EQR Stock Is Now VMRK: Equity Residential Dividend, FFO and the AvalonBay Merger (2026)

Is EQR the same as VMRK? What happened to Equity Residential stock

Yes, with a different name, a different ticker and about twice the size. EDGAR’s record for CIK 906107 now reads VIVMARK RESIDENTIAL, ticker VMRK, and lists EQUITY RESIDENTIAL as the former name. The 8-K filed for the closing says the company “changed its name from Equity Residential to Vivmark Residential,” and that the common shares trade under the symbol VMRK beginning August 18, 2026. EDGAR’s own metadata puts the end of the old name at August 12, 2026, while the 8-K says the name change was effective August 17; we use the 8-K date. Our page on REIT ETF holdings notes the same quirk, because fund N-PORT filings still print Equity Residential.

The dates, all from the company’s filings:

The filing status matters for anyone checking numbers. The latest periodic report is the 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, signed July 30, 2026, eight days after the July 22 earnings release. The release for the third quarter of 2025 was dated October 28, 2025. As of October 18, 2026 the 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 is not filed, the latest 8-K on EDGAR was filed September 17, 2026, and the company has not given an earnings date in any filing we read. The results will be the first reported under the merger accounting: the 8-K says AvalonBay “is treated as the buyer for accounting purposes with Equity Residential treated as the acquiree,” so the comparative periods in the next 10-Q should follow AvalonBay’s history, not Equity Residential’s. Until it is filed, everything below is Equity Residential as of June 30, 2026 unless stated.

What the merger changed for an EQR holder, and for an AvalonBay holder

An Equity Residential shareholder kept the same shares. An AvalonBay stockholder received 2.793 of them for each AvalonBay share, and the company issued about 400 million new shares for that. The joint press release at closing says former AvalonBay holders own about 51% and former Equity Residential holders about 49%. The pro forma statements in the July 31 8-K count 770.6 million common shares for the combined company, against 374.9 million Equity Residential common shares at June 30 (OP units are extra on both sides).

Three things the quote pages do not make. First, because AvalonBay is the accounting acquirer, Equity Residential’s property is marked to estimated fair value in the combined books: the pro forma balance sheet carries $33,956.0 million of real estate for it against $18,986.9 million at cost less depreciation. Depreciation is added back in FFO, so the step-up should show up in earnings per share rather than in FFO (our reading; the first combined 10-Q will show it). Second, the fixed ratio matters for the dividend. AvalonBay’s $1.78 divided by 2.793 is $0.637 per Equity Residential share equivalent against $0.7025, so an AvalonBay holder moves to $1.962 per AvalonBay share equivalent, 10.2% more (our arithmetic). Equity Residential holders see no change. Third, the earnings ratio was almost exactly the exchange ratio: AvalonBay’s Q2 2026 Core FFO of $2.86 divided by 2.793 is $1.024, against Equity Residential’s Normalized FFO of $1.02 (our arithmetic; the two companies define their measures differently).

Equity Residential holders also voted on this. At the August 12 meeting 337,552,586 shares were present; 336,038,504 voted for the share issuance and 1,024,329 against, with 489,753 abstentions. The charter amendment to raise authorized shares passed with 315,112,364 for and 21,939,837 against.

The dividend against Normalized FFO and FFO, six quarters

Equity Residential reports three per-share earnings measures. FFO is the Nareit definition: net income plus depreciation, excluding gains and losses on property sales. Normalized FFO, the measure the company guides to and uses for its own comparisons, then removes items it treats as non-recurring, such as litigation and insurance reserves, merger costs and investment gains. All per-share figures are diluted, on common shares and OP units. The payout columns are our arithmetic.

Four readings.

The payout is stable and follows the raise. The dividend was $0.6925 for the four quarters of 2025 and $0.7025 for the first two quarters of 2026, an increase of 1.4% that the company describes as taking the annual rate to $2.81. Over six quarters Normalized FFO cover ranged from 67.2% to 72.9% (our arithmetic). The 10-Q says “All future dividends/distributions remain subject to the discretion of the Company’s Board of Trustees,” and the combined company has said only that it expects an initial annualized rate of $2.81.

Q2 was at the top of the guided range. In April the company guided Q2 Normalized FFO to $0.98 to $1.02 and reported $1.02; the full-year range of $4.02 to $4.14 set in February was left unchanged in April. On July 22 it withdrew that guidance, writing that it “has withdrawn its EPS, FFO per share and Normalized FFO per share guidance (and related components of these measures such as interest expense) due to the pendency of the merger.” There is therefore no company number for second-half or full-year 2026 Normalized FFO, and none for the combined company as of October 18.

EPS is not the dividend yardstick, and the gap is wide. Net income per share was $0.54 in the first half against $1.405 of dividends declared, because depreciation of $493.9 million and lower property sale gains sit in net income. A net loss on property sales of $16.8 million in the half also compares with a $212.4 million gain a year earlier (Q2 release statements of operations).

No third-quarter dividend is in the filings we read. Q2’s $0.7025 was paid in July ($269.5 million, per the 10-Q). The merger agreement says the two companies would align their record and payment dates beginning with the third-quarter dividend. As of October 18, 2026 we found no 8-K or release declaring it, and the combined company has not given an earnings date. The quarterly rate for the first Vivmark declaration is therefore unconfirmed in the sources we saved.

Why FFO and Normalized FFO differ: lawsuits, and what they cost in cash

In 2025 the two measures were $3.94 and $3.99, five cents apart. In the first half of 2026 they were $1.88 and $2.01, thirteen cents apart (our arithmetic), and in Q1 alone ten. The release’s reconciliation shows why: one line dominates the $51.1 million of adjustments in the half, $50.1 million of insurance and litigation reserve expense, partly offset by $11.0 million of non-operating gains.

The trailing-twelve-month figure for insurance and litigation reserve expense in the company’s EBITDAre reconciliation is $93.9 million, which is about $0.24 a share on Q2’s diluted count (our arithmetic). The 10-Q names two settlements. In the RealPage rent-pricing antitrust case the company agreed on April 13, 2026 to pay $56.0 million, funded it on May 12 and received preliminary court approval on May 22; final approval is pending, and cases brought by the District of Columbia and the State of Maryland continue. In a California late-fee class action it reached a settlement in principle in Q4 2025 of about $42.7 million, of which $40.0 million is included in the litigation accruals. Our page on MAA has the same RealPage theme from another apartment REIT.

This is why Normalized FFO is a flattering measure in a litigation year, and also why it is not simply wrong: a settlement is a real cash cost, but it is not a recurring operating cost. The cash view helps. Operating cash flow was $702.4 million in the first half against $785.1 million a year earlier, and the company says the $82.7 million decline reflects NOI and other changes, higher interest payments, “the payment of approximately $58.7 million towards the settlement of various litigation proceedings” and merger costs. Dividends and distributions paid, including preferred, OP units and minority interests, were about $541.6 million. Operating cash flow covered them 1.30 times, and 1.41 times if the litigation payments are added back (our arithmetic). The company says it had about $1.8 billion of readily available liquidity.

Normalized FFO per share rose 3.0% in Q2, 1.02 against 0.99, while Normalized FFO in dollars rose 1.7% (393,369 against 386,790 thousand) and the diluted share and unit count fell 1.9% (our arithmetic). The company’s bridge for the half is the most useful table in the release:

Interest expense incurred rose 9.5% in Q2 to $82.5 million (our arithmetic), including $2.9 million of merger financing costs that are excluded from Normalized FFO. Same store NOI is only a part of the growth: lease-up of recent developments and the line that includes share repurchases did most of the work.

Same store results: revenue, expenses and NOI by quarter

Same store figures compare the same apartments with the same period a year earlier and include residential and non-residential income. The pool changes each quarter as properties are bought, sold and stabilized, so the unit count in each release differs.

Revenue growth slowed from 3.0% in Q3 2025 to 1.9% in Q2 2026 and NOI growth from 2.8% to 1.4%, while occupancy slipped from 96.6% to 96.2%. The Q2 release attributes revenue growth to strong occupancy and a better than expected renewal rate, and the guidance increase to “strong momentum in the San Francisco market” and lower bad debt. Expenses rose 3.0% in Q2: real estate taxes were 40.3% of operating expenses and rose 1.3%, utilities rose 9.6% and insurance 4.0% (Q2 release expense table).

The July range is narrower and its midpoint higher, 2.4% for revenue and 1.8% for NOI against 2.2% and 1.5%. The release says the range “reflects what we would expect to achieve if we operated as a standalone entity for the full year of 2026.” The combined company’s September 15 update set a full-year 2026 same store residential revenue outlook of 2% at the midpoint on the combined pool.

New leases against renewals: the rent signal

New-lease change is the rent on a unit that turned over compared with the prior lease; renewal rate achieved is the rent change on residents who stayed. Blended is the mix. Each row is that quarter’s reading in its own release, and the same store pool differs a little between releases (for example the Q1 2025 new-lease figure was minus 2.2% when first reported and minus 2.6% when restated a year later).

New-lease rents were negative in every quarter shown, and the blended rate, which is what the rent roll actually earns, moved from 0.5% in Q4 2025 to 3.0% in July, equal to Q2 2025 as the highest reading in the table. The company’s chief operating officer is quoted in the release saying positive trends in supply and demand continue to drive performance. The September 15 update gives a different measure, net effective asking rents on the combined same store pool, up 3.6% year on year as of September 11, with 95.7% physical occupancy and 60% of residents renewing, and says rent growth is “consistent with the Company’s expectations, and in line with normal seasonality.” Asking rents and signed lease changes are not the same thing, and the combined pool includes AvalonBay’s apartments, so the September numbers cannot be lined up with the table.

Where the NOI comes from: eleven markets

Equity Residential is a coastal portfolio: 312 properties and 85,520 apartments at June 30, 2026, with San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Seattle and Southern California making up 89.4% of budgeted NOI (our arithmetic). The table gives each market’s share of stabilized budgeted NOI and its Q2 2026 same store residential growth against Q2 2025.

The table is lopsided. San Francisco’s NOI rose 11.0% on revenue up 7.0% and expenses down 2.7%, and its share of Q2 actual NOI was 17.9%; New York added 3.7% on 14.3%. Weighting the other nine markets by their rounded Q2 NOI shares gives roughly minus 1% for them together (our arithmetic, approximate), led down by Denver (NOI minus 9.9%, revenue minus 6.4%; occupancy rose 1.2 points to 97.0% while the average rental rate fell 7.7%), Atlanta (minus 2.6%) and Los Angeles (minus 0.8%). Reliance on two markets cuts both ways: it is a strength while San Francisco leads and a concentration when it does not, and the merger adds AvalonBay’s own mix of coastal markets and development.

The portfolio also includes a non-coastal sleeve, Atlanta, Denver and Dallas/Austin, at 10.6% of budgeted NOI (our arithmetic). The company’s 2,064-unit suburban Atlanta purchase for $533.8 million in Q2 2025 was the largest addition to it. Our page on Mid-America Apartment Communities reads the Sun Belt side of the same industry.

Debt: $8.26 billion before the merger, $17.6 billion pro forma

Equity Residential carried a low-leverage balance sheet into the merger. Total debt was $8,261.7 million at June 30, 2026, 19.3% secured, 89.7% fixed rate, at a weighted average rate of 3.78% and 6.1 years to maturity. Total debt was 4.32 times Normalized EBITDAre and net debt 4.28 times. 90.0% of its real estate by cost, $27.4 billion, was unencumbered, and the selected public debt covenant for debt to adjusted total assets stood at 27.7% against a 60% limit.

Average maturity shortened by 1.1 years in five quarters, from 7.2 to 6.1, as 2026 and 2027 maturities came closer and no long notes were added in the filings shown (our reading), and the average rate rose four basis points. Here is the maturity ladder at June 30:

Two points. 2026 is 15.2% of the ladder, and $668.0 million of it is commercial paper that rolls every few days (weighted average maturity of 3 days at June 30), so the term-debt maturity in 2026 is about $600 million (our arithmetic). The cheap debt sits in 2030 and 2031, $1,725.5 million at weighted coupons of 2.53% and 1.99%, against the 4.950% the company agreed on August 4 to pay on a five-year note and 5.450% on a ten-year (our arithmetic: 2.4 to 3.0 points above those 2030 and 2031 coupons). The August 4 offering was $600 million of notes due October 1, 2031 and $400 million due October 1, 2036, agreed to be sold by the operating partnership.

At closing the combined company’s debt was joined by AvalonBay’s. The August 17 8-K lists 16 series of AvalonBay notes assumed by the operating partnership, from a $300 million 2.900% note due October 15, 2026 to a $300 million 4.350% note due April 15, 2048, totalling $6,900 million (our arithmetic). $1,550 million of them falls due by the end of 2028 (our arithmetic: the 2026, 2027, January 2028 and December 2028 notes). The operating partnership also assumed AvalonBay’s $2.5 billion revolver, of which $1.205 billion was drawn on August 17, and its $550 million term loan, fully drawn. The pro forma balance sheet in the July 31 8-K adds up to $13,096.2 million of unsecured notes, $2,273.1 million on credit lines and commercial paper and $2,236.1 million of mortgages, $17,605.5 million in all (our arithmetic), and a $2.0 billion bridge facility had been committed in May to refinance existing debt if needed. On September 16 the commercial paper limit went from $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion.

Sales, buybacks and shares: where the per-share growth came from

In 2025 the company was a net seller: it bought nine properties for about $636.8 million at a 5.1% acquisition cap rate and sold 11 for about $1.1 billion at a 5.4% disposition yield, and used the excess to repurchase stock.

Selling at 5.2% to 5.6% yields and buying back shares at about $62 to $63 was the company’s stated use of the proceeds. The Q4 2025 release has the CEO saying “we feel that our stock is a bargain,” and reports that during and just after 2025 the company repurchased approximately 4.8 million shares, $300.0 million at an average $62.03, equal to 1.3% of the shares outstanding just before repurchases began in August 2025. Q1 2026 added 3,458,394 shares at $63.42 ($219.4 million), all funded from 2025 sale proceeds, and 8,156,451 shares remained authorized at June 30. The six-month repurchase total in the 10-Q is the first-quarter amount, so Q2, the quarter the merger agreement was signed, had essentially no repurchases. Common shares outstanding were 374,893,890 at June 30, 2026, down 1.3% from 379,980,440 a year earlier and 0.8% from 377,806,173 at December 31 (our arithmetic). The share price in the company’s capital-structure table was $67.93 at June 30, which on the $2.81 annual dividend is a 4.14% yield (our arithmetic; not a current quote).

Development is small. The Q2 release lists $713.8 million of total budgeted capital cost across 1,599 apartments, of which two consolidated Georgia projects (520 units, $174.5 million) and one unconsolidated Massachusetts project (270 units, $121.9 million) were under development at June 30, and it completed a 440-unit Massachusetts project for about $232.2 million. The combined company’s $4.4 billion and over 11,100 apartments under construction is therefore largely AvalonBay’s (our arithmetic: Equity Residential’s under-development projects total $296.4 million).

Listed multifamily against a non-traded apartment vehicle

Readers of our pages on non-traded against publicly traded REITs, the best non-traded NAV REITs and the RealtyMogul Apartment Growth REIT often want the listed benchmark. Equity Residential published, every quarter, the items a private apartment sponsor often does not. The table lists what its filings show and what to ask a private sponsor.

The comparison does not say listed is better. A listed REIT’s price moves every day with the market even when rent does not, and a private vehicle’s appraised value moves less because it is appraised. What it does show is the checklist: if a private vehicle cannot answer these rows the way Equity Residential did, that is information. For the other direction, our page on PIMCO’s REFLX shows an interval fund that holds Equity Residential shares next to its private loans.

What a holder or reader can do with this

This page is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. What the filings let you check yourself:

• Look up the right symbol. The NYSE ticker is VMRK; the company’s EDGAR filings, SEC CIK 906107, are the same ones that were filed as Equity Residential. Our look at search results for “eqr stock” in October 2026 found dividend-history and quote pages built on the EQR symbol; none of the titles we saw mentioned VMRK, so check the date on any number.
• Read the payout on both measures. Normalized FFO covered the dividend at 67% to 73% in six quarters; FFO covered it at 66% to 79%. The gap is litigation and merger cost, and the 10-Q lists it.
• Watch five dated items. The 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (the first under merger accounting; the Q2 release came July 22 and the 10-Q July 30); the first Vivmark dividend declaration after the $0.7025 paid in July; the first combined-company guidance, since Equity Residential’s was withdrawn and the September 15 update gives only same store revenue; final court approval of the $56.0 million RealPage settlement; and how the 2026 and 2027 maturities, $1,675.6 million at Equity Residential on June 30 plus $700 million of assumed AvalonBay notes (our arithmetic), are refinanced after the August notes at 4.950% and 5.450%.
• Do not treat the merger synergies as results. The $175 million gross and $125 million net synergy figures are the companies’ estimates at announcement; the footnote reads “Based on the midpoint of AVB and EQR’s 2026 guidance on a full run-rate basis.”
• Size the position. A holder now owns about 49% of a company with roughly twice the shares (770.6 million pro forma against 374.9 million), with two markets, San Francisco and New York, producing the same store NOI growth in Q2. The dividend rate for the combined company is stated as an expectation and the 10-Q says future dividends are at the board’s discretion.

If a large part of your income depends on this one payer, or you are comparing listed apartment REITs with private multifamily funds for the same money, a conversation with a qualified adviser about how it fits with the rest of your holdings may be worth having.

FAQ

All figures are from SEC filings read on EDGAR on October 18, 2026 for Vivmark Residential, formerly Equity Residential (CIK 906107), and AvalonBay Communities (CIK 915912): Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (accession 0001193125-26-326170); earnings releases attached to Forms 8-K for Q1 2025 (0000950170-25-060181), Q2 2025 (0000950170-25-102035), Q3 2025 (0001193125-25-253637), Q4 2025 (0001193125-26-039455), Q1 2026 (0001193125-26-187339) and Q2 2026 (0001193125-26-312445); Forms 8-K of May 21, 2026 (0001193125-26-233381), July 31, 2026 with the pro forma financial statements (0001193125-26-328612), August 6 (0001193125-26-336170), August 12 (0001140361-26-032504), August 17 (0001140361-26-033377 and 0001193125-26-354068), September 15 (0001193125-26-392188) and September 16 (0001193125-26-394451); AvalonBay’s Q2 2026 earnings release (0000915912-26-000018); and the EDGAR submissions API for CIK 906107. The “our arithmetic” figures are computed from those filings and listed in the CSV. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.