Good afternoon, and welcome to Invitation Homes' 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the conference to Mike Fasatelli, the Chairman of the Annual Meeting. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. I am Mike Fasatelli, a member of the Board of Directors of Imitation Homes. I have been authorized by the Board to chair today's annual meeting of the company's stockholders. I would like to welcome and thank you for joining us today. Mark Soultz, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Invitation Homes will act as secretary of this meeting.
Due to the continuing public health impact of the COVID-nineteen pandemic, we are holding this meeting online only. It shows this format because of the safety of our stockholders and associates is a paramount importance to us. It allows for our cyclists to participate remotely, vote and submit questions during the annual meeting. 1st and foremost, we hope that all who are participating today are staying safe and healthy. We at Invitation Homes continue to be here for our customers, associates and communities.
At today's meeting, following the introduction of the members of the Board of Directors, executive officers and certain special guests attending the meeting, we will conduct the formal portion of the meeting. Following the formal portion of the meeting, Dallas Tanner, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide a brief business update, then we will have time to address stockholder questions. I will now call this meeting to order. I would like to introduce our other Board members who are standing for reelection and participating in today's meeting. Joining us by phone are Jana Bobae, Richard Bronson, who I call Skip, Jeff Kelton, Joe Margolis, John Rea, Heidi Roizen, Janice Sears, Bill Stein and Dallas Tanner.
I would like to take a moment to recognize Bryce Blair, who is not standing for reelection at this meeting. On behalf of the company's Board of Directors, I want to thank Bryce for his years of service, strong commitment to Invitation Homes and our stockholders. Bryce was there from the very beginning starting back in 2012 as a guiding mentor light in building this business and successfully getting the company through an IPO and then the merger. So Bryce has done an enormous amount of good for the company and contribution for the company. We thank him for his efforts.
Also participating in the meeting telephonically are Ernie Freedman, our Chief Financial Officer and Charles Young, our Chief Operating Officer. In attendance today are Dusty Schultz and Jill Siragusa, representatives of Deloitte and Touche, the company's independent registered public accounting firm. Paul Ramirez from Broadridge Financial Solutions has been appointed to serve as our Inspector of Election. The Secretary has delivered an affidavit of mailing establishing the notice of this meeting was duly given. A copy of the notice of the annual meeting and affidavit of mailing will be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting.
Our first order of business at the meeting is to determine whether there is a quorum for purposes of transacting business at the meeting. Mark, can you please report as to whether a quorum is present at the meeting?
The Board of Directors fixed March 23, 2021 as the record date for determining stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting. As of the record date, there were 567,000,000 650,321 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. We are informed by the Inspector of Election that there are represented in person or by proxy at the annual meeting 511,529,122 shares of the company's common stock, representing 90.1% of the voting power on the record date. Since this is more than a majority of the votes entitled to be cast at this meeting, we have the necessary quorum under the state law and our bylaws.
Thank you, Mark. Since notice was duly given and a quorum is present, the meeting is convened. I hereby declare the poll is open for voting. Any stockholder who hasn't voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote, do not need to take any further action.
Mark will address the order of business and the matters to be acted upon at the annual meeting.
Thank you, Mike. We intend to adhere to the following order of business. Each of the matters to be acted upon at the annual meeting will be introduced in the order set forth in the proxy statement. The agenda for the annual meeting and the rules of conduct, along with our proxy statement and the annual report are posted on the meeting web portal. Following the adjournment of the meeting and a brief business update from our CEO, Dallas Tanner, we will answer questions from stockholders.
Stockholders may submit questions in the designated Ask a Question field on the Annual Meeting web portal. Before asking a question, we invite you to refer to our proxy statement for this meeting, which contains information regarding our proposals to be taken up at this meeting. We do not plan to answer questions unrelated to these proposals or for which the answers are covered in our proxy statement. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question if needed. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible and will address any unanswered questions after the meeting.
Such questions and answers will be made publicly available on our Investor Relations website promptly after the annual meeting. Please remember to comply with the rules of conduct applicable to stockholders' questions. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. A webcast playback will be available to the public within 24 hours after the meeting. However, no one attending the webcast is permitted to use any audio recording device.
We have 3 proposals today, all as described in the proxy statement for the meeting. The first matter is the election of 10 directors who will serve until the next Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held in 2022 and until their successors are duly elected and qualified. Our Board recommends a vote for each of the nominees for Director. The second matter is the ratification of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. Our Board recommends a vote for the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021.
The 3rd matter is the approval of an advisory resolution on executive compensation. Our Board recommends a vote for the approval of the advisory resolution on executive compensation. I want to remind the stockholders that it is not necessary to vote if you have already done so before the meeting unless you want to change your vote.
Thank you. I will now pause for a moment for voting. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls closed. Mark will announce preliminary voting results.
Based on the preliminary report from the company's Inspector of Election and subject to confirmation of the final tabulation of votes, each director nominee has received a plurality of the votes cast and has been elected. Proposals 23, the ratification of the appointment of the external auditor and the advisory vote on executive compensation, each received a majority of the votes cast and has been approved. We will report the final voting results on a Form 8 ks, which we will file within 4 business days after the annual meeting.
Thank you, Mark, and congratulations to the directors who were elected. Look forward to serving another year with you. Since there is no other business to come before the meeting, the meeting is adjourned. Dallas Tiena will now provide a brief business update.
Thank you all for joining us today. We're proud to be the nation's premier single family home leasing company. Almost 80,000 families count on us for high quality updated homes and great neighborhoods along with consistent superior service. We believe the single family rental sector is among the brightest in all of real estate and we remain well positioned to capture growth and provide outsized total return to our stockholders. I'd like to start with a brief overview of our accomplishments during 2020 and then follow that with our thoughts on the current year.
To begin, 2020 was another strong year for Invitation Homes. We met the challenge of COVID head on and in the process, prove both the durability of our business model and the resilience of our associates and residents. We're proud to have delivered on our commitment to provide exceptional service and genuine care to our residents, while at the same time, achieving another year of financial performance near the top of the real estate sector. Let me touch on the following highlights from 2020. We grew same store NOI by 3.7% year over year.
We improved same store average occupancy every month, ending the year at a record 98.3% in December. We acquired nearly 2,400 homes, including about half of those in the Q4 alone, our highest pace since 2014. We reduced net debt nearly a full turn to 7.3x by the end of the year. And finally, we further advanced our efforts to make us more innovative and our processes more sustainable and environmentally friendly. The strong demand we saw last year has continued to set records in 2021.
We're continuing to execute well to capture that demand, which is driving our record occupancy and rental rate growth. We also remain focused on our external growth goal of acquiring over $1,000,000,000 in homes this year. We believe our proven multi channel approach to acquisitions along with our proprietary technology and local market experts offer us the best positioning while maintaining discipline around location, quality and risk adjusted returns. Last month, we completed our long stated objective of achieving an investment grade rating. And throughout this year, we're working on integrating ESG initiatives into our strategic business objectives.
We're currently surveying our stakeholders to identify the ESG issues that matter most. And from that, we're putting together a strategic roadmap of ESG initiatives that will be the most impactful for us to pursue over the next several years. Through these efforts, we seek to drive positive change and create value for our stakeholders. In closing, I'm proud of the accomplishments we've made and I'm excited by the opportunities we have to grow. Using our strength, scale and operational excellence to continue leading the single family rental sector.
I'm grateful for the support of our stockholders, the insight of our Board and the genuine care that our team of associates provide to our residents each day. We look forward to growing further together. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dallas. On behalf of the Board, we want to acknowledge and thank you and your colleagues and associates, Dallas, for the extraordinary effort during COVID-nineteen year. It was a crazy year and the exceptional results that you achieved. Thank you. At this point, we will take stockholders' questions entered on the meeting web portal.
We have allotted 10 minutes to answer questions. Again, please note that only questions that are relevant to the business of the annual meeting will be answered at this time. Mark, please let us know what questions were submitted on the meeting web portal. We'll pause for a moment to review the questions that were submitted.
Mike, I've reviewed the questions. I want to thank all the stockholders who have submitted questions As no questions were asked that related to the purpose of this meeting, this will conclude our question and answer session.
Thank you, Mark. This concludes the Invitation Homes 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I thank you all for your time and attention today. Please stay safe. I will now turn the conference back over to the operator.
The Invitation Homes 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders has now come to an end. For any further details, please visit Invitation Home's Investor Relations website at invitationhomes.com. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.