CHICAGO—As the US economy and overall office market continue toimprove, more cities have approached the tipping point between alandlord's market and a tenant's market, according toCBRE's latest quarterly OccupierView report, whichanalyzes the nation's office markets from the tenant perspective.Tenants in most downtown markets have begun to experiencetightening conditions that have curtailed availability and boostedcosts, the report finds, though suburban office markets haveexperienced little change.

“There has been gradually improving demand,” ColinYasukochi, director of research and analysis for CBRE,tells GlobeSt.com. “Healthy job growth means that companies needmore space to put these employees.” In fact, “by virtually allmetrics, the second quarter of 2014 was one of the most robust inyears in the office market with more than 15-million-square-feet ofpositive net absorption—the highest quarterly figure since2007.”

“And outside of the hot markets,” Yasukochi says, such as NewYork, San Francisco and Silicon Valley, “developers are notcreating any new supply.” Therefore, “we're now seeing asupply-demand imbalance in many key markets. This is very positivefor landlords, but challenging for tenants.”