According to OfficeSpace.com’s recent market report , office space in Seattle and the vicinity is still somewhat weak with an overall office vacancy rate of 15.6%. Even the Eastside, with all of it’s tech firms, has a vacancy rate of 16% when the sublease space is taken into account. As we are slowly coming out of the recession one factor that has been pretty much ignored is the amount of shadow office space available in every market. Shadow space is space that companies are leasing, but not using. Until that space gets filled up, we won’t see any significant improvement in the market. That means employment numbers need to improve. Based upon our discussions with local OfficeFinder Tenant reps, the true vacancy rate, including shadow space would be 1% – 2% higher than the stated rate, including sublease space, in any given market. That means that the Seattle office space market would have in excess of 1.5 million square feet of shadow office space; not an insignificant amount of space.
Seattle Area Office Vacancy and Rental Rates
| Market | Num of | Total RSF | Direct | Vacancy | Sublease | Vacancy | Average Rent |
| Downtown | 558 | 50,000,181 | 5,980,714 | 12.0% | 843,871 | 13.6% | $29.91 |
| Eastside | 835 | 35,551,381 | 4,925,186 | 13.9% | 767,527 | 16.0% | $28.86 |
| Northend | 420 | 12,537,328 | 1,775,623 | 14.2% | 109,140 | 15.0% | $23.00 |
| Southend | 435 | 15,817,096 | 3,061,569 | 19.4% | 342,794 | 21.5% | $21.02 |
| Tacoma | 223 | 7,658,733 | 1,151,383 | 15.0% | 55,507 | 15.8% | $21.24 |
| Total: | 2,471 | 121,564,719 | 16,894,475 | 13.9% | 2,118,839 | 15.6% | $27.10 |