The unique combination of these elements allowed us to deliver 31.9% growth in core FFO per share during the third quarter, and exceeded the high end of our guidance.
The speed [Phonetic], along with a positive outlook for the remainder of the year, once again led us to raise our core 2021 FFO guidance by $0.16 at the midpoint, for range of $6.44, at $6.50 per share.
And we're expecting the same community NOI growth for the full year at 70 basis points, a range of 10.9% to 11.1%.
For the quarter, same community NOI grew 12.4% over last year, driven by our favorable strategic positioning to capture the sustained demand in RVs.
In the RV segment, same community NOI increased by 30.6% for the quarter, as transient RV continued to deliver exceptionally strong results.
Manufactured home sales were another bright spot in the quarter, with total home sales volume up nearly 64% from the prior year, and brokered home sales up over 15% for the quarter compared to the third quarter of 2020.
In the third quarter, through the date of this earning's call, we had 22 properties across our three segments, deploying over $500 million of capital and adding over 7,400 sites.
Our recently acquired four lease portfolio of nine manufactured housing communities in the Midwest, comprises of over 2,500 high-quality sites with expansion growth opportunities and ample room for existing vacancies.
To that end, in the third quarter, we completed the disposition of six assets or total sales price of 162 million, representing a blended cap rate, the low fours, that further demonstrates the value of Sun's portfolio.
For the third quarter, combined same community manufactured housing and RV NOI increased 12.4% from the third quarter 2020.
The growth in NOI was driven by a 12.8% revenue gain, supported by a 150 basis point increase in occupancy, to 98.9% and the 3.7% weighted average rental rate increase.
Our expenses were up 13.7% from the prior year.
Same community manufactured housing NOI increased by 2.6% from 2020, and same community RV NOI increased by 30.6%.
And our RV growth was 15.2% for the quarter as a result of a 5% rental rate increase and the effect of over 100 conversions to annual leases over the trailing 12 months.
Our retransient revenues were up 29% compared to last year.
This is on top of the 5% transient growth we experienced in the third quarter of 2020 over 2019 when we began to see the benefits of travelers who are seeking drive-through vacation options and took advantage of our resorts in desirable destinations.
When we issued second quarter results in late July, we shared the transient RV revenue for the second half of the year was 15.2% ahead of the original budget.
Today, an accounting for the third quarters actual contribution, it has accelerated to 18.3% ahead of original budget.
As of this earnings call, our fourth quarter transient RV revenue is 19.6% ahead of the original budget.
Year-to-date, RV website traffic is up 10% compared to last year and 120% compared to 2019.
And we have seen our social media following and interaction continue to grow with more than 1.4 million followers on the three major platforms; Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
In the third quarter, we gained 576 revenue producing sites.
Of our revenue producing site gains, over 430 were transient RV sites converted to annual leases, with the balance being added to our manufactured housing expansion communities.
We have now converted almost 1,200 transient RV sites to annual leases year-to-date, which exceeds any prior full year figure and demonstrates the successful execution of this internal growth lever.
The RV site conversions result in an average 50% increase in site revenues during the first year of conversion, with an additional benefit of transient site scarcity pushy [Phonetic] rates.
In the third quarter, we delivered over 320 new sites, approximately 70% of which were Greenfield ground up developments, and the remainder were expansions to existing communities.
The first phase of 82 sites has been filling up rapidly since opening a year ago, and we anticipate this next phase to continue to see the high demand for attainable housing in the area.
Home sales volume was up 64% year-over-year as we sold more than 1,100 homes in the quarter.
Applications to live in a Sun community are up 13.2% year-to-date and we anticipate we will continue to see strength in our manufactured housing business, given the tight housing market and the demand for quality attainable housing.
Turning to the marina business, we ended the quarter with 120 properties comprising nearly 45,000 wet slips and dry storage spaces, which includes the acquisition of six properties for approximately $250 million completed in the third quarter.
Same marina rental revenue growth for the portfolio of 75 properties owned and operated by Safe Harbor since the start of 2019, with 17.8% for the nine months of 2021 over 2019.
This is a CAGAR increase in rental revenue of 9.9% for the quarter and 8.5% year-to-date through the end of September 2021.
Our total image portfolio stands at approximately 97% occupancy, providing us with more than 200 basis points of occupancy upside, as well as additional growth potential by adding further expansion sites over time.
We have an inventory of 7,500 expansion sites, a portion of which we intend to strategically deliver each year targeting 10% to 14% unlevered IRRs.
For the third quarter, Sun reported core FFO per share of $2.11, 31.9% above the prior year and $0.05, ahead of the top end of our third quarter guidance range.
During its subsequent to quarter end, we acquired approximately $500 million of operating properties, bringing our year-to-date total to $1.1 billion, adding 38 properties, totaling nearly 12,000 sites.
Subsequent to the end of the third quarter, we issued 600 million of senior unsecured notes in our second bond offering of the year across seven and 10-year maturities.
Additionally, we utilized our ATM program and completed the sale of 21.4 million of forward shares of common stock.
We ended the second quarter with $4.7 billion of debt outstanding at a 3.3% weighted average rate, and a weighted average maturity of 9.6 years.
As of September 30, we had $72 million of unrestricted cash on hand and a net debt to trailing 12 months recurring EBITDA ratio of 4.9 times.
We are raising our full-year 2021 core FFO guidance to a range of $6.44 to $6.50 per share, a $0.16 increase at the midpoint from our prior range.
We expect core FFO for the fourth quarter to be in the range of $1.24 to $1.30 per share.
We are also increasing full year same community NOI growth guidance to a range of 10.9% to 11.1%, up 70 basis points from the previous midpoint of guidance of 10.3%.
The fourth quarter same community NOI growth guidance is 7.2% to 8%.

Summary:
For the third quarter, Sun reported core FFO per share of $2.11, 31.9% above the prior year and $0.05, ahead of the top end of our third quarter guidance range.