Essex Property Trust
ESS on NYSE. Essex Property Trust owns and rents apartments to people on the West Coast. Market value $17.5bn.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.
Capital spending looks too small to be complete, so we leave free cash flow out.
We can't read total debt from the filing, so debt is left out.
Should I look at this?
Not a fit for our list right now
Why it could be worth it
What to watch out for
See Real estate stocks that passed both tests
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
We could not compute this from the filings.
You pay 38.0 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
Quality score: not known. Price score: 29 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$271.93 a share, 14% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $238.46 to $303.35.
Dividend: 3.7% a year
Paid every year for at least 5 years
Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $1.4bn | $1.6bn | $1.7bn | $1.8bn | $1.9bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | 36.8% | 37.0% | 35.0% | 39.6% | 47.6% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | 0.11 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.06bn | 0.06bn | 0.06bn | 0.06bn | 0.06bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positiveNot enough data
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
- Financial strength (Piotroski)Not enough data
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- DebtUnknown
- Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 4.8% a year
- Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $489 million last quarter, up 4% on a year ago.
- Profit: $62 million, down 72% on a year ago.
- It keeps 33 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, down from 53 cents a year earlier.
- About the same number of shares as a year ago.
- Debt is $6.3 billion more than cash, down from $6.4 billion a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $451m |
| December 2024 | $454m |
| March 2025 | $465m |
| June 2025 | $470m |
| September 2025 | $473m |
| December 2025 | $480m |
| March 2026 | $485m |
| June 2026 | $489m |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $118m |
| December 2024 | $257m |
| March 2025 | $203m |
| June 2025 | $221m |
| September 2025 | $165m |
| December 2025 | $81m |
| March 2026 | $106m |
| June 2026 | $62m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- 27 October 2026
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 20 February 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 29 October 2026
Who owns it
3 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 3 last quarter. 629 funds in all.
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boston PartnersBoston Partners team | $183m | 0.2% | Added |
| Gotham Asset ManagementJoel Greenblatt | $15m | <0.1% | Cut |
| Davis Selected AdvisersChris Davis | $8m | <0.1% | Added |
Largest holders overall
- BlackRock$2.2bnAdded
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$1.6bn
- State Street$1.5bn
- Cohen & Steers$1.4bn
- Vanguard Capital Management$1.2bn
- Price T Rowe Associates$979m
- Principal Financial Group$610mAdded
- Geode Capital Management$568m
- Norges Bank$469mNew
- Invesco$328mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
4 investors own more than 5%.
- Vanguard Portfolio ManagementPassive investor8.5%Since 31 March 2026
- Vanguard Capital ManagementPassive investor7.6%Since 31 March 2026
- Cohen & Steers, Inc.Passive investorat least 7.5%−1.2 pts(filed with 4 related holders)Since 31 March 2026
- T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.Passive investor5.2%Since 30 June 2025
- The Vanguard GroupPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 13 March 2026
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Vanguard Portfolio Management Passive investor | 8.5% | 31 March 2026 | |
Vanguard Capital Management Passive investor | 7.6% | 31 March 2026 | |
Cohen & Steers, Inc. Passive investor | at least 7.5%−1.2 pts (filed with 4 related holders) | 31 March 2026 | |
T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Passive investor | 5.2% | 30 June 2025 | |
The Vanguard Group Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 13 March 2026 |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 1 sold $167,670.
- Kasaris MaryDirectorSold
- Date
- 27 May 2026
- Shares
- 600
- Price
- $279.45
- Value
- $167,670
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 May 2026 | Kasaris Mary Director | Sold | 600 | $279.45 | $167,670 |
From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.
Warning signs in its filings
Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.
None of the warning signs we check for were found.
We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.
We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 20 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 30 Jul 2026 and 6 later 8-Ks.
A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.
What could go wrong
- It isn't cheap on profits: 38.0× operating profit.
Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.
The deep dive
Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.
- What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
- Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
- The three things that would make this a mistake
- Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Your first deep dive is free.
Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.