American Homes 4 Rent (AMH) — payout ratio, four ways
Fiscal year ending 2025-12-31 · sector Real estate · computed from SEC filings, not taken from a data vendor.
| Basis | Payout | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | 101.7% | What most screeners publish, and badly wrong here — depressed by depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
| Operating cash flow | 51.6% | Before capital spending, so it understates the payout that free cash flow shows. |
| Free cash flow | 54.2% | Counts property acquisitions as though they were maintenance. |
| Funds from operations | 56.6% | The basis the real estate industry uses. Adds back depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
Spread between highest and lowest: 50 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $1.20 ÷ diluted EPS $1.18
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $446.3m ÷ operating cash flow $864.3m
- Free cash flow — dividends paid $446.3m ÷ (operating cash flow $864.3m − capex $40.6m)
- Funds from operations — dividends declared per share $1.20 ÷ derived FFO $2.12 per share
- FFO built NAREIT-style: net income, plus real-estate depreciation, less gains on sale, over weighted-average diluted shares
- This is an approximation. Every REIT defines its own adjusted variant in the filing text, so it will not match the earnings release exactly
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-20 · accession
0001562401-26-000010
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take my word for any of it.
Caveats on this company
- ebitda built from net income (no operating income reported)
- FFO derived (NAREIT approximation)
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell me — that is more useful to me than agreement.