Equity Residential Boosts Shareholder Confidence With Operating Update

In a major boost to investors’ sentiment, Equity Residential EQR recently provided an update highlighting positive same-store operating trends in its business. The residential REIT emphasized that its same-store revenue growth is in line with the guidance updated in the second-quarter earnings release as of Aug. 4, 2025.

EQR iterated that it is witnessing continuous high physical occupancy and strong retention in its primary leasing season. As a result, the company reaffirmed its full-year guidance projections for same-store revenue growth of 2.6-3.2% and physical occupancy of 96.4%. The same applies to its third-quarter 2025 blended rate growth guidance of 2.2%-2.8%.

The above update reflects improving demand, contributing to higher occupancy and limited resident turnover, which aids in same-store revenue growth for the company.

EQR in a Nutshell

Equity Residential has a predominant presence in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco and Southern California. The company is particularly targeting places where affluent renters prefer to live, work and play.

Moreover, the high cost of home ownership is likely to keep renter demand up in its markets. The company’s diversification efforts into the suburban markets to capture rising demand are encouraging. The focus on technology to drive margin expansion augurs well.

However, an elevated supply of new rental units in some markets is likely to curb its pricing power. High interest expenses add to its concerns.

In the past three months, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have declined 7.2% compared with the industry's fall of 2.9%.

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Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are W.P. Carey WPC and Terreno Realty TRNO, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WPC’s 2025 FFO per share has been moved southward over the past month to $4.87.

The consensus estimate for TRNO’s 2025 FFO per share has been revised upward marginally to $2.61 over the past month.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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