Q2 2019 | Austin Office | Research & Forecast Report

HOUSTON - Aug. 2, 2019 - PRLog -- Boots On The Ground Commentary by David Bremer

Our "Boots on the Ground" viewpoint is the voice of our experts, who have broken down the market data and compared it to what they are seeing for themselves. This is their take on what the numbers actually mean for the Austin office market.

Austin's market continues to expand at an unprecedented pace, led by significant corporate expansions and hiring coupled with significant organic growth. To Austin's credit, it has largely been able to maintain it's notable quality of life, with WalletHub recently naming Austin as the second-best city to live in. Austin was also noted as the number four city out of 100 major metropolitan areas for STEM capability (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Technology companies continue to be the primary driver of Austin growth. The city now has eight tech companies (Apple, Dell, IBM, Google, Indeed, Samsung, NXP and Applied Materials) occupying or preparing to occupy over one million square feet. Others, such as Oracle and Facebook, will likely be approaching these sizes in the near future. A substantial amount of space is under construction and these tech giants show no signs of a slowdown, which means there will be a continued surge in hiring and more people on the highways. Location-wise, the majority of these high-growth companies will be in the CBD or in North Austin. When you take into account the likely additional expansion in far Northwest Austin by Apple and a few other companies close to taking down real estate (150K-450K SF) citywide, we have every reason to believe that the employee migration to Austin will continue.

The result of all of this demand has kept the market extremely tight and has continued to push rates upward. Medium and large companies are urged to start the real estate evaluation process sometimes 2-3 years in advance in case they... Click here to read the full report: https://www2.colliers.com/en/Research/Austin/2019-Q2-Office-Austin-Report