Office occupancy losses hit record lows in 2020. A new report from JLL calls the occupancy decline unprecedented with 84 million square feet in occupancy declines for the year. In the fourth quarter alone, occupancy losses totaled 40 million square feet.

More than half of the occupancy declines happened in CBD markets, and within CBDs, occupancy declines were greatest among commodity product. Class-B office buildings, for example, had occupancy decreases one-and-a-half times faster than class-A and trophy assets. Gateway markets have led the occupancy losses. Nearly 30 million square feet of give-backs occurred in New York and San Francisco. This is 2.2 times the national rate of national occupancy losses.

Negative net absorption followed a similar trend. Expensive markets with a high concentration of tech-and energy-companies, including Seattle, Boston, New Jersey and Los Angeles, had the largest decline in office absorption, according to the research from JLL. The occupancy losses pushed the vacancy rate up to 17.1% nationally. In CBD markets, the vacancy rate increased twice as fast as the national rate.