HOUSTON--Houston's office market is riding high: 2.2 million square feet of positive net absorption was recorded in the fourth quarter of 2014, bringing the year-end total to 6.8 million square feet.

“Houston's office market recorded record high asking rental rates in Q1 2014,” Lisa Bridges, director of market research at Colliers International, told GlobeSt.com. “Average quoted rental rates began peeking mid-year and we saw those rates begin to level off in Q4 2014. During 2014, Houston's office market experienced lower than average vacancy rates and a huge surge in new construction and deliveries in 2014.”

With over 2.1 million square feet of new inventory delivered during the fourth quarter, the year-end delivered inventory was over 6.6 million square feet in 2014. ExxonMobil is one of the key motivators. The company began moving into a portion of its new north campus headquarters, and Southwestern Energy moved into its new corporate headquarters just south of the ExxonMobil campus.