Mid-America Apartment Communities (MAA) PT Lowered to $132 at Truist Securities

Truist Securities analyst Michael Lewis lowered the price target on Mid-America Apartment Communities (NYSE: MAA) to $132.00 (from $146.00) while maintaining a Buy rating.

The analyst comments "What’s Incremental to Our View: We are lowering our 2026 normalized FFO estimate by -0.6% and our 2027 estimate by -2.1%, largely due to higher interest rates (but still relatively low acquisition cap rates). We are lowering our 12-month price target to $132 from $146, which implies a 13.3% potential total return including the 5.0% dividend yield. The stock has significantly underperformed year-to-date, down -12% versus +6% for the VNQ. Job growth generally remains stronger in Sunbelt markets than in other parts of the country, but the overall trend has been weak and disappointing over the past several quarters, notwithstanding the better August print. There are still more than 1.2 million fewer Americans working today then there were at the end of 2025, and U.S. wage growth has fallen behind the rate of inflation. That said, there are also some tailwinds for the apartment sector, including a slowing pace of new supply. Higher interest rates may also continue to contribute to expensive for-sale housing and higher construction costs for rental and single-family. We are keeping our Buy rating on MAA mostly because of its strong low-levered balance sheet, albeit still with dilutive refinancing headwinds like nearly all REITs, and significant discount to NAV (6.5% implied cap rate). The near-term growth outlook appears relatively uninspiring to us, but should be better than the past few years and may be more likely to surprise to the upside than downside at this point. We think VMRK (Buy) is currently the most attractive apartment REIT stock in our coverage universe, as it benefits from generally better near-term coastal fundamentals and realizes merger synergies."

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