Elme Communities (NYSE:ELME) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call November 5, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Amy Hopkins - VP, IR
Paul McDermott - CEO
Tiffany Butcher - COO
Steve Freishtat - CFO
Grant Montgomery - Head, Research

Conference Call Participants

Nahom Tesfazghi - JPMorgan
Jamie Feldman - Wells Fargo
Ann Chan - Green Street
Cole Bardawill - Wolfe Research
Michael Gorman - BTIG

Operator

Welcome to the Elme Communities Third Quarter 2024 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 third 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 be available on our webcast replay.

Statements made during this call may constitute 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. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call on Election Day. This is an exciting day for our region and we look forward to watching the results unfold. I hope you all have either voted or plan to do so.

I will begin today's call by discussing the main factors driving our performance in our markets, including supply and demand dynamics and their implications for Elme. Tiffany will cover our operating trends and growth initiatives and Steve will discuss our financial results and outlook.

During the quarter, demand remained strong across the Washington Metro and Atlanta Metro regions. Absorption in our markets was the highest it's been since the fourth quarter of 2021, driven by wage growth, stable employment in-migration and resident retention. Wage growth has been outpacing rent growth for nearly two years in our markets, contributing to stable financial conditions for renters.