Los Angeles, known as the City of Angels, boasts a population of 3.82 million people soaking up the sunshine and surfing the waves, making it the most populous city in Southern California.  It is home to people from over 140 countries, speaking 224 different languages.
The city is made up of 80 districts and neighborhoods.  Some of the more well known communities are Venice, Bel Air, Hollywood Hills, and Brentwood. Generally, Los Angeles is divided into the following areas: Downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, Northeast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Harbor Area, Greater Hollywood, Wilshire, Westside, and San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys.

Los Angeles is not only a mecca for the entertainment and media industry, but also for tourism.  With so much diversity in Arts and Culture, over 800 museums and art galleries, sports teams from all major leagues, and some of the most beautiful beaches in the U.S., Los Angeles is the place to be.

Los Angeles boasts a very diverse and driven economy.  One of the most substantial economic markets in the U.S., Los Angeles has strengths in business, international trade, entertainment, medicine, research and media, just to name a few. The Long Beach and Los Angeles ports, together, comprise the fifth busiest port in the world.  The city is home to six Fortune 500 companies, including real estate group CBRE.  The Downtown Financial District holds offices for many of the U.S. top financial companies, including Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

Being the second largest city in the U.S. comes with its share of problems though, including a high crime rate and high taxes.  With the city of Los Angeles charging a gross receipts tax based on a percentage of business revenue, many companies have opted to move outside of the city limits into neighboring cities with flat tax fees.  In order to attract more new businesses to Los Angeles, the city has implemented several local incentives, including Work Opportunity Tax Credit, and reduced parking requirements.

In the second quarter of 2013, the Los Angeles office space market experienced a +18,800 square feet net absorption, an increased office vacancy rate of 18.2%, and an increase of asking rental rates to $2.52 per square foot per month or $30.24 per square foot per year.  Given the current office market conditions, tenants are able to obtain landlord concessions such as free rent and improvements. West Los Angeles appears to be the most expensive office space in the area, coming in at $3.33 per square foot per month ($40.00 / sf / yr).

 More on Los Angeles Office Space for Lease

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By: James Osgood

Los Angeles office space for lease or rent is available for every size and type of business. No matter how large or small your commercial office rental needs, you will find the perfect fit in the Los Angeles metro area. Each year, thousands of businesses take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to locate their business enterprises in this market.

The second largest U.S. city, Los Angeles is home to over 14 million people and offers a wide range of culture. With a Gross Metropolitan Product of $831 reported in 2008, LA is the third biggest economic center globally.

The past 15 quarter experienced increasing vacancy rates in commercial office space. The first quarter of 2011 has shown a drop in the vacancy rate, declining to 16%, the lowest rate since early 2006. The Greater Los Angeles area has over 214.3 million square feet (MSF) of commercial office space and the average asking rental rate is a low $2.35 per square foot.

All indicators project that Los Angeles is making a major economic comeback and while the market is still a bit soft; economic recovery is progressing slowly but steadily.  Analysts feel that the low has passed and growth can be expected in coming months.

Currently, Los Angeles has sufficient vacancies that landlords are quite flexible in working with tenants on lease negotiations. With rental rate on commercial office space at such affordable rates, this is a great time to lease Los Angeles office space. By the end of 2011, rates will likely have risen.

Unemployment in the Greater Los Angeles area continues to be quite high but is slowly falling. By mid-2012, unemployment should fall to 12% or less, according the experts. With the defense-related cuts in the aerospace market, LA will experience some impact. Current construction will add another 725,000 feet to the commercial business space.

Los Angeles with its varied culture and nearby Pacific beaches has a lot to offer workers living in this area. The weather is pleasant year round and there’s always a lot to do for fun. You can spot celebrities along the streets, visit museums, art galleries, festivals and so much more.

The residential choices for LA residents range from tiny, cozy bungalows’ to huge mansions. There are plenty of apartments and condos for lease, so people staffing your Los Angeles office will have no problem with housing.

The schools, but public and private offer great educational opportunities, and the many private  and state universities make high education easy for any of your children to find a college that suits them in the nearby areas.

Basically, with the wealth of Los Angeles commercial office space for lease, the fantastic weather, and variety of activities, LA is a great place to relocate your office, open a start up office, or expand into the area. You can find help locating the right LA office space for rent by contacting OfficeFinder, a free service to help you in your office location process.

Los Angeles Office Space Market Information

Other Los Angeles Area Market Informaion

• Anaheim Commercial Office Space
• Burbank Commercial Office Space
• Glendale Commercial Office Space
• Huntington Beach Commercial Office Space
• Irvine Commercial Office Space
• Long Beach Commercial Office Space
• Los Alamitos Commercial Office Space
• Los Altos Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-Airport-Century Blvd Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-Beverly Hills Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-Century City Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-Downtown Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-East Valley Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-Other Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-San Fernando Valley Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-South Bay Commercial Office Space
• Los Angeles-West LA Commercial Office Space
• Marina Del Rey Commercial Office Space
• Newport Beach Commercial Office Space
• North Hollywood Commercial Office Space
• Ontario-Upland-Rancho Cucamonga Commercial Office Space
• Orange County Commercial Office Space
• Orange County-Southern Commercial Office Space
• Pasadena Commercial Office Space
• Rancho Cucamonga Commercial Office Space
• Rancho Santa Margarita Commercial Office Space
• Riverside Commercial Office Space
• San Gabriel Valley-East Commercial Office Space
• Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc Commercial Office Space
• Santa Monica-Culver City Commercial Office Space
• Sherman Oaks Commercial Office Space
• Studio CIty Commercial Office Space
• Torrance Commercial Office Space
• Valencia Commercial Office Space
• Van Nuys Commercial Office Space
• Ventura Commercial Office Space
• Ventura County-East Commercial Office Space
• Ventura County-West Commercial Office Space
• Woodland Hills Commercial Office Space

National Office Update & Office Tenant/ User Strategies PodCast
Original Air Date:    4/2/11

Very informative broadcast about the office market and office space strategies for office space tenants.

"The office user show provides a national office market update and best practices for corporate office users. Chris Macke, Senior Real Estate Strategist with CoStar Group provides an update on national office market performance including top cities for investment and markets prime economically for corporate headquarters. He also shares market advice for office users and expectations for 2011 and 2012.

Show host Michael Bull and industry leading guests cover current topics important for office users including strategic lease provisions for tenants, protecting lease rights before foreclosure, prevalent lease situations in this economy and the guests share best practices when renewing leases and securing new locations.

If your company uses office space or you advise companies that do, you will find this show very informative and enlightening."

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Over the past nine months we have made numerous posts on the effect that shadow office space will have on the office space market recovery. In a recent article from CNBC some numbers show the effect that shadow office space will have on the market. According to Co-star shadow space is adding as much as 7 percent to the Los Angeles office vacancy rates and over 6 percent in Chicago. This is likely to be the case in most markets. The problem with shadow office space is that before the market can see a full recovery, shadow office space will need to be absorbed.  Typically, shadow office space is space that a company still has under lease, but is not in use. Before these companies who have shadow space will go out into the market to lease additional office space, they will need to fill their shadow space.

Additionally, Grub and Ellis is predicting that as the market recovers shadow space will account for about 1/3 of the increased demand in 2011 and 1/4 of the office space demand in 2012, thereby dampening the office space market recovery. The good news is that we are starting to see positive absorption. As the jobs come back, the office market will improve.

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It seems as though it has been a couple of weeks of good news for the US office space market.  CoStar has just come out with their State of the U.S. Office Market: Mid-Year 2010 Review & Forecast.According to their study, office space vacancy rates have stabilized and office vacancy rates that appear to have peaked and are no longer on the rise .

A few notable points from the report:

Office job growth has spurred positive net Office Space absorption. Office Vacancy Rates have peaked with some office markets even reporting Increases in average office Rents.

Of the 20 largest office markets, eight of them posted positive net absorption so far this year, three of them had little or no change, but nine did post negative net absorption. Washington DC led the country with 2 million square feet of net absorption followed by Denver with 1.6 million and Minneapolis with 1.3 million. New York City had 2.8 million square feet of negative net absorption, Los Angeles with a negative 2 million and Philadelphia at negative 1 million. But even the markets experiencing negative absorption were doing so at much reduced levels compared with last year.

New York, Long Island and Minneapolis office space markets are all now reporting single-digit office space vacancy rates of 9% or less.

If the current pace of office space absorption and delivery trends hold, CoStar projects the office vacancy rate will go from 13.6% to less than 11% sometime in 2013.

From a commercial real estate perspective, as long as you have any net job growth, it is eating away at the vacancies out there. The most important thing here is that this positive employment growth in the office sector will be reducing standing inventories of (available) space.

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