MIAMI—Transwestern just issued its Miami-Dade County fourth quarter office market reports. The news is good overall.

Downtown Miami’s overall vacancy rate sits at about 22% on about 40,000 square feet of absorption. The average quoted rental rate per square foot was $41.24 for class A buildings and $26.10 for class B buildings.

“Two things stood out the most from the report: Specifically with regard to Miami’s CBD, strong absorption in the fourth quarter, and, considering the additions of three new buildings in the last year and a half, the fairly moderate vacancy rate in class A products,” Walter Byrd, managing director of Transwestern, tells GlobeSt.com. “If you were to remove the new product out of stats, the vacancy rate is very healthy for this market.”

The Airport West submarket posted a 25.8% vacancy rate while Aventura came in at about 10%. Meanwhile, Coral Gables settle at about 19%, Miami Beach came in at 12.6% and South Miami hovered at 27.4%.

“What concerned us most is the negative absorption of the Airport West market considering the strength of the trade sector and activity with Latin America,” Byrd says. “We think this may be an aberration with Amadeus moving out of class B space into a new building, which only shows up as negative absorption, and the addition of the Southcom space to the market.”

Looking at the big picture, Miami-Dade has a 23% vacancy rate for class A office space and a 22.1% rate for class B space. The average quoted rental rates are $35.94 and $24.07, respectively.

“Given the events over the summer in Washington and the corresponding uncertainty in economy, the absorption in the fourth quarter is more indicative of the recovery we have been seeing in South Florida and we expect the markets to continue to perform very strong in first half of 2012,” Byrd says. “In the fourth quarter and in the beginning of 2012, we are seeing confident tenants with growing needs ready to take space and not the tire kickers of 12 to 18 months ago.”