Sean J. Breslin
Chief Operating Officer at AvalonBay Communities
All right. Thanks, Ben. I thought I'd share a few slides on the portfolio rent trends for the quarter and into October, both at the same-store level and across different markets and submarkets. Overall, we have continued to experience a significant rebound in the business. If you look at slide eight, like-term effective rent change turned positive in June, has accelerated materially over the last few months. It is now running at roughly 11%. If you turn to slide nine, you can see what's supporting the improvement in our rent change, which is the growth we've experienced in average move-in rent value. Our average move-in value has grown by roughly 24% since the beginning of the year, including a 9% increase since the end of Q2 and is now about 7% above the level we achieved in the fall of 2019. Moving to slide 10. Improved performance has been broad-based with every region experienced an increase in average move-in rent over the past quarter.
As noted in the charts, the recent flattening of move-in values reflect a normal seasonal pattern, although the seasonal adjustment has only been about 1/3 of the amount we typically see moving from the summer into the fall. Rents are now equal to or greater than 2019 levels in every region except Northern California, which has seen roughly 20% growth in move-in rents this year but still remains roughly 7% below the level we achieved in 2019. The time line for a full recovery in Northern California has been delayed in large part by major tech employers extending their return-to-office dates into early 2022. At the other end of the spectrum, the Southern California region has experienced strong growth in move-in values, supported by very healthy job growth, including significant growth in the content-producing segment of the media industry, limited supply and a very tight for-sale market.
Turning to slide 11 to address suburban and urban performance trends. The average October move-in rent for our suburban portfolio was roughly 12% above the rent we achieved in October 2019. In our urban portfolio, while demand has returned in a meaningful way and rents have recovered significantly, move-in rents are still slightly below what we achieved in October 2019. To provide a few examples, in Boston and New York City, urban move-in rents are now 1% above what we achieved in 2019. But the District of Columbia and San Francisco are lagging with move-in rents that are 3% and 13%, respectively, below what we achieved in 2019. Given the continuing adoption of vaccine requirements and a steady climb of vaccination rates, we expect urban office occupancy rates will continue to rise as we move into 2022, which is one of the opportunities we expect to benefit from next year.
In fact, moving to slide 12, the macro environment should support healthy fundamentals in our markets over the next several quarters. Starting at the top left of slide 12. While the labor market continues to improve, we're still almost five million jobs short of where we started. The demand for labor continues to be robust, which is putting material upward pressure on wages, a key driver of rent growth. Chart one shows job, wage and total personal income growth for the professional services sector of the economy, which is where most of our residents are employed. As noted in the chart, we've only experienced positive year-over-year growth across all three categories since Q2 of this year. And as many businesses refining as they attempt to recruit and retain professional services employees, the market has only strengthened since Q2.
In Chart two, office usage hit a trough in Q2 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. Since that time, while we've seen steady improvement, the gains have been modest. As we look forward into 2022, gains in office usage should support additional rent growth, particularly in our urban and job center suburban submarkets. And touching on Charts three and four regarding the housing market, price appreciation in the for-sale single-family market and relatively stable multifamily supply both support a healthy near-term outlook for rental rate growth. With that favorable macro outlook as context, turning to slide 13, we also see terrific tailwinds in our portfolio as we move into next year. Beginning in the upper left of the slide, the Chart number one, we're starting from a position of strength with turnover trending lower and strong, stable occupancy, which brings with it unusually strong pricing power.
Turnover has declined this year. It was down about 1,000 basis points or 15% in Q3 relative to what we would experience in a more normal year like 2019. And occupancy has been running above 96% for several months now, a point at which we can continue to push rents. In Chart two, given the very healthy rent change we've experienced the last few months, we'll be starting 2022 with built-in revenue growth of roughly 3%, the starting point that we didn't benefit from in any year during the last cycle. The strongest starting point in the last cycle was roughly 2.25% at the beginning of 2012. In addition to the baked-in revenue growth in Chart two, our loss to lease is currently running at roughly 14% and is depicted in Chart number three, providing plenty of opportunity to benefit from moving existing leases to market when they expire. Moving to the bottom of slide 13.
There are three other somewhat unusual tailwinds that should also benefit revenue growth as we move into 2022. In Chart four, the amortization of concessions associated with previously signed leases, which should burn off as we move through the next several quarters. In Chart five, a reduction in bad debt, which won't revert quickly to the pre-pandemic average but should begin to abate as the eviction moratoria expire and our legal remedies become more widely available to us. And then finally, on Chart six, continuing receipts from the emergency rental assistance program for our same-store portfolio, we receive -- we have received $14 million from the program with $11 million of it coming in the last quarter. Since less than 1/4 of the roughly $47 billion authorized by the federal government have been distributed as of September 30, we expect to receive additional funds in Q4 this year and in 2022. So with that summary, I'll turn it back to Ben to address development and our new expansion markets. Ben?