Michael Lacy
Senior Vice President of Property Operations at UDR
Thanks, Tom. Strong demand for multifamily housing, coupled with our operating platform advantages, led to all-time high occupancy, accelerating rate growth and significantly reduced concessions during the third quarter. These trends have persisted thus far in the fourth quarter, postponing typical seasonality to mid- to late-October or two to three months later than would be normal.
To begin, strong Same-Store results supported third quarter FFOA per share at the high end of our previously provided guidance range. Key components of our 5.3% and 6.3% year-over-year Same-Store revenue and NOI growth included weighted average occupancy of 97.5%, 200 basis points higher than a year ago, Effective Blended Lease Rate Growth of 8.2%, which sequentially accelerated by 730 basis points versus the second quarter. Year-over-year, other income growth of 5.1%.
Traffic that averaged 35% above pre-COVID levels as we continue to open the prospective resident funnel with our Next-Gen Platform and drive additional pricing power and annualized turnover of 54%, which declined by more than 1,100 basis points versus a year ago and was approximately 1,000 basis points below our historical third quarter turnover rate, driven by strong demand. Sequential Same-Store revenue grew 3.6% in the third quarter. And as implied by our improved guidance, we expect sequential Same-Store revenue growth to be positive in the fourth quarter as well.
Regarding key operating metrics for October, occupancy remains elevated and has averaged 97.1% as we continue to see robust demand well into what is historically a seasonally slow period of time. Our slightly lower sequential occupancy as compared to our all-time high third quarter reading has done by design as we've continued to drive rate growth to strengthen our 2022 rent roll. Our 2.6% anticipated earning 2022 is in line with our highest earning over the past decade and is approximately 150 basis points higher than our average earning between 2016 and 2019.
Currently, our weighted average loss to lease is in the low teens. We are capturing this upside by driving rental rate higher, which has led to Blended Lease Rate Growth of roughly 11.5% in October or 330 basis points above what we achieved in the third quarter. Roughly 15% of our NOI comes from markets that presently have some form of regulatory restriction on renewal rate increases, but we are utilizing unique UDR attributes such as our various other income initiatives to drive revenue growth. We believe we have an extended runway to capture additional embedded rent growth throughout the fourth quarter and into 2022. Next, concessions have virtually evaporated and are only being used in select submarkets and at a handful of UDR communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Downtown LA and the 14th Street Quarter in Washington, D.C.
Our strategy of offering upfront concessions and maintaining gross rents during the pandemic is playing out as expected. Residents are already accustomed to paying full rent, which translates into better pricing power and higher retention at renewal. As a reminder, in the fourth quarter, we will anniversary peak COVID concession levels of 3.5 to four weeks on new leases. As such, and with only nominal concessions today, we are poised to capture rent growth at a 7% to 8% above market growth, which translates into mid- to high-teens expected new lease rate growth during the fourth quarter. Last, we've continued to realize broad-based strength across our portfolio in October.
Our Sunbelt communities, which comprise approximately 25% of NOI, have been generating better than 20% year-over-year market rent growth, while harder hit urban centers have risen sharply off the bottom. It will take time for these market trends to show up in our reported results due to our lease expiration schedule, but 20 of our 21 markets now have rents above pre-COVID levels. The San Francisco Bay Area, our sole laggard, should join this group in the next couple of quarters. Moving on. Our success as a first mover in accessing rental assistance programs continue to benefit our collections. And during the third quarter, we reversed $3 million of our cumulative bad debt reserve.
Year-to-date, we have sourced more than $19 million in assistance for residents in need with nearly $10 million of this coming during the third quarter. We have another $11 million of applications in process. Additionally, we are finding early success securing funds from former residents in California and the state of Washington whose unpaid balances were previously written off.
Due to our outreach programs, former resident balances totaling over $2.5 million are in the rental assistant application process or have excess funds. We hope to get more former California and Washington residents to apply during the first quarter while also participate in new programs such as the one the New York recently introduced. Next, we have fully wrote out Version 1.0 of our Next Generation Operating Platform across all of our markets. We believe the self-service model we have implemented over the past three years is unique in our industry and the numbers prove this out.
Since the second quarter of 2018, we have permanently reduced headcount at our communities by 40% on average, thereby providing a strong hedge against elevated inflationary pressures. Realized controllable expense growth has been 360 basis points below the peer average over the last three years, which has driven our controllable operating margin 250 basis points above what a company at our average rent level would expect to produce. Delivered products and services in the formats, our residents prefer as exhibited by a 24% increase in our resident satisfaction score and an overall 97% usage rate for self-guided prospective resident tours.
Generated the best Same-Store revenue growth in roughly 45% of the markets we share with peers versus a 30% average win rate among the peer group. And generated more than $15 million of incremental NOI on our legacy communities with another $5 million expected through 2022. In addition, we have a demonstrated ability to consistently drive outsized growth at the communities we acquired by implementing our platform and other unique value creation initiatives. Thus far, we have expanded the weighted average yield on our nearly $1 billion of third-party acquisitions from 2019 by 55 basis points. For the roughly $2.5 billion of third-party acquisitions we completed between 2019 and 2021, we have, on average, grown revenue by 14% and NOI by 20% compared to the prior owner. Reduced controllable operating expenses per unit by 7% and expanded our controllable operating margin by 400 basis points.
I credit Harry and our transaction team for finding acquisitions where we can create value through our platform capabilities. In our view, Platform 1.0 has been a game changer, but we are not done. Our innovation team, which is comprised of various UDR leaders continues to explore and implement a variety of new initiatives that should drive elevated revenue growth and margin expansion in the years to come. These initiatives rely on advanced data analytics and include reduced days vaca, better identifying and retaining more profitable residents, further rationalizing our cost structure, optimizing our price engine and increasing resident satisfaction. While too early to give specifics, we believe these initiatives could potentially dwarf the economic benefits of Platform 1.0.
We look forward to updating you on our progress as we roll out these value-creating initiatives. Looking ahead, we are excited to close out a stronger-than-expected 2021 and move on to 2022. I want to thank my colleagues for their unwavering commitment to changing and improving the way we do business. Our culture rewards innovation, and I'm excited for our next steps as we continue to evolve and succeed. And now I'll turn the call over to Joe.