Positive Signs Emerge in County Office Market

ORANGE COUNTY, CA-The Orange County office market posted positive absorption for the first time in 11 quarters and showed other signs of what might be the beginning of a recovery, according to two newly released second-quarter market reports by CB Richard Ellis and Voit Real Estate Services. Voit’s report still showed negative absorption during the second quarter, but both CBRE and Voit tell GlobeSt.com that the second-quarter results have them hopeful that the market may have reached bottom and started slowly turning for the better.

“It’s only one quarter, so we can’t say for sure that it’s the beginning of a trend, but it’s encouraging,” CBRE managing director Jeff Osborn said of the company’s second-quarter OC office report, which showed positive absorption of 198,697 square feet. That compared with negative net absorption of 597,440 square feet in the second quarter of last year, according to CBRE.