Investors betting on the D-FW office market got some decent news recently, with a pair of industry reports showing a significant increase in leasing activity over the last year.
CRE brokerage firm Savills clocked an 18% year-over-year spike in office leases by square footage, crediting a number of big renewals and relocations with bolstering the market’s metrics in 2024. Some 3 million square feet of office space made it to contract in Q4 alone.
Zooming in on the quarter, Savills noted that inventory stayed relatively flat year over year, however, the average asking rental rate increased by 6.4%. This bump was largely due to a larger spike in Class A asking rental rates (8.3%), which accounted for around 65% of leasing activity.
Two sub-markets stood apart in terms of rental rate, with Uptown and Preston Center commanding more than $50 per square foot. The sub-market with the third highest rental rate was the Central Expressway at $34.46 per square foot. The cheapest was Northeast Fort Worth at $16.05 per square foot.
As previously reported by CandysDirt.com, some developers are putting their chips behind office properties in and around Dallas, in spite of the number remote work has done on the sector. While the remote work trend has abated somewhat, it may still be quite a while before the office market really makes a comeback.
Other Report Offers More Sober Assessment
Avison Young’s brokerage team in Dallas dropped a report of its own that looked back at 2024. It gave a bit of a mixed bag and emphasized some less-than-optimistic statistics…