Continued Strong Performance

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. (NYSE: ELS) (referred to herein as “we,” “us,” and “our”) today announced results for the quarter ended March 31, 2023. All per share results are reported on a fully diluted basis unless otherwise noted.

Operations Update

Normalized FFO for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 was $0.74 per share, representing a 2.0% increase compared to the same period in 2022, outperforming the midpoint of our guidance expectation by $0.8 million.

MH

Core MH base rental income for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 increased 6.5% compared to the same period in 2022, which reflects 6.6% growth from rate increases and a decline of 0.1% from occupancy losses. Core MH homeowners increased by 30 since December 31, 2022. We sold 176 new homes during the quarter ended March 31, 2023, with an average sales price of $104,000.

RV and Marina

Core RV and marina base rental income for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 increased 5.5% compared to the same period in 2022. Core RV and marina annual base rental income increased 8.4% for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, compared to the same period in 2022, which reflects 8.0% growth from rate increases and 0.4% from occupancy gains. Total nights camped during the quarter ended March 31, 2023 increased approximately 1.0% compared to the same period in 2022.

Property Operating Expenses

Core property operating expenses for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 increased 7.4% compared to the same period in 2022. See page 8 for details of the Core property operating expenses. Core repair and maintenance expenses for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 was $21.7 million, an increase of $2.5 million compared to the same period in 2022, which includes clean-up costs following weather events across the portfolio.

We completed our property and casualty insurance renewal as of April 1, 2023, and our premiums increased for the policy year April 2023 through March 2024 by approximately $12.0 million, or 58%. This increase has an unfavorable impact of approximately $2.6 million on our full year 2023 guidance.

Guidance (1)(2)

Investment Activity

In March 2023, we completed the acquisition of Red Oak Shores Campground, a 223-site RV community located in Ocean View, New Jersey for a purchase price of $9.5 million.

Balance Sheet Activity

In April 2023, we entered into an interest rate swap agreement with a notional amount of $200.0 million, allowing us to trade one month term SOFR indexed variable rate debt for fixed rate debt. The interest rate swap fixes the variable interest rate on our $200.0 million unsecured term loan at 4.88% per annum. As a result, our exposure to floating rate debt as a percentage of total debt is approximately 7.5%.

As of March 31, 2023, approximately 6% of our total secured and unsecured debt is maturing over the next three years.

About Equity LifeStyle Properties

We are a self-administered, self-managed real estate investment trust (“REIT”) with headquarters in Chicago. As of April 17, 2023, we own or have an interest in 450 properties in 35 states and British Columbia consisting of 171,477 sites.

For additional information, please contact our Investor Relations Department at (800) 247-5279 or at [email protected].

Conference Call

A live audio webcast of our conference call discussing these results will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. Central Time. Please visit the Investor Relations section at www.equitylifestyleproperties.com for the link. A replay of the webcast will be available for two weeks at this site.

Forward-Looking Statements

In addition to historical information, this press release includes certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used, words such as “anticipate,” “expect,” “believe,” “project,” “intend,” “may be” and “will be” and similar words or phrases, or the negative thereof, unless the context requires otherwise, are intended to identify forward-looking statements and may include without limitation, information regarding our expectations, goals or intentions regarding the future, and the expected effect of our acquisitions. Forward-looking statements, including our guidance concerning Net Income, FFO and Normalized FFO per share data, by their nature, involve estimates, projections, goals, forecasts and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in a forward-looking statement due to a number of factors, which include, but are not limited to the following: (i) the mix of site usage within the portfolio; (ii) yield management on our short-term resort and marina sites; (iii) scheduled or implemented rate increases on community, resort and marina sites; (iv) scheduled or implemented rate increases in annual payments under membership subscriptions; (v) occupancy changes; (vi) our ability to attract and retain membership customers; (vii) change in customer demand regarding travel and outdoor vacation destinations; (viii) our ability to manage expenses in an inflationary environment; (ix) our ability to integrate and operate recent acquisitions in accordance with our estimates; (x) our ability to execute expansion/development opportunities in the face of supply chain delays/shortages; (xi) completion of pending transactions in their entirety and on assumed schedule; (xii) our ability to attract and retain property employees, particularly seasonal employees; (xiii) ongoing legal matters and related fees; and (xiv) costs to restore property operations and potential revenue losses following storms or other unplanned events. For further information on these and other factors that could impact us and the statements contained herein, refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the “Risk Factors” and “Forward-Looking Statements” sections in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. These forward-looking statements are based on management's present expectations and beliefs about future events. As with any projection or forecast, these statements are inherently susceptible to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. We are under no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any obligation to, update or alter our forward-looking statements whether as a result of such changes, new information, subsequent events or otherwise.

Supplemental Financial Information

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Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This document contains certain non-GAAP measures used by management that we believe are helpful to understand our business. We believe investors should review these non-GAAP measures along with GAAP net income and cash flows from operating activities, investing activities and financing activities, when evaluating an equity REIT’s operating performance. Our definitions and calculations of these non-GAAP financial and operating measures and other terms may differ from the definitions and methodologies used by other REITs and, accordingly, may not be comparable. These non-GAAP financial and operating measures do not represent cash generated from operating activities in accordance with GAAP, nor do they represent cash available to pay distributions and should not be considered as an alternative to net income, determined in accordance with GAAP, as an indication of our financial performance, or to cash flows from operating activities, determined in accordance with GAAP, as a measure of our liquidity, nor are they indicative of funds available to fund our cash needs, including our ability to make cash distributions. For definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to our financial statements as prepared under GAAP, refer to both Reconciliation of Net Income to Non-GAAP Financial Measures on page 6 and Non-GAAP Financial Measures Definitions and Reconciliations on pages 16-18.

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(In millions, except home site and occupancy figures, unaudited)

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FUNDS FROM OPERATIONS (FFO). We define FFO as net income, computed in accordance with GAAP, excluding gains or losses from sales of properties, depreciation and amortization related to real estate, impairment charges and adjustments to reflect our share of FFO of unconsolidated joint ventures. Adjustments for unconsolidated joint ventures are calculated to reflect FFO on the same basis. We compute FFO in accordance with our interpretation of standards established by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (“NAREIT”), which may not be comparable to FFO reported by other REITs that do not define the term in accordance with the current NAREIT definition or that interpret the current NAREIT definition differently than we do. We receive non-refundable upfront payments from membership upgrade contracts. In accordance with GAAP, the non-refundable upfront payments and related commissions are deferred and amortized over the estimated membership upgrade contract term. Although the NAREIT definition of FFO does not address the treatment of non-refundable upfront payments, we believe that it is appropriate to adjust for the impact of the deferral activity in our calculation of FFO.

We believe FFO, as defined by the Board of Governors of NAREIT, is generally a measure of performance for an equity REIT. While FFO is a relevant and widely used measure of operating performance for equity REITs, it does not represent cash flow from operations or net income as defined by GAAP, and it should not be considered as an alternative to these indicators in evaluating liquidity or operating performance.

NORMALIZED FUNDS FROM OPERATIONS (NORMALIZED FFO). We define Normalized FFO as FFO excluding non-operating income and expense items, such as gains and losses from early debt extinguishment, including prepayment penalties and defeasance costs, transaction/pursuit costs, and other miscellaneous non-comparable items. Normalized FFO presented herein is not necessarily comparable to Normalized FFO presented by other real estate companies due to the fact that not all real estate companies use the same methodology for computing this amount.

FUNDS AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION (FAD). We define FAD as Normalized FFO less non-revenue producing capital expenditures.

We believe that FFO, Normalized FFO and FAD are helpful to investors as supplemental measures of the performance of an equity REIT. We believe that by excluding the effect of gains or losses from sales of properties, depreciation and amortization related to real estate and impairment charges, which are based on historical costs and may be of limited relevance in evaluating current performance, FFO can facilitate comparisons of operating performance between periods and among other equity REITs. We further believe that Normalized FFO provides useful information to investors, analysts and our management because it allows them to compare our operating performance to the operating performance of other real estate companies and between periods on a consistent basis without having to account for differences not related to our normal operations. For example, we believe that excluding the early extinguishment of debt and other miscellaneous non-comparable items from FFO allows investors, analysts and our management to assess the sustainability of operating performance in future periods because these costs do not affect the future operations of the properties. In some cases, we provide information about identified non-cash components of FFO and Normalized FFO because it allows investors, analysts and our management to assess the impact of those items.

INCOME FROM PROPERTY OPERATIONS, EXCLUDING DEFERRALS AND PROPERTY MANAGEMENT. We define Income from property operations, excluding deferrals and property management as rental income, membership subscriptions and upgrade sales, utility and other income less property and rental home operating and maintenance expenses, real estate taxes, sales and marketing expenses, excluding property management expenses and the impact of the GAAP deferrals of membership upgrade sales upfront payments and membership sales commissions, net. For comparative purposes, we present bad debt expense within Property operating, maintenance and real estate taxes in the current and prior periods. We believe that this Non-GAAP financial measure is helpful to investors and analysts as a measure of the operating results of our properties.

The following table reconciles Net income available for Common Stockholders to Income from property operations: