One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$95.09 our estimate vs market $123.22
Wall Street consensus: $142.72 (50.1% higher than our fair-value estimate)
30% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.
MAA · NYQ · Real Estate · REIT - Residential
Current price
$123.22
52-week range
$120.30 - $144.41
Market cap
$14.66B
Balance sheet
Stretched
3.34x Stretched
Net debt $5.66B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
3 Risks
3 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 0.2% last year.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
- Risk Forward P/E (37.6x) is higher than trailing (36.3x) - earnings are expected to drop.
- Risk Net debt grew 21.9% over 3 years.
What this company does
Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.
Mid-America Apartment Communities is a massive landlord that owns over 100,000 apartments, mainly in the southern and eastern United States. As a special type of company called a REIT (a Real Estate Investment Trust that owns properties), it makes its money from collecting tenant rent and is generally required to pay out most of its profits to its owners in the form of dividends (regular cash payments).
How the company got here
Mid-America Apartment Communities, or MAA, started in 1977 as a company called The Cates Co. in Memphis, Tennessee. It became a publicly traded company in 1994, which means anyone can buy a small piece of the company, called a stock. A major part of its growth has been through acquiring other large apartment companies, including Colonial Properties Trust in 2013 and Post Properties in 2016. These acquisitions significantly increased the number of apartment units MAA owns, making it one of the largest owners of apartments in the United States. The company has a long history of focusing on apartment communities in the fast-growing Sun Belt region of the United States.
What it actually does
MAA is a real estate investment trust (REIT), which is a type of company that owns and often operates income-producing real estate. Think of them as a large-scale landlord. They own and manage apartment buildings in the Southeast, Southwest, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. Their main business is renting out apartments to people and families. They handle everything from leasing and maintenance to providing community amenities for their residents.
Apartment Rentals
The vast majority of MAA's money comes from renting out its tens of thousands of apartment units. When you sign a lease for an apartment in one of their buildings, your monthly rent payment goes to MAA. This provides a steady and predictable stream of income for the company. In addition to rent, they also collect fees for things like parking, pets, and other services offered at their properties. This is their primary and largest business, forming the foundation of the entire company.
Property Operations and Management
Beyond just owning the buildings, MAA actively manages its apartment communities. This involves all the day-to-day tasks of being a landlord, such as marketing available apartments, handling lease agreements, and performing maintenance and repairs. By managing the properties themselves, they can control the quality of the living experience for their residents and the upkeep of their buildings. This hands-on approach helps them keep their apartments occupied and maintain the value of their properties.
Acquisition, Development, and Redevelopment
A smaller but important part of MAA's business involves buying, building, and renovating apartment communities. They sometimes purchase existing apartment buildings from other owners, a process known as acquisition. They also engage in development, which means they build new apartment communities from the ground up. Additionally, they focus on redevelopment, which involves renovating and upgrading their older properties to make them more attractive to renters and to be able to charge higher rents.
What management is betting on now
MAA's leadership is currently focused on expanding and improving its properties in the high-growth Sun Belt region. They are investing in building new apartment communities and redeveloping existing ones to include modern features like smart home technology and community-wide Wi-Fi. Management believes that the demand for rental housing will remain strong in their markets, partly because it is becoming more expensive to buy a single-family home. They are also using technology to make their own operations more efficient, which helps improve their operating margin (the portion of revenue left after paying for the day-to-day costs of running the business).
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q2
$259.70M
FY2024 Q3
$215.46M
FY2024 Q4
$152.61M
FY2025 Q1
$123.98M
FY2025 Q2
$264.54M
FY2025 Q3
$170.81M
FY2025 Q4
$158.60M
FY2026 Q1
$91.28M
Revenue
$553.73M
Net income
$124.36M
Diluted EPS
1.06
Operating cash flow
$149.64M
Free cash flow
$91.28M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$555.56M
Net income
$57.57M
Diluted EPS
0.48
Operating cash flow
$261.67M
Free cash flow
$158.60M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$554.37M
Net income
$99.54M
Diluted EPS
0.84
Operating cash flow
$266.44M
Free cash flow
$170.81M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$549.90M
Net income
$108.13M
Diluted EPS
0.92
Operating cash flow
$353.45M
Free cash flow
$264.54M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$549.29M
Net income
$181.67M
Diluted EPS
1.54
Operating cash flow
$196.62M
Free cash flow
$123.98M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$549.83M
Net income
$166.65M
Diluted EPS
1.43
Operating cash flow
$239.13M
Free cash flow
$152.61M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$551.13M
Net income
$115.19M
Diluted EPS
0.98
Operating cash flow
$309.54M
Free cash flow
$215.46M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$546.43M
Net income
$101.95M
Diluted EPS
0.86
Operating cash flow
$349.37M
Free cash flow
$259.70M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $95.09 vs current price $123.22
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $142.72 (50.1% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $95.09 a share — about 22.8% below today's price of $123.22, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $5.7B. Interest coverage 3.3x.
Net debt
$5.66B
Interest coverage
3.34x
Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 3.3 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
MAA
BASELINE
Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.
Total debt $5.72B Interest coverage 3.34x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $9.19B Interest coverage 3.55x +6% vs MAA Has roughly the same debt cushion as MAA.
Total debt $8.57B Interest coverage 2.83x -15% vs MAA Carries about 1.2x less debt cushion than MAA.
Total debt $4.87B Interest coverage 2.09x -37% vs MAA Carries about 1.6x less debt cushion than MAA.
Total debt $5.99B Interest coverage 1.64x -51% vs MAA Carries about 2.0x less debt cushion than MAA.
Total debt $6.75B Interest coverage 2.33x -30% vs MAA Carries about 1.4x less debt cushion than MAA.
What you should know
The case for and against MAA
3 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 0.2% last year.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
-
Dividend yield is 4.9% with 33-year payout history.
Risks
-
Forward P/E (37.6x) is higher than trailing (36.3x) - earnings are expected to drop.
-
Net debt grew 21.9% over 3 years.
-
Stock trades 13.3% above its 5-year average P/E.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
36.35x
Forward P/E
37.57x
P/B
2.63x
P/S
6.61x
EV/EBITDA
16.36x
PEG ratio
7.03x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
58.4%
Operating margin
25.4%
Net margin
18.2%
ROE
7.0%
ROA
3.1%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.02x
Current ratio
0.05x
Quick ratio
0.03x
Total debt
$5.72B
Total cash
$51.84M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$2.21B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
5.6%
EPS TTM
3.39
EPS 5Y CAGR
-11.6%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$1.03B
Free CF TTM
$717.94M
FCF margin
32.4%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
4.9%
Payout ratio
178.1%
Last ex-div date
2026-07-15