Benjamin W. Schall
Chief Executive Officer and President at AvalonBay Communities
Thanks, Jason, and thanks all for joining us on today's call. Matt and I will open with some prepared remarks, and we're joined by Kevin and Sean for Q&A. Starting on Slide four of our presentation. Q1 was a very strong start to what we continue to expect to be a very strong year of operating results. Core FFO per share came in at $2.26, a 15.9% year-over-year increase and $0.06 above the midpoint of our guidance. I'll dive deeper into the drivers of that outperformance in a moment.
On the capital allocation front, our industry-leading development platform continues to drive meaningful earnings growth and value creation, with a very robust 6.9% yield on developments completed this quarter. For the year, we're projecting about $700 million of completions at an average yield of 6.3%, which represents a substantial spread to current market cap rates.
As we grow, we're also optimizing the portfolio through the selective sale of older, slower-growth assets from our established regions, this quarter with $270 million of dispositions at a high 3% cap rate, with the intention to then redeploy this capital primarily into acquisitions in our expansion markets. And in April, we executed on an equity forward for $495 million as an expected source of capital to opportunistically draw down through the end of 2023 and locking in our cost of capital for future development activity and what we expect to be accretive spreads.
Turning to Slide five. GAAP residential revenue increased 8.5% on a year-over-year basis, led by about a 6% increase in effective lease rates and a 100 basis point improvement in net bad debt. On a cash basis, residential revenue increased almost 10%. As shown on Slide six, the 8.5% GAAP revenue growth was 150 basis points greater than the 7% increase we assumed in Q1 guidance, with lease rates and occupancy above our prior guidance, and while still at elevated levels, better-than-expected bad debt and rent relief collections driving the bulk of the outperformance relative to our expectations.
Portfolio performance has been supported by a number of tailwinds as detailed on Slide seven. Starting with Chart one, we continue to see elevated move-ins from greater than 150 miles away, which speaks to a continued flow of residents back to our established markets and is particularly -- is a particularly positive indicator for our urban and job-centered suburban communities.
In Chart two, we also continue to see de-densification, with less roommates and the desire for more space, leading to fewer adults per apartment and is a driver of incremental demand across our portfolio. As rents continue to grow, they are supported by greater household income from new residents, which was up 12% in Q1 relative to the prior year period, as shown on Chart three.
And finally, on Chart four, rent-versus-own economics, the monthly cost of renting versus the cost of owning a home materially favors renting in our markets, with a difference of almost $1,000 per month, a historically high level and one which provides a meaningful cushion and support to our rent growth. As shown on Slide eight, this backdrop is translating into continued momentum in like-term effective rent change, which accelerated throughout Q1 and continued into April at 13.7%.
Looking forward, our portfolio is positioned extremely well, heading into the peak leasing season. As shown on Slide nine, occupancy remains strong and steady at about 96.5%. Annualized turnover remains very low relative to historic figures. And 30-day availability, effectively the near-term inventory that's available for lease, remains limited at less than 5% of our units. And while we continue to capture meaningful loss-to-lease as existing resident leases expire, our portfolio-wide loss-to-lease remains high, currently at 14%, which has been supported by a 4% increase in asking rates since the beginning of the year. Turning to Slide 10.
We're making meaningful progress in the transformation of our operating platform as we drive toward our goal of improving margins by 200 basis points or an additional $40 million to $50 million of NOI, with approximately $10 million generated to date. This slide highlights three of our many initiatives, including bulk Internet and managed WiFi, which is projected to ultimately deliver $25 million of incremental annual NOI; smart home technology, which unlocks both operating efficiencies and revenue opportunities going forward; and third, our digital mobile maintenance platform, which will not only enhance our resident's experience with us, but also deliver material value via enhanced operational efficiency.
Before turning it to Matt, Slide 11 provides our updated full year guidance, with projected 16% core FFO growth, reflecting our strong momentum in Q1 and incorporating our increased outlook for same-store revenue and NOI growth. We've also updated our guidance to take into account a couple of factors. On the operating side, while core operating performance is quite strong, there continues to be some uncertainty about net bad debt in certain markets, particularly in Southern California and Alameda County in Northern California. And in some other markets, while eviction moratoria have expired, the core processes are moving slowly. As a result, some of the growth we are expecting in the back half of 2022 may get pushed in 2023, which we have assumed in our updated guidance.
As it relates to our projected core FFO growth for the year, we've scaled back our assumption for acquisition activity for 2022 based on where we stand through today as we keep a close eye on cap rates, fund flows and assess any shifts in the transaction markets. While we remain active, including another acquisition we recently put under contract, we've updated our guidance from being a net buyer in 2022, to an assumption of balancing acquisition volume with disposition volume before taking into account proceeds from Columbus Circle. And with that, I'll turn it to Matt to delve further into our development and capital allocation activities.
