Share count
64Mpeak FY2018
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ESS, Essex Property Trust Inc.
Essex Property Trust Inc. is an S&P 500 company that operates as a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust.
Strategies Research Driven Approach to Investments The Company believes that successful real estate investment decisions and portfolio growth begin with extensive regional economic research and local market knowledge.
Recognizing that all real estate markets are cyclical, the Company regularly evaluates the results of its regional, economic, and local market research, and adjusts the geographic focus of its portfolio accordingly.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$1.9B
+6.4% YoY · 5% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2M −7.3% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 6709.6% yr-ago 10308.0%
Net income $112M yr-ago $213M
Net margin 4851.2% yr-ago 8531.6%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings, and a property downturn meets a balance sheet built on leverage. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Funds from operations per share have been roughly flat (4% a year). Debt is 52% of assets, moderate for a REIT. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $1.7B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $1.9B | RevenueRevenue |
| $415M | $433M | $390M | $439M | $569M | $489M | $408M | $406M | $742M | $670M | $573M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $702M | $876M | $808M | $926M | $1.0B | $866M | $853M | $895M | $1.1B | $978M | $995M | Funds from operationsFFO |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $12.7B | $13.4B | $13.4B | $14.0B | $15.1B | $15.6B | $16.0B | $16.1B | $17.6B | $18.4B | $18.5B | Real estate (gross)RE gross |
| $12.2B | $12.5B | $12.4B | $12.7B | $12.9B | $13.0B | $12.4B | $12.4B | $12.9B | $13.2B | $13.1B | Total assetsAssets |
| 45% | 44% | 45% | 45% | 48% | 46% | 48% | 50% | 50% | 52% | 52% | Debt / assetsDebt/assets |
| $5.4B | $5.5B | $5.6B | $5.8B | $6.3B | $5.9B | $5.9B | $6.2B | $6.5B | $6.8B | $6.8B | Total debtDebt |
| $5.4B | $5.5B | $5.5B | $5.7B | $6.2B | $5.9B | $5.9B | $5.8B | $6.4B | $6.7B | $6.8B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 1.9× | 2.1× | 2.3× | 2.2× | 2.2× | 2.6× | 2.9× | 2.7× | 3.0× | 3.5× | 3.1× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $6.2B | $6.3B | $6.3B | $6.2B | $6.0B | $6.0B | $5.7B | $5.4B | $5.5B | $5.5B | $5.4B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 65.6M | 65.9M | 66.1M | 65.9M | 65.6M | 65.1M | 65.1M | 64.3M | 64.3M | 64.4M | 64.5M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $10.70 | $13.29 | $12.23 | $14.05 | $15.70 | $13.30 | $13.11 | $13.93 | $17.84 | $15.18 | $15.44 | FFO / shareFFO/sh |
| $94.41 | $95.26 | $94.83 | $94.34 | $91.52 | $92.08 | $87.81 | $84.40 | $86.18 | $86.05 | $84.32 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +4.5%/yr | +5.1%/yr |
| EPS | +5.7%/yr | +3.7%/yr |
| Book value / share | −1.0%/yr | −1.2%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$1.9Blow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- about $15.18 per shareNet income $670M + depreciation $608M − gains on sale $300M
What this means
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- Not enough data
What this means
FFO or dividends missing.
Is it sound?
- Debt / assets 52%ElevatedTotal debt $6.8B ÷ assets $13.2BIndustry peers: median 40%
What this means
Every REIT runs on leverage; how much is the question. Heavy debt is what turns a property downturn into a wipeout, as 2008 showed, so a conservative balance sheet is part of the moat here, not a drag on it.
- Strong(operating income + depreciation) ÷ interest $258MIndustry peers: median 6.6×
What this means
How many times the property cash earnings cover the interest bill. Comfortable coverage is what lets a REIT refinance through a tight credit market instead of being forced to sell into one.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Further, our failure, or our software vendors' failure, to adopt, anticipate or keep pace with the new technologies, such as artificial intelligence solutions, may harm our ability to compete with our peers, decrease the value of our assets and/or impact our future growth.”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $7.2M | $8.9M | $489M |
| 2022 | $4.1M | −$4.4M | $408M |
| 2023 | $2.7M | $5.8M | $406M |
| 2023 | $3.1M | $6.2M | $406M |
| 2024 | $8.2M | $11.0M | $742M |
| 2025 | $10.1M | $10.3M | $670M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership3.5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$10M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 1% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Peers, Residential REITs
The same industry, side by side on the REIT lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EQREquity Residential | $3.1B | 47% | 6.2% | 69% | 40% |
| SUISun Communities Inc. | $2.3B | 34% | 5.2% | — | 44% |
| MAAMid-America Apartment Communities Inc. | $2.2B | 51% | 8.9% | 55% | 40% |
| ESSEssex Property Trust Inc. | $1.9B | 59% | 7.1% | — | 47% |
| AMHAmerican Homes 4 Rent | $1.9B | 34% | 4.2% | 26% | 35% |
| UDRUDR Inc. | $1.7B | 49% | 6.7% | 68% | 50% |
| CPTCamden Property Trust | $1.6B | 48% | 7.7% | 64% | 40% |
| ELSEquity Lifestyle Properties Inc. | $1.5B | 36% | 9.3% | 58% | 60% |
| Group median | — | 48% | 6.9% | — | 42% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies.
$
The assumptions
FFO / share, delivered2%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (required return − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% required return and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / FFO—
Justified by growth—
Dividend yield—
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
FFO about $15.44 per share on 64M shares. The dials set the multiple they justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Essex Property Trust Inc. (ESS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ESS, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← ESRT its page in the Manual ESTA →
Industry order: ← ESRT the REITs — Specialty & Diversified chapter EXR →