In this video, REIS Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Victor Calanog provides a quick update on first quarter 2017 Office property market fundamentals and trends. Highlights include:
- It was a relatively uneventful quarter for the office property market
- National office vacancy rates ended the quarter at 15.8%, unchanged versus the prior quarter
- Office property vacancy is down 20 basis points from 16.0% a year prior
- Asking rents increased by 0.5% in the quarter, while effective rent increased by 0.4%
- In the trailing 12 months, rent growth was 1.8%, while effective rent growth was 1.9%
- Results reflect slow down in economy and slowing of hiring relative to 2014 and 2015
- Average job creation numbers running less than 180,000 per month year to date are not enough to trigger a lot of office leasing, particularly given remaining overhang of sublease space
- In this environment, little “greenfield” office development is taking place