According to Cushman & Wakefield—which on Tuesday held a press briefing in Midtown Manhattan on mid-year statistics for the Manhattan commercial real estate market—new leasing activity is up in all three submarkets while overall asking rent hit a new record.

And in a new report by Cassidy Turley on the second quarter, which also was released Tuesday, all signs points to dramatically improved conditions, with steady activity and impressive positive absorption wiping away negative absorption that took place in the first quarter.

“We're in a stable market with strong confidence indicators,” said Ron Lo Russo, president of the New York Tri-State Region at Cushman. “We're on track for a healthy leasing year.” More specifically, new leasing activity reached nearly 12.4 million square feet, up 11.1% year-over-year.

Overall average asking rent in Manhattan increased 5% year-over-year to $61.81 per square foot. That marks the first time since May 2009 that the overall asking rent has surpassed $60 per square foot, noted Lo Russo. The Manhattan class-A direct asking rent totaled $68.31 per square foot, an increase of 2.1% year-over-year. Signs of confidence in the market, said Lo Russo, include the sizeable increase in technology, advertising, media and information (TAMI) tenants in the market, he said. “That's truly a growth market.”

In addition, while the financial services sector isn't growing, many such firms experienced lease rollovers and sought out smaller space, he explained, giving leasing activity a boost. There also has been an increase in triple digit rents this year, he added. A total of 36 transactions with base taking rents of $100 or more have been completed thus far in 2013. In comparison to last year, 35 such transactions were completed for all of 2012.

Breaking Cushman & Wakefield's report on the second quarter down by sub-market, Midtown has seen healthy activity the first six months of 2013, with an increase of 17.6% in new leasing year-over-year, said Melissa Bazar, executive director. “Midtown is stable and healthy,” she said.

Of the nearly 12.4 million square feet of new leasing completed overall in Manhattan, more than 7.6 million square feet of that occurred in Midtown, Bazar reported. The area closed out the quarter with a vacancy rate of 10.8% and an average asking rent of $68.20 per square foot, which is up 2.6% year-over-year. The class-A asking rent closed at $73.63, up 2.7% year-over-year.

Cassidy Turley recorded that metric even higher, coming in at $77.62. According to the firm, Midtown's availability rate dropped 80 basis points to 11.4% as a result of having three consecutive months of positive absorption totaling 1.9 million square feet.

But Midtown South continues to be the hottest market, said Cushman senior director Jamie Katcher. The area's average asking rent of $59.46 per square foot—which is a 20.3% year-over-year spike—surpassed the much larger Midtown market for the first time ever. Leasing activity for the year has reached more than 2 million square feet, he said, “putting us on pace to reach 4 million square feet for the fourth straight year.

Midtown South continues to be the tightest Central Business District in the nation, with a vacancy rate of 7.2%, up slightly from last quarter and 1.1% year-over-year. CT reports that steady leasing activity led to 762,374 square feet of positive absorption in the second quarter, highlighted by Facebook's decision to move out of Midtown.

Meanwhile, Downtown is still going strong, said Frank Cento, executive director of C&W. Demand continues to pour in from other parts of the country, as well Midtown and Midtown South. “The migration continues.”

The average asking rent increased 14.7% year-over-year to $45.94 per square foot. The class-A asking rent totaled $50.74 per square foot, which is up 12% percent year-over-year and represents the largest class-A increase of the three submarkets, he noted.

But the most enthusiastic presenter at the Cushman briefing was Helen Hwang, EVP, NY Capital Markets Group, who noted that Manhattan sales volume is being led by large transactions greater than $100 million, a change from 2012, in which it was dominated by middle market transactions.

“Mega deals are back!” she declard. A total of 83 transactions have been completed thus far this year, with an average deal size of $178 million. That compares to 309 transactions completed all of 2012, with an average deal size of $86 million.