ST. LOUIS-According to Cassidy Turley, there’s been improvement in the national office market in the second quarter, with nearly all the metrics used to gauge the health of the sector showing as the numbers as stabilizing or mild signs of recovery. However, the company believes that looking beyond the numbers shows a case of haves vs. have-nots, with the major markets of New York City, Boston and Washington, DC hogging all the demand, and not much going on in the rest of the country.

According to the company’s Q2 office trends report, vacancy remains flat at 16.9%, and average rents fell slightly to $21.56. Absorption should continue, as there’s only about 33 million square feet in the development pipeline, as compared to almost double that at 61 million square feet delivered in 2008, said the company.

Kevin Thorpe, chief economist at the firm, said for the top markets there’s been a post-recession surge, with jumping sales and demand, and cap rates coming down about 200 basis points in the past six months. “However, for the secondary and tertiary markets, they’re for the most part hearing crickets in terms of investment sales,” he tells GlobeSt.com.

The Midwest has been especially slow to recover, with elevated vacancy and a full-fledged tenants market throughout the region. However, second quarter absorption was a positive 357,000 square feet, compared with negative 2.3 million square feet of absorption in Q1 2010, Thorpe says.

He says while there has been a slight setback, as people remember that there hasn’t been a significant amount of jobs created, the upswing will likely continue. “I put the odds of a double-dip recession at one in seven,” Thorpe says. “We’re still on track for 2010 to be a year of positive demand, 2011 of stabilizing vacancy and 2012 a year of rent growth.”