For the quarter, Chimera's book value appreciated 12% to $11.91 per share.
We generated $0.33 of core earnings, and we paid $0.30 in common dividend, resulting in nearly 15% economic return for the period.
The rate of existing-home sales rose in September to 6.5 million homes, the highest level since 2006.
And the available inventory of existing home sales has decreased nearly 20% from the previous year to 1.5 million homes.
Since March, the Federal Reserve has increased its balance sheet by 75% to over $7 trillion, helping to provide low interest rates and ample liquidity to the mortgage market.
The average rate for 30-year mortgages was recently reported at 2.8%, the lowest rate on record, which dates back to 1971.
Additionally, fiscal stimulus from the federal government for COVID-19 relief has added over $3 trillion into the economy and has helped many mortgage borrowers through this difficult economic period.
As of quarter-end, nearly 90% of Chimera's investment portfolio was allocated to mortgage credit.
This quarter, Chimera completed three securitizations while committing to purchase $640 million of mortgage loans.
The 10-year treasury ended the quarter with a yield of 68 basis points, down from 1.92% at the start of 2020.
The overall magnitude of this rate movement has generated price appreciation in 10-year treasury notes of approximately 10 points since the beginning of the year.
During the third quarter, we acted on the strong price performance and selectively sold $659 million securities from our agency CMBS portfolio.
With the sale, we harvested approximately $65 million in gain and plan to reallocate capital into mortgage credit.
Our remaining agency CMBS holdings at quarter-end was $1.8 billion, comprising 10% of Chimera's total investment portfolio.
For the third quarter, Chimera closed three securitized transactions totaling a little over $1 billion.
In July, we issued CIM 2020-R5 with $338 million loans from our existing loan warehouse.
The underlying loans in the deal had a weighted average coupon of 4.98% and a weighted average loan age of 149 months.
The average loan size in the R5 transaction was $152,000 and had an average LTV of 70%.
The average FICO score for the borrowers was 678.
We sold $257 million senior securities from this deal and retained $81 million in subordinated notes and interest-only securities.
Our cost of investment-grade debt for CIM 2020-R5 was 2.05% with a 76% advance rate.
The deal had $362 million loans with a weighted average coupon of 3.76% and a weighted average loan age of six months.
The average loan size was $732,000 and had an average FICO of 766 and an average LTV of 67%.
This deal size was $335 million with a weighted average coupon of 4.31%.
It had an average loan size of $332,000.
The loans had an average FICO of 765 with an average LTV of 64%.
We invested $22 million in these transactions for our non-agency RMBS portfolio.
During the third quarter, we committed to purchasing over $400 million of seasoned reperforming loans.
For the year, we successfully purchased approximately $135 million in business purpose loans and ended the quarter with approximately $210 million on the balance sheet.
The average coupon on this portfolio was 8.57% with a weighted average LTV of 80%.
At quarter-end, we had $412 million loans on our mortgage warehouse for potential future securitizations and have ample liquidity to and opportunistically acquire new pools of loans.
Recourse leverage is materially lower on the year and currently stands at 1.3 times capital.
And as of September 30, Chimera has $5.8 billion of outstanding securitized debt in 16 separate deals that is either currently callable or will be callable through the end of 2021.
GAAP book value at the end of the third quarter was $11.91.
And GAAP net income for the third quarter was $349 million or $1.32 per share.
On a core basis, net income for the third quarter was $80 million or $0.33 per share.
Economic net interest income for the third quarter was $125 million.
For the third quarter, the yield on average interest-earning assets was 6%.
Our average cost of funds was 3.5%, and our net interest spread was 2.5%.
Total leverage for the third quarter was 3.7 to 1, while recourse leverage ended the quarter at 1.3 to 1.
Expenses for the third quarter, excluding servicing fees and transaction expenses, were $17 million, in line with last quarter.
We continue to closely monitor liquidity and have approximately $1 billion in cash and unencumbered assets as we look for new investments and financing options to support our portfolio and to optimize investment returns.

Summary:
We generated $0.33 of core earnings, and we paid $0.30 in common dividend, resulting in nearly 15% economic return for the period.
And GAAP net income for the third quarter was $349 million or $1.32 per share.
On a core basis, net income for the third quarter was $80 million or $0.33 per share.