Nature of Business

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2022

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Nature of Business

NATURE OF BUSINESS

Elme Communities, a Maryland real estate investment trust, is a self-administered equity real estate investment trust, successor to a trust organized in 1960. In October 2022, the Company changed its name from Washington Real Estate Investment Trust to Elme Communities to reflect the Company’s continued transition into a focused multifamily company, and subsequent geographic expansion into Sunbelt markets. On October 20, 2022, the Company’s ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange changed from “WRE” to “ELME.” Our business primarily consists of the ownership of apartment communities in the greater Washington, DC metro and Sunbelt regions. Within these notes to the financial statements, we refer to the three months ended September 30, 2022 and September 30, 2021 as the “2022 Quarter” and the “2021 Quarter,” respectively, and the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and September 30, 2021 as the “2022 Period” and the “2021 Period,” respectively.

Federal Income Taxes

We believe that we qualify as a real estate investment trust (“REIT”) under Sections 856-860 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), and intend to continue to qualify as such. To maintain our status as a REIT, we are, among other things, required to distribute 90% of our REIT taxable income (determined before the deduction for dividends paid and excluding net capital gains to our shareholders) on an annual basis. When selling a property, we generally have the option of (a) reinvesting the sales proceeds of property sold in a way that allows us to defer recognition of some or all taxable gain realized on the sale, (b) distributing gains to the shareholders with no tax to us or (c) treating net long-term capital gains as having been distributed to our shareholders, paying the tax on the gain deemed distributed and allocating the tax paid as a credit to our shareholders.

Generally, and subject to our ongoing qualification as a REIT, no provisions for income taxes are necessary except for taxes on undistributed taxable income and taxes on the income generated by our taxable REIT subsidiary (“TRS”). Our TRS is subject to corporate federal and state income tax on its taxable income at regular statutory rates. As of both September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, our TRS had a deferred tax asset of $1.4 million that was fully reserved.