Tim Arndt
Chief Financial Officer at Prologis
Thanks, Justin. Good morning, everybody and thank you for joining our call. I'd like to begin by recognizing the devastating wildfire still affecting Los Angeles. We operate a large portfolio there, but more importantly, we have colleagues, customers and their communities struggling with the aftermath. It's too early to predict the full ramifications, but we'll continue to support the response and stay connected with local and state leaders as well as service organizations as the region works to recover, we have no doubt that a vibrant and dynamic Los Angeles will emerge from this crisis even stronger.
In our business, the bottoming process across our markets continues to progress. Leasing in our portfolio accelerated following the US Election and the pipeline has started the year at healthy levels. During the quarter, we signed more than 60 million square feet of leases, a company record and saw interest diversify across customer profile, size requirements and markets. Looking ahead, we believe market vacancy is topping out and rents will inflect later this year.
Turning to our results, core FFO excluding net promote income was $1.42 per share and including net promotes was $1.50 per share. Our full year results ended at the top end of our guidance range and in the end represent 8.4% growth over 2023, putting us in the 86th percentile of all REITs. Average occupancy was 95.8% for the quarter, 96.3% for the year. Net effective rent change during the quarter was 66% and on a full year basis was 69% activity, which added over $340 million in annualized NOI. Our net effective lease mark to market finished the year at 30% and represents a further $1.4 billion of incremental NOI. And finally net effective and cash same store growth during the quarter were 6.6 and 6.7% respectively.
In terms of capital recycling, we had another active quarter. Importantly, we contributed $2 billion of assets to our strategic capital ventures, bringing the full year total to over $3.3 billion. While capital flows in 2024 remain challenging, we did raise over 1.7 billion across the platform, driving the growth in third party AUM by over 7%. We disposed of over $900 million of assets in the quarter and acquired approximately $450 million. Stepping back over the full year we disposed of over $2.1 billion and reinvested into a similar $2.3 billion of acquisitions at a positive IRR spread of 170 basis points, demonstrating our ability to self fund and earn a return regardless of the yield environment.
Included in our disposition activity for the quarter was the sale of our Elk Grove Data center in Chicago. Elk Grove was a logistics asset that we converted to a powered shell before securing a build to suit turnkey transaction with a hyperscaler last fall. It simultaneously identified a buyer and closed in the fourth quarter at very attractive economics. Because the property was owned by USLF and for our structuring procurement, leasing and monetization efforts, Prologis earned a valuation fee of $112 million, which is not included in our prior guidance due to the uncertainty in the timing of the transaction. Oak Grove is a great showcase of our data center development capabilities which are more comprehensive than most. Today we have 1.4 gigawatts of secured power and 1.6 gigawatts in advanced stages of procurement. Over the next 10 years we see 10 gigawatts of development potential across our portfolio. As a platform, we have the team customer relationships, development and energy expertise, advanced procurement capabilities and the capital required to create significant value for our shareholders.
Turning to market conditions, as mentioned, quantitative measures of the market such as vacancy and changes in market rent met our expectations. More importantly, indicators in our pipeline and dialogue with customers have us encouraged that conditions are set for recovery and net absorption leading to a bottoming in global rents. It's worth highlighting that our non U S portfolio fared better in rent growth over 2024, particularly in places like Japan, the UK, southern Europe and Latin America which all grew over the year.
Customer engagement is improving and we saw a notable increase in activity amongst our larger global customers who often lead in the recovery of demand. As we've seen in past cycles. The improvement in decision making is reflected in our proprietary metrics where proposals increased earlier in the year, lingered for a period of time and then began converting more meaningfully after the election. That leasing pattern translated to elevated gestation, also seen in our metrics.
Our 25 forecast for net absorption calls for approximately 20% improvement over 2024, gradually building over the year. We also know that completions will decline significantly, contributing to a supply forecast that is approximately 35% below 24. As such, we expect a decline in vacancy over the year which will pave the way for rent growth. Longer term, we continue to see the path for uplift from market rents to replacement cost rents, a dynamic that will build upon our already significant lease mark to market. Today we see replacement costs as 50% higher than in place rents.
The capital markets were active with fourth quarter transaction volumes that put the year in total back to pre Covid levels. Unlevered IRRs have compressed to the mid 7% range and valuations as reported in our third party appraisals had the globe marginally up this quarter. Capital raising in our open end vehicles was more muted in the fourth quarter as investors pause to take in changes in the yield environment. But we remain confident in our expectation for growing capital raises in 2025 as the pipeline is solid and conversations are active.
In terms of guidance which I'll review at our share, we are forecasting average occupancy to range between 94.5 and 95.5%, which contemplates a dip in occupancy over the next one to two quarters, some of which is seasonal before rebuilding closer to 96% by the end of the year. Net effective same store growth is forecasted to be in a range of 3.5 to 4.5% and cash in a range of 4 to 5% each driven by still significant Rent change.
Our G and A forecast is for 440 to 460 million dollars and our strategic capital revenue forecast calls for 560 to 580 million dollars. As for deployment, we are forecasting development starts to range between 2.25 and 2.75 billion. We will continue to be selective in our starts and clearly have a lot of capacity to grow this number as conditions, rents and returns warrant.
As a reminder, data center starts are excluded from this guidance given their lumpiness. That said, we do expect new projects to begin in 2025, likely in a range of 200 to 400 megawatts. Acquisitions will range between 750 million and 1.25 billion, and our combined contribution and disposition activity will range between 2 and a half and 3.5 billion. Our development portfolio now stands at $4.7 billion with estimated value creation of 1.1 billion, 450 to 600 million, of which we expect to realize this year.
Finally, 2025 will be an important year for our energy business, where our forecast is to hit our 1 GW goal for solar generation and storage by year end. In total, we are establishing our initial GAAP earnings guidance in a range of 345 to 370 per share. Core FFO, including the promote expense will range between 565 and 581 per share, while core FFO, excluding the promoter expense will range between 570 and 586 per share.
In closing, we navigated a challenging year in terms of an operating environment clearly unwinding from the overbuilding of the COVID era. Our ability to generate over 8% growth in such an environment is a testament to the resiliency and breadth of our company. We're pleased with the increase in activity and improvement in sentiment that we've seen so far in the last two months. And working through gray space amid the favorable supply backdrop will further establish the foundation to build occupancy, grow rents and increase values, unlocking the full earnings potential in our core business.
And finally, we're very excited with what the future holds for our data center and energy initiatives. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for your questions. Operator?
