Downtown Market Vacancy Continues to Decrease, Asking Rates Increase and Investment Sales Surge
Chicago’s downtown office market is continuing to tighten, for the moment. The overall vacancy rate has decreased from 13.1% to 12.8% from year-end 2014 to year-end 2015. This is the lowest it has been since 2Q 2009. As expected, Chicago’s unemployment rate continued to improve over the course of 2015 as well. Chicago’s unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% at the end of 2014 to 5.4% at year-end 2015.
Suburban Markets Prove Resilient, Availability and Vacancy Rates Drop
The Suburban office market maintained the positive momentum it saw in 2014 through the end of 2015 despite the continued migration of large tenants to the CBD. 2015 saw 951,311 sf of positive net absorption which surpassed the 704,910 sf of positive net absorption in 2014. The vacancy rate decreased from 17.5% to 17.1% and the availability rate decreased from 23.2% to 23.1% year over year, respectively.
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