Elme Communities (NYSE:ELME) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 16, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Amy Hopkins - VP of IR

Paul McDermott - CEO

Tiffany Butcher - COO

Steven Freishtat - CFO

Grant Montgomery - VP, Research

Conference Call Participants

Anthony Paolone - JPMorgan

Jamie Feldman - Wells Fargo

John Pawlowski - Green Street

Michael Lewis - Truist Securities

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Elme Communities Fourth Quarter 2024 (sic) [2023] Earnings Conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Amy Hopkins, Vice President, Investor Relations. Amy, please go ahead.

Amy Hopkins

Good morning and thank you for joining our fourth quarter earnings call. Today's event is being webcast with a slide presentation that is available on the Investors section of our website and will also be available on our webcast replay. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially and we undertake no duty to update them as actual events unfold.

We refer to certain of these risks in our SEC filings. Reconciliations of the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call are available in our most recent earnings press release and financial supplement, which was distributed yesterday and can be found on the Investors page of our website. Presenting on the call today will be Paul McDermott, our CEO; Tiffany Butcher, our COO and Steve Freishtat, our CFO.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Paul.

Paul McDermott

Thanks, Amy and thank you for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter 2023 results and outlook for 2024.

I'll start by covering apartment fundamentals in each of our markets. Tiffany will cover our operating trends and growth initiatives and Steve will discuss our 2024 financial outlook. The Washington Metro, which drives over 80% of our multifamily NOI is positioned well with healthy demand trends and an outlook for rent growth that is above the U.S. average for a second year in a row.

Furthermore, employment trends remain positive, with a favorable 2024 job growth outlook of 1.3%. Northern Virginia, which comprises over 80% of our Washington Metro footprint, continues to be the largest driver of job growth for the Washington Metro region and if the job growth outlet were to shift, the presence of the federal government and federal government contractors should provide continued stability and employment.