Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the quarter four and fiscal year 2019, Independence Reality Trust Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. [Anna Pienkos]. You may begin.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us to review Independence Realty Trust's fourth quarter and full year 2019 financial results. On the call with me today, are Scott Schaeffer, our CEO; Jim Sebra, our Chief Financial Officer; and Farrell Ender, President of IRT.Today's call is being webcast on our website at irtliving.com. There will be a replay of the call available via webcast on our Investor Relations website and telephonically, beginning at approximately 12:00 PM Eastern today.Before I turn the call over to Scott, I'd like to remind everyone that there may be forward-looking statements made in this call. These forward-looking statements reflect IRT's current views with respect to future events and financial performance. Actual results could differ substantially and materially from what IRT has projected. Such statements are made in good faith pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please refer to IRT's press release, supplemental information and filings with the SEC for factors that could affect the accuracy of our expectations or cause our future results to differ materially from those expectations.Participants may discuss non-GAAP financial measures during this call. A copy of IRT's press release and supplemental information containing financial information, other statistical information and a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most direct comparable GAAP financial measure is attached to IRT's most recent current report on the Form 8-K available at IRT's website under Investor Relations. IRT's other SEC filings are also available through this link. IRT does not make -- does not undertake to update forward-looking statements in this call or with respect to matters described herein, except as may be required by law.With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott Schaeffer.

Thank you, Anna, and thank you all for joining us this morning. 2019 was a year of acceleration for IRT. Our organic growth initiatives and in particular our value-add program were in full swing and delivered very strong results. With a dedicated team in place to manage renovation projects in each market, we were able to execute more seamlessly and manage the lease-up process more proactively, building upon the lessons learned and the momentum gained during the first year of this initiative.Our organic growth was further underscored by the backdrop of the strong economy, which has supported household formation and growing wages, which in turn have facilitated rent increases within our communities. As highlighted on our year-end call for 2018, research from a leading apartment rental service and research company found that young adults are renting and renting longer and that trend remained unchanged throughout 2019. The demand for quality apartments in amenity-rich communities within our markets has not subsided, underscored by the fact that NOI increased in all of our 18 markets in 2019. We expect macro fundamentals to remain supportive as we move into 2020.Focusing briefly on our reported results which Farrell and Jim will expand upon later on this call, Q4 and full year 2019 produced some of our highest same-store metrics to date with NOI growth of 9.6% for the quarter and 7.7% for the year. I am pleased to report that we delivered on our goal to cover the dividend during the fourth quarter on an AFFO basis.Diving a bit deeper into the value-add programs. Since its inception, we have completed renovations in 2,715 units, achieving a weighted average return on investment of 18.5% on interior renovation costs. As of year-end, we have a total of 23 projects in the pipeline or under way, representing…

Thanks, Scott and good morning everyone. In the fourth quarter and throughout 2019, we accelerated our value-add program with the benefit of scale in key markets, providing strong momentum going into 2020. In the fourth quarter, same-store NOI grew 9.6%, an increase in all of our 18 markets with the exception of Orlando, where we own a Class A community that is adjacent to a new construction property in lease-up. At this community occupancy declined from 96.8% to 93.7% with revenue remaining flat due to 3.2% rental rate growth.Looking at NOI growth by market. The Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Louisville, Columbus, Indianapolis, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington and Charlotte markets all exceeded 10% growth for the quarter, leading the broader portfolio, all strong indicators of the continued demand for amenity-rich middle market communities in our non-gateway markets. Atlanta, Wilmington, Raleigh, Columbus and Louisville also continue to benefit from our value-add initiatives.Turning now to our largest market Atlanta. Same-store average effective monthly rent grew by 7.3% for the quarter and 7.9% for the full year compared to 2018. Same-store NOI grew by 11.8% for the quarter and 7.9% for the full year. Significant NOI growth, even as we incurred a 12% increase in real estate taxes. Average occupancy was also up 2.3% from Q4 2018 to 93.8%. What we are witnessing in our Atlanta portfolio is representative trends within the overall Atlanta market. The market has delivered the fourth best rent growth in the nation with most of this growth occurring in suburban garden style apartments.Shifting to Charlotte, which is growing organically without the aid of our value-add projects. Charlotte saw same-store NOI growth of 11.6% for the quarter and 10.1% for the full year, fueled by revenue growth of 7.2%. The South Boulevard submarket, where our community is located, is extremely desirable area to…

Thanks Farrell and good morning everyone. Today, I'd like to review earnings and operating performance for 2019, provide a brief review of our balance sheet and capital structure and end with the discussion of our 2020 guidance.Beginning with 2019, for the fourth quarter of 2019 net income allocable to common shareholders was $23.8 million, up from $14.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. For the full year income allocable to common shareholders was $45.9 million, up from $26.3 million for the full year of 2018.During Q4 core FFO grew to $18.6 million, up 12% from $16.6 million in Q4 2018. Core FFO per share during Q4 was $0.20, up from $0.19 in Q4, 2018. For the full year core FFO grew to $68.5 million, up 5% from $65.1 million in 2018. Core FFO per share was $0.76 for 2019, up from $0.74 for the full year 2018. As promised earlier this year, and as Scott already mentioned, we did cover our dividend this quarter on an AFFO basis.Turning to the same-store portfolio for the fourth quarter. NOI growth was 9.6%, driven primarily by revenue growth of 6.3%. Occupancy in our same-store communities averaged 92.6% during Q4, 60 basis points higher year-over-year. Rental rates for the same-store communities increased year-over-year with an average effective monthly rent of $1,082 this quarter, up 4.6% since last year. While this includes the value-add communities, we did see solid rental rate growth at our non value-add same-store communities with the rental rates in Q4 increasing 3.2% over the prior year. For the full year 2019, same-store revenue grew 5.7% almost entirely driven by the 5.1% increase in average rental rates.On the property operating expense side, same-store operating expenses grew 1.2% for Q4 2019 and 2.7% for the full year 2019. Controllable operating expenses increased…

Thank you, Jim. In closing, I am very pleased with our performance and the progress made during the quarter to further our organic growth initiatives. We are confident that we have the right team and processes in place to continue to execute on our planned initiatives. From a macro level, we believe 2020 will be another strong year for real estate fundamentals across our core markets and we'll look for opportunities to enhance our portfolio through capital recycling initiatives. We thank you for joining us today and look forward to seeing many of you at the Citi Conference in Florida in a few weeks.Operator, I would now like to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Drew Babin from Baird. You may ask your question.

Good morning. A question on capital recycling guidance. Obviously, the low end of the acquisition range already incorporates the Craig Ranch or the McKinney acquisition. I guess my question is what are the odds of achieving the high end of the disposition guidance if Craig Ranch turns out to be the only acquisition made this year. Obviously, understanding that it's early in the year and this is just kind of guidance. Where are the odds hitting the high end of disposition -- high end of the disposition range?

Well, the basis of the recycling program Drew is to match the sales with the purchases. So if we're only going to purchase the one Dallas property for the year, then it's unlikely that we would be disposing of $100 million of assets and more likely would be disposing for somewhere in the $50 million range, so that we are matched on the buy and the sell.

Okay. And you mentioned that these will most likely be kind of non-core underperforming properties. Are you willing to talk about what markets those may be. And kind of how pricing has trended in those markets relative to maybe a year ago -- a couple of years ago?

Well, I'll answer the second part of that question first, which is pricing has increased in all markets across the board. Whether they are core for us or not or core for someone else or not, it's just -- as we all know, cap rates have continued to compress everywhere as people look for yield. It's not so much on our recycling that we're limiting it to markets where we think that they might be underperforming, but it's markets as well that we may not have the ability to grow in. For example, the Austin market. Austin is a great market. It's just that with our cost of capital, we could not acquire and acquire accretively. So with one property, we decided it was best to just dispose of it in this low cap rate environment.So, it will be both markets and we haven't identified them at this point, but it will be both markets where we see the capital being able to be better invested for future growth, that we will then get out of those to other markets. Or where we have a property where for any number of reasons, we're not able to scale in the market.

Makes sense. And then just a couple balance sheet questions for Jim. I see there's $71 million approximately of secured debt maturities in '21. Can you talk about what rate those are at and whether anything becomes pre-payable this year and whether there's any assumptions made in guidance about that?

Yes. Those -- the average interest rate for those maturities is about 3.8%, 3.9%. There is some that become pre-payable, but it's in the $20 million to $30 million range. We did factor in some kind of expectations of refinancing some of those that are pre-payable in guidance for purposes of the end of the year, but the effect is fairly insignificant.

Okay. And I guess a related question, just on leverage, I guess as implied by the '20 guidance expectations, where do you see your net debt to EBITDA ratio by year-end?

Well, it came down about 0.5 turn in 2019 and we would expect it to have the same effect in 2020.

Your next question comes from the line of Austin Wurschmidt from KeyBanc Capital. You may ask your question.

Hi, good morning. Just wanted to touch on same-store revenue guidance, which implies deceleration versus the 4Q growth rate you achieved. Given sort of the pickup in unit renovations in the value-add program, the earn-in from last year's renovation work, I guess can you give us a sense what you're assuming for lease rate growth for non-renovated units as well as occupancy for 2020?

Yes. Hey, Austin. This is Jim. For occupancy for 2020 for the non value-add communities, we pretty much held that kind of flat in that mid-94% range. For rent growth we've assumed depending on newer renewal about a blended 3% to 3.5% rental rate growth.

Appreciate the detail there. And then with the acquisition you made in Dallas earlier this year, a bit of a different ilk or not necessarily the Class B product that you've been acquiring in the last couple of years. So I'm curious how we should think about the composition of future acquisitions between Class A and Class B?

We're still focused on acquiring and operating a Class B predominantly -- excuse me Class B portfolio. This Dallas acquisition for us was just an opportunity and that it is directly adjacent to an existing community that we own, built by the same builder, actually Phase 3 of this called the Master Development. And we felt that that it was best for us to acquire it, notwithstanding the fact that it's new construction, just because we'll get great synergies out of operating two properties together, but also because it will reduce as Farrell mentioned, will reduce the competition and we'd rather not have someone else owning a brand new property across the street from us. So that's why. But we are still focussed to be an owner and operator of predominantly B Class assets.

And what do you see in terms of pricing differential between value-add assets and the Class A assets that are in lease-up today?

Austin, it's Farrell. I mean we've seen it shrink considerably as you can see by the cap rate that was represented on our Austin deal. We have no idea obviously what the seller was underwriting in their value-add. But we're definitely seeing the compression between the Class A and Class B cap rates across all markets.

Thank you.

Austin, let me just address one of the comment at the beginning of your question regarding the deceleration. Last year we guided 4% to 6% of revenue growth at the beginning of the year and then we increased it later in the year and ended up I think at 5.7%. This year, we're guiding 4.6% again at this time, it's early in the year. We want to be prudent, and just make sure that we're delivering and executing on the value-add, but didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves relative to guidance.

I appreciate the comment and the level of potential conservatism in there as it is early in the year. So thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of John Guinee of Stifel. You may ask your question.

Great. Thank you. Just wanted -- one curiosity question. It looks like you paid about $200,000 a unit for Dallas, Texas.

Yes, $204,000 a unit.

Yes. What's it -- OK. I might have got the answer. Hey, Scott. You guys are trading at a 4.8% implied cap $15 looks to us like a 4.8% implied cap. People obviously like the strategy and you're delivering stabilized acquisitions at a 5.5% to 6%. Why not turbocharge this investment strategy as opposed to doing $50 million or $100 million a year?

Well, it's, one assets are -- they are in high demand today. Again we've been patient and I've stated before, I don't want to grow just for the sake of growth. I want to do it when we can do it accretively and where we're building out a portfolio that makes sense for the long term. I hear you, but at the same time, we were laser focused as we mentioned before of covering the dividend at the end of last year and continued to have it covered this year and to grow into a more normalized payout ratio. So we're going to opportunistically acquire assets that makes sense for us, but only do it when we can do it accretively and at the same time have continued to correct the leverage ratio and bring that down.

And then the next question is CBRE, who seems to be pretty good at this. Just changed their expected delivery number in 2020 from about 270,000 units to about 340,000 units, a huge uptick. Where do you see new product getting built and what are they building? Are they building -- still building at Surface Park at $180,000 a unit or in your markets? Are they building Texas doughnuts or podiums at a much higher number?

It's mostly -- obviously the rents, you need to build have to be pretty significant. Now, especially with the cost of labor. So we're seeing most of it in urban centers, I mean talking around there still some suburban sites like the one that we bought. But in Atlanta it's mostly Midtown Buckhead, where you can achieve the rents you need to justify the cost of the construction.

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Joseph from Citi. You may ask your question.

Hey, this is Michael Griffin on for Nick. Just curious, you mentioned the Vale trash earlier. What other ancillary revenue opportunities, if any still exists in the portfolio today?

Yes. We're always looking at options. As Scott mentioned, we're exploring smart home technology, which a lot of people have been talking about. We're launching an ability for our residents to report their rent payments to create better credit. So we're constantly looking for avenues to generate additional revenue.

Thanks. And I noticed in your sub here, you have three market -- sorry six markets where you have one asset. Does that make sense in any of those to sell in those markets? And would you look to recycle it into current markets within your portfolio or are there any new markets that might be attractive?

Lots to digest there. So we're always looking at the portfolio, and as Scott uses we're prune where we think that the specific markets may not have the long-term fundamentals we look at, where we need and we also look to add. The Huntsville is a market where we're actively looking to add because of the population and job growth and the muted supply is generating really, really good fundamentals. Right now, we're really focused on building out the markets that we're in. In the future we'll probably -- we'll look to expand into additional markets. But right now, we're really focused on the markets that we're in.

But let me add to that. For example, Orlando, we have one asset and Orlando is a very attractive market, but we have four assets in Tampa, which is very, very close. So we can really run them almost as a region. And it's the same thing with Charlotte where we have one asset, but we have many other assets in and around North Carolina. But again make that more of a region and not so much of a one-off market.

Your next question comes from the line of Neil Malkin from Capital One Securities. You may ask your question.

Hey guys, good morning. I just wanted to dive in a little bit more of the operating expenses. Do you bake in any successful appeals in real estate taxing or taxes during the year?

Yes. We -- so, this is Jim. Thanks for the question. We do get obviously, we do have tax consultants that help us kind of look at tax assessments and what's going to happen in 2020. We do look at the ability to appeal and the ability to be successful on appeal. And we do factor that into the guidance.

Okay, great. I'm just wondering, what's the current cap rate or NOI yield on that, on the McKinney lease-up that you bought? Imagine it would be dilutive near-term, right.

Not quite -- probably breakeven. I think it's a 5.1% currently.

Okay. Awesome. And then last from me would be, how you think about, I guess revenue management from the leasing angle. What do you think you're stabilized occupancy would be, just for example, the non value-add portfolio. Can you get it to 95%, 96% like it seems like where the rest of the REIT peers are going. Are you still trying to optimize lease expirations? Any color or insight into how you're thinking about that would be great?

To answer your question, yes. We are always looking to optimize revenue through both occupancy and rent growth. So, and that's the benefit of the LRO process that we have in place. Our non value-add portfolio last year was 94% -- mid-94% range of occupancy for the year. I've always been a believer of 95% being full occupancy. You'll hear other people say 96%. But we've also been pushing rents healthy amount. So the fact that we were at 94.5%, I attribute that to the fact that we have been pushing rents so much. But I think what it does is it gives us some comfort that there is room in the occupancy to grow going forward, especially as number of these Phase 1 value-add property renovations are completed. We'll be able to bring them back up to a more normalized 95% give or take occupancy.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of John Massocca from Ladenburg Thalmann. You may ask your question.

Good morning. Just specifically on kind of the real estate tax, you mentioned the reassessments, they were kind of lower than what you were kind of guiding to and quite drove the 4Q number, but what were the specific markets where you kind of saw better-than-expected tax outcomes?

Really, the biggest one was in Ohio. We continue to just be pragmatic and be thoughtful about it, but that was the one that had the lower-than-expected tax increase.

Was it just really specifically with that one market?

That was the biggest one of the top of my head. And I can give you further details off the call.

No worries. And then as we kind of think about the redevelopment renovation kind of pipeline. It potentially maybe, I know it's still very early days on Phase 3. So this is a little unfair. But as we go to Phase 4, maybe in your kind of thought process, I mean, is that primarily going to be stuff that you need to acquire to kind of create that Phase 4 pipeline. I noticed that some of the additions to Phase 3 were recent acquisitions? Or is there stuff within the existing portfolio that makes sense. And I guess what drives the timing of waiting on that stuff within the existing portfolio in terms of doing the redevelopments?

We think there are still opportunities within the existing portfolio. So if there is a Phase 4, much of it will come from properties that we already own. As far as some of the Phase 3 being newly acquired, it just so happened that we acquired an asset that was perfect for the renovation program in a market where we already had a renovation team in place. So it just made sense to begin those renovation sooner or rather than later as part of the Phase 3 process. And one of the things that we're very cognizant of is the pressure that this renovation process puts on occupancy in the near term. So that's why we're doing the Phase 1 and Phase 2 and Phase 3, and not just rolling it all out at the same time, because we're trying to manage the portfolio and continue to grow NOI overall in core FFO and bring down leverage and do all of the things that are beneficial in the long-term.

And just to add, John, as Scott mentioned, we -- this is more market-specific. So we build out teams and we are self-performing on this work. So you'll notice, we've built out teams in Atlanta and Tampa and Louisville. So we still have Indianapolis, we still have Dallas with properties in our portfolio that we can expand into new markets and do the value-add.

How transferable is that kind of expertise from market to market? I know you guys obviously pick up a lot of kind of the intellectual capital as you do these projects, but when you think about building these teams, I mean is any of that transferable if you were to say, do a whole program in Indianapolis.

It's very transferable. I mean obviously you need the people at the property level, but the process is the same in Indi as it is in Columbus, and it's really just the people on the ground and the vendors that are different.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may all disconnect.