ESSEX PROPERTY TRUST, INC. (ESS)

Essex Property Trust, Inc. is a Maryland corporation and S&P 500 company that operates as a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust. It owns its real estate and other investments directly or indirectly through its operating partnership, Essex Portfolio, L.P., in which it is the sole general partner with an approximately 96.6% interest as of December 31, 2025. The company has been a REIT for federal tax purposes since 1994 and completed its IPO on June 13, 1994. It is engaged primarily in the ownership, operation, management, acquisition, development and redevelopment of predominantly apartment communities on the West Coast of the United States, and uses taxable REIT subsidiaries for certain revenue-generating or investment activities.

As of December 31, 2025, Essex owned or had ownership interests in 259 operating apartment communities with 63,077 apartment homes, excluding preferred equity co-investments, loan investments, two operating commercial buildings, and a development pipeline. The pipeline consisted of one consolidated project of 543 apartment homes plus various predevelopment projects, with estimated total costs of $358.0 million. In 2025 the company acquired seven communities with 1,523 homes for $829.5 million at pro rata share and sold five communities with 1,230 homes for $563.8 million. It also invests through joint ventures, including a new venture with the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, and through preferred equity investments, and it took control of and consolidated two communities, Artizan in Oakland and TENTEN Downtown in Los Angeles, after preferred equity defaults. Financing includes senior unsecured notes, term loans, a $1.5 billion credit facility, a $75 million working capital line, a $750 million commercial paper program, a $900 million at-the-market equity program and a stock repurchase plan. Its credit ratings are Baa1/Stable from Moody's and BBB+/Stable from S&P.

Essex invests primarily in apartment communities in predominantly coastal markets in Southern California, Northern California and the Seattle metropolitan area. Its market criteria are major metropolitan areas with populations above one million, constraints on new housing supply, rents that are affordable relative to for-sale housing costs, and housing demand supported by job growth and high incomes. The customers are residential tenants. The company adjusts its geographic allocation based on economic research and property valuations.

The company is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with regional offices in Woodland Hills and Irvine, California, and Bellevue, Washington. It had 1,689 employees at year-end 2025, of whom 1,267 worked on-site at communities. Property operations focus on property management, capital improvement planning, business plan benchmarking, and development and redevelopment. Essex competes with other apartment communities, condominiums, single-family homes, and other REITs and entities in acquiring, developing and operating apartments, some of which are larger and have greater resources. All of its communities are in earthquake-prone areas, so it carries general liability and property insurance, limited earthquake and other coverage, and uses its wholly owned insurance subsidiary, Pacific Western Insurance LLC, to self-insure certain earthquake and property losses.