Matt Mercier
Cheif Financial Officer at Digital Realty Trust
Thank you, Andy. Let me jump right into our third quarter results. We signed 521 million of new leases in the third quarter, of which 450 million fell into the greater-than-a-megawatt category and was heavily weighted toward the Americas.
We also signed 50 million of 0 to 1 megawatt leases and 16 million of interconnection bookings. Each of these figures were new records for Digital Realty. Importantly, more than 75% of the dollar volume of leases signed include annual rent escalators of 4% or greater, which bolsters the growth profile associated with our portfolio of long-term hyperscale leases.
Our backlog at Digital Realty share increased by more than 60% sequentially to 859 million at the end of September, as new leasing dramatically outpaced 180 million of record commencements in the quarter. To offer some perspective, the backlog now represents 20% of this quarter's annualized data center revenues, and we expect more than 85% of these leases to commence by the end of 2026.
Looking ahead, 100 million of the backlog is scheduled to commence by the end of this year, with another 350 million scheduled to commence next year, and over 300 million already slated to commence in 2026, setting us up for accelerating multiyear growth. During the third quarter, we signed 258 million of renewal leases at a 15.2% increase on a cash basis, driving year-to-date cash renewal spreads to 10.5%.
Similar to the first quarter, these robust releasing spreads were driven by a package deal that pulled forward a sizable renewal that was not scheduled to expire for several more years. Excluding this package deal, overall renewal spreads were still a healthy 5.8%, which is more consistent with the 5% to 7% guidance we previously provided for 2024.
While the package deals demonstrate the levers available to capitalize on the current pricing environment and also reflect our customers' views of the overall market, they are less predictable in nature. Breaking down renewals by product category, cash renewal spreads in the 0 to 1 megawatt segment were up a healthy 4.5% in the third quarter, while releasing spreads in the greater-than-a-megawatt segment were up by over 30%. Excluding the package deal, greater-than-a-megawatt renewals were still up 8.6%. For the quarter, churn remained low and well-controlled at 1.5%.
In terms of earnings, we reported third quarter Core FFO of $1.67 per share, reflecting continued healthy growth in revenues and adjusted EBITDA. Data center revenue grew by 7.5% year-over-year, as the combination of improved renewal spreads, rent escalators, and year-to-date commencements more than offset the drag associated with the more than $2.5 billion of capital recycling activity since the middle of 2023. Pro forma for the transaction activity, data center revenues were up 10% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 11% year-over-year, principally due to a near 200 basis points improvement in margin from the flow-through of higher data center and interconnection revenues with improved pricing.
Same capital NOI growth increased by 0.8% year over year in the third quarter, as 2.5% growth in data center revenue was offset by higher property operating costs and roughly 200 basis points of bad debt reserves in the quarter. Year-to-date, same capital cash NOI has increased by 2.6%, which continues to be negatively impacted by about 200 basis points of power margin headwinds year-over-year, given the elevated utility prices in EMEA in 2023.
Moving on to our investment activity, we spent $651 million on consolidated development in the third quarter. Gross development spend at 100% share was $855 million in the quarter. Given the strong demand for data center capacity, we doubled our development underway in the Americas and added more projects in EMEA. For an almost 50% increase in our pipeline, ending the quarter with 644 megawatts under construction.
More specifically, we delivered just 36 megawatts of new capacity in the quarter, while we backfilled the pipeline with another 244 megawatts of new starts at 100% share. The overall pipeline is now 74% pre-leased, up from 66% at the end of 2Q, with an average expected yield of 12%. Almost all the development underway in the Americas is pre-leased, with an expected stabilized yield of 13.6%. Some development capacity remains in both EMEA and APAC, with both currently expecting stabilized yields over 10%. Over the first nine months of the year, we spent $2.4 billion in development capex at 100% share, which has been balanced by nearly $900 million of partner contributions, keeping us on track and well within the range of our original full-year spending expectations.
Turning to the balance sheet, we continued to strengthen our balance sheet in the third quarter, with over $800 million of equity raised on the ATM. On the debt side, we paid off 250 million gilts in July and added an EUR850 million green bond in September. We also upsized and extended our credit facilities to $4.5 billion in September. At the end of the third quarter, we had nearly $5 billion of total liquidity, and our net debt to EBITDA ratio was 5.4 times.
Moving on to our debt profile, our weighted average debt maturity is over four years, and our weighted average interest rate is 2.8%. Approximately 85% of our debt is non-US dollar denominated, reflecting the growth of our global platform and our FX hedging strategy. Approximately 89% of our net debt is fixed rate, and 96% of our debt is unsecured, providing ample flexibility for capital recycling. Finally, we have no remaining debt maturities until early 2025, and our maturities remain well-laddered through 2033.
Let me conclude with our guidance. We are raising our Core FFO guidance range for the full year of 2024 to $6.65 to $6.75 per share, increasing the low end of the range by $0.5 per share and maintaining the high end. The increase in our guide at the midpoint of the range reflects the strength in our year-to-date leasing and commencements and the benefit of stronger-than-expected renewal pricing. Partly balanced by the impact of customer bankruptcies in the second half of this year and balance sheet positioning to capitalize on the robust opportunity we are seeing.
We are also adjusting our total revenue guidance to reflect the impact of lower utility expense reimbursements and are increasing our adjusted EBITDA guidance to reflect better-than-expected leasing volumes and higher pricing. Accordingly, we are also adjusting the following operating assumptions. Reflecting our success on cash renewals to date, we are increasing the full-year range to 8% to 10%, from 5% to 7%.
We are also tightening full-year same-store guidance to a range of 2.75% to 3.25%. In terms of investing expectations for 2024, we tightened the range of our net share development spend to $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion and maintained our recurring maintenance capex ranges. Lastly, on financing, the EUR850 million bond raise was completed slightly ahead of previous expectations but was mitigated by higher short-term rates than we anticipated at the beginning of this year.
Looking to the fourth quarter, Core FFO per share remains poised to increase as the momentum from strong year-to-date leasing increasingly contributes to bottom-line results. Looking out into 2025 and beyond, Digital Realty's growth remains poised to accelerate for 2024 levels as the fundamental environment for data centers remains strong and our robust backlog commences.
This concludes our prepared remarks and I will be pleased to take your questions. Operator, would you please begin the Q&A session?
