You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: As always, we appreciate your interest.
Brent Wood, our CFO is also participating on the call.
We refer to certain of these risks in our SEC filings.
We hope everyone is enjoying their summer.
They continue performing at a high level and reaping the rewards of a very positive environment.
Our second quarter results were strong and demonstrate the resiliency of our portfolio and of the industrial market.
Some of the results the team produced include, funds from operations, coming in above guidance, up 10.5% compared to second quarter last year and $0.03 ahead of our guidance midpoint.
This marks 33 consecutive quarters of higher FFO per share, as compared to the prior year quarter, truly a long-term trend.
Our second quarter occupancy averaged 96.8%, up 20 basis points from second quarter 2020.
And at quarter end, we're ahead of projections at 98.3% leased and 96.8% occupied.
Our occupancy is benefiting from a healthy market, with accelerating e-commerce and last-mile delivery trends.
Quarterly releasing spreads were among the best in our history at 31.2% GAAP and 16.2% cash.
And year-to-date, those results are 28% GAAP and 16% cash.
Finally, cash same-store NOI rose by 5.6% for the quarter and 5.8% year-to-date.
In summary, I'm proud of our team's results, putting up one of the best quarters in our history.
Today, we're responding to the strength in the market and demand for industrial product, both by users and investors by focusing on value creation via development and value-add investments.
I'm grateful, we ended the quarter at 98.3% leased, matching our highest quarter on record.
To demonstrate the market strength, our last three quarters were the highest three quarterly rates in the company's history.
Looking at Houston, we're 96.5% leased, with it representing 12.3% of rents, down 150 basis points from a year ago and is projected to continue shrinking.
Brent will speak to our budget assumptions, but I'm pleased that we finished the quarter at $1.47 per share in FFO and are raising our 2021 forecast by $0.09 to $5.88 per share.
As we've stated before, our development starts are pulled by market demand.
Based on the market strength we're seeing today, we're raising our forecasted starts to $275 million for 2021.
This represents a record annual level of starts for the company.
And to position us following the pandemic, we've acquired several new sites with more in our pipeline along with value-add and direct investments.
More details to follow as we close on each of these opportunities.
And Brent will now review a variety of financial topics, including our 2021 guidance.
FFO per share for the second quarter exceeded our guidance range at $1.47 per share and compared to second quarter 2020 of $1.33, represented an increase of 10.5%.
The outperformance continues to be driven by our operating portfolio performing better than anticipated, particularly the quick releasing of vacated space during the quarter.
From a capital perspective, during the second quarter we issued $60 million of equity at an average price over $162 per share, and we issued and sold $125 million of senior unsecured notes, with a fixed interest rate of 2.74% in a 10-year term.
In June, we amended and restated our unsecured credit facilities, which now mature July 2025.
The capacity was increased from $395 million to $475 million, while the interest rate spread was reduced to 22.5 basis points, and our ongoing efforts to bolster our ESG efforts we incorporated a sustainability-linked metric into the renewal.
That activity combined with our already strong and conservative balance sheet has kept us in a position of financial strength and flexibility.
Our debt-to-total market capitalization was 17%, debt-to-EBITDA ratio at 4.9 times, and our interest and fixed charge coverage ratio increased to over eight times.
Our rent collections have been equally strong.
Bad debt for the first half of the year is a net positive $90,000, because of tenants whose balance was previously reserved that brought current exceeding new tenant reserves.
Looking forward FFO guidance for the third quarter of 2021 is estimated to be in the range of $1.46 to $1.50 per share and $5.83 to $5.93 for the year, a $0.09 per share increase over our prior guidance.
The 2021 FFO per share midpoint represents a 9.3% increase over 2020.
Among the notable assumption changes that comprise our revised 2021 guidance, include: increasing the cash same-property midpoint by 18% to 5.2%, increasing projected development starts by over 30% to $275 million and increasing equity issuance from $140 million to $185 million.
In summary, we were very pleased with our second quarter results.
We will continue to rely on our financial strength, the experience of our team, and the quality and location of our portfolio, to carry our momentum through the year.
Now, Marshall will make some final comments.
In closing, I'm excited about our first half of the year.
We're ahead of our forecast and are carrying that momentum into the back half of the year.
Our company, our team, and our strategy are working well as evidenced by our quarterly statistics, and it's the future that makes me the most excited for EastGroup.
Our strategy has worked the past few years, and we're seeing an acceleration, and a number of positive trends for our properties, and within our markets.
Meanwhile, our bread and butter traditional tenants remain and will continue needing last-mile distribution space in fast-growing Sunbelt markets.
These along with the mix of our team, our operating strategy and our market has us optimistic about the future.
And we'll now open up the call for any questions.

user
compname announces q2 ffo per share $1.47.
q2 ffo per share $1.47.

assistant