Peter Mavoides
Analyst · Mizuho
Thank you, Dan, and thank you to everyone who is joining us today for your interest in Essential Properties. During the third quarter, we experienced a market improvement in rent collections as our tenants reopened their properties for business. In addition to this positive operating trend, we saw a stabilization in our cost of capital, and a constructive capital markets environment that was conducive towards maintaining a conservative balance sheet.
As we stated on prior calls, we wanted to see these circumstances occur before deciding to resume our external growth plans. As such, we began looking for attractive investment opportunities early in the third quarter, which allowed us to invest $149 million this quarter and another $73 million to date in the fourth quarter.
Looking at our third quarter investments, 92% were direct sale-leasebacks and 98% were transactions that involved an existing relationship. We believe these direct opportunities were a tangible output of the accommodative and relationship-based approach that we use to navigate the pandemic with our tenant base.
While our short-term collections may have been higher, had we taken a more aggressive posture, our deliberate actions have strengthened our tenant relationships, which should benefit the company over the longer term. In order to maintain financial flexibility and appropriately fund our pipeline of opportunities, we raised $210 million of net equity in the quarter, including our overnight offering that raised $184 million of net proceeds in mid-September. We would like to thank those existing and new investors that demonstrated continued confidence in our company for supporting us.
In terms of portfolio stabilization, approximately 99% of our portfolio as a percent of ABR is opened and operating today, which compares to 93% back in early August and just 66% in mid-April.
In terms of rent collections, we collected approximately 90% of contractual cash rent owed to us in the third quarter, including 88% in July, 91% in August, and 91% in September. For October, we collected 91% of contractual cash rent and have another 3% attributable to recognized rental deferrals, which are scheduled to end after December.
The remaining 6% of contractual cash rent is allocated as follows: 2.5% is non recognized rent deferrals, which is mostly attributable to our 5 movie theaters that are leased to AMC theaters, 2.5% is unresolved, which is mostly attributable to Town Sports and Ruby Tuesdays. In the case of Town Sports, the tenant rejected our master lease on September 29. Our Ruby Tuesdays is currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The remaining 1% is attributable to lost or temporarily abated rent.
Turning to the portfolio. We ended the quarter with investments in 1,096 properties that were 99.4% leased to 214 tenants operating in 16 different industries. We had 7 vacant properties at quarter end, including the 3 fitness centers that were formerly leased to Town Sports International. As we have stated before, the value of our company does not reside in our leases. It resides in our properties and our ability to keep them consistently leased. Therefore, we see high and stable occupancy as a key indicator of that value. More specifically, we have seen solid demand for our vacant properties, and we expect to find replacement tenants or come to an agreement with the current tenants in the near term.
Our weighted average lease term stood at 14.6 years at quarter's end with only 0.1% of our ABR expiring over the next year, and 3.5% expiring over the next 5 years. Our weighted average unit-level coverage ratio was 2.8x, which includes the full impact of second quarter tenant financials. We would expect our coverage ratio to continue to migrate lower, albeit at a moderating pace as the pandemic continues to have lingering impacts on certain industries.
Turning to the balance sheet. We finished the quarter with leverage of 4x net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDAre and excellent liquidity of nearly $600 million.
Looking forward, with the pandemic, causing a more negative impact on smaller tenants, many of our experienced middle market operators are seeing opportunities to purchase smaller operators and increase market share. This is generating an attractive opportunity set and growing investment pipeline for our company.
While we are confident in our future prospects as we look to grow alongside these operators, we recognize that the pandemic is by no means beyond us -- behind us. As such, we remain diligent in our underwriting and highly focused on industries that have experienced minimal to no impact from the current pandemic.
With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Mark Patten, our CFO, who will take you through the balance sheet and financials for the quarter. Mark?