Edited Transcript of ELS earnings conference call or presentation 21-Apr-20 3:00pm GMT

Let me first address our MH business. Since the middle of March, we have taken steps to increase social distancing, including closing the common area, amenities and opening our offices by appointment only. We have been and remain focused on ensuring the health and wellbeing of our employees, residents, members and guests. Our customers have appreciated the importance of these steps and have followed the new guidelines.

We have an occupancy rate of 95% in our core portfolio. We have often focused on the occupancy rate, but at this time, I think it’s important to focus on the quality of our resident base. Our residents are homeowners who have generally paid cash for their home. Our residents are committed to their communities, they care about the community, and they actively display a pride of ownership in their home.

Our overall occupancy consists of less than 6% renters. We see our renters as future owners. In 2019, 33% of all home sales were the result of a renter conversion. In April, we saw continued strength in our MH platform with 96% of our residents paying us timely. We have a deferral plan in place for April rental payments for those residents facing financial hardship due to the impact of COVID-19.

Moving to our RV business. We have had an acquisition strategy over the years of buying RV resorts that are heavily focused on annual and seasonal revenue streams. 80% of our RV revenue is longer term in nature and 20% comes from our transient customers. Our properties have been impacted by local shelter-in-place orders, which call for reduced or eliminated travel activity inside a jurisdiction.

Our RV annual customer generally has developed roots at the community. The annual customer tends to own a park model, resort cottage or has an RV on the site that has add-ons that create a more permanent footprint.

For the first quarter, the annual revenue grew by 7.4%, comprised of 5.8% rate and 1.6% occupancy.

Our Northern RV resorts generally open in April. Our annual customers at these locations pay a deposit in advance and then complete their payment when they arrive for the season. These are summer homes and weekend getaways for our customers. This year, the opening of 46 of our RV resorts has been delayed until at least the end of April. While we have begun collecting the annual rent due, the delay in opening has caused the change in the normal payment pattern for these customers. Our seasonal revenue stream comes from customers who have a reservation of 30 days or more. Our seasonal revenue primarily comes from our sunbelt locations, with 70% of the revenue generated between November and March.

The first quarter, which represents half of the full year anticipated seasonal revenue, grew by 7%. The second quarter seasonal revenue is generally our slowest quarter with approximately 15% of the overall seasonal revenue in 2019 occurring in the second quarter. For April, we have seen a decline in seasonal revenue as described in our press release.

Our transient business represents under 6% of our total revenue. We have always said that this piece is the most difficult to forecast. Our transient customer stays with us an average of 3 nights. The transient business serves an important role for us as we seek to convert that transient customer to a seasonal or annual customer. Most of our RV resorts have a small portion of their overall revenue stream focused on the transient business, which becomes a lead generator for the rest of the business. Towards the end of March, we stopped accepting transient reservations for the remainder of March and all of April. As a result of following shelter-in-place orders, we reduced activity to protect our employees and residents from any potential risk associated with transient traffic.

At this point, the shelter-is-place orders are limiting our ability to accept transient reservation. With respect to our membership business, we have seen strong demand from the members during this pandemic. As shown in our supplemental, cash receipts are similar this year to last year at this time. We made the decision to withdraw guidance because we are operating under unprecedented conditions and thought it would be more meaningful for us to provide an outlook when there are updates to regulatory protocol. Our business has held up extremely well during these circumstances. We are seeing the best of humanity from our employees, residents, guests and members. We have often described the sense of community at our properties, and we have seen this in full display over the past month. We see neighbors caring for neighbors, working together to support the greater community. The demand is high for our properties as seen by our April results.

Based on feedback that we have received, our customers are very much looking forward to enjoying the outdoors lifestyle at our properties this season.

I would like to close by, again, thanking our employees, residents and customers. The ELS team has reacted to an evolving climate in an impressive manner, and for that, I am grateful.

I will now turn it over to Paul to walk through the numbers in detail.

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [3]

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Thank you, Marguerite, and good morning, everyone. I will provide an overview of our first quarter results, highlight operating performance in April, including the results of our recent annual property and casualty insurance renewal and discuss our balance sheet and liquidity position.

For the first quarter, we reported $0.59 normalized FFO per share. Our results reflect the initial impact of COVID-19, which primarily affected our transient RV business. Core MH rent growth of 4.9% includes 4.4% rent growth and approximately 50 basis points related to occupancy gains. Core RV rental income from annuals and seasonals outperformed expectations for the quarter. Our transient revenues, which were pacing ahead of guidance through February, ended the quarter down 7.6% compared to last year. As Marguerite mentioned, we began closing our reservation grid to incoming customers in mid-March. First quarter membership dues revenue as well as the net contribution from upgrade sales were higher than guidance. Dues revenues increased 6.1% as a result of rate increases and an increase in our paid member count of 4.3%. During the quarter, we sold approximately 3,200 Thousand Trails camping passes. We upgraded 727 members during the quarter, 15% more than the first quarter last year.

Core utility and other income was in line with guidance for the quarter and includes the year-over-year increase in real estate tax pass-throughs resulting from the Florida reassessments we discussed in January. First quarter core property operating maintenance and real estate tax expenses were unfavorable to forecast, mainly as a result of higher-than-expected R&M expenses. We incurred expenses to recover from storms in California and certain Northern properties.

In summary, first quarter core property operating revenues were up 5.4% and core NOI before property management increased 5.2%. The property operating income from the noncore portfolio, which includes our Marina portfolio as well as assets acquired during 2019, was $2.8 million in the quarter. Overall, the acquisition properties continue to perform in line with expectations.

Property management and corporate G&A were higher than guidance in the quarter because of the timing of expenses related to certain administrative matters. Other income and expenses generated a net contribution of $1.4 million for the quarter. Ancillary retail and restaurant operations were impacted by COVID-19 and were lower than expected. Interest and related amortization was $26.1 million and includes the impact of the refinancing we completed during the quarter. I’ll provide some detail on this transaction shortly when I discuss our balance sheet. We included a COVID-19 update with our earnings release and supplemental financial information.

In addition to describing our operational response to the pandemic, the update highlights cash collections and liquidity as indicators of April performance. In our MH properties, we’ve collected 96% of April rent. The collection rate is net of approximately $180,000 of rent deferral requests we’ve approved. Our largest population within the MH portfolio, age-qualified properties, have the highest collection rate at 97% collected. Our renter population, while a very small portion of our portfolio, has the lowest rate of collection with approximately 91% collected.

At this time of year, our RV collection efforts are focused on the Northern resorts’ annual customers as they typically are returning to begin their season of campaign. As detailed in the update, 46 of these properties have delayed openings, which has affected typical payment patterns. To date, we have collected approximately 61% of the April and May annual RV renewals as compared to 71% collected at this time last year. Our seasonal revenue in April was impacted by cancellations as certain customers chose to leave early. However, we also saw customers extend their stays and are currently showing a revenue decline of 12% in April.

My last update relates to our recent property and casualty insurance renewal. On April 1, we completed the renewal of our property, general liability, workers’ comp and other ancillary insurance programs. While terms and conditions are substantially similar to the existing — to the expiring policies, adverse market conditions resulted in a higher-than-expected premium increase of 27%. The resulting insurance expense for the remainder of the year is approximately $1.1 million higher than our expectations.

Now I’ll discuss our refinancing activity in the first quarter, highlight current secured debt market conditions and provide some comments on our balance sheet, including our current liquidity position. During the quarter, we closed a $275.4 million secured facility with Fannie Mae. The loan is a fixed interest rate of 2.69%, which is the lowest coupon we’ve seen on a secured 10-year deal in the MH RV space. With the proceeds, we’ve repaid our secured debt maturing in 2020, which carried a weighted average interest rate of 5.2% and the outstanding balance on our line of credit. The remaining proceeds funded working capital, primarily our expansion activity. As I provide an update on the secured debt market, bear in mind that the current environment is quite volatile. Conditions have been changing rapidly, and we anticipate they’ll continue to do so for some time. That said, current secured financing terms available for MH and RV assets range from 55% to 75% LTV with rates from 3% to 3.75% for 10-year money. As we have seen in challenging times in the past, sponsor strength is highly valued by lenders and ELS continues to be highly regarded. High-quality, age-qualified MH will command preferred terms from participating lenders.

As mentioned in our earnings release, subsequent to quarter end, we borrowed $100 million from our line of credit. In these uncertain times, we decided it was prudent to increase our available cash balance. As noted on our COVID-19 update page, we have a current available cash balance of $126 million with no debt maturing in 2020. We continue to place high importance on balance sheet flexibility, and we believe we have multiple sources of capital available to us. Our debt-to-EBITDA and our interest coverage are both around 4.9x. The weighted average maturity of our outstanding secured debt is almost 13 years.

Now we would like to open it up for questions.

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Questions and Answers

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Operator [1]

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(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Nicholas Joseph with Citi.

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Nicholas Gregory Joseph, Citigroup Inc, Research Division – Director & Senior Analyst [2]

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Just on the transient RV revenue, I was wondering if you can break out the percentage of the total year. That’s Memorial Day and then July 4 and then Labor Day weekends.

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [3]

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Yes. I think, Nick, as we laid out in the supplemental, you can see the contribution from prior year. But at this point, I think that you would look to those numbers as the indicator of the amount.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [4]

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And I think as we’ve said in the past, so not talking about the future here, as we said in the past, May Memorial Day represents about 1/3 of our overall Memorial Day traffic — our overall May transient traffic.

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Nicholas Gregory Joseph, Citigroup Inc, Research Division – Director & Senior Analyst [5]

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Okay. So Memorial Day is 1/3 of the May, and then that’s in the supplemental in terms of each of the month in the second quarter?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [6]

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Right.

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Nicholas Gregory Joseph, Citigroup Inc, Research Division – Director & Senior Analyst [7]

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And I’m just wondering, if you have a sense on the private side of — if your experience so far, both on the MH and the RV, is similar to what you expect on the private side? Or do you expect additional stress there that may ultimately lead to different acquisition opportunities on the other side of this?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [8]

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Yes. It’s interesting, Nick. One of the things that’s happened during this pandemic is there’s been a lot of discussion with operators, we’ve kind of gotten together to talk about what’s happening so that we have an appreciation that we’re kind of all in this together. And from that — and certainly, some of the smaller operators, I think there may be an opportunity. But right now, it’s more about kind of exchanging best practices and really being just good community stewards at this point. And should there be something that comes out as a result of that because people are interested in selling that, that could be interesting.

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Operator [9]

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And our next question comes from Joshua Dennerlein with Bank of America.

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Joshua Dennerlein, BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division – Research Analyst [10]

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Curious on the — it looks like you canceled the April notice for the MH increase. What percent of the portfolio is subject to that kind of April notice? And kind of do you have any expectations on going forward if that’s something, like as the pandemic passes you’d be able to push through?

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [11]

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Yes. Yes. So the suspension, yes, took place in April. When you think about our rent increase process overall, those notices are generally sent 90 days prior to the effective date. So the April notice is generally suspended increases that would have been effective August 1. And just keep in mind that rent increase calendar, therefore, it’s kind of a fiscal calendar, so September through August are the notice dates for increases that would be effective January through December. We had sent notices to more than 70% of our MH residents by the time we got to April. And April, the month itself, is a relatively small percentage, kind of single digits type percentage. The notices that we had sent prior to April were consistent with the 4% rate growth that we had expected. So when you think about math, if you want to kind of figure out what it might translate into, just the math would suggest maybe 50 basis points on our expected rate growth.

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Joshua Dennerlein, BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division – Research Analyst [12]

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Okay. Appreciate that. And then you enacted a rent deferral program. Was that for MH and RV or just the MH side? And has anyone, at this point, requested to defer April rent?

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Patrick Waite, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & COO [13]

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Yes, it’s Patrick. The deferral program was rolled out for April rent, and it provided the opportunity initially in MH for a resident to request, a deferral of part or all of April rent to be repaid over the following 3 months. We have a small number of requests from our RV annual base across the portfolio, but that’s — it’s a small number relative to the total, which on the MH side is in the neighborhood of $180, 000, $200,000, which represents, I don’t know, a few basis points, 30, 40 basis points on total collections.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [14]

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And the way we kind of got to that policy was in really — harkening back to my answer in the last question was just having conversations with owners and operators and trying to have an understanding of what others were doing, how we thought it was going to impact our properties, and we think it’s worked out very well. And it is for those who have been impacted by COVID-19, which we’re — those are the results of the — of what we’ve seen so far.

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Joshua Dennerlein, BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division – Research Analyst [15]

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Okay. Just one follow-up on that. Have you guys thought about having the same program for May or it’s too early at this point?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [16]

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Yes. I think it’s a little bit early. As we thought about coming out with our call, we wanted to come out at the same time we normally do, but we’ll certainly provide updates as we have updates.

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Operator [17]

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And our next question comes from John Kim with BMO Capital Markets.

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Piljung Kim, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Senior Real Estate Analyst [18]

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Can you just clarify your decision to open the Northern RV resort and also to accept transient RV reservations? Would that be based solely on the state and local shelter-in-place regulations? Or will this be, in any case, more of a company-wide decision?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [19]

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No. I mean the state shelter-in-place orders were really the large part of the impetus for the decisions we made regarding reducing traffic at our RV parts of the transient traffic. And we’re working with local counties on their particular order because in some cases, they may be more restrictive than the state. So it’s all regulatory protocol. So we’re working with states and local counties for that — for them to allow that activity. We’re ready to go once that happens. And in instances, like I said, there — some are pushed to the end of April, which is only 10 days away or 9 days away, whatever that is.

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Piljung Kim, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Senior Real Estate Analyst [20]

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So you didn’t anticipate potentially being more conservative than the state regulations opening later than their recommendation?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [21]

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No. We would anticipate going along with the regulatory protocol, similar to what we’ve done in every aspect of this during those last 5 weeks in terms of our systems that we’ve put in place, and we’re operating under the guidelines that we’ve been given, and we would continue to do that. So we would see that they would be opening as soon as there is daylight for that to happen from the standpoint of the states or those counties.

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Piljung Kim, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Senior Real Estate Analyst [22]

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Okay. The 7.6% decline in transient revenue that you experienced in the first quarter, how much of that was demand-driven versus your decision to halt reservations?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [23]

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It was primarily our decision in that. It was towards — Patrick, correct me, I think it was towards the middle of March or the March 18 or something, where we just said, this seems like an opportunity for us that we would prefer to kind of stop the traffic going in and out. And then we made that decision, and I think it proved to be the absolute right decision for our customers and for our employees. And so — and then it was almost a couple of weeks after that, that decision was made. The shelter-in-place orders were put in place across the state.

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Piljung Kim, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Senior Real Estate Analyst [24]

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Once you start accepting reservations again in transient, do you anticipate demand being there? Or I’m just wondering if there’s any way that you could track customer demand or leads in transient RV?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [25]

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I mean we are seeing a real desire to get out and camp. We’re seeing a desire for people to be outdoors. What’s holding them back is the shelter-in-place. So we don’t see any decrease in demand, if anything, an increase and an excitement of getting outside, getting out of the 4 walls of their home.

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Piljung Kim, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research – Senior Real Estate Analyst [26]

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‘

Marguerite, you mentioned the strong demand in Thousand Trails during the pandemic. Can you remind us what the customer experience is like today? Are members allowed to go physically into your camping grounds?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [27]

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Sure. So there’s many TT members right now who have been able to use the system, and they’re actually currently sheltering in place at our properties. So that’s — I think that’s been positive, and they’ve been very pleased about being able to do that. In some instances — in all instances, we’ve actually reduced the regulation or rules around the amount of time that one can spend in a particular property, and that has been very well received. So that we — that was just another way for us to reduce the movement around the system and around the country.

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Operator [28]

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And our next question comes from Todd Stender with Wells Fargo.

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Todd Jakobsen Stender, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division – Director & Senior Analyst [29]

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I guess kind of moving towards home sales, Q1 numbers, especially with new homes, were pretty solid. But can you maybe speak to March as the COVID news certainly took hold? And maybe looking back at rental conversions, how you think that looks going forward?

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Patrick Waite, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & COO [30]

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Sure. Let me just comment on the quarter first. It was a solid quarter for new home sales, up 70% year-over-year. And we saw broad strength across the portfolio. Florida had a very good quarter as did Arizona, Nevada and really across all of our Northern markets as well. So from a demand perspective, coming out of the quarter, it’s been very favorable. From a renter conversion perspective, and keep in mind, we also look at existing residents either upsizing to a new home or downsizing to a smaller home, total conversions were 27% for the quarter. That’s kind of in the range that’s been consistent over the last several quarters, call it 25% to 30%, and 3/4 of those were conversions, renters who are either renting an ELS home or renting another home on site. So still a very sticky customer and very much interested in buying homes and setting up long-term residency at our communities. How that’s going to translate into shelter-in-place and moving out of shelter in place, it’s difficult to say. We do continue to see that solid demand profile coming out of the quarter.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [31]

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And Todd, we were pretty excited originally to talk about the new home sales because I think our team did a great job in new home sales in the quarter. But obviously, there were other things that took precedent to discussing. But the team did a great job on new home sales in the quarter.

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Todd Jakobsen Stender, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division – Director & Senior Analyst [32]

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Great. Okay. That’s helpful. And then, Paul, just with the rent deferrals, how are you accounting for that? We certainly see it with retail. We cover the triple-net lease space. So with a certain level of certainty, if you think you can collect rent, you certainly book it in FFO. How do you look at that from a resident standpoint and their cash?

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Patrick Waite, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & COO [33]

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Right. I mean that’s certainly a relevant question. I’d say for us, Todd, it is an extremely small number, as we’ve talked about. So we’re evaluating it just in the ordinary course as we take a look at collectability and would otherwise offset our revenues if and when we determine it’s not collectible, but again, it’s 30 to 40 basis points.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [34]

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And I think it will be important as we turn the calendar to May, certainly, each one of these deferrals signed an agreement. And so as we turn the calendar to May to see how the May payments are coming in, that will be — that will inform our views as well.

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Todd Jakobsen Stender, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division – Director & Senior Analyst [35]

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Okay. Got it. Just last one. When it comes to business interruption insurance, certainly, we see this with you guys when hurricanes hit and events like that, but policies generally don’t cover — or they only apply to property damage and they don’t apply to maybe pandemics. Do you have any context there with how this applies to you guys?

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [36]

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Yes. I think, generally speaking, your comments are accurate. I do think this is an area that has been the subject of quite a bit of discussion. So it remains to be seen. With respect to the policies bound April 1, I think there was clarification in the language. But as to policies in place prior to the pandemic, it will probably continue to be a topic of discussion.

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Operator [37]

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And our next question comes from John Pawlowski with Green Street.

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John Joseph Pawlowski, Green Street Advisors, LLC, Research Division – Analyst [38]

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Paul, just maybe a follow-up question on the impact of the suspension of the MH rent increases. Is it 50 bps on total portfolio MH rate growth for 2020? Did I interpret that correctly?

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [39]

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Yes. That’s what the math — again, it’s — right, I’m trying to be careful with respect to guidance since we withdrew it, but just the math based on the number of notices remaining and those — and the timing of their effectiveness in 2020, yes, it’s about 50 basis points from our expected growth of 4%.

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John Joseph Pawlowski, Green Street Advisors, LLC, Research Division – Analyst [40]

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Got it. Okay. And then Patrick, curious for some commentary on what you’re seeing on the occupancy side on the MH and split between age-restricted and family. Are you seeing any markets in either segments in April? Is occupancy declining anywhere in any sense of magnitude, if so?

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Patrick Waite, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & COO [41]

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I think it’s early to say with respect to April, but maybe just going off a level and just looking at the composition of our all-age and our age-qualified portfolio. Overall, we’re 70% age qualified. The average age of that resident is in the early ’70s. It’s a baby boomer. They’re retired. The average age in our all-age portfolio is in the early ’50s. It skews a little higher because of the locations that we have in retirement destinations and just the amenities and the activities around our properties overall. So even in the age qualified, we tend to skew towards baby boomers and retirees, whose income is really based on retirement savings, social security and less so in employments and paychecks. So they tend to be very resilient in periods of job disruptions.

I did, in my previous company, run a large all-age portfolio, and the job disruption in the great recession ended up resulting in an increasing vacancies over a period of time that was then replenished over time as the economy stabilized, and we had residents either relocating to different markets or different states in order to seek employments. And we also saw people kind of moving down to a more affordable housing choice.

But for our portfolio, again, 70% age-qualified properties and for all-age properties, behaving in many ways similar to age qualified, I just don’t — I don’t see the driver of the job disruption having has as great an impact.

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John Joseph Pawlowski, Green Street Advisors, LLC, Research Division – Analyst [42]

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Okay. Understood. But I guess the quick — or just maybe the succinct question is, just given the sheer number of layoffs you see today, is it reasonable to expect that your family communities see some diminution in occupancy? Or you really wouldn’t underwrite that at — from what you see on the ground today?

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [43]

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I mean I think that what you’re seeing on — our family community skew towards the older, as Patrick mentioned. But certainly, when you look at Nevada, for instance, I mean you’re seeing currently high unemployment rates there, and we have properties there. So I’d say by region, you would look at it. So I think that there certainly will be some impact in those locations, but we do skew towards the older demographic even on the family side. So I think that’s what will decrease the impact.

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [44]

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And just to frame that, John. I mean, Nevada, as an example, is right around 5% delinquent for April. So as Patrick said, it’s early, and we’re trying to read tea leaves here, but there’s a lot to watch.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [45]

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And then the timing with which — I mean, Nevada is a function of the — the casinos, et cetera, are coming back and when that happens and that type of thing. So all — we’re focused on all of it, but it’s a relatively small piece of our business.

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John Joseph Pawlowski, Green Street Advisors, LLC, Research Division – Analyst [46]

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Okay. No, understood. Maybe one last one for me. Paul, I know the expense savings are probably going to be minimal, at least in the first half of the year. What does — can you give us a sense of magnitude, what does the playbook look like in the second half of ’20 and 2021? If demand remains low in the RV business, like, what kind of expense levers are there to pull in the second half? And can you give — humor us with a rough dollar number of cost savings that you’re proactively looking to grab in the back half of this year or early 2021?

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [47]

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I can focus on the first part of your question. The last part of your question, I’ll probably set aside for another day. But just broadly, when you think about our overall property operating and maintenance expenses, when you exclude the real estate taxes, that’s about 80% of our expense base. Inside of that, about 10% are fixed. So insurance premiums, software and other expenses that support the business. So when you think about the remaining 90% that have some level of variability, I think you focus on the RV, which I think is right because to the extent the MH portfolio maintains a consistent level of occupancy, we wouldn’t see much variability there. But inside RV, depending on the date when the normal operations resume, there’s something of a built-in hedge in expense line items like payroll and utilities. And then R&M and admin, they could see reductions as well. There could be just lower spend on supplies and other items that are needed for run rate operations.

So that’s how I’d frame it, but I’m going to stop before I try to suggest a dollar amount or impact.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [48]

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And I think, John, too, just — and I think we’ve talked about this before, just from considering an example, a highly transient property, a highly transient RV property, comes with it a higher level of payroll just because there’s generally more activities. There’s more people checking in and checking out, you need more people to do that. So there’s a direct correlation. If you’re not seeing that — I wouldn’t say we’re not seeing because the demand, I think, is definitely there. If we’re not able, okay? Then you have that kind of immediate adjustment to payroll just because you — there’s just not the activity level there. So that’s where I would see it being able to impact with the staffing.

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Operator [49]

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And our next question comes from Samir Khanal with Evercore ISI.

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Samir Upadhyay Khanal, Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division – MD & Equity Research Analyst [50]

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I guess just a clarification. I got on the call a little bit late, so I apologize. On the RV annuals, I think in the press release, you said for the April and May lease renewals, you’ve collected 61% of sort of the installment rent payments which were 10% below same time last year. I mean I’m just trying to clarify, does that mean you’re sort of losing customers here? Or does that mean collections are coming in — you anticipate collections to come in sort of at a later date here?

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Paul Seavey, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – Executive VP & CFO [51]

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I think it — I think what it highlights is the payment schedules for the RV annual customers that differ based on their renewal date. So the focus at this time of the year, Samir, is those April and May renewals mainly consists of the northern RV resorts. And those customers tend to make their installment payments when they arrive at the beginning of the summer season. So the closures that we noted have affected the timing of those payments. But we are pleased to be in a place where we’ve collected more than 85% of what we had collected last year at this time.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [52]

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And just to follow-up, and this was — I kind of touched on this in the beginning. But when our customers leave after the summer, they provided deposit, as Paul has mentioned. But they leave the park model, the resort cotter, the RV on-site at the property and return for the following season. And the first few weeks of every season are really generally a time for our customer to prepare for their second — prepare their second home for the summer season. The activity of the property really starts to accelerate as the summer weather moves in and so that’s kind of what we’re seeing as we’re making calls to our customers, we’re seeing a lot of people very anxious to come and get out of their locations where they are and come to our properties.

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Operator [53]

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At this time, I’d like to turn it back over to Marguerite Nader for closing comments.

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Marguerite M. Nader, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [54]

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Thank you for joining us on the call today. I look forward to providing further updates about our business. Thanks, and stay well.

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Operator [55]

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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today’s conference. This does conclude your program. You may now disconnect.