Multifamily asking and effective rents hit historic highs in the third quarter, while the office sector showed signs that it may finally have hit rock bottom. 

Asking and effective rents for multifamily properties nationally registered respective increases of 7.5% and 7.9%, the highest quarterly growth Moody's Analytics REIS has tracked since the firm started publishing quarterly data in 1999. The increases are also triple the prior record from Q3 2000. Net absorption in the third quarter also exceeded Q1 and Q2 combined, and vacancy for the top 79 metros REIS tracks was down by 60 basis points to 4.7%.

From a metro-level perspective, Charleston, Raleigh-Durham, Birmingham, and Orlando posted the largest quarter-over-quarter decline in vacancy, while Phoenix, Orlando, and Tucson showed the largest increases in effective rent over the last 12 months. Only San Francisco and Washington, D.C., remain below their respective effective rent levels.