Mid-America Apartment Communities lowered its full-year 2026 same-store revenue guidance after second-quarter results softened, according to an earnings exhibit the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 29. Core FFO per diluted share was $2.08 in the quarter, down from $2.15 a year earlier. Same-store revenue fell 0.3% year over year, expenses rose 0.8%, and net operating income fell 1.0%, with average occupancy at 95.3%.
“Pricing momentum, operating discipline, and growing contribution from new developments position MAA to deliver attractive future earnings growth,” said Brad Hill, MAA’s president and CEO, citing steady demand and expense discipline as supporting factors even as the topline metrics softened.
The company’s leasing data showed a split picture: effective blended lease rate growth was 0.7%, a 20-basis-point improvement from a year earlier, but that blend masked a wide gap between new and renewal leases. Effective new lease rates fell 5.3% year over year, while renewal lease rates rose 5.2%, reflecting a market where MAA is retaining existing residents at higher rents but has to discount sharply to fill vacant units against continued new-supply competition. Resident turnover fell to a historically low 39.6% for the quarter.
Based on the first-half results, MAA lowered its full-year 2026 same-store property revenue growth guidance to a range of -0.20% to 0.40%, down from a prior range of -0.20% to 1.30%. Same-store property expense growth guidance was cut to 1.25%-2.25% from 1.90%-3.40%, and same-store NOI growth guidance edged to -1.70% to 0.10% from -1.70% to 0.30%. Full-year earnings-per-share guidance fell to a $3.96-$4.20 range (midpoint $4.08) from $4.18-$4.50 (midpoint $4.34), while Core FFO guidance held roughly steady at a $8.41-$8.65 range, an $8.53 midpoint essentially unchanged from before. Third-quarter Core FFO guidance is $2.04 to $2.16 per share.
MAA continued investing in new supply of its own during the quarter, completing lease-up at MAA Cathedral Arts in Dallas and completing development of MAA Plaza Midwood in Charlotte, North Carolina, while starting construction on a 263-unit project in the Kansas City market. The company has six development projects totaling 1,749 units underway, of which 193 have been delivered and 127 are in active leasing, and funded about $81 million in development costs during the quarter. MAA also acquired land parcels in Nashville and Northern Virginia for future development, and sold a 194-unit community in Raleigh, North Carolina, for approximately $40 million in net proceeds, realizing a roughly $35 million gain.
On the balance sheet, MAA reported combined cash and available credit capacity of $882.8 million against total debt of $5.7 billion, a 31.2% debt-to-adjusted-total-assets ratio and 4.5x net debt to adjusted EBITDAre. The company entered a new unsecured delayed-draw term loan of up to $350 million, with $100 million drawn as of quarter-end, and repurchased $50 million of stock during the quarter. MAA declared its 130th consecutive quarterly dividend, at an annualized rate of $6.12 per share.
MAA’s guidance cut stands in contrast to the stronger results some coastal apartment REITs posted this earnings season, underscoring a continued split in the multifamily market between supply-constrained coastal metros and Sunbelt markets still absorbing a wave of pandemic-era construction. NAHB data has shown large apartment buildings capturing a majority share of national multifamily completions, much of that new supply concentrated in the same Southeast and Southwest markets where MAA operates.
What it means: MAA’s lowered revenue guidance and softening same-store metrics are the company’s own verified figures. The gap between deep new-lease discounting and firmer renewal pricing reflects real near-term oversupply pressure in MAA’s core Sunbelt markets, though CEO Brad Hill’s framing of the company’s development pipeline as a path to future growth is the company’s own forward-looking view, not an independently confirmed timeline for when Sunbelt supply pressure will ease.
