Eric Bolton, chairman and CEO of MAA (NYSE: MAA), participated in a video interview during Nareit’s REITworld: 2023 Annual Conference held Nov. 14-16 in Los Angeles.
Bolton discussed the broader supply and demand trends across MAA’s core markets.
“Clearly we have seen a pickup in the amount of new supply being delivered to a number of our markets,” as a consequence of the low interest rate environment during the last few years, Bolton said. “This is something we’ve seen in prior cycles, it’s not something we’re particularly worried about.” He added that MAA is encouraged by mounting evidence that new starts are tapering off, so supply should start to moderate meaningfully by the end of 2024 and into 2025.
At the same time, demand remains strong, Bolton said. “We see continued migration trends to our markets that are very supportive of driving demand; we continue to see very stable employment conditions,” he noted, in addition to low levels of resident turnover in relation to home buying.
Bolton also said MAA has “a lot of growth capacity on the balance sheet that we are ready to put to work as new opportunities emerge—that’s really where our focus is at the moment.”
As for where MAA sees the greatest potential for growth in 2024, Bolton pointed to internal technology initiatives that will drive greater operating efficiency. At the same time, MAA is actively talking to developers. “We do think a lot of this supply coming into the market is going to create opportunities for us to grow and to buy some of these projects that are delivering,” he said.