Michael D. Lacy
Senior Vice President, Property Operations at UDR
Thanks, Tom. To begin, strong Same-Store cash revenue growth of 10.8%, top the range of 10% to 10.5% we provided in early March. Key components of this result and our year-over-year Same-Store cash NOI growth of 14% included first, quarterly effective blended lease rate growth of over 14%. Our blended growth accelerated each month during the quarter. It was 240 basis points higher than what we achieved during the fourth quarter and benefited from minimal concessions granted.
Second, weighted average occupancy held strong at 97.3%, 100 basis points higher than a year ago. And third, annualized turnover was only 34%, decreasing by 530 basis points versus a year ago and 570 basis points below our historical first quarter turnover rate.
These favorable trends have continued into the second quarter. Blended lease rate growth has continued to accelerate to 16% to 17% in April, with new lease growth of more than 18% and renewals of better than 15%. This is driven by robust widespread demand and our ongoing ability to capture in place 10% to 11% portfolio average loss-to-lease.
Occupancy shows no signs of deterioration as alternative housing options like single-family rentals and for sale homes have become even less affordable versus multifamily. Based on current rents versus the cost of homeownership, it is 45% less expensive versus 35% pre-COVID to rent than own across UDR markets. And turnover remains light in April thus far.
All else being equal, we expect second quarter blended lease rate growth to range within 15% and 18%, occupancy to average 97% to 97.3%, and annualized turnover to remain well below prior year levels due to a combination of higher demand and our continued focus on the resident experience.
These trends combined with the fact that we now have good visibility on 65% to 70% of our full-year rent rollout gave us the confidence to meaningfully increase our full-year 2022 Same-Store revenue and NOI guidance ranges. We now expect to achieve midpoint growth of 9.75% for Same-Store revenue and 12.5% for Same-Store NOI on a straight-line basis.
Relative to our prior full-year 2022 outlook, the drivers of our improved guidance ranges are as follows. First, we expect full-year effective blended lease rate growth of approximately 9% to 11%, which is 3% higher at the midpoint compared to our prior assumption. For the first half of 2022, we expect blended lease rate growth in the 15% to 16% range, implying a range of 4% to 6% in the second half. Across our portfolio and excluding the approximately 7% to 8% of NOI that remains subject to limits on renewal increases, we continue to see growth rates converge irrespective of market, location within the market, or asset quality.
Second, we continue to expect occupancy to remain relatively high and average 97.2% to 97.4% or a 10 to 30 basis point improvement over full-year 2021 results. And third, we still expect controllable expenses to be limited to 2% to 3%. This is 100 basis points below that of our overall Same-Store expense growth guidance, which we increased by 50 basis points at the midpoint, primarily due to rising insurance costs.
Our updated guidance continues to imply a second half slowdown in blended lease rate growth as we approach more difficult prior year comps and regulatory restrictions on renewal rate growth remain in certain markets. There is little at present suggesting a deterioration in multifamily fundamentals. So any upside to this expectation would have a modestly positive impact on 2022 results with the majority occurring to 2023 via higher earnings as we move throughout this year. Based on current guidance, our implied 2023 earnings would be in the low-to-mid 3% range or approximately 50 to 100 basis points above our highest earnings over the past decade.
Moving on, collections continue to trend above 98% over time. And our 2022 guidance assumes we'd ultimately collect 98% to 98.5% of billed revenue. Our governmental affairs team continuously monitors the regulatory backdrop and works with our teams in the field to develop action plans that address the less than 1% of our residents who remain long-term delinquents [Phonetic]. This proactive approach benefits residents, the company, and our stakeholders.
Finally, our ongoing innovation continues to bear fruit. Today, our 250 basis points controllable operating margin advantage versus peers at a similar rent level has generated over $20 million of incremental NOI on our legacy communities. In addition, our unique self-service model combined with our other capital allocation competitive advantages and strong market growth has supported year one NOI that is 7% above our initial expectations for more than $1.5 billion of late 2020 and '21 third-party acquisitions. This equates to a weighted average current yield of 5%, up from mid-fours at the time of acquisition.
Given our embedded loss-to-lease and favorable market rent trends, we see a path to achieving our original underwritten year three yields in the mid-to-high 5% range, roughly one year ahead of schedule.
Looking ahead we will continue to find ways that our ongoing innovation can beneficially impact our bottom-line, as well as our resident's experience with UDR. As we have spoken in the past, we believe improving the resident experience increases retention, drives pricing power higher through pricing engine optimizations, reduces controllable expense growth in the form of fewer vacant days, and can lead to UDR assessing a larger portion of our resident's wallet through ancillary services.
We remain confident in our ability to achieve our target of at least $20 million of incremental run rate NOI over the next 24 months through these initiatives, while also progressing towards capturing much more over the long-term.
In closing, 2022 is off to an incredible start, which deserves a sincere thank you to all my colleagues for their hard work and the innovative ideas that keep our company operating at a high level.
And now, I'll turn over the call to Joe.
