Having passed the midpoint of 2021 and looking forward, we made a second set of positive revisions to our West Coast market forecast, which can be found on page S-17 of the supplemental.
Driving the changes is an increase in 2021 GDP and job growth estimates to 7% and 5%, up from 4.3% and 3.2% respectively from our initial forecast.
As a result, we now expect our average 2021 net effective rent growth to improve to minus 0.9% from minus 1.9% from the beginning of the year.
To put this into perspective, consider that our net effective rents were down about 9% year-over-year in Q1 2021.
Given our current expectation of minus 0.9% rent growth for the year, year-over-year net effective market rents are now forecasted to increase about 6% in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Cash delinquencies were up modestly on a sequential basis at 2.6% of scheduled rent for the quarter and well above our 30-year average delinquency rate of 30 to 40 basis points.
Only about $7 million of the $55 million in delinquent rent shown on page S-16 of the supplemental has been recorded as revenue.
The unemployment rate was still 6.5% in the Essex markets as of May 2021 underperforming the nation.
Employment in the Essex markets dropped over 15% in April 2020 and while job growth in our markets outpaced the nation in the second quarter, we are still 7.9% below pre-pandemic employment, compared to 4.4% for the U.S. overall.
Our survey of job openings in the Essex markets for the largest tech companies continues to be very strong as we reported 33,000 job openings as of July, a 99% increase over last year's trough.
As we highlight on page S-17.1 of our supplemental, this transition has already started in recent months as our hardest hit markets in the Bay Area once again experienced net positive migration from beyond the NorCal region.
In particular, since the end of Q1, the submarket surrounding San Francisco Bay have seen positive net migration that represents 18% of total move-outs over the trailing three months compared to minus 8% a year ago.
On the supply outlook, we provided our semi-annual update to our 2021 forecast on S-17 of the supplemental with slight increases to 2021 supply as COVID-related construction delays shifted incremental yields from late 2020 into 2021.
Multifamily permitting activity in Essex markets also continues to trend favorably, declining 200 basis points on a trailing 12 month basis as of May 2021 compared to the national average, which grew 230 basis points.
Median single family home prices in Essex markets continued upward in California and Seattle, growing 18% and 21% respectively on a trailing three-month basis.
Turning to apartment transactions, activity is steadily accelerated since the start of the year, with the majority of apartment trades occurring in the low-to-mid 3% cap rate range based on current rents.
Our operating strategy during COVID to favor occupancy while adjusting concessions to maintain scheduled rents enabled us to optimize rent growth concurrent with the increase in demand resulting in same-store net effective rent growth of 8.3% since January 1 and most of this growth occurred in the second quarter.
I would like to provide some context for why sequential same-property revenues declined by 90 basis points compared to the first quarter.
The two major factors that drove the decline were 50 basis points of delinquency and 50 basis points in concessions.
As expected in the second quarter, delinquency reverted back to 2.6% of scheduled rent versus the 2.1% in the first quarter.
Although concessions have generally improved in the second quarter, they remain elevated ranging from 2.5 to 3 weeks in certain CBDs such as CBD, LA, San Jose and Oakland.
As of this June, our same-store average net effective rents compared to March of last year was down by 3.1%.
Since then, we have seen continued strength and based on preliminary July results, our average net effective [Indecipherable] are now 1.5% above pre-COVID levels.
it is notable that this 1.5% portfolio average diverged regionally with both Seattle and Southern California up 5.8% and 9.3% respectively while Northern California has yet to fully recover with net effective rents currently at 8% below pre-COVID levels.
On a sequential basis, net effective rents on new leases have improved rapidly throughout the second quarter and preliminary July rent increased 4.7% compared to the month of June, led by CBD San Francisco and CBD Seattle, both up about 11%.
Currently San Jose has 8.1% of total office stock under construction and similarly Seattle has 7.7% of office stock under construction.
Notable activities include Apple leasing an additional 700,000 sqft and LinkedIn announced recent plans to upgrade our existing offices in Sunnyvale.
In the Seattle region, Facebook expanded their Bellevue footprint by 330,000 sqft and Amazon announced 1400 new web services jobs in Redmond.
I'm pleased to report core FFO for the second quarter exceeded the midpoint of the revised range we provided during the NAREIT conference by $0.08 per share.
Of the $0.08, the $0.03 relates to the timing of operating expenses and G&A spend, which is now forecasted to occur in the second half of the year.
As such, we are raising the full year midpoint of our same-property revenue growth by 50 basis points to minus 1.4%.
In addition, we have lowered our operating expense growth by 25 basis points at the midpoint, due to lower taxes in the Seattle portfolio.
All of this resulted in an improvement in same property NOI growth by 80 basis points at the midpoint to minus 3%.
Year to date, we have revived our same-property revenue growth at the midpoint, up 110 basis points and NOI by 160 basis points.
As it relates to full year core FFO, we are raising our midpoint by $0.09 per share to $12.33.
Year-to-date we, have raised core FFO by $0.17 or 1.4%.
During the quarter, we received $36 million from an early redemption of a subordinated loan, which included $4.7 million in prepayment fees, which have been excluded from Core FFO.
Year-to-date, we have been redeemed on approximately $150 million of investment and expect that number to grow to approximately $250 million by year-end.
This is significantly above the high end of the range we provided at the start of the year.
As for new preferred equity investments, we have a healthy pipeline of accretive deals and we are still on track to achieve our original guidance of $100 million to $150 million in the second half of the year.
However, the timing mismatch between the higher level of early redemptions coupled with funding of new investments expected later this year has led to an approximate $0.10 per share drag on our FFO for the year.
Moving to the balance sheet, we remain in a strong financial position due to refinancing over 1/3 of our debt over the past year and a half taking advantage of the low interest rate environment to reduce our weighted average rate by 70 basis points to 3.1% and lengthening our maturity profile by an additional two years.
We currently have only 7% of our debt maturing through the end of 2023.

Summary:
On the supply outlook, we provided our semi-annual update to our 2021 forecast on S-17 of the supplemental with slight increases to 2021 supply as COVID-related construction delays shifted incremental yields from late 2020 into 2021.
This is significantly above the high end of the range we provided at the start of the year.