艾芙隆海灣社區公司 (AVB) 2011 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Avalonbay Communities first quarter of 2011 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following remarks by the Company, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Mr. John Christie, Director of Investor Relations and Research. Mr. Christie, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Andrea, and welcome to Avalonbay Communities first quarter 2011 earnings conference call. Before we begin, please note that forward-looking statements may be made during this discussion and there are a variety of risks and uncertainties associated with forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially. There's a discussion of these risks and uncertainties in yesterday afternoon's press release, as well as in the Company's Form 10-K 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 available on our website at www.Avalonbay.com/earnings, and we encourage you to refer to this information during your review of our operating results and financial performance. And with that, I will turn the call over to Bryce Blair, Chairman and CEO of Avalonbay Communities, for his remarks. Bryce?

Thank you, John. With me on the call today are Tim Naughton, our President, Tom Sargeant, our Chief Financial Officer, and Leo Horey, our Executive Vice President of Operations. And Tim and I will share the prepared remarks, and then all four of us will be available to answer any questions you may have. Last evening, we reported EPS of $0.35 and FFO per share of $1.08. Our FFO results for the quarter were $0.06 greater than the midpoint of our prior outlook, and reflect both stronger revenue results than expected, as well as expense savings that are primarily timing related, and some nonrecurring interest income items.

On a year-over-year basis, our FFO increased by 12.5% and after adjusting for the non-routine items, grew by just over 8% per share. We continue to see improvement in our portfolio. The same-store sale revenue up almost 4% versus the same period last year, with all of that growth coming from rate, as occupancy held steady at 96%. Operating assumptions were essentially flat, driving NOI growth of almost 6%. This was the first quarter in almost three years that all regions had positive revenue and NOI growth. On a year-over-year basis, our East Coast markets continue to outperform, but as we had expected, the momentum is now building on the West Coast.

If you look at our sequential quarterly results, you'll see that the West Coast is outpacing the East, with San Francisco, Seattle, and L.A. all showing particularly strong sequential growth. For well over a year now, we've been speaking to the factors which would impact and are in fact now driving the strong improvement in apartment fundamentals. It was the fourth quarter of 2009 when we decided to begin construction again, a decision that has allowed us to take advantage of these improved fundamentals, as we have almost $1 billion of new construction under way or completing this quarter. The factors driving the improvement in apartment fundamentals are reasonably well known. Probably most visibly is an improving economy, now generating approximately 200,000 new jobs per month.

It's both the magnitude and the composition of the jobs that matter and importantly, a disproportionate share of the new jobs created have been in the under 35 age cohort. Over the past year, job growth in the younger age group has been at a rate more than 2 times that for the economy as a whole. With more jobs, they are increasingly unbundling, and creating new households, and this age group are primarily renters. Secondly, corporate investment and equipment and software is rising at an annual rate of approximately 15% nationally, setting off strong job growth in our key high tech markets such as San Jose, Seattle, and Boston. Another key factor affecting rental demand is the continued weakness in the for sale market.

Yesterday, the first quarter homeownership data was released, which showed the homeownership rate falling once again, now down to 66.5%. The weakness in the for sale market provides an obvious and direct benefit to the rental market, with households that are increasingly choosing to rent versus buy. As you know, we tracked the reasons for move out, and during the first quarter, the percent of residents moving out to purchase a home fell to 12%, down from 15% last quarter, and is now at the lowest level since we began tracking this data. Historically, the statistic has been in the low to mid 20% range. The increase in rental housing demand is being met by a sharp reduction in the supply of new apartments.

Just to put this into perspective, over the ten-year period from 1998 through 2008, there's an average of about 240,000 new rental completions per year. Last year, there were 160,000. And this year, completions are expected to be below 80,000 units, which would make it a 50-year low. This level of new completions is actually less than the estimated annual loss due to obsolescence, meaning that we're seeing essentially a net zero increase in the stock at a time of strong demand. Recently there's been a fair amount of discussion regarding the likelihood of an increased volume of new apartment starts, and there's little doubt that the volume will increase, yet it's important to remember that we're coming off of a 50-year low.

For 2011, third party estimates project new rental starts in the range of about 150,000 new units, which is substantially below the 10-year average of 240,000 I previously mentioned. New starts are not expected to approach historical levels until late next year, 2012, which means it would likely not be until late 2013 and into 2014 that we'll see completions return to historical levels. And obviously it's the completions that are what's important in affecting the supply/demand fundamentals.

Now, often we're asked how this expansion period may compare to prior periods, and while history never repeats itself exactly, a little historical perspective is always helpful. The most recent expansion period for apartments was from mid 2004 through the end of 2008. And over this four and a half-year period we saw our revenue growth in our portfolio grow just over 20% cumulatively. With peak year-over-year growth of about 7.5%.

Not bad, but not nearly as strong as we saw in the prior expansion period, which stretched from early 1994 to late 2001. And over this roughly eight-year period, we experienced cumulative revenue growth of almost 50%, with peak year-over-year revenue growth of about 12%. Now, obviously, we cannot reasonably predict the duration of this expansion phase, we're certainly in the very early stages, given that revenue growth turned positive just two quarters ago. So with that, I'll turn it over to Tim, who will discuss our investment activity, as well as provide additional color on our portfolio performance.

Thanks, Bryce. As Bryce mentioned, I would like to provide some commentary in a couple of areas. First, I thought I would offer a little more color on portfolio trends, including what we're seeing so far in April, as well as renewal activity for May and June. And second, I want to touch on investment activity in the areas of development and transactions. Starting with portfolio trends, growth in portfolio rents is broad-based, as accelerating as we move into the peak leasing season in the second and third quarters, when over 60% of leases expire.

During Q1, year-over-year growth in same-store revenues accelerated through the quarter from 3.2% in January to over 4% in March. This momentum is continuing, with April revenues projected to be up around 4.5%, driven by an average rental rate increase of 4.8% compared to April 2010. Renewal rates are continuing to escalate as well, with offers for renewal increases averaging around 7% for May lease expirations and over 8% for June expirations, up from around 5% in March and April. Regions with the highest year over year percentage renewal offer increases for June are Northern California, New York, New Jersey, and New England, each of which is around 9% to 9.5%.

Every region is experiencing acceleration and renewal increases, except the DC market, where renewal increases leveled off in the 7% range for June. As we mentioned last quarter, Seattle and Southern California had been lagging other regions in recovery. However, during Q1, these regions began to recover as they posted the highest levels of sequential rent growth for new leases over the quarter. Over the last three months alone, new lease rents, which are a blend of new move-ins and renewals, have risen in Seattle and Southern California by 9.5% and 6.5% respectively. Both of these regions have been helped by positive job growth over the last six months. With the recent improvement in Seattle and Southern California, every region is now experiencing improving performance.

As the year progresses, we expect that the West Coast markets will continue to accelerate at a faster rate than the East Coast, although every region should continue to experience a healthy rate of growth. Shifting to the investment side of the business, while we continue to be active on all fronts, I wanted to spend a few minutes on development and transaction activity. Starting with development, this past quarter, we completed three communities totalling $234 million. Two of these communities represent the last of our 2008 starts, or in other words, the last of our pre-recession starts. The average projected yield for the development portfolio has steadily improved over the last few quarters, as we've completed these 2008 starts.

The current projected yield is now 6.8%, up 40 basis points from last quarter, and should be around 7% next quarter, as these three completions fall off the development community schedule. We currently have $640 million under construction, all of which were started in 2010. While we didn't start any new communities in Q1, we recently authorized the start of construction for three communities totalling around $200 million, which have either already begun or will begin construction shortly. We anticipate that we will begin construction on almost $900 million for the full year.

We continue to replenish the pipeline, as we added eight new development rights totalling over $500 million this past quarter. Over the last two quarters alone, we've added 14 development rights totalling $950 million to the pipeline. As we've been aggressively taking advantage of our competitive position early in the cycle when development economics are usually the most attractive. New additions to the pipeline include two large mixed use deals totalling over $200 million, located in Boston and DC, where we're teaming up with two established retail companies, Total Realty and [Edenson Aventis]. In each case, Avalonbay will build residential over street level retail with the retail to be conveyed to the retail operator upon completion.

In addition to these two deals, we added three new development rights in New Jersey, a market where development economics are compelling and where we've increased our development pipeline significantly over the last couple of years. We currently have three communities under construction, totalling $135 million in New Jersey, and another 10 communities in the design and entitlement stage representing an additional $500 million in projected capital investment. This past quarter, we are very active on the transaction front. For the investment management fund, we bought a 448-unit garden community for $78 million in San Diego.

In addition, in April, for ADB's wholly owned portfolio, we closed on a 415-unit high-rise community for $89 million in the DC market located in Falls Church, Virginia, just inside the capital beltway. We also bought out the equity interest of our partner at Avalon Rocks Spring, which clears the way to sell 100% leasehold interest in that asset. We expect to sell the leasehold interest later this year, which will result in a net pickup of around $0.10 per share in FFO in the second half. As you recall from our call last quarter, we included the impact of this in our outlook for 2011.

Lastly, in April, we completed an asset exchange with another REIT totalling around $0.5 billion in value. In this transaction, we exchanged assets in Boston and San Francisco valued at $260 million for assets in Southern California totalling $234 million, plus $26 million in cash. This transaction helps accomplish several of our portfolio objectives, including increasing our Southern California allocation, shifting some capital into lower price point C product, and lastly, allocating capital to sub-markets that we believe will outperform over the next five to ten years. While portfolio transactions aren't that common, we are starting to see increased interest by private apartment owners who are considering the liquidation of their companies or portfolios either for estate planning, competitive or opportunistic reasons, as asset values have almost fully recovered from their most recent correction.

While we're unsure whether this increased level of interest will ultimately materialize into actual opportunities, we'll look to take advantage of our liquidity and ready access to cost effective capital if these transactions make strategic and economic sense to AVB. So in summary, a sustained recovery in apartment markets has begun to take hold across all of our regions. We are seeing strong fundamentals translate into accelerating portfolio performance where all regions are now moving into the expansion phase of the cycle. We've been active on the investment side of the business, investing new capital and new acquisitions and building the development pipeline, which will help drive external growth over the next few years, years that should produce strong FFO growth for Avalonbay. And with that, I'll turn it over to Bryce for some closing remarks before opening it up for Q&A.

Thanks, Tim. I wanted to highlight some of our recent capital markets activity and then provide a few comments regarding our outlook for the balance of the year. During the quarter, we were active under our continuous equity program, or CEP, raising just over $140 million. We continue to reinforce our already strong balance sheet to provide the capital for future investment opportunities, and by quarter end, we had nothing outstanding under our $1 billion line and almost $500 million of cash on hand. During the month of April, we entered into $430 million of forward starting swaps pertaining to 2012 and 2013 debt maturities, and through these transactions, we were able to mitigate the risk on rising interest rates on about half of our maturing debt during the -- during this two-year period of 2012 and 2013 and we're able to do so at a time when market conditions for these hedge instruments were favorable and pricing was attractive.

Overall, our balance sheet remains in great shape. Our leverage level is the lowest in the sector, and our liquidity is excellent, providing us with cost effective capital for future investment opportunity. Last fall at our Investor Day in New York City, which many of you attended, we outlined our expectations and key objectives for the coming year. We discussed our positive outlook regarding fundamentals, which have emerged modestly stronger than our original expectations. We discussed our plans to continue to ramp up our development activity and now expect to have about $1.5 billion under way by year end. We discussed our goals to both grow through acquisitions, as well as to modestly re-balance our portfolio, and we've been active on both fronts with our recent acquisitions and with the $500 million asset exchange that Tim just mentioned.

We discussed our commitment to maintaining strong balance sheet and so far this year, we have continued to add equity to the balance sheet, and have taken proactive steps to mitigate interest rate risks on future debt maturities. Overall, we're pleased with the results for the quarter and are encouraged by the trends we see in apartment fundamentals and in our portfolio. And based upon the better than expected first quarter results and the accelerating portfolio trends, we plan to provide new outlook ranges in early June prior to NAREIT conference. Based upon trends that we're seeing today, we would expect the midpoint of our new FFO range to be at or above the top of our previous range. Andrea, that concludes our prepared remarks and we're ready to open up for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

The first question comes from the line of Eric Wolfe of Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. Michael's also on with me. One of your peers mentioned that they were seeing buyers being fairly aggressive in their underwriting, going after IRRs in the 7% to 8% range. Just wondering whether you're seeing a similar level of aggressiveness, and if you think that's a reasonable return requirement in this environment.

Eric, Tim Naughton here. In terms of, the Coastal markets obviously where we are, and the core deals, I would say you are seeing un-levered IRRs priced out in the 7% to 7.5% range. As you move into B product or product that's in non-- not ground zero in terms of sub-market location, that might migrate up to the high 7% to low 8%. 7%, 7.5% is not uncommon to be hearing from institutional investors in terms of the kind of un-levered IRRs that they are underwriting to.

And I guess the second part of that is, do you think that's a reasonable return requirement specifically for Avalonbay?

I would say probably the answer is no. I think we think our long-term cost of capital is somewhere in the 7% to 7.5% range. Based upon that, it's hard to see where there's any accretion or any value-add to do an acquisition of say, 7%, 7.5% if you're just matching your long-term cost of capital.

All right, and switching topics, I think you mentioned on the last call that you expected same-store growth to trend up from the mid-3% in the first quarter to over 6% in the fourth. It seems like from your comments that growth might be a little bit more back end loaded that you expected and I guess with renewals going to 7% to 8% in May and June, can we expect that growth to get up to sort of 7% in the fourth quarter? Just trying to see how it's going to trend through the year now.

Sure. In terms of -- yes, in terms of what we talked about last quarter, you're right. We talked about starting the mid 3%. We came in a little bit higher than that, high 3% in the first quarter. One thing I would remind folks of when we gave guidance, our outlook in the first quarter for 2011, it was early February and at that point we did have visibility through to February revenue.

So, virtually all the out performance that occurred in the first quarter really was a result of March. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we see that continuing into April and certainly with renewals that are out right now for May and June, we would expect the second quarter to outperform what we had originally expected. Having said that, the back end of the year, we actually were projecting market rent growth in the 9% range, which was pretty healthy to begin with. So while total rental revenue might move up from the mid-6% that we were anticipating in the fourth quarter, it was based upon some pretty aggressive assumptions to begin with.

All right, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Swaroop Yawa of Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, hello. I was wondering, given the lagging nature of some of the markets in Southern California, why you were looking to move more percentage of NOI in those markets as evident from the swap and then also similar question for B's versus A's in this recovery.

Swaroop, this is Bryce. Let me take the first part, and Tim may want to add in. Tim did mention our focus on the asset exchange was really to accomplish a number of objectives. First was geographic portfolio allocation, where we're looking to, over the long-term continue to grow. In Southern California there is a region where we don't have a particularly robust development pipeline and lighten up in some markets that have -- where we have a very robust development pipeline, certainly Boston being a good example of that, Northern California as well.

The second comment was the desire to have some slightly increased concentration of B's which we spoke about at some length at the New York Investor Day and the transaction also allowed us to do that. In terms of your comment about Southern California lagging, I think probably the more important thing to look at is the momentum in that market, which as we -- I indicated in my comments and Tim did as well, the Southern California region is showing quite strong momentum if you look at it on a sequential basis. So we think that that's actually the exact opportune time to be buying something as that momentum is building, as opposed to after it's already built and it's being priced into the transaction.

Swaroop, this is Tim. In terms of the second part of your question, I think you're asking just our expectations about how B's might perform relative to A's in this expansion. Actually this past contraction, we didn't see A's under perform like we typically see in contractions relative to B's. And so I might argue that A's may not outperform as much as they have generally coming right out of, in the early parts of the expansion. I think importantly, what we discussed is we just think there are some sub-markets that just structurally, A's outperform B's and B's outperform A's and that's really what was driving the asset exchange in terms of Southern California and in particular the markets in which -- the sub-markets in which we exchange assets into.

Got it. Just second question was, sort of your view on cap rates and how they will trend over the remainder of the year. One of your peers discussed increasing their asset dispositions, exit rating them. I was just wondering if you're thinking anything along those lines.

In terms of our asset disposition plan?

Yes, yes.

Okay. Well, in terms of what we're seeing in terms of cap rates, first of all, there wasn't a lot of transactional activity in Q1. The best that we can tell is cap rates have, for the most part, flattened out. Still in, sort of range from the low to mid 4%, core West Coast, particularly California assets to maybe low to mid 5% for northeastern, suburban community, so somewhere from low 4% to low to mid 5% with urban assets for the most part trading in the 5% or sub 5% range.

In terms of how that might affect our disposition plans, I guess we look at it as a source of capital, so we look at it relative to how other things are trading, including equity, which I think most of us believe is trading at still a bit of a premium. It's in that asset value, so that might argue for selling equity instead of assets and then relative to debt and some other, some other capital options, some of these other capital options are still looking pretty attractive when you look at unsecured in the mid 4% today, potentially on the 10-year deal. So I'm not sure -- disposition plans are going to be driven more by portfolio objectives I would say rather than capital raising objectives.

Thank you so much.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Spector of Merrill Lynch. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. I just was wondering if you're seeing any pressure from rental housing, anything new.

Jeff, this is Leo. We're not seeing anything new, any new pressure from rental housing. If you're alluding to, like, a gray market. If anything, we're seeing the gray market pull back. We don't -- whereas a year ago, I would have said there were certain sub-markets where we saw more gray market activity. As I speak to the people that run the various regions, we're actually seeing less competition from that, that rental housing stock.

Okay, and as a follow-up, what is the main reason move outs are saying right now?

Well, the top reason for move out that we're experiencing is when people are just relocating. But it's right consistent with historic averages. As Bryce indicated, home purchase is an area where it's changed, where we're well under historic averages. And then related to rent increase or financial reasons, that's up. And that's up to around 14%, where it's typically run 8% to 10%. So there's a kind of -- that's the number one and then those are the bigger changes.

Okay, and then it's pretty obvious one of the main concerns out there is just how much you and your peers can push rent, given some of the economic data we've seen, lower GDP out numbers today, lack of job growth. Really, how are you thinking about that, and is it just, is it, trying to get I guess, put something around that question or is it really just each day blocking and tackling and seeing how much you can push rent in each market at each building?

I'll try to address that in a number of ways. First, we feel really good about the fundamentals that exist in our markets, job growth is coming, which certainly helps us, that's going to create households that we're finding that, there's an increased propensity to rent these days. So just structurally, we feel good about that. Supply is decreasing, which also helps us. Now when you get down to specifics, with respect to new move ins, we're watching traffic levels.

We're watching our occupancy, and we're watching conversions, and in all those aspects, we see that we're able to convert a reasonable amount of the traffic that's coming through the door and we have seen an uptick in traffic on a year-over-year basis. And because we're converting a reasonable amount, we feel good about the new move-in rents on the renewal side, as Tim alluded, we're pushing the renewal increases up as well and we're pushing them up, out into the May and June time frame. There's been very little change in our overall turnover. Obviously we're getting some pushback, because more people are moving out for financial reasons. But less people are moving out to purchase homes.

So while we get some pushback, the portfolio is pretty stable. Occupancy is stable. We feel good about that. Turnover is largely in line with historic averages. Do we watch it sub-market to sub-market and frankly asset to asset? Absolutely.

Yes, maybe just -- maybe just to add to that, this is Tim. In terms of what we've seen so far with rent increases that we have had, rent as a percentage of income has stayed relatively stable and so while Leo mentioned that move out relative to financial reasons is up, that's not necessarily a bad thing because we've been replacing the people who have been leaving and frankly with higher income folks. We have been able to benefit from frankly just a higher credit quality, if you will, of the tenant profile. That obviously won't go on forever. Ultimately for this to be sustainable, you need job growth and income growth, but it's contributed a lot so far.

And, Jeff, just to elaborate a little more on that, historically in our markets, it's -- the average has been more like 22% or 23% and for our entire portfolio, rent to income is less than 20% right now. With a range across all markets that runs from 18% to 21%, so we feel pretty good about the position that we're in.

Okay, thank you. That's all very helpful. And then if I could just ask one last question, a few weeks ago we put out a joint piece with our E-con team, analyzing the housing market and really seeing from apartment landlord standpoint who will benefit most from the decrease in homeownership rate. It seems like the sweet spot is going to be more development for low to middle income earners. I know that doesn't exactly fit your profile, but with your development expertise, is there any way that Avalon can get involved in this and somehow make some money from this over the next five years?

I'm sorry, make money from trying to build more affordable product, is that--?

Yes, even -- not necessarily. I don't want to use the word affordable because I don't want us to think just affordable housing, but it's really developments rentals for lower to middle income earners, so just given your development expertise, this doesn't sound like it's even something you guys are thinking about right now.

Well, no, I wouldn't conclude that. We have talked about this in the past. We talked about it at our New York Investor Day. Clearly the demographics of the rental customer has been changing, continues to change over that immediate term as we look at the influx of just the echo boomers, the children of baby boomers. Those are people that are certainly growing in size.

They are not the most affluent renters out there. So we have taken that into effect as we look at the type of sites we pick, in terms of location and certainly in terms of the size of the apartment homes. The apartment homes we're building today are materially smaller than the apartment homes we built just three or four years ago. More studios, greater percentage of both one bedrooms as well as roommate two-bedroom units. So it very much does impact how we think about our product and as you did imply, as the development company, we're sort of uniquely positioned to capitalize on some of those trends as opposed to acquiring something that was 30 years old, where you obviously by definition, you're not changing the size of the apartment home or the unit mix. We do have that ability to do that and we're incorporating that into some pretty exciting new developments as we speak.

Great, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of David [Hadi] of FBR. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon, everyone. Bryce, I have sort of a simple question. Given conditions in the housing market, your ability to push rents today, and your competitive advantage of being first with development, why not develop more than what you've set out to do so far this year, given your capital flexibility?

Well, the simple answer to the simple question is we might. We actually began more last year than we initially thought and even so far this year. In Tim's comments, we raised it a bit. As he mentioned $900 million, which is up from what we said just in February. It is something we continue to monitor and as appropriate, we'll add communities that make sense.

There is a rhythm to it, if you will, in the sense that even, even though we're going to be very active this year, we didn't actually start any in the first quarter. Part of that's just seasonality in terms of when's the appropriate time to begin a development. But also, is ensuring that the development is ready and the team is ready to do so in a thoughtful and a risk-measured way. One of the things we watch very carefully is the amount under construction at a corporate level, the amount under construction in a regional level, and really try to manage that.

So by year end, we'll have $1.5 billion under way. Just running that out by the end of next year, that will approach $2 billion. So it certainly continues to ramp up. And you should expect that to happen. Just expect that we're going to do it in -- not in a reckless way, but in a prudent way.

Right. And just some details along that theme. Is your team finding the entitlement process any easier today, given that there's been no development for sometime, and that municipalities are a little bit more strapped for revenues and for residents?

I think it is sort of a tale of two different stories, if you will. In the more urban markets, the answer to that is probably yes. The cities are more open and hospitable to development. It's not just taxes, but it's jobs. Jobs are a political issue obviously today, for everybody from the White House on down, so whether it's in New York or Boston or San Francisco, the more urban market it is, it's never easy, but there is at least people more willing to listen and to be encouraging. In the suburban markets, no. It just doesn't enter into their vocabulary. If you're dealing with, a New Canaan, a Hingham, , Connecticut or Massachusetts, that's a local municipality town level, it is still nimbyism at its worst and rental housing is still a four-letter word. So we're not seeing really any let up there.

Maybe just a little more color, David. I mentioned in my prepared remarks that we've secured $950 million in new development rights just over the last two quarters. A lot of that's already entitled, and we saw sort of early in the cycle here an opportunity to go out and get a lot of entitled land. Some of it needs to be reworked a bit and municipalities are usually very willing to work with you on that as it may be a couple of conditions through zoning that you need to clean up, maybe, some redesign that requires a little bit of re-entitling. But we saw early in the cycle there was an opportunity there. That is where it's gotten competitive, and increasingly, I think in 2011 we'll be focusing on deals where -- a lot of where the competition's not. And where they are not right now, at least for the merchant builders is the stuff that requires entitlement, because the mother's milk for these merchant builders is fees, they need something under construction quickly and they are starting to bid up entitled sites now similar to what we've seen on the improved -- proved asset side.

That's helpful. Tim, just one last question for you, have you seen any signs of inflationary pressures in any of the ingredients, in particular materials obviously, but on the labor side as well?

Yes, David, this is Bryce. I'll probably take that. On the construction side, as you alluded to, you break it into two parts, labor versus material. Labor is still pretty flat. We are starting to see some upward pressure in potentially New York and DC on the labor side, but pretty flat.

It's really materials where we have and are increasingly seeing upward pressure, particularly those materials and commodities that are subject to either high transportation costs or just petroleum-based products, whether that be PVC pipe, carpet, vinyl, things like concrete, which is a heavy trucking and for the price of oil and gas impacts that. Sort of running on the material side, kind of 5%, 6% up, labor sort of flat, materials about half of total costs. So about 2% to 3% overall on construction and obviously that's a couple percent on total development costs. So, starting to see some upward pressure, but not at an alarming level, but as you would expect, starting to see it and feel it.

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks, guys.

Your next question comes from the line of Jay Habermann of Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. Just following on David's question there, how much better are the yields today versus, say, a year ago on some of the development starts or what you're anticipating over the next 12 months or so? I mean, the rent growth clearly better, costs sounds like modestly in line, but how much better are the IRRs you're expecting?

Yes, Jay. Tim here. It really depends on whether it's a new deal or a deal that's been secured, say, in the last 18 months versus a legacy deal. I would say the legacy deal is still somewhat hampered by higher land costs and some carrying costs. On the new deals, I would say generally kind of, maybe starting in California, low to mid 6% range going in, going in yields. And on the East Coast, say mid 6% to mid 7% range. IRRs, generally well north of 10% on an unleveled basis. Most of those deals I'd say are probably in the 11% to 12% unleveled IRR versus the 7% to 8% on a core acquisition that we mentioned before. On the legacy deals, the initial yields may be 100 basis points less than that, just to give you some sense.

Okay. That's helpful. I know in the quarter you guys announced the acquisition on the wholly owned side with Fairfax Towers. How much are you looking at in terms of acquisition opportunities? I know, Bryce, you mentioned you're certainly open to them and perhaps some portfolio deals, but I guess what are you looking at today and what's on the horizon?

Tim here again. First of all, most the deals that we're looking at today are still for the fund. We've got about another four or five months of investment period for the fund. There was some specific attributes of that deal that made it inappropriate for the fund and appropriate for the REIT. As it relates to portfolios or, deals that the REIT might do, I would think just generally again consistent with our portfolio objectives that we've talked about in the past.

If you're looking at specific regions, we've been interested in, and continuing to increase our exposure in Southern California. Over time we probably would trim a bit more in Boston and New York, just given the size of the development engines and pipelines there. And then in terms of the type of assets, as we've mentioned shifting some of the allocation, the portfolio from A's to B's. We've talked about sort of 85/15, moving to 75/25 A to B. That would necessitate more of the acquisitions being on the B side than A side, I would say.

Okay, and just lastly on the supply side, I know it's remained fairly constrained thus far, but are we seeing any pickup in lending on the part of the banks? Should that change do you think the outlook over the near term?

Not over the near term. Having said that, things are becoming more receptive to doing construction land, sponsorship matters a lot, so I think it's directed towards the higher quality private sponsors that are out there. And I guess, the second part of that is they are not going to be able to do as much as they have been able to do in the past. I think for those two reasons that banks are being selective about sponsorship, and two, the sponsors that are able to be active aren't likely to be able to do as much as they have done in the past. We're not seeing an immediate threat and, as Bryce mentioned in his remarks, likely to be two or three years out.

Yes, just maybe to add one thing to that, there was actually a call yesterday that one of the other banks hosted, where Charlie Brindell, the CEO of Mill Creek was on and he spoke to this issue in some length. And I thought one of the interesting things that he called attention to is at their peak, Trammell Crow Residential was certainly one of the largest builders of apartments in the country. In 2007 to 2008, built 12,000 to 14,000 units per year. That was their run rate. And they expected to be pretty active last year, which they weren't. This year, 2011, they expect to start at 3000. 3000 units.

So, this is one of the largest private developers in our space and I think it's just reflective of how difficult it is to get the machines re-energized. It's not just the capital, but he did speak to that it is, even though more abundant today, it is still difficult and does require full recourse for a period of time, which is not what the private developers like. They consider that a four-letter word. But then secondly, it's rebuilding the teams and importantly re-securing the site. So to go from 12,000 units in 2008 to 3000 units in 2011 after 0 for a couple three years I think is just a good description of what the private market is seeing in terms of apartment supply.

Great, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Donnelly of Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, guys. Just a follow-up question I think David had asked about future development potential. I'm trying to estimate how much of your, I guess the 34 development rights could move into active development over the next 24 months. Are you able to break out for us how many of those projects may be penciled today based on current market rents building entitlement versus those that might have entitlements, but need some seasoning before they pencil?

In terms of how much might move into -- move into development, right now there's about $2.7 billion and that's shown on attachment 11. I would say over the next 24 months, potentially up to a couple billion of that $2.7 billion could move into development. By that, I mean startup construction.

Right, or meaning about half of it is possible?

No, no, about $2 billion out of the $2.7 billion, the majority of it, 75%, 80% of it.

Okay. I'm curious, how many of those deals would you characterize as new deals versus legacy deals?

Well, of the 14, we put 14 under contract in the last, in the last two quarters. Those are all new deals, so I would say of the 34, probably at least half of those are new deals, new deals being since the -- basically in the last four or five quarters, call it five quarters.

Okay, and just one last question, just clarifying a comment you made before about cap rates being in the range of roughly 4% to 5%. What do you think the spread is between A and B assets for cap rates in the west versus in the northeast?

Yes, I would say it depends on how big the transaction is. Where we have seen the opportunity, pricing opportunities is really on the larger B transactions. Oftentimes when you get into the smaller B transactions, you start competing with a lot of local private guys who are able to put together high net worth friends and family, but for -- I would say the spread on the West Coast, we've seen some assets price that call it in the low 5% or maybe their A counterpart would be mid 4% in a similar location. So I would say probably in the on low end from 25 to high end, 75 basis points delta.

That's great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Goldfarb of Sandler O'Neill. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon. Just sort of picking up from Jeff's thing, just one thing we noticed, you guys changed up the development page, page 17 of the supplemental. The fourth quarter disclosure was very helpful. Don't know if there's a way to go back to that, but if there is, that would be great. A question for Tom. Last time, last cycle you guys didn't do the convert market, and as you think about where we are right now with fear of higher interest rates and certainly the stock prices have been strong and there's a very strong bid for credit, what are the thoughts about maybe doing like a 30-year issuance or doing a convert? Is that something that we're likely to see from Avalon, or is it probably just -- or are you guys just going to stick with sort of traditional common equity and 10-year unsecured debt?

Well, Alex, in terms -- let me start with the 30-year. If you look at a 30-year deal versus a preferred, it's -- I think the bankers would be pretty split between the two. I've heard arguments on both sides. You have seen some preferreds in the market recently. I think for the put option that you get on the preferred, it probably is a superior product in that after five years, you can put it back or you can call it, I guess would be the way to say that. And I think there is a lot of value in that call feature. Even when you price that call feature, I think you would find that the preferred is a better instrument for a REIT to issue.

So I think you would see us probably migrate towards the preferred over a 30-year. If we were looking for some long-dated fixed rate capital. In terms of converts versus traditional, I hear you on that, and if you think about where unsecured debt's pricing today relative to convert, that spread between a convert and a conventional deal is not that much. I mean, when we did our 10-year deal in November at 3.95%, at the time, converts were maybe 2%-ish. But that spread was pretty narrow compared to what you saw predownturn. While I think convert has room in our capital structure, I think today unsecured debt is pretty competitively priced.

Okay, and my second question is to more of a New York-centric question. Right now, Albany is debating the rent control and what they are going to do. Where do you guys -- are you sort of agnostic to what Albany decides? Or is it that rent control actually good because it artificially boosts market rate apartments? Or is it bad because maybe it means that they are less favorable to developer incentives?

Alex, it's Bryce. As you're alluding to in your question, it's an issue that has a number of -- a number of different permutations to it, some that are positive and some that are negative. And I think on this call, it's just probably not worth getting into that in any great deal. I would like to go back to just address your first comment on page 17, attachment 11 just to clarify what Alex is referring to, is that's our development rights schedule, which historically we had listed out each and every development right by specific town, by specifically identifying whether it was owned or optioned. And we frankly, over the last few months, a few quarters, as the market has been heating up for sites, we had a couple situations where frankly we believe our competitors were using that information against us in order to go after some of our sites.

So we are always in the business of providing excellent disclosure to our investors. I think we get very high marks for that, but we're not in the business of giving information to our competitors that can harm our business. So we think the schedule as reconstituted provides adequate disclosure to the investment community in terms of the size of our development pipeline and the geographic breakdown of it. And we hope that everyone concurs with that. That's the reason for the change.

Okay, Bryce. That actually, that makes sense. Okay, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew McCulloch of Green Street Advisors. Please proceed with your question.

Hello, guys. Tim, you made a comment earlier in the call that asset values are almost back to peak levels. Does that hold for A and B product across geographies, or is that common geared more towards the best stuff in the gateway cities?

Well, I would say some cases probably asset values are back to more than where they were. If you take a DC location where some trades have actually occurred at a pretty decent premium above replacement cost, but it was intended to be more of a general comment. So if asset values are back, say, within 5% of peak levels, there are probably some markets that are still more than 10% off and other markets where they are at or above where we saw peak, DC probably being the primary one there. In terms of A's versus B's, I would say core, probably leaning more towards A, have recovered more than B's at this point, if I had to guess. But we are certainly seeing some increased level of investor interest in B's, partly just because of where A's have started to move to from a pricing perspective.

Great. And just when you guys talk about increasing your exposure to B, would that also include buying C assets and bringing them up to a B?

Maybe. It's hard to know what a B versus a C is sometimes. One man's B is another man's C. I think it's safe to say we're not going to be looking for sort of the lowest, lowest offering being offered in the market, and trying to bring that up to, say, a B minus of level quality. I think for the most part, we're going to play, likely play as maybe B-minus, bringing to B, B plus. Probably less of what you might think of as a C trying to bring to a B minus. A lot of it turns on location in sub-markets though. The reality is in a lot of the sub-markets we're interested in, you don't see as much of the C stuff that's really suffered from this investment. The better sub-markets generally owners have continued to invest over time.

Great. That's all I had. Thanks, guys.

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Yulico of MacQuarie. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, everyone. Just a quick question on the 421A abatement program in New York City. For the future development starts you have in New York City, do you already have 421A certificates so in case the program goes away, you still can qualify for those projects?

Yes.

Okay. And then just also on the development rights, I know you guys don't want to list all the products anymore, but could we just get some more feel for the rights that were added in the first quarter as far as the geography other than you said three in New Jersey?

Sure. This is Tim. I mentioned, I mentioned five of them. Three were in New Jersey. One was in Boston. One was in Virginia. Those were the two mixed use deals. We also had one in Connecticut and another in DC, downtown DC.

Okay, and the three in New Jersey, I mean, any more feel for where they might be in New Jersey?

Yes, they are infill suburban type locations, they are wood frame, they're not Jersey waterfront, concrete construction. They would be wood frame, generally walk-up or wrap type construction.

Okay, thanks. That's all I had. Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of Karin Ford of KeyBanc. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good afternoon. Just a question for Leo. I know in the beginning of the year, you were pretty positive on Washington, DC dynamics, but you mentioned that June renewals were flattening out a little bit there and with the prospect of some government job reductions potentially are you -- would you say that there's a possibility that your outlook for DC may be incrementally a little more negative today than it was at the beginning of the year?

Karin, this is Leo. The outlook for DC is still positive. I mean, if you look at the absolute numbers, DC has performed extremely well and consistently. Do we acknowledge that DC did not have as big a fall in this last downturn, yes, and is it further into recovery, absolutely, but the technology sector is picking up. That helps us there, and while it may not accelerate to the same degree that other markets will, we still feel pretty good about the numbers that we're getting in DC from an absolute sense.

That's helpful. Just last question, appreciate the color and context from past cycles, what you saw on the revenue side. Can you talk about what you saw trendwise when you were pushing rents in the last cycle, when you pushed rents on people, sort of the second and third time through, versus sort of the first time you put through a fairly large rent increase on people?

Karin, really it depends on just what the other dynamics going on. One of the dynamics that may be happening right now as we're pushing through rent increases is that when we had to bring rents down, people moved from secondary locations into our apartments. We now have high income people who are coming through the door and we're pushing the rents consistent with that. Those same people will take adjustments multiple years. We've got reasonable rent increases and renewal increases over the periods of time that Bryce alluded to, it may not always be the same person. It may be new people that are coming through the door, new households that are being created. We feel pretty good, obviously and the history would say there is room both from an income standpoint and from a traffic standpoint. Bryce, do you want to add something?

Yes, I just wanted to pick up, maybe extrapolate on that a little bit. Obviously, Karin, we've indicated in both the results and in Leo's and Tim's comments about the trends we're seeing in the portfolio, I did notice not in your write up but I did notice in a couple of questions that came before the call that there was some question about if -- with that growth in the portfolio, why are we seeing FFO in the second quarter relatively flat to the first quarter. Tom, could you just drive a little color on the road map first quarter to second quarter, just to give some guidance there?

Yes. Well, we've got -- we started at $1.05 base excluding non-routine item and we see community operations contributing about $0.07 per share in the second quarter, taking us to about $1.12. This $1.12 will be offset, however, with several timing, the timing of several overhead categories, including comp costs, compensation costs, meetings, and conferences, and some strategic initiatives on the IT side.

So that would bring us back to about $1.08, which is the, which is the midpoint of the range that we provided. It's also important that the G&A that will actually rise between the first and the second quarter will fall back off in the third and fourth quarter back to normalized levels. Another thing I think if you look through these reports, there's a question about the land lease, which we continue to -- which is very complicated getting questions on. And if you consider some of the individual models the analysts have, it does appear that the assumption for the sale of that asset that is subject to the ground lease where the straight line rents exceed the actual cash paid under the lease is being included in the second quarter outlook numbers for the analysts -- not in ours. I guess I would repeat, we do not anticipate that sale to occur in the second quarter, we expect that it will occur in the second half of the year. Further, if you were to assume a third quarter sale, there would be about a $0.07 to $0.08 per share pickup in that quarter, because we would capture prior quarters excess of expensed over actual lease payments and then in the next quarter following the sale, we would of course not that have excess payment.

So overall, we pick up about $0.10 per share, part of it -- most of it happening in the quarter in which it fell and in the balance falling off in the last quarter or the following quarters. Obviously we'll give up some NOI from that asset once it's sold, but that's nominal compared to the land lease accounting. So I just wanted to point that out as well.

That's all helpful. And just following up on that, were there operating expense catchups that we should expect in the second quarter as well, or is it just G&A?

We did have some timing of operating expenses that are going to reverse where we had some savings in the first quarter that we expect will reverse. Not necessarily all in the second quarter, kind of spread out throughout the year, but in picking which items are timings more art than science, but we do expect some of that savings to turn around.

Great, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Swett of Morgan Keegan. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. Thanks a lot. Tim, just one more question on the development pipeline. Can you just speak in some broad strokes in where land pricing is today, sort of where it was versus the peak in some of your key markets?

Sure, and really, Steve, you almost have to bifurcate it between, again, entitled deals versus unentitled land. On entitled deals, in some cases it's back to where it was, as it relates to apartment land. We're not going to get back to when it was being priced as condominium land, like we saw in DC or Southern California. So we haven't seen a return to those kind of values. But in DC and in Southern California, if you have an entitled deal ready to go, I would say it's at or approaching a peak values. As relates to unentitled land, it's all over the map. In some cases, it's still down by 50% from peak values, but I would say it's probably more in the 20% to 30%, 20% to 35% range off of peak values.

Thanks, and then Bryce, just last question to clarify, the positive variance you referred to in the core operations is related entirely to revenue, correct?

No. Well, in the press release, we have $0.03 to operation, to community NOI. That $0.03 is made up of revenue, as well as expenses, and within the expenses, some of the expenses is timing, as Tom mentioned. So roughly half of the $0.03 is revenue. The other half is expenses and some of that's coming back.

Okay, thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of Paula Poskon of Robert Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks very much. Just on the Fairfax Tower acquisition, how did you source that?

We sourced that through a broker relationship.

And do you think there are any other opportunities from that particular seller in your markets?

Probably not. That particular seller I think only has one or two other assets and I'm not sure they are in a position to liquidate at this point.

Thanks. Then just a quick question for Leo. Are you seeing any change in move outs related to job transfers?

Paula, no, no real change. I mean, as I said earlier, relocations could tie in there. It's basically flat. In fact, it's dead-on the same period in the previous year. It's up slightly from the fourth quarter, but, no, no big changes. The big changes are the ones I pointed out.

That's all I have. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions)

And your next question comes from the line of Eric Wolfe, a follow-up, of Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, it's Michael Bilerman. Tom, just on the cap interest, $6.3 million in the quarter, what balance and what rate was that being capitalized at?

Well, the balance that it's capitalized upon is the CIP, the average CIP during the quarter, and the capitalized rates roughly 5.25%?

So, I guess as we think going forward as you're raising equity at yields below 4%, and then you're investing in development, it's actually accretive?

Well, you actually have to raise debt as well. And the -- sometimes people get tripped up on this, but you actually are raising debt as you fund this as well, and it's that debt that you raise that's part of that capitalized interest cost and the buildup of the capitalized rate. So you can't fund everything with equity. We choose to fund some with that.

Right, but if you're drawing on the line or raising long-term debt, that's going to -- will lower your overall rate, but that rate will still probably be higher as you're re-equitizing the balance sheet, at a lower rate than your cost of debt that you're capitalizing?

Well, it depends on what type of capital we use to fund our business and fund that CIP, but you're going to use the line some, although we haven't used it for two years. We fund some with debt, unsecured debt, which right now an unsecured debt deal, we could get done for about 4.40%, so you think about that. And overall capitalization right now is about 5.25%, because we do still have some legacy debt deals out there that are in the high 6%, and then some will be funded with equity. But in terms of accretive, there is a cost of that capital related to the debt and it does flow through that capitalization rate and flows through the capitalized interest.

Okay, thank you.

And there are no further questions in the queue. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Bryce Blair for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you, Andrea, and thank you, everyone, for your time today. I know we'll see many of you at the NAREIT conference in early June. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.