MIAMI—Is it a landlord market or a tenant's market? Let's just say the scales are tipping toward landlords in Atlanta these days after years of recovering from the Great Recession.

Indeed, according to the latest CBRE OccupierView—a report that analyzes the nation's office market from the tenant's perspective—the balance between landlord- and tenant-favorable markets are tipping toward ownership in several major US cities. Atlanta is one of them.

CBRE points to tightening conditions challenging tenants from both cost and availability perspectives in most downtown areas. The report also shows little change in suburban office markets.

Drilling down into the numbers, Atlanta, overall office vacancy in Atlanta has dropped below 20%, nearing the pre-recession levels, according to CBRE's Southeast research director Dan Wagner. The core submarkets of Buckhead and Central Perimeter are most sought after for tenant relocation and expansion, and consequently, prime markets for potential new development.

“Market fundamentals have improved incrementally over the last several quarters in core urban and suburban submarkets,” Wagner says. “Conditions in areas such as Buckhead and Central Perimeter have recovered to a point where rents are experiencing some growth and concessions are tightening. Consequently, a lack of suitable large-block space options in these markets has favored landlords and also spurred new speculative development activity.

All told, the metro Atlanta area posted 808,179 square feet of positive net absorption in the second quarter. Overall asking rental rates for Atlanta's office market increased slightly in the second quarter of 2014. The average overall asking rate increased by 14-cents per square foot to an average of $20.51 per square foot. Those figures further support a landlord's market.

Pulling back the lens, the US vacancy rate gradually declined over the past three years and is at the mid-point between its pre-recession low and recessionary peak of 14.5% in the second quarter of 2014. Downtown markets in Denver, Houston, San Francisco, Manhattan, Atlanta, Boston, and Seattle are landlord-favorable, while Dallas-Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington, DC, are still tenant-favorable, but approaching a tipping point.

“By virtually all metrics, the second quarter of 2014 was one of the most robust in years in the office market with more than 15 million square feet of positive net absorption—the highest quarterly figure since 2007,” says Colin Yasukochi, director of research and analysis for CBRE. “Healthy job growth and historically low levels of new construction means that companies need more space to put these employees, but with limited new supply, we're now seeing a supply-demand imbalance in many key markets. This is very positive for landlords, but challenging for tenants.”

Leasing activity in almost every market is being led by the high-tech sector. High-tech companies accounted for 19.9% of all US major leasing activity in the first half of 2014. Financial services and business services were the second and third most active sectors, at 12.4% and 10.6%, respectively.

“Tightening labor markets and rising rents are causing tenants to be more focused on location strategies,” says Whitley Collins, who leads CBRE's Occupier Services Division in the Americas. “As we move toward owner-favorable markets in some downtown areas, tenants who have leases coming due in the next three to five years need to lock in long-term leases in downtown areas now, or consider relocation to a suburban office market where tenants continue to be in the driver's seat.”