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: The theme for our on-hold music today was Strange Days.
It's one of the most common ways I've heard people describe life during this pandemic, strange days indeed.
It's common for some to refer to the current state of affairs as unprecedented.
I've concluded that while almost all agree that these are strange days, whether or not people believe these strange days are unprecedented is definitely age related.
Younger people are more likely to view our current situation as unprecedented.
People my age or older are far less likely to see these current strange days as unprecedented.
In 1967, when I was 13 years old and a rock band name The Doors released the song titled Strange days.
Clearly, I have a background from that.
This is the first versus of the song, "Strange days have found us.
Strange days have tracked us down.
They're going to destroy our casual joy.
We shall go on playing or find a new town".
The Doors were way ahead of their time, both musically and culturally.
And indeed, the next few years after 1967 would bring an extended period of strange days and civil unrest that were orders of magnitude stranger than we've seen thus far during the COVID storm.
I'm naturally optimistic, and I promise you this too shall pass.
Since we're all in this together, we will continue to encourage our Camden team to stay true to Camden's why, our purpose for being, that is to improve lives of our team members, residents and shareholders, one experience at a time.
Apartment demand is stronger in the market than we expected given the nearly 40 million Americans that have filed for unemployment benefits with an official employment unemployment rate of 11.1%.
Camden's geographic and product diversification has continued to lower the volatility of our rents and occupancy.
Camden's Sunbelt markets have fewer job losses than coastal markets in the U.S. overall.
Our product mix that offers varying price points in urban and suburban locations continues to work for us.
Camden was prepared for the pandemic.
We have a great culture and a flexible workplace and amazing employees that have adapted very, very well to the current work environment.
Our investments in technology, moving to the cloud-based operating systems and our Chirp Access systems have allowed us to not miss a beat when it comes to leasing or operating our portfolio or making payroll and basic things like that.
We have the best balance sheet in the sector and one of the best in REIT land overall.
We were prepared and continue to be prepared to do as well as we can in this environment, and I think we'll do well long term.
I want to give a shout out to our amazing Camden teammates for all that they do for our residents and taking care of each other every single day.
We want to make sure that we're providing you with the information that you find most useful to your ability to understand the current state of affairs in Camden's markets.
At the outset of the COVID storm, we held an all-Camden conference call during which we told our Camden team that our highest priorities were: number one, taking care of our Camden family; and two, taking care of our residents.
During the second quarter, we made good on that promise.
We undertook various initiatives, including a frontline bonus paid to our 1,400 on-site team members, and we provided grants to almost 400 Camden associates from our long-established Camden employee emergency relief fund.
We also established a Camden resident relief fund from which we were able to provide grants to 8,200 residents at a time of maximum financial uncertainty in their lives.
We were pleased to be able to provide this level of assistance to the people who were financially impacted during the early stages of the COVID crisis.
On our first quarter conference call, we were asked when we thought we could reintroduce guidance.
And we said that when we felt like we had reasonable visibility into the next quarter, we would do so.
At that time, based on the confidence level that we had from our operations and finance teams regarding our projected May and June results, on a scale of one to 10, it was probably a two, not good.
As we sit here today, while our confidence level is less than it would be in normal times, we do feel it is sufficiently high to provide guidance for the third quarter, and we've done so.
It's been incredible to behold.
Keep up the great work, and with a little good fortune, for which we are long overdue, we'll see you soon.
For the second quarter of 2020, effective new leases were down 2.1% and effective renewals were up 2.3% for a blended growth rate of 0.3%.
Our July effective lease results indicate a 2% decline for new leases and a 0.2% growth for renewals for a blended decrease of 0.9%.
Occupancy averaged 95.2% during the second quarter of 2020 compared to 96.1% in the second quarter of 2019.
Today, our occupancy has improved to 95.5%.
We continue to have great success in conducting alternative method property tours for prospective residents and retaining many of our existing residents, with only a slight deceleration in total leasing activity year-over-year.
In the second quarter, we averaged 3,855 signed leases monthly in our same property portfolio as compared to the second quarter of 2019 when we averaged 4,016 signed leases.
July 2020 total signed leasing activity is in line with July of 2019.
For the second quarter of 2020, we collected 97.7% of our scheduled rents, with 1.1% of our rents in a current deferred rent arrangement and 1.2% delinquent.
This compares to the second quarter of 2019 when we collected 98.6% of our scheduled rents, but with a slightly higher 1.4% delinquency.
The third quarter is off to a strong start with 98.7% of our July 2020 scheduled rents collected, ahead of our collections of 98.4% in July of 2019.
Last night, we reported funds from operations for the second quarter of 2020 of $110.4 million or $1.09 per share, representing a $0.26 per share sequential decrease in FFO from the first quarter of 2020.
As outlined in last night's release, included in this $0.26 sequential quarterly decrease is $0.142 of direct COVID-19-related charges included incurred during the quarter.
After excluding the impact of this aggregate $0.142 per share, sequential FFO decreased $0.12 in the second quarter, resulting primarily from: approximately $0.05 per share in lower same-store net operating income, resulting from a $0.02 per share decrease in revenue from our 90 basis point sequential occupancy decline; a $0.025 per share decrease in revenue, resulting from an increase in bad debt reserves from approximately 45 basis points in the first quarter to approximately 180 basis points in the second quarter; and an approximate $0.005 per share sequential increase in expenses; approximately $0.025 in lower non-same-store development and retail NOI, also resulting from a combination of lower occupancy and higher bad debt reserves; and approximately $0.04 per share in higher interest expense resulting from our April 20 $750 million bond issuance.
Turning to bad debt.
In accordance with GAAP, certain uncollected rent is recognized by us as income in the current month.
We then evaluate this uncollected rent and establish what we believe to be an appropriate bad debt reserve, which serves as a corresponding offset to property revenues in the same period.
As previously mentioned, for same-store, our bad debt as a percentage of rental income increased from approximately 45 basis points in the first quarter to approximately 180 basis points in the second quarter.
During the second quarter, we reserved effectively all of the 1.2% of delinquent rents as bad debt.
Also in the second quarter, we reserved effectively half of the 1.1% of deferred rent arrangements as bad debt.
When a resident moves out owing us money, we have already reserved 100% of the amounts owned as bad debt and there will be no future impact to the income statement.
We reevaluate our bad debt reserves monthly for collectibility.
In the second quarter, for retail, which is not part of same-store, we reserved 100% of all amounts uncollected and not deferred, which totaled approximately $800,000.
Last night, based upon our recent trends, we issued FFO and same-store guidance for the third quarter.
However, given the continued uncertainty surrounding the social and economic impacts from COVID-19, at this time, we will not provide an update to our financial outlook for the full year.
For the third quarter of 2020 as compared to the third quarter of 2019, at the midpoint, we expect same-store revenues to decline by 1.6%, driven primarily by lower occupancy, higher bad debt and lower miscellaneous fee income.
We expect expenses to increase by 4.5%, driven primarily by higher property insurance, higher property tax assessments and large property tax refunds received in Atlanta and Houston in the third quarter of 2019.
As a result, we expect NOI at the midpoint to decline by 5%.
We expect FFO per share for the third quarter to be within the range of $1.14 to $1.20.
The midpoint of $1.17 is $0.08 per share better than the $1.09 we reported in the second quarter.
However, after adjusting our second quarter results for the previously discussed $0.14 of COVID-related charges, our $1.17 midpoint for the third quarter is a $0.06 per share sequential decrease, resulting primarily from: a $0.045 per share sequential decline in same-store NOI as a result of a $0.005 per share decrease in revenue, resulting primarily from lower net market rents; and a $0.04 per share increase in sequential expenses, resulting primarily from the typical seasonality of our operating expenses, the timing of certain R&M costs and the timing of certain property tax refunds and assessments; an approximate $0.005 per share decline in non same-store NOI, resulting primarily from the same reasons; and an approximate $0.005 per share increase in sequential interest expense, resulting from our April 20 bond issuance.
As of today, we have approximately $1.4 billion of liquidity comprised of just over $500 million in cash and cash equivalents and no amounts outstanding on our $900 million unsecured credit facility.
At quarter end, we had $185 million left to spend over the next two and half years under our existing development pipeline, and we have no scheduled debt maturities until 2022.
Our current excess cash is invested with various banks, earning approximately 30 basis points.
And finally, a quick update on technology.
As I discussed, our on-site teams are having great success with virtual leasing, and we just completed our second virtual quarterly close, a task that would have been so much harder, if not nearly impossible, without our investment in a cloud-based financial system.
As mentioned yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, we are continuing our pilot of Chirp, our smart access solution, with great success.
And we are finding even more ways to utilize the Chirp technology.
At our pilot communities for self-guided tours, our leasing teams can use the Chirp Access application to grant a prospect limited access to tour both the community and specific available apartment homes in a completely touchless exchange.
There is no need for the prospect to pick up physical keys or FOBs or ever even enter the leasing office.
Our leasing teams create the prospect a Chirp account, grant them access to the best apartments chosen per their unique wants and needs and then determine when the prospects access will expire.
Additionally, we can utilize Chirp to quickly and automatically control the number of residents to have access to an amenity space, such as a fitness center, at any given time.
Amenity spaces deemed as reservation only will require residents to use the chirp access application to reserve a specific time slot.
Only those residents with confirmed reservations will have access to open the door of the amenity space for the allotted time.
When the reservation expires, so does access to the amenity.
Clearly, in this COVID-19 environment, our Chirp initiative takes on even more importance.

user
qtrly ffo $1.09 per share.
sees q3 ffo $1.14 - $1.20 per share.

assistant