Endpoint has captured a 3% market share in its initial market of Seattle, and currently operates in 11 additional markets across California, Texas and Arizona, and we plan to add more markets in the near future.
Endpoint has approximately 100 product managers, engineers and designers and plans on doubling the team over the next 12 months.
Given this track record earlier this week, we announced an additional $150 million commitment to Endpoint.
We've made direct investments in 16 companies in the PropTech ecosystem.
Financially, our investments generated $278 million of gains this quarter led by OfferPad, which went public via SPAC in September.
Based on the strength of the real estate markets and our strategic position as an innovator in the title and settlement space, in August, we announced an 11% increase in our dividend, and our Board also approved an additional $300 million share repurchase authorization.
So far in October, commercial orders are up 14% over prior year.
And while our residential purchase orders at 2,000 per day are down 7% compared to an unusually strong October 2020, they are up 11% compared to October of 2019.
As expected, due to the recent uptick in mortgage rates, refinance orders have fallen from 1,700 per day in September to 1,500 per day in October.
We earned $4 per diluted share.
Included in this quarter's results were $1.85 of net realized investment gains.
Excluding these gains, we earned $2.15 per diluted share.
Revenue in our title segment was $2.1 billion, up 21% compared with the same quarter of 2020 due to the strength of the purchase in commercial markets.
Purchase revenue was up 9%, driven by a 12% increase in the average revenue per order.
Commercial revenue was a record $262 million, an 84% increase over last year.
Large deals are up as we closed 89 transactions in the U.S. with premium greater than $250,000, up from 31 last year.
Refinance revenue declined 36% relative to last year as mortgage rates have risen since the beginning of the year.
In the agency business, revenue was a record $999 million, up 38% from last year.
Our information and other revenues were $308 million, up 9% relative to last year.
Investment income within the Title Insurance and Services segment was $50 million, up 11%, primarily due to higher average balances in the company's investment portfolio.
In our title segment, pre-tax margin was 16.4%.
Revenue in our home warranty business totaled $108 million, up 7% compared with last year.
Pretax income in home warranty was $9 million, up from $4 million in the prior year.
The loss rate in home warranty has fallen from 64% to 57% as we believe many of the factors that triggered elevated claims at the onset of the pandemic are reversing.
Our property and casualty business had a pre-tax loss of $11 million this quarter.
At the end of the third quarter, our policies-in-force have declined by 40% since the beginning of the year, and we expect a 70% decline by year-end.
The effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.3%, higher than our normalized tax rate of 24% due to higher state taxes related to investment gains realized in the quarter.
As Dennis mentioned in his remarks, we've made direct investments in 16 venture-backed companies in the PropTech industry.
The $292 million of capital we've invested into this effort had a market value of $669 million as of September 30.
This quarter, we recorded $278 million of gains related to our venture investments.
During the quarter, we recognized a $195 million gain related to OfferPad.
In addition to OfferPad, we also realized a combined $79 million of gains related to our investments in Orchard, a company simplifying home buying and selling; Sundae, a real estate marketplace for sellers of dated or damaged property; and Pacaso, a platform enabling people to buy and coal in the second home.
In the third quarter, we increased our share repurchase authorization by $300 million and had $463 million remaining on our authorization as of September 30.
During the quarter, we repurchased 208,700 shares for a total of $14 million at an average price of $67.37.
Cash flow from operations was $399 million in the third quarter, up 27% from the prior year.
In addition, we raised $650 million of a 10-year senior notes at a 2.4% interest rate.
Our debt-to-capital ratio as of September 30 was 28.5% or 22.7%, excluding secured financings payable, slightly higher than our target ratio of 18% to 20%.

Summary:
Excluding these gains, we earned $2.15 per diluted share.