To this third quarter of 2018. This is after this, we have our last report for this business plan. We are on the last time of this business plan. It's very glad to sit here today to present this fantastic result. Start on next page two. Have a quick look at what this looks like at this third quarter. We have an improvement of the income from property management of 22%. The reason is that we have an efficient property holding, I will come back to this, but we have our new construction coming into management. We occupied 965 apartments this nine months, 116 apartments this third quarter.
We also have lower interest rates, you can see that in the financial expenses. The efficient property holding, you see that in the surplus ratio to 76%. We have also started some new constructions during this third quarter, 440 apartments this third quarter, in total 1,100 apartments this year. We keep our financial strength. The TV is 46%. Turn to page three. This is how it look like today. Our investment properties are in the most growing regions in Sweden, in Stockholm and Gothenburg. One third in Stockholm and two third in Gothenburg. It's because we have the commercial properties in Gothenburg. In both in Stockholm and Gothenburg, we have the residential properties.
We have a book value of SEK 44 billion in our properties. We have a occupancy rate of 99%. We haven't changed our average yield this quarter, so it's like last quarter for the commercials, 4.6%, and the residential, 3.3%. Now turn to page four. Here is how the premises are distributed by type. To the left, based by area. To the right, rental value. Almost half of both the area and the rental value is for residentials. The other part for commercials. Half of the commercials are for offices, you can say around half of it. Now turn to next page five. We have completed during this nine months, like I said in the beginning, 965 apartments successively during those nine months.
Also we started some already a t the end of last year. For this third quarter, we completed 116 apartments. 300 of those 965 apartments are which were meant to be co-ops in the beginning, but we converted them into rentals, and they are now fully occupied and coming into our management in a good way. We will see that in the figures later. Turn to next page. Here we have Orangeriet in Stockholm. This is phase two of 80 apartments. Last quarter, we had the other 90 rental apartments here, and this is one of the projects that we started with this project to convert into rentals. This is phase two, and now it's the total area here in Solberga are completed. Turn to page seven.
Here we have Utforskaren in Gothenburg. It's in the city center of Gothenburg with 36 rental apartments. They are now fully completed. It's in a very good location here in Gothenburg. It's very good to that we have the opportunity to build here in the city center of Gothenburg. Now turn to next page eight. We have started 440 apartments in this third quarter, like I said in the beginning, and in total 1,100 apartments in total for this nine months. I will talk about the projects that we started this third quarter on next page. We start on page nine in Haninge, Parkstråket Etapp 1 and 2. Almost 300 apartments, and they will be completed during 2020.
They will be successively occupied because it's a huge project, so we can't move in all of those 300 apartments in one time. It's successively during a period of time. Now turning to next page 10. We come back to Gothenburg. This is in Majorna in Gothenburg at Godhems Backe. The one that we are going to build, it's 138 rental apartments. It's the gray or beige ones right in the middle of this picture. Behind the trees, you see existing properties, and this is ours, so we already own properties here in this area. Now we densify the area around our existing property, you can say. Now turning to page 11.
I come back to our fantastic results because we can see now that our business concept has an impact in our figures. It's very good to see that our strategy works. We turn to next page 12. 22% up, like I said, being come from property management. The main reasons is that our new construction is coming into management, they are more efficient compared to older properties. We have also successful letting process in our commercial properties here in Gothenburg. We have also lower interest rates. About the net operating income, I will come back to that later. We can start with the management costs, which are on the same level as last year.
On the next line, financial income and expenses, you can see that we have SEK 13 million lower financial expenses compared to last year. If you just see the single Q3, it's almost half the financial expenses. The reason is that we realized the old expensive swaps that we had, like I talked about last quarter. Now we can see the efficient effect of this result. Now we turn to page 13. I forgot to say that we have an interest rate on average this period, which are 50 basis point lower compared to last year. Now net operating income increased by 13%. Did also the rental income. In money, it's SEK 165 million.
Seventy percent of those SEK 165 million comes from our new construction, those 965 apartments which were occupied this nine months. You can also see the effect of our successful letting for this nine months compared to last year's SEK 32 million. In the main part, it's from our commercial properties here in Gothenburg. We have also some property transactions, which gives us SEK 11 million more rental income. We have also higher operating expenses with 13%. I t's SEK 40 million higher expenses compared to last year. It's both because we have more square meters in our property holding because of the new construction coming into management. I n those nine months, we have also had colder climate compared to last year.
The property maintenance has increased by SEK 10 million, because we have done a lot of more things in our properties compared to last year. We have also some more expenses because of the property transactions. In total, it's SEK 40 million more compared to last year. This gives us a surplus ratio of 76% for those nine months. Turning to next page. This first line, you see the realized changes in value for the financial instruments. I talked about this last quarter. This is the effect of our realization of the old swaps. We will see the opposite figure down in the income statement. It's SEK 76 million+ . In total, it's a zero-sum game.
Let's focus now on the income from natural energy, which is SEK 35 million better compared to last year. The reason is, like you maybe all you know, that the energy prices has gone up a lot, both energy prices but also electricity certificate prices. If you look at the certificate, it's four double compared to last year. That's the main reason why it's SEK +35 million here. Maybe you wonder about our value in our wind turbines, and we will come back to that next quarter because as you may know, the energy market is very volatile, and it can go up and it can go down very fast.
We will see that this will stay for a little bit longer than two months. Before we correct our valuation. We will come back to that next quarter. We have also sold and the buyers has taken over eight of 30 apartments in our project Vasagatan 33 here in Gothenburg. That affect positively this quarter. Turning to next page. We have unrealized value changes in our investment properties of almost SEK 1.1 billion, almost half of which comes from our cost-efficient new construction, the other part from our existing properties. The main reason is better NOI, also last quarter we did some yield compressions. We haven't done anything regarding yields this quarter. It's just NOI reasons why it went up 29% this quarter.
Next line, unrealized value changes in financial instruments. Here is the cost that meet the other minus cost of SEK 776 million, like I talked about before, about the realization of swaps. Beside that, we have SEK 52 million in positive value in our energy derivatives because of the higher energy prices. Some words about the taxes. As you may all know, we have a new taxation regulation, which means that we have to reevaluate our deferred taxes, which mean that we have one single cost here of SEK 291 million that are revaluation of deferred taxes. For this quarter, we took SEK 19 million more compared to last quarter. In total it's SEK 91 million, positive taxes here. Turning to next page 16.
This graph shows how the surplus value is in our new construction, which is completed, so it's just completed new construction. For 2018, it's those 965 apartments which has a surplus value of SEK 0.8 billion. We have recognized these surplus values successively during the building process. We can see SEK 1.8 billion in our, this nine-month figures. In total, we have a 40% surplus value in our new construction. Now turning to page 17. We have total assets at a value of almost SEK 47 billion, and the main part is in our new investment properties. It has increased by almost SEK 3 billion compared to last year, and the main reason is our new constructions. That's how we invest our money. It's just in our cost-efficient new construction.
We've also, like I will talk about later, bought some land for further new constructions. Turning to page 18. This is how our investments looks like for this nine months. We have invested around SEK 2 billion in our investment properties. As you can see here, the main part is from our construction, but the other part is from land and also our office in Uppsala that we bought the first quarter this year. Turning to next page 19. Here is a map of all our ongoing projects. We have almost 2,100 apartments under construction right now. Here we try to explain to you when they will be completed. This occupation is to when they start to occupy, because like I said before, we have a successively occupation of the projects.
The light green is this year, Vasagatan, like I talked about earlier, and Ulfsparregatan in Lund and in Gothenburg. We have also the dark green, which will be occupied during 2019. We have the orange, which will start during 2020, and the blue in 2021. Turning to page 20. We have an equity of almost SEK 21 billion, and we have interest-bearing liabilities of almost SEK 21 billion. I forgot to say earlier that we have lower expense, financial expenses, but we also have higher interest-bearing liabilities, on average SEK 3 billion compared to last year. Turning to page 21. Some words about our financing. We have an equity asset ratio of 44% and an LTV of 46%. We keep our financial strength.
To the right, you see the average interest rate on closing day, it was 0.98%. It's lower than 1%, and that's because we realized those swaps. On average, during these nine months, we have an average interest rate of 1.46%. I t's 50 basis point lower compared to last year. How we are financed, those SEK 21 billion, 67% of those are from banks, and 15%, SEK 3.3 billion are bonds. During these nine months, we issued SEK 1 billion in new bonds. We also have commercial papers amounted to SEK 3.7 billion. We are mainly financed through bank loans, like always. We have an interest maturity on average 36 months.
Now turning to page 22. This is the second last time when we talk about our goal in this business plan. You may all now know at this moment what our goal is. It's to have a value growth in the net asset value of at least 10% per year. For those ruling 12 months, it's 10.6%. It means that we have created SEK 2.5 billion during those 12 months. For the years which are completed in this business plan, it's almost 17% in value growth. It looks very good for this business plan. Turning to page 23.
A short summary, like I started, we can see the impact of our business concept. W hen we started this business plan, our focus was to sell older rental apartments and use this money to invest in new construction, cost-efficient new construction. We can see that in our figures now. We can also see that we have our commercial properties on the right places in the city center of Gothenburg, where we have a huge demand for our product. We have a record low vacancy of 3%. We think that we will keep on creating this value because like I said before, we started 1,100 more cost-efficient new constructions, apartments this nine months. We will still create value after this business plan as well.
I can take an opportunity to say that in the middle of December, we will release our new business plan for the future. We will come back in that on that later on. Next page, an autumn picture. With that picture, I'm ready for some questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now to enter the queue. Once your name is announced, you can ask your question. If you find it's answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel. Once again, that's zero one to ask a question or zero two if you need to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Albin Sandberg of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi there. A few questions, please. I start on the property valuation changes that you're doing in Q3. If I go back a few years, I can see a quite clear seasonal pattern that it seems like your Q2 valuation is always a bit lower between Q2 and Q4. I guess, is that a reason for you not, you know, really doing a thorough assessment in Q3, but rather waiting for Q4? Is there anything else behind that? If so, would there be any reasons why the historical pattern wouldn't be repeated this year?
Good morning, Albin. Yes, you are correct there because we think that it's three months. It's not a long time. We think after three months, it hasn't happened a lot, so we need to reevaluate or change our yields. That's the reason.
Okay. Is your overall feel on the market that, if there's anything on yields, it's more on the downside risk, or is it flat?
It hasn't changed a lot since, last for our properties.
Great. Thanks. Then on the cost of finance, continue down here quarter-on-quarter. I might feel, given you have a fairly short credit maturity to refinance quite often. I just wonder if you could say anything about your most recent refinancing and what your take is from that. Seeing, kind of, you know, good availability to refinance at good terms, or, I mean, given the fears that we see in the market for rising interest rates, have that started to filter through in your discussion with the banks and so forth?
Yes, I can start to say that, I don't say any details about our bank financing, but about the bonds, I can say that we, at the beginning of this year, we had a fixed rate of 0.4% to 8% in two-year bond and 1.68% for later on in May in those SEK 400 million bonds. Maybe it sounds a little bit odd, but it's very, very easy to get financed in this time.
Okay, great. I just wonder you bought shares in Convendum, and I just, if you could talk a little bit about that rationale. Also, if I understand it right, do they then also, let space from you or they're not involved in your premises at all?
You have to watch our closing the film because we are in the premises of Convendum, our tenant here at the Avenyn. You can see the premises. They are an existing tenant here in Gothenburg. The reason why we think that it's a good idea to be a shareholder is that we think it's a good mix with our own business to have this because they have shorter tenant terms. We think we can give and take from each other in a good way.
Okay. My final question is on the share buybacks. You bought back additional shares during Q3. Do you foresee that continuing to Q4?
Yes.
Okay, thanks. That's almost all from me.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if there are any further questions, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now. Okay, there seem to be no further questions at this time, so I'll hand back to our speakers for the closing comments.
Thank you everyone for listening and come back next quarter. Thank you.