WASHINGTON, DC-The DC area saw office vacancy rates decrease almost an entire percentage point in 2010, Cassidy Turley reports, to 13%. Meanwhile, the supply pipeline was a platry four million square feet--the lowest in more than 10 years. 

If that sounds like a recipe for a landlord’s market, you are correct. The company has even begun to see some increase in asking rents, Jeffrey Kottmeier, vice president, director of research, tells GlobeSt.com. That, however, is only happening in the most supply-constrained parts of the region. 

More common is a flattening out of concessions and hence effective rents, Kottmeier says. During the worst of the downturn tenants could get rent free for up to a year. Now they might get six months, he says. Also, the dollar range on a square foot basis for concessions has stabilized in the $60 to $90 range--whereas before it was higher and moving in an upward trajectory, he says. 

Fundamentals, it hardly needs to be said though, are not anywhere close to the halcyon days of the mid-2000s, when trophy buildings could command rents in the $100 to $150 per square range with ease. The highest rent Kottmeier has heard of lately, he says, is in the $73 to $75 per square foot range, triple net.