looks more like a tailwind than a headwind in this part of the sector. It’s been improving for a while across several metrics, and the REITs shared some good stats on the topic. Low bad debt, meaning renters are paying the rent. Low rent to income ratios. No signs of doubling up.
MAA’s Tim Argo: “Our resident health remains strong as reflected in an improvement in our rent-to-income ratio to 18% and continued strong performance in collections with net delinquency representing just 0.3% of billed rents, consistent with what we achieved in the last several quarters.”
Camden’s rent to income ratio also in the high teens.
NexPoint said their rent to income ratios are at 20%.
Also, I’ve heard a lot of angst about reduced mobility and domestic migration. Interestingly, the REITs shared data showing no real slowdown within their portfolio footprints. UDR, Camden, MAA and Invitation all shared stats suggesting strong leasing trends from people moving into their markets. Meaning: The share of move-ins coming from outside that MSA has not gone down, in their portfolios.
All REITs continue to highlight the big discounts to rent versus buy for both SFR and for multifamily.
“We’re still not seeing people double up. It's still around 1.8 residents per home. We still have low rent-to-income ratios across our portfolio, still in that 21% range. So that's been beneficial. And I think in addition to that, we have lower cancels and denials today than we did a year prior. So we're hovering back in that 35% to 37% range. Previously, that was just above 40%. And so a little bit more stickier. People are taking those applications and they're moving in. And so it feels like it's just been a little bit stronger than we would have expected.”
#6: Discounts to net asset value = more stock buybacks
This is a recurring theme in recent quarters. REITs say they’re trading at big discounts relative to the market value of the properties they own. And that makes stock buybacks an appealing strategy.
Here’s an illustrative exchange from Invitation’s earnings call on the topic:
INVH CEO Dallas Tanner said: “Stock repurchases remained among the most attractive uses of our capital. During the second quarter, we bought back another $100 million of stock, which brings us to $600 million in stock repurchased since December at an average price of a little over $26 per share. These share repurchases have been funded in large part by home sales priced well above where the public market is valuing our assets.”
And then his colleague Jonathan Olsen added this bit of context: “For reference, this average repurchase price represents an implied value of just over $270,000 per wholly-owned home. That's a significant discount compared to our year-to-date actual average sale price of $450,000 per home.”
So what he’s saying is that the real world values houses more than the stock market values the companies who own these houses. So Invitation (and AMH, as well as many apartment REITs, too) is betting on themselves … selling houses at today’s market prices, and buying back their own stock at what they perceive is a 40% discount, or at least somewhere near 40% if they’re assuming the average home in their portfolio is worth that $450,000 sales price they’ve been selling at.
AMH’s Chris Lau: “We continue to very much believe in the business and believe in the stock. And you can see that in how active we've been over the past about 9 months or so now, including repurchasing about $123 million just recently in the second quarter, which brings total repurchases over the past nine months to a little over 3% or so of shares and units outstanding at an average price of about $31 per share.”
UDR’s CFO, Dave Bragg, emphasized continued stock buybacks: “We recently expanded our share repurchase program to approximately 30 million shares and during the quarter, we repurchased approximately 5.5 million shares for $200 million at an average price of $36.49 per share. This brings total repurchase activity since September of 2025 to 11.5 million shares for approximately $420 million at an average price of $36.34 per share, which equates to a mid-6% implied cap rate.”
#7: Development remains in favor, but it’s no boom
I got the sense (from nearly all REITs) that most REITs would like to be developing more than they are.
On the SFR side, AMH said they’re seeing very strong pre-leasing trends in BTR homes currently under construction. And yet they have fewer units completing in the second half of the year than in years past. (AMH said this was intentional for seasonality purposes, though hard not to wonder if ROAD played some role.)
Invitation, too, talked up development but they’ve pared back significantly on forward-purchase agreements from homebuilders (which had long been their primary development channel) while they look to ramp up in-house construction. Again, though, I wonder how much the ROAD debates paused projects that may have otherwise gotten going faster.
In multifamily, UDR is also investing in two new developments, one in Riverside (CA) and one in Northern Virginia.
Brad Hill at MAA: “The improving demand-supply dynamic combined with the decreased availability of capital for new projects makes disciplined investing in new developments an attractive capital allocation option.” MAA recently started projects in Kansas City and Nashville. MAA also bought land in Northern Virginia. Expects four total starts this year.
Essex hasn’t done development for a number of years now but recently greenlighted a project in South San Francisco, and another potential deal they said was further down the Peninsula. Rylan Burns said: “Development economics have improved over the past year as rent growth has outpaced cost growth.”
#8: Camden finalizes California exit, redeploys capital in the Sun Belt
Acquisitions are tough for most REITs to pull off these days, but Camden is a bit different. They’ve got a lot of money to spend thanks to the $1.6 billion California exit. Much of that is being recycled into new acquisitions using 1031 exchanges to maximize tax advantages.
Camden recently bought in Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa and Charlotte as well as two development land sites in the suburbs of Raleigh and Tampa. (Camden also said they’d like to do more development but it’s still hard to make those deals work in today’s environment.)
While California currently outperforms most Sun Belt markets on rent growth, Camden said CA also brings higher operating and capital costs. And Camden’s banking on Sun Belt rents rebounding above SoCal (which hasn’t been nearly as strong as Bay Area) as supply drops off.
“This strategic market rebalancing is FFO neutral in Year 1 and anticipated to be accretive in short order as the newer Sun Belt communities we acquire should grow faster than the older California assets we disposed of. In addition, we will no longer be subject to high levels of regulatory and advocacy spend in California. This spend, which we booked to property management expense, would have reduced our California portfolio's annual NOI by approximately 80 basis points.”
#9: Bay Area continues to boom, while other coastal markets vary notably
There’s been less of a shift of late on the coasts, but still worth mentioning. (Also: Since we didn’t hear from AvalonBay and Equity this quarter, we lost a lot of coastal color we’d normally get from them on earnings calls.)
UDR’s Mike Lacy said “San Francisco remains a standout market with the strongest revenue growth across our portfolio, driven by blended lease rate growth of approximately 13% and occupancy in the high 97% range.” He also called out New York, Philadelphia and Orange County.
Essex also highlighted big numbers in the Bay Area, coupled with continued softness in Southern California, especially Los Angeles. We’ve talked a lot about LA’s struggles in past recaps, so I won’t rehash all that again, but notable that the story there still isn’t really improving. Broadly speaking, the surrounding SoCal markets outperform LA.
Centerspace highlighted continued steady growth in the Midwest, as did AMH on the SFR side.
#10: Could AMH and Invitation find new opportunities to acquire smaller SFR portfolios post-ROAD?
This is a topic I plan to explore in more depth at some point soon, and both SFR REITs hinted at in their earnings calls. The short of it is this: While ROAD is supposed to target large brand-name firms, it sets the bar for “institutional” so low (350 homes) that it actually impacts smaller firms much more. Smaller firms are (generally) less equipped to handle heightened regulatory risk and red tape, which could lead to exits — and buying opportunities for large SFR players like AMH and Invitation.
Invitation CEO Dallas Tanner said: “With the ROAD to Housing Act now settled, more sellers are coming to market, including some attractive smaller portfolios.”
And CIO Scott Eisen said they’re starting to see portfolios in the $100 million range testing the waters on potential exits. So that’s a range that is probably around 250 houses, meaning sub-institutional under the new definitions, but there’s now a limited window for sub-institutional groups to sell to institutional buyers under the new rules, so that may be expediting some exits among investment groups that don’t want to grow to 350+ and be subject to the new rules.
AMH CEO Bryan Smith said “these additional regulations, I think, are going to make it … more difficult and potentially less attractive” for smaller firms. (See full quote below.)
“What's interesting for us is this legislation preserved our two major growth channels, our outlook for growth in the future due to our in-house development program and then the opportunity to consolidate portfolios. On the other hand, it affects the growth opportunities for some of the other smaller companies who are relying on MLS purchases. And these additional regulations, I think are going to make it … more difficult and potentially less attractive (for smaller firms)… It puts us in a really good position to add a lot of value to the portfolios and provide a complete solution to sellers who might find the space less attractive in light of the recent changes.”
— My Latest Posts on LinkedIn —
Here are some recent posts if you missed them:
Here’s a wild chart showing the rapid decline in renter mobility.
Apartment rent growth is trending upward again, and may have bottomed over this past winter.
Here’s the apartment absorption leaderboard for the first half of 2026.
There’s more apartment distress making the news (and surely even more to come), but it’s still not nearly as systemic as many people might think.
There’s a big plot twist in the AvalonBay-Equity Residential merger.
Apartment affordability continues to improve as rent-to-income ratios decline to pre-pandemic levels.
JBREC analysis of Census data shows strong renter household formation, aligning with RealPage and CoStar apartment absorption data.
The Wall Street Journal dove deep into NYC’s rent stabilized apartment program, and found a “surprising portion” of units go to high-income renters.
One popular but totally useless chart — housing to population ratio.
The ROAD to Housing Act is official, but big questions continue to hang over the future of the SFR/BTR markets.
We’re not becoming a “renter nation.” Instead, we’re becoming a “failure to launch” and “multigenerational household” nation.
A big story getting scant attention: The federal crackdown on institutional SFR investors may have a bigger impact on non-institutional mid-sized investors.
You’ll never guess which U.S. market is seeing the most upward momentum on apartment rents right now (even if rents still negative).
Here’s one of the dumbest housing narratives you’ll ever see make the news.
Marriott is moving into the apartment business, with their first traditional apartment property now under construction.
The ROAD to Housing is now officially becoming law, but it’s not an investor ban like many are saying or reporting.
— Now Spinning on The Rent Roll Podcast —
For 2025, The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons podcast ranked in Spotify’s top 2% of podcasts for minutes played and in the top 1% for most shared shows. Additionally, The Rent Roll continues to frequently rank on Apple’s charts for investing-themed podcasts, and was recently ranked as the third-best podcast in all commercial real estate (and #1 in housing) by the readers of CRE Daily!
Thank you to everyone who’s made The Rent Roll part of your weekly routine! New episodes are released every Thursday morning.
COMING THURSDAY Episode 97: Inside Pretium + 5 Takeaways from the SFR REITs’ Earnings Calls with Pretium’s Stephen Scherr
Episode 96: 5 Takeaways from Apartment REITs’ Earnings Calls with Camden’s Alex Jessett
Episode 95: Less Red Tape, More Supply with former U.S. FHA Commissioner Frank Cassidy
Episode 94: Renter Demographics Update with JBREC’s Chris Porter
Episode 93: Accidentally Institutional with 7 different mid-sized SFR/BTR operators
Episode 92: Mid-Year Multifamily Update with Greystar’s Quinn Eddins
Episode 91: When Will Rents Recover? “It Depends,” with Bridge’s Matt DeGraw
Episode 90: Inside the ROAD to Housing Act with U.S. Congressman Josh Harder
Episode 89: Inside UDR Apartment REIT with UDR’s Dave Bragg
