Ten-X ranks Tampa among top five U.S. markets for office investors

Ten-X Commercial ranked Tampa among its top five “buy markets” in a report on U.S. office markets. The online real estate transaction platform ranked Tampa as the fourth-best market in the nation for office property investors.

The firm reported that a lack of newly built office space held Tampa’s office vacancy rate at 17.9 percent in last year’s third quarter, and rents have been growing about two percent a year. Office rents in Tampa averaged $18.71 per square foot in last year’s third quarter.

Ten-X cited a robust Tampa economy “heavily weighted towards financial activities and professional and business services, two major creators of office jobs.”

Ten-X forecast that Tampa’s office vacancy rate “will reach the low-17 percent range through 2018 as demand stays healthy. Rents will peak at an all-time high in 2018 before contracting modestly during the [economic] downturn.” The forecast was modeled to include the effects of an economic recession in the 2019-2020 period.

Ten-X ranked the most promising and least promising office markets as part of its latest U.S. Office Market Outlook report. No Florida city other than Tampa was in either its top five “buy markets” or its top five “sell markets” for office properties. – Mike Seemuth