Leasing volume for the quarter was up 16%.
This drove blended pricing achieved during the quarter up 2.7%.
This is even with the very strong start we had in the first quarter of 2020 and up 200 basis points from the fourth quarter.
In addition, we were able to maintain strong average daily occupancy of 95.7%, and all-in place rents or effective rent growth on a year-over-year basis improved to 1.3% in the first quarter.
We collected 99.1% billed rent in the first quarter.
In April of last year, we had 5,600 residents on relief plans.
The number of participants has decreased to just 325 for the April of this year rental assistance plan.
This represents only 20 basis points of April billed rent.
We completed 964 redevelopment units and 13,975 Smart Home packages.
For the full year of 2021, we expect to complete just over 6,000 interior unit upgrades and install 22,000 Smart Home packages.
As of April 27, we've collected 98.7% of rent billed, which is at least 10 basis points ahead of each of the comparable numbers for January, February and March of this year.
New lease-over-lease pricing in April is running close to 4% of rent on the prior lease.
Renewal lease pricing in April is running 6.5% ahead of the prior lease.
Our resident satisfaction scores remained strong and are actually ahead of last year by 120 basis points, which should support continued strong renewal lease pricing.
We still have a few down units in April as a result of the winter storm, and including the impact of those, average daily occupancy for the month of April is currently 96.1%, which is 100 basis points better than April of last year.
Exposure, which is all vacant units plus notices through a 60-day period, is just 7.2%.
This is 180 basis points better than the prior year and supports our ability to continue to prioritize our focus on rent growth.
Led by job growth, which is expected to increase 4.9% in 2021 versus the negative 5% in 2020 for our markets, we expect to see the broad recovery in our region of the country continue.
This robust investor demand supported by continued low interest rates has further compressed cap rates, which are frequently in the mid-3% and low 4% range for high-quality properties in desirable locations within our markets.
Transaction cap rates on closed projects that we underwrote were down 25 basis points from last quarter and down 50 basis points from first quarter of 2020.
Core FFO per share performance of $1.64 for the first quarter was $0.05 per share ahead of the midpoint of our guidance.
As expected, operating trends continued to improve through the quarter, producing same-store revenue and NOI performance that was slightly ahead of our forecast, providing about $0.01 per share on favorability for the quarter.
But keep in mind that only about 20% of our leases were effective in the first quarter, and we still have the majority of our leases to be signed during the summer leasing season in the second and third quarter.
Net earnings impact to MAA during the quarter was only about $765,000, primarily related to down units.
During the quarter, we paid off the $118 million of secured mortgages at an expiring rate of 5.1%.
We also funded an additional $64 million of cost toward completion of our development pipeline, which, at quarter end, included seven communities with total projected cost of $528 million, of which $193 million remains to be funded.
And as discussed previously, we expect our development pipeline to grow to around $800 million by year-end, which is well within our development autonomous limits.
We funded a total of $22.7 million toward these programs during the first quarter, which are expected to begin contributing to our growth more strongly in late 2021 and 2022.
We ended the quarter with low leverage, debt-to-EBITDA of only 4.9 times and with $644 million of combined cash and borrowing capacity under our line of credit.
And finally, in a way to reflect the first quarter earnings performance, we increased our full year guidance range for core FFO by $0.05 to a range of $6.35 to $6.65 per share.

Summary:
Core FFO per share performance of $1.64 for the first quarter was $0.05 per share ahead of the midpoint of our guidance.
And finally, in a way to reflect the first quarter earnings performance, we increased our full year guidance range for core FFO by $0.05 to a range of $6.35 to $6.65 per share.