Good afternoon, and welcome to the Invitation Homes 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the conference over to Bryce Blair, the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. I am Bryce Blair, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Invitation Homes, and I'd like to welcome you and thank you for joining us at this virtual Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We're conducting the meeting today in a virtual format due to the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus pandemic. While we would normally hold this meeting in person, we're meeting virtually today to help protect the safety of our associates, our directors and our stockholders. This format does allow for stockholders to participate remotely to vote and submit questions during the annual meeting.
This is the first time we've had a virtual meeting, so please bear with us as we manage through this format and we'll be assessing the format this year and we'll keep you posted on whether we intend to use it for future meetings. Now before we get started with the formal portion of the meeting, I wanted to say thank you to our associates and trade partners that have done such an amazing job working through the rapidly changing economic and public health conditions. I'd also like to thank all of the medical, public health and other essential workers for keeping us safe and helping us manage through this very difficult environment. In terms of today's meeting, I'll act as Chairman and Mark Soules, our Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretarial will act as Secretary of this meeting. Following the introduction of the Board of Directors, the executive officers and certain other guests, we will conduct the formal portion of the meeting.
Following which, Dallas Tanner, our President, CEO and Director will provide a brief business update, and then we'll have time to address any questions that are relevant to the business at hand. So with that, I will now call this meeting to order, And I'd like to introduce our other Board members who are standing for reelection and participating in today's meeting. Janet Barbee, Richard Bronson, Mike Vasatelli, Jeff Kelter, John Rea, Janice Sears, Bill Stein and Dallas Tanner. Also attending today's meeting are new Director nominees, Joe Margolis and Heidi Rizan. I would like to take a moment to recognize Ken Kaplan, Rob Harper and Barry Sternlicht, are not standing for reelection at this meeting.
On behalf of the company's Board of Directors and the management team, I want to thank them for their years of service during a period of significant growth for the company. We're very appreciative of all of their contributions. Also participating in the meeting today are Ernie Freedman, our Chief Financial Officer and Charles Young, our Chief Operating Officer as well as Dusty Schultz and Jill Saragusa, 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 Elections. The Secretary has delivered an affidavit of mailing establishing that 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 the meeting. With that, our first order of business at the meeting is determined whether there is a quorum for purposes of transacting business at the meeting. Mark, can you report on whether Quorum is present?
Yes, Bryce. Thank you. The Board of Directors fixed March 25, 2020 as the record date for determining stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting. As of the record date, there were 543,767,445 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, 497,409,780 shares of the company's common stock, representing in excess of 90% of the voting power on the record date.
Since this is more than a majority of the votes
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 has not yet 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.
Thank you, Bryce. 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 Dallas Tanner, our CEO, 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 clearly covered in our proxy statement. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question. 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 we will address any unanswered questions after the meeting.
Please remember to comply with the rules conduct applicable to stockholders' questions. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. A webcast playback will be available to the public within approximately 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 the election of 11 directors who will serve until the next annual meeting of stockholders to be held in 2021 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 independent registered public accounting firm for 2020. 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.
Well, thank you, Mark. And I'll now pause for a moment for voting. If you'd like to make your vote or change your vote, you can do so on the portal at this time. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I will declare the polls closed and ask Mark to announce the preliminary voting results.
Thank you, Bryce. 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.
Well, thank you, Mark, and congratulations to the directors who were elected. And since there is no other business to come before the meeting, the formal portion of the meeting is adjourned. I will, as I mentioned, I now ask Dallas Tanner to provide a brief business update and afterwards, we'll have any if there's any relevant questions, we'll address them at that time. Dallas?
Thank you, Bryce. 2019 was an outstanding year for Invitation Homes' residents, communities associates and investors. We made enhancements to our people, processes and portfolio that have positioned us even more advantageously to capture the long term opportunity within the single family rental sector, which we believe is among the brightest in all of real estate. The enhancements we made in 2019 are also helping us today to navigate external disruptions stemming from COVID-nineteen, which we've done with strong results so far. Let me elaborate on what we accomplished in 2019 to put ourselves in this position.
We grew same store NOI by 5.6% among the leaders in the REIT sector. We further improved resident service and loyalty as evidenced by a record low resident turnover rate of 30.1% and resident satisfaction survey scores that increased to the mid-4s out of 5. We completed our merger integration, exceeding expectations with $58,000,000 of run rate synergies and improving the efficiency with which we are equipped to serve our residents and manage our portfolio. We enhanced our portfolio by selling $900,000,000 of homes and using the proceeds to buy approximately $650,000,000 of homes with higher expected risk adjusted returns and to prepay debt. We reduced the net debt by approximately $700,000,000 helping to drive a one turn reduction in net debt to EBITDA and opened a new financing channel by completing our 1st 12 year loan from a life insurance company.
And finally, we continued to advance the ball with respect to sustainability and corporate citizenship by rewarding associates for genuine care and resident service, engaging with communities through volunteerism and philanthropy and reducing energy consumption with the increased installation of smart home technology. Turning to 2020. We are now facing a unique operating environment, but the agility of our team and platform is serving us well. Strong demand and resulting occupancy gains that we experienced in the Q1 of 2020 continued into April. More specifically, our same store average occupancy climbed to an all time high 97.2% in April, up 60 basis points year over year and up 30 basis points from March, with 12 of our 16 markets averaging above 97%.
At the same time, blended rent growth remained solid in April at 3.2%. On this higher potential revenue base, we collected rents at over 95% of our typical collection rate in April and are tracking even better thus far in May. We are very pleased with these operational results so far and feel even better when we take into account our $1,100,000,000 of liquidity through cash and revolver capacity and 0 debt maturities until 2022. We believe the strong demand and solid rent collection we continue to experience are a testament to the quality of our product and our resident base. We provide the essential human need of housing and a leasing lifestyle that we believe is even more attractive versus other housing alternatives in times of uncertainty.
Our residents on average came into the pandemic with 2 wage earners per household, generating income of almost $110,000 that covered rent obligations by 5 times. Furthermore, as you know, we have been purposeful about assembling an infill portfolio in locations where we expect greater resilience to economic cycles and better risk adjusted return. As we move forward, we will continue to prioritize the health and safety of our residents and associates above all else while serving our residents with genuine care in a time when they need it the most. The last 2 months have renewed my conviction in the strength and resilience of our people and our platform. We've asked our associates to be nimble and execute under rapidly changing protocols, and they have absolutely delivered.
In fact, resident satisfaction has continued its upward trend even in the face of COVID-nineteen challenges with our survey scores near all time highs in April of this year. This is due in large part to our local on the ground presence in markets purposefully designed to provide real time feedback to our leadership teams, which gives our company an advantage in this fast changing environment. Let me be clear. These are unprecedented times, but I could not be prouder of how we have responded to bring stability to our residents' lives and how we have performed operationally so far. Of all the types of real estate that could be owned, we are happy that single family homes are what we own today.
And we are grateful for the support of our stockholders, and we will continue to manage today's challenges while keeping an eye focused on the future for Invitation Homes. Thank you.
Well and thank you, Dallas. So at this point, as we mentioned, we'll pause to see if there's any questions from any stockholders. And as a reminder, questions can be entered on the meeting web portal, but as previously stated, only questions that are relevant to the proposals presented at this meeting will be answered at this time. So Mark, please let us know if there are any questions submitted that are relevant to the proposals presented at the meeting.
Thanks, Bryce. At this time, I want to thank all the stockholders who have submitted questions. And as no questions were asked that relate to the purpose of the meeting, this will conclude our question and answer session.
Okay. Well, thank you, Mark. This concludes the Invitation Homes 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. And we want to thank you all for your continued interest and support of Invitation Homes. Thank you very much.