and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q3 2020 Independence Realty Trust Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. Please be reminded that this call is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Lauren Torres. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review Independence Realty Trust's Q3 2020 financial results. On the call with me today are Scott Schafer, our Chief Executive Officer Jim Sebra, our Chief Financial Officer And Farrell Ender, President of IRT. Today's call is being webcast on our website at www.irtliving. There will be a replay of the call available via webcast on our Investor Relations website End telephonically beginning at approximately 12 p.
M. Eastern Time today. Before I turn the call over to Scott, I'd like to remind everyone That there may be forward looking statements made in this call. These forward looking statements reflect IRT's current views With respect to future events and financial performance, actual results could differ substantially and materially from what IRT has projected. Such statements are made in good faith pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Please refer to IRT's press release, supplemental information and filings with the SEC for factors that could affect the accuracy of our or cause our future results to differ materially from those expectations. Participants may discuss non GAAP financial measures During this call, a copy of IRT's press release and supplemental information containing financial information, Other statistical information and a reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures to the most direct comparable GAAP financial measure is attached to IRT's most recent current report on the Form 8 ks available at IRT's website under Investor Relations. IRT's other SEC filings are also through this link. IRT does not undertake to update forward looking statements in this call or with respect to matters described herein, except as may be required by law. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott Schaeffer.
Thank you, Lauren, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I'd like to start off today's call by thanking our team for their dedication and diligence During a year which we could never have anticipated, IRT's execution of its strategy has been steadfast, enabling us to continue to deliver value to all of our stakeholders. We focused on protecting the health and well-being of our employees and residents, providing flexibility to those residents demonstrating financial hardship, Driving leasing traffic and growing occupancy, all while sustaining our financial flexibility and strengthening our balance sheet. Our successful execution against these key priorities is evidenced in our 3rd quarter performance. Our total portfolio average occupancy increased 60 basis points from a year ago To 94.1 percent and we collected 98.9 percent of 3rd quarter rent.
Our same store NOI grew 0.5% on a year over year basis. Our core FFO improved more than 14% to $19,400,000 with a core FFO per share of $0.20 And we ended the quarter with $217,000,000 of total liquidity. We continue to see strong results through October 27. Our current occupancy now stands at 95%, a 2 50 basis point improvement compared to the end of October last year. We have collected approximately 96.7 percent of October rents, which is consistent with collections in September.
And given our low lease expirations and high occupancy in the 4th quarter, We've been able to drive rent growth. We are also encouraged by the pickup in activity in our value adding capital recycling programs. While Farrell and Jim will speak about them in greater detail, I'm pleased to note that we are taking a thoughtful approach to reallocating our capital into markets with strong demographics that offer healthy rent growth and steady or increasing occupancy levels, while exiting or reducing our presence in less viable markets. As it relates to our investment strategy, we are proud to highlight that IRT has a strong presence in a number of cities that were named in A recent ranking of the top 100 best places to live in 2020 conducted by livability.com, which explores why small to medium sized cities are great places to live. Some of these higher ranked cities include Asheville, Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina as well as Columbus, Ohio and Orlando, Florida.
In closing, IRT's quarterly and year to date results reflect our ability to manage near term volatility, while planning for the long term success of our business. We will close out 2020 focused on resident retention, resulting in stable high occupancy levels as we always strive toward providing our residents with communities of the highest quality. And while there are concerns over a resurgence of the virus, we will be mindful of any changes and restrictions on a state by state basis and as always adhere to strict safety measures and Protect the well-being of our employees and residents, our flexible operating and investment model supported by our strong capital position will enable us to continue to successfully navigate the current environment.
With that, I'd like
to turn the call over to Farrell for an operational update. Farrell? Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. With no doubt, 2020 brought its fair share of challenges and our team reacted with resiliency and determination. Our on-site teams led an effort to improve total And 93.5 percent a year ago.
Currently, our occupancy rate is 95%, up 90 basis points from 3rd quarter levels 250 basis points from the end of October last year. The average occupancy across our same store portfolio, not including our value add communities in the 3rd quarter was 94.6% and as of today is 95.3%. This increase is due to a coordinated effort to drive resident retention higher occupancy during the pandemic. On a lease over lease basis for the same store portfolio during the Q3, new lease rates increased 1.8% And renewals were up 0.5% yielding a combined lease over lease rental rate increase of 1.1%. As of today, as Scott mentioned, we've been drive rent growth in the 4th quarter.
Our new leases have increased 7.4%, while renewed leases are up 1.3% With a blended lease over lease rental rate increase of 3.9% for our same store portfolio. Now I'd like to provide an update on our value add and capital recycling programs Where we've resumed activity. 1st, on our value add program, we completed renovations on 2 37 units in the 3rd quarter 774 units year to date, realizing average rent premiums of more than 18% as compared to unrenovated units. We performed renovations at 17 of our communities and as of today, we've classified 4 as complete having renovated 85% or more of these units at each property. Prior to the pandemic, we had identified an additional 6 communities to enter our value add program.
We will commence 4 of the communities in the first half of 2021 and we'll continue to evaluate the opportunity of the remaining 2. We anticipate completing approximately 275 units Beyond the identified communities, we believe there are additional value add opportunities within the remaining portfolio. In the Q3, we reengaged our capital recycling program, which is focused on reallocating capital from markets where we have a small presence and do not plan to grow And invest those dollars into markets with better long term fundamentals where we have a larger presence and are looking to expand. With that said, we made the decision to Exit the Chattanooga and Baton Rouge markets. We've sold one of our Chattanooga assets, Trails at Signal Mountain and expect on the sale of our remaining asset in this market Lakeshore on the Hill in November.
Also in November, we expect to sell our single asset in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Live Oak Trace. The gross sales and the adjusted blended economic cap rate for these three assets are $59,000,000 5% respectively. On the acquisition front, We've placed a 4 21 unit property in Huntsville, Alabama under contract for a gross price of $95,000,000 which represents a 5% cap rate on our year 1 underwriting. This acquisition will expand our footprint in Huntsville from 178 units to 599 units. The 2 phase property was completed in 2014 2019 and is located in the South Madison submarket, We just seen no new supply in the past 5 years other than this property's Phase 2 rollout.
Property is 99% occupied We are well positioned to unlock value through a combination of organic market rent growth, which has averaged 6.6% for the past 3 years, As well as growth from the implementation of our revenue management and institutional ownership. We'd note that Huntsville is an attractive market for expansion due to its highly educated And compensated workforce, coupled with population, growth and job opportunities. The city benefits from the Redstone Arsenal, which employs 40,000 high-tech military personnel, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Cummings Research Park, the 2nd largest research park in the country. In addition, Toyota and Mazda are completing a $1,600,000,000 assembly plant in 2021 that will employ 4,000 people And the FBI announced that we'll be building a $1,000,000,000 second headquarters in the Redstone Arsenal that will bring a 1,000 jobs next year and 4,000 over the next 10 years. Lastly, we acquired a parcel of land adjacent to our Vantage on Hillsboro property in Tampa, Florida, which improves our street And our existing property of our existing property and allows us to add up to 51 units subject to zoning approvals.
Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jim.
Thanks, Farrell, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin with an overview of our Q3 results. IRT recorded net income available to common shareholders $1,100,000 down from a net income of $4,900,000 in the Q3 of 2019. It is important to note that net income this quarter impacted by a $1,800,000 asset impairment associated with the property held for sale, while a year ago net income benefited from a $2,400,000 net gain on the sale of assets. During the Q3, core FFO grew to $19,400,000 Up 14.3 percent from $17,000,000 in Q3 2019.
Core FFO per share during Q3 was $0.20, 5.2% higher than Q3 last year at $0.19 per share. Turning to our same store property operating results. NOI growth was 50 basis points in the quarter, driven by revenue growth of 3%. Rental rates increased year over year with an average monthly rent of $1106 this quarter, up 2.2% since the Q3 of last year. While this includes value add communities, We did see rental rate growth at our non value add same store communities with rental rates in Q3 increasing 80 basis points over the prior year.
We continue to closely evaluate the impact of the pandemic on our collections. In the Q3, we collected 98.9% of our billings. As a result, we evaluated our outstanding receivables for collectibility and increased our reserve for bad debt by $80,000 during the 3rd quarter to a total reserve of $803,000 as of September 30. The $803,000 reserve for bad debt Recorded as of September 30 reduces the future risk of any billed revenue that we have not collected. To put it in context, We ended the quarter with $1,400,000 of gross receivables, including those that were part of our deferred payment plans.
Subsequent to September 30, we've collected $267,000 of those gross receivables. And after considering the reserves of bad debt, our net Accounts receivable left over as of September 30 is $327,000 about a third of a penny per share. As a result, we believe that we are adequately reserved and feel good about collecting those remaining net receivables. In the Q3, same store property operating expenses increased 6.8%, primarily due to the timing of controllable expenses hitting in Q3 Rather than Q2, as you'd expect, there were delays and interruptions during the height of the pandemic in the Q2. As businesses returned, those delayed services were Completed in the Q3.
On a year to date basis, total operating expenses grew a more modest 3.6% With that increase primarily driven by higher real estate taxes and property insurance, which we will continue to monitor going into next year. I just want to reiterate that the increase in expenses this quarter was heavily impacted by the timing of expenses rather than the start of a trend. And we still expect that our total operating expenses for 2020 will be less than our original guidance that we gave at the beginning of this year. Turning to our balance sheet. As of September 30, our liquidity position was $217,000,000 We had approximately $10,000,000 of unrestricted cash, $108,000,000 of additional capacity through our unsecured credit facility and $99,000,000 of remaining proceeds from our forward equity raise.
We closed the 3rd quarter carrying just over $1,000,000,000 of debt with no significant debt maturities until 2023. Our normalized net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 9.1x at the end of Q3, down from 9.2x in Q2 2020. With respect to our capital recycling program, we had 3 assets identified as held for sale in the 3rd quarter. And as a result, we The results from our same store metrics. If we had included them, same store NOI growth would have been 90 basis points for Q3 And 3% on a year to date basis, an improvement of 40 basis points for both periods over what we've already reported.
As Farrell mentioned, we recently sold our Trails at Signal Mountain property in Chattanooga at a price of $20,000,000 and expect to recognize a $6,300,000 gain on the sale in the Q4. Other planned sales include Live Oak Trace in Baton Rouge, which we plan to close in November at a sale price of $25,400,000 And we have already recorded a $1,800,000 impairment on this transaction in accordance with GAAP during the Q3. Lastly, we're scheduled to sell our Lakeshore on the Hill property in Chattanooga for $14,300,000 in the 4th quarter and expect to recognize a $3,600,000 gain on sale. In total, we're expecting to generate $59,000,000 in proceeds from these three sales And a total net gain on sale of $8,100,000 On the acquisition front, we are under contract to purchase a property in Huntsville, Alabama for $95,000,000 This transaction is scheduled to close in late November and will be funded by $59,000,000 in proceeds from the aforementioned sales, Availability under our unsecured line of credit and a portion of the remaining availability from our February 2020 forward equity raise. After all is said and done, our capital recycling program will result in a $36,000,000 net increase in real estate investments.
We're expecting to use about $25,000,000 of our forward equity forward to close the transactions, which means we will have approximately $75,000,000 remaining After those transactions are complete, if we were to use that $75,000,000 to delever, our normalized net debt to adjusted EBITDA would drop to about 8.4x. Regarding our dividend, IRT's Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.12 per share Paid on October 23, which equates to a 63% payout ratio on $0.19 of AFFO for the 3rd quarter. With respect to guidance, we continue to believe it's prudent to keep us suspended at this time and anticipate resuming the practice of providing guidance
I'd like to close out by saying that the IRD team has stepped up to the challenge and produced favorable year to date results during these uncertain times. We've rightly focused on supporting our employees and residents while safeguarding our properties and communities. I'd also like to congratulate the IRT for being named Shelters to Shutters Industry Partner of the Year. Shelters to Shutters is a great organization, which helps local communities with employment and housing opportunities In an effort to reduce situational homelessness, which has become a national growing concern. I'm proud of the team's efforts and look forward to our continued success as we look to strengthen and grow our business while learning from our experiences.
Operator, at this time, I would like to open the call for questions.
I am showing no question at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Scott Schafer.
Well, thank you for joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you again at NAREIT's virtual conference later in November. Everyone have a good day. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may all disconnect.