Equity Residential (EQR) Risk Factors

We are involved and may continue to be involved in legal proceedings, claims, class actions, inquiries and governmental investigations in the ordinary course of business. These legal proceedings may include, but are not limited to, proceedings related to consumer, shareholder, securities, antitrust, employment, environmental, development, condominium conversion, tort, eviction and commercial legal issues. Litigation can be lengthy and expensive, and it can divert management's attention and resources. Results cannot be predicted with certainty, and an unfavorable outcome in litigation could result in liability material to our financial condition or results of operations.

We intend to continue to develop multifamily properties through both wholly owned and joint venture arrangements as part of our business strategy. Development often includes long planning and entitlement timelines, subjecting the projects to changes in market conditions. It can involve complex and costly activities, including significant environmental remediation or construction work in our markets. We have experienced and may continue to experience an increase in costs due to general disruptions that affect the cost of labor and/or materials, such as supply chain disruptions, trade disputes, tariffs, labor unrest, geopolitical conflicts or other factors that create inflationary pressures. We may abandon opportunities that we have already begun to explore for a number of reasons, and as a result, we may fail to recover costs already incurred in exploring those opportunities. We may also be unable to obtain, or experience delays in obtaining, necessary zoning, occupancy, or other required governmental or third-party permits and authorizations. These and other risks inherent in development projects, including the joint venture risks noted below, could result in increased costs or the delay or abandonment of opportunities.

We depend on the efforts of our trustees and executive officers. If one or more of them resign or otherwise cease to be employed by us, our business and results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Disruptions in financial and credit markets or other events could impair the ability of our counterparties to perform under their contractual obligations to us. There are multiple financial institutions that are individually committed to provide borrowings under our revolving credit facility and to pay us amounts due under various interest rate derivative agreements. Should any of these institutions fail to perform their obligations when contractually required, our financial condition could be adversely affected.

A cybersecurity incident is an unauthorized occurrence, or a series of related unauthorized occurrences, on or conducted through the Company's information systems that jeopardizes the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of our information systems or any information residing therein. These events can include gaining unauthorized access to systems to disrupt operations, corrupt data or steal confidential information, including information regarding our residents, prospective residents, employees and employees' dependents. Despite system redundancy, the implementation of security measures, required employee awareness training and the existence of a disaster recovery plan for our internal information technology systems, our systems and systems maintained by third-party vendors with which we do business are vulnerable to damage from any number of sources. We face risks associated with security breaches, whether through cyber attacks or cyber intrusions over the Internet, malware, computer viruses, attachments to emails, phishing attempts, social engineering, ransomware or other scams, persons inside our organization or persons/vendors with access to our systems and other significant disruptions of our information technology networks and related systems, including property infrastructure. These risks have increased due to increased reliance on remote working and other electronic interactions with our current and prospective residents. Our information technology networks and related systems are essential to the operation of our business and our ability to perform day-to-day operations. We use these systems to manage our resident and vendor relationships, internal communications, accounting and record-keeping systems and many other key aspects of our business. Our operations rely on the secure processing, storage and transmission of confidential and other information in our computer systems and networks, which also depend on the strength of our procedures and the effectiveness of our internal controls as well as those of vendors with whom we do business. Even the most well-protected information, networks, systems and facilities remain potentially vulnerable because the techniques used in such attempted security breaches evolve and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, and in some cases are designed not to be detected and, in fact, may not be detected. Accordingly, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate security barriers or other preventative measures, and thus it is impossible for us to entirely mitigate this risk. We may periodically collect and store personally identifiable information of our residents and prospective residents in connection with our leasing activities, and we may collect and store personally identifiable information of our employees and their dependents. In addition, we often engage third-party service providers that may have access to such personally identifiable information in connection with providing necessary information technology, security and other business services to us. Despite the fact that we monitor and perform a comprehensive review of businesses that we contract with that represent a cybersecurity risk to the organization, the systems of these third-party service providers may contain defects in design or other problems that could unexpectedly compromise personally identifiable information. Although we make efforts to maintain the security and integrity of our information technology networks and those of our third-party providers and we have implemented various measures to manage the risk of a security breach or disruption, there can be no assurance that our security efforts and measures will be effective or that attempted security breaches or disruptions would not be successful or damaging. A breach or significant and extended disruption in the function of our systems, including our primary website, could damage our reputation and cause us to lose residents and revenues, result in a violation of applicable privacy and other laws, generate third-party claims, result in the unintended and/or unauthorized public disclosure or the misappropriation of proprietary, personally identifiable and confidential information and require us to incur significant expenses to address and remediate or otherwise resolve these kinds of issues. We may not be able to recover these expenses in whole or in any part from our service providers, our insurers or any other responsible parties. As a result, there can be no assurance that our financial results would not be negatively impacted. We are also subject to laws, rules, and regulations in the United States, such as the California Privacy Rights Act ("CPRA"), relating to the collection, use, and security of resident, customer, employee and other data. Evolving compliance and operational requirements under the CPRA and the privacy laws of other jurisdictions in which we operate may impose significant costs that are likely to increase over time. Our failure to comply with laws, rules and regulations related to privacy and data protection could harm our business or reputation or subject us to fines and penalties.

Substantial inflationary pressures can adversely affect us by disproportionately increasing the costs of land, materials, labor and other costs needed to operate our business. In a highly inflationary environment, we may not be able to raise rental rates at or above the rate of inflation, which could reduce our profit margins. If we are unable to increase our rental prices to offset the effects of inflation, our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition could be adversely affected. In addition, interest rate increases enacted to combat inflation have caused market disruption and could continue to prevent us from acquiring or disposing of assets on favorable terms or at all.

While the Company continues to diversify its portfolio with the addition of the expansion markets, the Company's properties are still predominantly concentrated in our established coastal markets (generally within certain dense urban and suburban submarkets). If one or more of these markets is unfavorably impacted by specific geopolitical and/or economic conditions, local real estate conditions, increases in social unrest, increases in real estate and other taxes, reduced quality of life, deterioration of local or state government health, rent control or rent stabilization laws, other similar regulations, or localized environmental and climate issues, the impact of such conditions may have a more negative impact on our results of operations than if our properties were more geographically diverse. Additionally, to the extent that these markets or submarkets become less desirable to operate in, including changes in multifamily housing supply and demand, our results of operations could be more negatively impacted than if we were more diversified within our markets or invested in a greater number of markets.

Pandemics, epidemics or other health crises have and could in the future disrupt our business. Both global and locally targeted health events could materially affect areas where our properties, corporate/regional offices or major service providers are located. These events have and could in the future have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and liquidity in a number of ways, including, but not limited to: - The deterioration of global economic conditions as a result of such a crisis could ultimately decrease occupancy levels and pricing across our portfolio and/or increase concessions, reduce or defer our residents' spending, result in changes in resident preferences (including changes resulting from increased employer flexibility to work from home) or negatively impact our residents' and tenants' ability to pay their rent on time or at all;- Local and national authorities expanding or extending certain measures that impose restrictions on our ability to enforce residents' or tenants' contractual rental obligations (such as eviction moratoriums or rental forgiveness) and limit our ability to raise rents or charge certain fees;- The risk of a prolonged outbreak and/or multiple waves of an outbreak could cause long-term damage to economic conditions, which in turn could diminish our access to capital at attractive terms and/or cause material declines in the fair value of our assets, leading to asset impairment charges; and - The potential inability to maintain adequate staffing at our properties and corporate/regional offices due to an outbreak and/or changes in employee preferences causing them to leave their jobs. To the extent a pandemic, epidemic or other health crisis adversely affects our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition, it may also continue to heighten many of the other risks described elsewhere in this Item 1A, Risk Factors.

Dislocations and disruptions in capital markets could result in increased costs or lack of availability of debt financing (including under our commercial paper program) and equity financing. Such events may affect our ability to refinance existing debt, require us to utilize higher cost alternatives and/or impair our ability to adjust to changing economic and business conditions. Capital market disruptions have and could continue to negatively impact our ability to make acquisitions or make it more difficult or not possible for us to sell properties or may unfavorably affect the price we receive for properties that we do sell. Such disruptions could cause the price of our securities to decline.