AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (NYSE:AVB) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 1, 2024 1:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Jason Reilley - VP, IR
Benjamin Schall - President, CEO & Director
Kevin O'Shea - SVP, Finance, Treasurer
Sean Breslin - COO
Matthew Birenbaum - Chief Investment Officer

Conference Call Participants

Eric Wolfe - Citi
Austin Wurschmidt - KeyBanc Capital Markets
John Kim - BMO Capital Markets
Jamie Feldman - Wells Fargo
Adam Kramer - Morgan Stanley
John Pawlowski - Green Street
Josh Dennerlein - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Michael Goldsmith - UBS
Alexander Goldfarb - Piper Sandler
Omotayo Okusanya - Deutsche Bank
Richard Anderson - Wedbush

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AvalonBay Communities Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Your host for today's conference is Mr. Jason Reilley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Reilley, you may begin your conference call.

Jason Reilley

Thank you, Paul, and welcome to AvalonBay Communities Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Before we begin, please note that forward-looking statements may be made during this discussion. There are a variety of risks and uncertainties associated with forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially. .

There is a discussion of these risks and uncertainties in yesterday afternoon's press release as well as in the company's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. As usual, the press release does include an attachment with definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and other terms, which may be used in today's discussion. The attachment is also available on our website at www.avalonbay.com/earnings, and we encourage you to refer to this information during the review of our operating results and financial performance.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ben Schall, CEO and President of AvalonBay Communities for his remarks. Ben?

Benjamin Schall

Thanks, Jason, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'm here with Kevin O'Shea, our Chief Financial Officer; Sean Breslin, our Chief Operating Officer; and Matt Birenbaum, our Chief Investment Officer. I will start by emphasizing a number of key themes that are top of mind and that we believe are important drivers of our continued outperformance and then turn it to Kevin, Sean and Matt to go deeper. .

As usual, we will reference our investor presentation, starting on Page 4 as we proceed through our prepared remarks. Our operating momentum continued in the second quarter with us exceeding revenue expectations and also successfully managing operating expenses lower. Based on this momentum, we further raised our guidance for the year and are projecting sector-leading full year core FFO and same-store revenue growth among our closest peers. Our operating momentum through the first half of the year has been driven by better-than-expected demand with our core renter, the knowledge-based worker in a relatively strong position right now.