Louisville Real Estate News

The nation’s office commercial real estate vacancy rate declined in the fourth quarter to 14.7 percent from 15 percent in the previous three-month period and from 16.3 percent in the October-through-December period of 2004, Reis Inc. reports.

At the same time, absorption—or the net change in occupied office space—rose to 16 million square feet in the last three months of 2005 from 13.6 million square feet in the third quarter, as effective rents climbed 1 percent in the quarter and 3.2 percent for the entire year.

Disparities linger, though, with markets such as New York, the nation’s capital, parts of California and Palm Beach, Fla., benefiting from solid job growth, while other markets such as Dallas and Cleveland continued to deal with high vacancy rates.

Washington, D.C., was tops among the 69 markets surveyed, with a vacancy rate of just 7.2 percent; while Greenville, S.C., had the highest vacancy rate, at a whopping 24.1 percent.