“Similar to the DFW metroplex, Houston's metro area created nearly 520,000 jobs during the same period since 2010. While local experts are cautiously optimistic, anticipating Houston to add around 45,000 jobs this year, Moody's Analytics is forecasting on the upside,” Robert Kramp, director of research and analysis at CBRE, tells GlobeSt.com. “Instead of the energy sector, Houston's new engine for growth is being juiced by exports, which have expanded faster than the economy in general, but exports and trade in the stake of local employment and gross domestic product has practically doubled since 2003.”

Occupiers are taking a vigilant approach to real estate strategy, chasing space efficiency while reinvesting savings into workplace improvements that will help lure and keep employees. And as prospects for the energy sector improve–with global crude inventories dwindling and the recent jump in prices spurring US drilling activity, Houston could once again find itself the Texas Triangle counter-cyclical market contender.

“Look for Houston to be a growing global link in trade and we'll see what this means for the office sector,” Kramp continues. “But in the near-term, rental concessions in Houston's office market such as free rent and hefty tenant improvement allowances have begun to flatten. This follows their steady climb during the energy downtown over the past three years, but concessions remain at elevated levels. Expect office leasing market conditions to favor tenants over landlords through 2020.”