UMH Properties, Inc. (UMH): what the price assumes
In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $15.23, UMH Properties, Inc. (UMH) is priced for +4.2% AFFO growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-06-28.
Generated: 2026-08-08 · Exported: 2026-08-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/UMH
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | UMH |
| Company | UMH Properties, Inc. |
| Current price | $15.23/sh |
What The Price Assumes (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | reit |
| Implied FFO growth | 4.2% |
| Price-to-FFO | 17.9x |
| FFO yield | 5.6% |
Solve inputs: computed at a 9.2% cost of equity with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of equity moves the implied AFFO growth ~4.4pp.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.55σ |
| cohort percentile (of 105 peers) | 71 |
| sustained it ~5 years at this level | 72% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 5.46x | 4 | expensive |
| Earnings | 2.25x | 4 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.38x | 6 | expensive |
| Growth | 1.04x | 5 | expensive |
Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 7.7%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=19)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $16.32 | 0.93x | yes | FCF base $0.1B, growth 9% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 7.7%, 6yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $11.18 | 1.36x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 24.8x / 26.8x / 28.8x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $21.03 | 0.72x | yes | P/E 35x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 29.2x / 35.0x / 40.8x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 20x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | $14.59 | 1.04x | yes | DPS $0.85, g=3.3% (sustainable: ROE (TTM) × retention; not the terminal-growth assumption), ke=9.3% |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | $18.36 | 0.83x | yes | Stage 1: 8% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $3.69 | 4.13x | yes | BV/sh $10.48, ROE (TTM) 3.3%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $2.24 | 6.80x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $7.39 | 2.06x | yes | Rev $0.3B, growth 9% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 4.1x / 4.9x / 5.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $10.20 | 1.49x | yes | FFO/share $0.85, growth 8% (input: historical FFO/share growth, 8y median), PEG=5.68 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Residual Income | Asset | $1.68 | 9.07x | yes | BV $10.48 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 3.3% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 2.1%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $14.16 | 1.08x | yes | √(22.5 × FFO/share $0.85 × BVPS $10.48) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $9.85 | 1.55x | yes | EBITDA $0.07B × sector EV/EBITDA 20.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $5.35 | 2.85x | yes | FCF $90.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $4.87 | 3.13x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.09B (FCF $0.09B − SBC $0.00B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $17.24 | 0.88x | yes | FFO/share $0.85 × (8.5 + 2×7.8%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $18.72 | 0.81x | yes | Revenue $0.27B × sector P/S 6.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $10.01 | 1.52x | yes | FFO/share $0.85 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 7.8% (input: historical FFO/share growth, 8y median)) → PE 11.8x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $9.19 | 1.66x | yes | FFO/share $0.85 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | $11.95 | 1.27x | yes | FFO/share $0.85 × 14.1x P/FFO (route cohort median, n=85); FFO $0.07B (FFO incl. D&A + impairments, FY2025, companyfacts), shares 85M |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Funds from operations (trailing) | $72.5m |
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 13.0% |
| Burning cash | no |
REIT basis: leverage is read against funds from operations (FFO), not depreciation-gutted operating income. The header's implied growth runs on ADJUSTED FFO — FFO minus recurring maintenance capex — so the header's multiple and this leverage ratio use bases that differ by that capex; neither substitutes for the other. Net debt could not be resolved from the corporate debt tags in the filings (REIT notes and mortgage debt are often tagged outside the corporate ladder), so the leverage ratio is withheld rather than rendered from incomplete tags. Interest expense is not separately reported in the cached statements, so fixed-charge coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- UMH owns manufactured-housing communities and collects lot rent, the rent for the ground a home sits on, which is among the stickiest revenue in real estate because moving a manufactured home is expensive and rare, so residents stay and rents compound.
- The compounding is visible: same-property NOI grew 7.1% in the first quarter on 5% site-rent increases and rising occupancy, and management guides full-year normalized FFO to $0.98 to $1.04 per share with mid-single-digit per-share growth.
- The cost of that growth is dilution: the share count has compounded at a double-digit annual pace and UMH is marketing up to $97.5 million of new 6.375% Series D preferred stock, so the risk to watch is whether per-share FFO keeps pace with the equity being issued to fund expansion.
Bull Case
Affordable housing is structurally short, and UMH sits on the supply. Manufactured-housing communities are the cheapest unsubsidized way to own a home in America, demand for them is rising as conventional housing prices out the middle, and almost no one builds new communities because the zoning fights are punishing. UMH owns existing ones and rents the land beneath the homes. That lot-rent model is the heart of the bull case, and it compounds in a way few real-estate businesses can match.
The reason lot rent compounds is friction. Once a resident sets a manufactured home on a UMH site, moving it costs thousands of dollars and often is not worth doing, so the resident stays and absorbs steady rent increases rather than relocating. That stickiness shows up directly in the numbers: same-property NOI grew 7.1% in the first quarter, driven by 5% site-rent increases and an occupancy gain, with overall occupancy climbing toward 88%. A 5% annual rent bump on a tenant base that does not leave is a powerful, low-drama engine, and it has been running for years.
On top of the lot-rent base sits a second growth lever the company controls: renting out the homes themselves. UMH has built a rental-home portfolio of roughly 11,200 units running at 94.6% occupancy, buying homes, placing them on its own vacant sites, and renting both the home and the land. That turns empty lots into double revenue and is why the company plans to develop 300 or more new sites in 2026, well above its four-year average of about 200 a year. Each filled site is incremental high-margin rent on infrastructure the community already carries.
The runway is the final piece. With occupancy still climbing toward and past 88%, every point of community occupancy is nearly pure margin, and the development pipeline keeps adding sites to fill. Management guides full-year normalized FFO to $0.98 to $1.04 per share and expects mid-single-digit per-share growth, and it raised the dividend to a $0.90 annualized rate, a payout it has grown steadily on the back of that recurring lot rent. The bull case is patient by nature: own irreplaceable affordable-housing land, raise rent on residents who stay, and fill the empty lots one season at a time.
Bear Case
The growth is real, and the per-share holder is barely feeling it. That is the bear case in one sentence. Same-property NOI grew 7.1% in the first quarter, yet normalized FFO came in at $0.23 per share, flat against the year-ago quarter, because higher interest costs and seasonal pressure ate the gain and the share count kept rising. A landlord whose properties produce 7% more cash but whose per-share earnings stand still is funding its growth by handing out new claims on the same pie.
The dilution is not incidental; it is the funding model. UMH's share count has compounded at a double-digit annual rate, and the company is currently marketing an at-the-market offering of up to $97.5 million of 6.375% Series D preferred stock, with proceeds aimed at acquisitions, expansion, home purchases, and short-term debt repayment. Preferred stock is a senior claim that sits ahead of common holders on both dividends and liquidation, so every dollar raised this way carries a fixed 6.375% cost that the common shareholder pays before seeing a cent. The lot-rent flywheel works, but a growing slice of its output is pre-committed to servicing the equity and preferred raised to keep it spinning.
That is what makes the price's requirement uncomfortable. At about 20 times the cash flow left after recurring capital, the multiple needs after-capital cash flow per share to keep growing in the mid-single digits. The properties can deliver that at the NOI line, but the per-share figure has to clear the dilution and the rising financing cost first, and the first quarter showed exactly how that math can net to zero. If interest rates stay elevated and the company keeps issuing equity and preferred to fund its 300-site development push, NOI growth of 7% can keep arriving as per-share FFO growth of roughly nothing, and a 20-times multiple does not survive a per-share line that flattens.
The asset lens adds the other half of the caution. On book value and the underlying land, the methods read UMH as priced at a steep premium, the richest gap of the standard frames, because the market is capitalizing the lot-rent compounding far above what the balance-sheet carrying value of the communities suggests. The leverage and coverage figures could not be cleanly resolved from the filings' tags, which is itself a reason for humility about the downside cushion. None of this denies the quality of the affordable-housing position. It says the buyer is paying a growth multiple for a business that converts property-level growth into per-share growth only after clearing a dilution-and-interest toll that has, this quarter, taken the whole gain.
Valuation
Read the price against the cash flow that survives after the capital it takes to keep the communities and rental homes in service, AFFO, and UMH trades at about 20 times it. That is the headline, and inverted it asks for after-capital cash flow per share to compound in the mid-single digits, around 4% a year, to earn the multiple. The price is paying UMH as a steady grower, not a screaming one, which fits a lot-rent business that raises rent a predictable amount every year. The after-capital cash yield to the buyer runs near 5%, the income-side expression of that same moderate-growth bet.
The gross figure refines into that headline rather than replacing it. Plain funds from operations, before the maintenance and home-related capital is netted out, sits at a roughly 18-times multiple and implies only low-single-digit growth, so the gap between the gross and after-capital lenses is narrow here, narrower than at the retail names. The honest denominator is still AFFO, because the rental-home strategy consumes real capital to keep producing, and it is AFFO and its ~4% required growth that the price is leaning on.
Where the price sits against the methods splits sharply by lens. Peer multiples against the broader REIT group read UMH as cheaper than average, and the forward-growth framing lands right around the price. The asset-value lens is the outlier: on book equity and the carrying value of the land, the methods read the price at a steep premium, the widest gap of the standard frames. That is not an accident. The market is capitalizing the stickiness of lot rent and the optionality of empty sites far above what depreciated book value shows, which is the correct economic read of a manufactured-housing community and exactly why the static asset frame structurally understates it. Earnings power, as for any REIT, is the wrong tool, gutted by depreciation that the land does not suffer.
The concrete "what has to be true" is per-share, not property-level. The communities can grow NOI 7%, as the first quarter showed on 5% site-rent increases and rising occupancy, but that has to clear the dilution and financing cost to reach the AFFO-per-share line the multiple is paying for, and in the first quarter it did not, with normalized FFO of $0.23 per share, unchanged from a year earlier. On solvency, the clean leverage and fixed-charge figures were not resolvable from the corporate-debt tags in the filings, and the company is actively raising up to $97.5 million of 6.375% Series D preferred, a senior claim that the common holder funds first. The sell-side average target near $19.17 sits well above today's quote, crediting more of the lot-rent compounding than the current price does, while a more cautious recent target of $15.50 credits roughly the quote, the spread between them mapping the same question the AFFO multiple poses: how much of the property-level growth survives the trip to the per-share line.
Catalysts
The development pace is the catalyst the company most controls. Management plans to bring 300 or more new sites online in 2026, above its four-year average of roughly 200 a year, to capture demand for affordable housing. Each filled site converts carried infrastructure into high-margin lot rent, so the cadence of new-site delivery and lease-up is the line that moves NOI over the year. The first quarter set the baseline: same-property NOI up 7.1% on 5% site-rent increases, with the rental-home portfolio at roughly 11,200 units and 94.6% occupied.
The financing events are the offsetting watch. UMH is marketing an at-the-market offering of up to $97.5 million of 6.375% Series D preferred stock, with proceeds slated for acquisitions, expansion, home purchases, and short-term debt repayment. Whether that capital, and the continued common issuance behind the double-digit share growth, translates into per-share FFO progress or merely funds property-level growth that the per-share line never feels is the question each subsequent print will answer.
The payout and the sell-side round out the picture. UMH declared a quarterly common dividend of $0.225, a $0.90 annualized rate, continuing a steady upward path backed by recurring lot rent. Analysts sit at an average target near $19.17, above the current quote, with a more cautious recent rating at a $15.50 target roughly at the price; the gap between those reflects the open question of how much property-level growth reaches the common holder, not a near-term rating catalyst.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Core business (reported)
- ELS (EQUITY LIFESTYLE PROPERTIES, INC.)
- FY2025 10-K: …regularly by the chief operating decision maker ("CODM"). We have identified two reportable segments: (i) Property Operations and (ii) Home Sales and Rentals Operations. The Property Operations segment owns and operates land lease Properties and the Home Sales and Rentals Operations segment purchases, sells and…
- FY2025 10-K: …and marinas. We provide our customers the opportunity to place manufactured homes and cottages, RVs and/or boats on our Properties either on a long-term or short-term basis. Our customers may lease individual developed areas ("Sites") or enter into right-to-use contracts, also known as membership subscriptions, which…
- SUI (SUN COMMUNITIES, INC)
- FY2025 10-K: …in the markets we currently serve and in new markets that we may enter. Our properties are located in developed areas that include other MH or RV communities. The number of competitive communities in a particular area could have a material adverse effect on our ability to lease sites and increase rents charged at our…
- FY2025 10-K: For the RV segment, we experienced a decline in Same Property NOI growth of 1.4%, driven by lower than anticipated real property - transient revenues. • Increased Same Property adjusted blended occupancy for MH and RV by 40 basis points to 99.1% as compared to 98.7% in 2024. Property Operations Occupancy in our MH and…
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
UMH Q1 2026 results, 2026 · UMH Series D preferred prospectus, May 2026 · UMH Q1 2026 earnings commentary, 2026 · UMH dividend declaration, April 2026 · Simply Wall St analyst data; MarketBeat consensus, 2026