Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 31, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Marty McKenna - Investor Relations and Public Relations

Mark J. Parrell - President and Chief Executive Officer

Robert A. Garechana - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Alexander Brackenridge - Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer

Michael L. Manelis - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steve Sakwa - Evercore

Eric Wolfe - Citi

Jeff Spector - Bank of America

Robin Lu - Green Street

Michael Goldsmith - UBS

Jamie Feldman - Wells Fargo

Brad Heffern - RBC

Alexander Goldfarb - Piper Sandler

Rich Anderson - Wedbush

John Kim - BMO Capital Markets

Adam Kramer - Morgan Stanley

Haendel St. Juste - Mizuho Securities

Rob Stevenson - Janney

Anthony Powell - Wall Street

Linda Tsai - Jefferies

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Equity Residential Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Marty McKenna. Please go ahead, sir.

Marty McKenna

Good morning, and thanks for joining us to discuss Equity Residential’s fourth quarter 2023 results and outlook for 2024. Our featured speakers today are Mark Parrell, our President and CEO; Michael Manelis, our Chief Operating Officer; Alec Brackenridge, our Chief Investment Officer; and Bob Garechana, our CFO.

Our earnings release is posted in the Investors section of equityapartments.com. Please be advised that certain matters discussed during this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain economic risks and uncertainties. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement these statements that become untrue because of subsequent events.

Now I will turn the call over to Mark Parrell.

Mark J. Parrell

Thank you, Marty. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter 2023 results and the outlook for 2024.

I will start us off, then Michael Manelis, our COO, will speak to our operating performance and 2024 operating expectations, and followed by Alec Brackenridge, our Chief Investment Officer, who'll give some color on our capital allocation activities in the transactions markets. And then finally, Bob Garechana, our CFO, will review our 2024 guidance and our balance sheet, and then we'll take your questions.

We are pleased with our fourth quarter performance, which was in-line with our October expectations. Our performance in 2023 was supported by a strong employment situation, more than 2.7 million new jobs created. And while the 2024 outlook for overall jobs is more muted, we should benefit from a continued low unemployment rate for the college educated, which currently sits around 2.1%, as well as continued good real wage growth.