Seventeen of 86 office buildings are on "to go" rosters. It's problematic because "NASA/Clear Lake is not on the radar screen for institutional investors," Coy Davidson of the Houston office of Colliers International, tells GlobeSt.com. "Therefore, building owners are looking for entrepreneurial investors to buy these buildings."

Davidson calculates 35% to 40% of all office tenancy comes from the US space program. The market is maintaining its occupancy for the most part, but it certainly isn't in line for any major expansions. When it come to selling, the submarket's dependency on government contracts historically has been a red flag for potential buyers or even developers.

Austin-based Capital Commercial is one of the owners hawking a property. Its class A 1150 Gemini, a 158,627-sf office building, is fully leased for the next nine years to United Space Alliance. The 19-year-old building has come to market at an asking price of more than $16 million. That price undoubtedly is tied to the fact that it's just one of six class A properties in a 962,000-sf, high-end inventory that had slightly less than a 3% vacancy at the third-quarter close.