Elme Communities (NYSE:ELME) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 2, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Amy Hopkins - Vice President, Investor Relations
Paul McDermott - President and Chief Executive Officer
Tiffany Butcher - Chief Operating Officer
Steven Freishtat - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Anthony Paolone - JPMorgan
Jamie Feldman - Wells Fargo

Operator

Greetings and welcome to Elme Communities First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Amy Hopkins, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Amy Hopkins

Good morning and thank you for joining our first 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 as we refer to certain of these risks in our SEC filings. Reconciliations of the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures discussed on the 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.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, Paul McDermott.

Paul McDermott

Thanks, Amy and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Tiffany Butcher, our Chief Operating Officer; Steve Freishtat, our Chief Financial Officer; and Grant Montgomery, our Head of Research. Tiffany will speak to our operating trends and initiatives, and Steve will cover our balance sheet and guidance points. Grant is here to answer market level questions during Q&A.

I'll start with a high-level overview of the trends we are seeing across our portfolio. Our Washington Metro portfolio is positioned very well heading into our busiest leasing months. On the demand side, we see solid trends and our communities are delivering a stable performance that we would expect from our mid-market strategy.

We have seen the expected uptick in activity into the spring leasing season and market rents for the Washington Metro area continues to trend above the U.S. on average. This is shaping up to be a very good year for the Washington Metro, which comprised roughly 85% of our multifamily NOI in the first quarter and our significant presence in Northern Virginia, the growth engine for the region further enhances our positive outlook.