According to a report produced by Transwestern, office vacancies in the US as a whole are at their lowest in 10 years. That’s pretty amazing when you consider that they also report that 70.7 million square feet (SF) of new construction has been started during that same period. But office demand follows job creation so with unemployment at 4.1%, the lowest since late 2000, this makes sense.
The top 10 markets for net absorption (the net change in the total SF of office space occupied) were lead by Dallas/Fort Worth with over 5 million SF absorbed, followed by San Jose/Silicon Valley with about half that, then Settle, Northern Virginia, Austin, Phoenix, Detroit, Las Vegas, St. Louis and Baltimore.
Notwithstanding the top absorption markets, the top 10 markets for rent growth looked different: Boston at 15%, followed by San Francisco, Charlotte, Orlando, Raleigh/Durham, Oklahoma City, East Bay/Oakland, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Portland. Some of those intuitively make sense because they are land-constrained cities with a huge tech presence. Others were a surprise.
The cities with the most new space under construction are New York with over 16 million SF underway, Dallas/Fort Worth with over 8 million SF coming, Washington, DC at 7.6 million SF, San Francisco at 6 million SF, and Denver at 5 million SF.
The future looks bright for the national office market so long as jobs hold up. If there is a downturn in the economy and companies stop hiring and start laying workers off, things will change.
For the rest of the report, click here.
Bob Gibbons is a Real Estate Advisor & Tenant Advocate (also known as a tenant rep) with REATA Commercial Realty, Inc. which is a tenant advisory firm based in Plano, Texas. Bob serves companies in Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Richardson, Addison, Dallas and the surrounding areas and specializes in companies which lease or buy office and warehouse properties.