The brokerages use red numbers to indicate negative absorption, meaning a decline in the amount of occupied space during a given period. Positive absorption means a gain in the amount of occupied space.

For the second quarter of this year, recently released reports from CB, Insignia/ESG and Cushman & Wakefield indicate negative absorption in many of the county's markets for the second quarter and for the past year, along with vacancy rates that remain substantially higher than they were a few years ago.

But CB's Lewis Horne, senior managing director of the Los Angeles region, notes that suburban office markets during the second quarter "lent credence to the belief that the market may be heading toward the road to recovery."