By Mike Otillio, research director, Colliers The Dallas office market and North Texas region as a whole continue to evolve as leading destinations for corporate relocations, led in part by a favorable business climate. This reputation as a top landing spot for regional workforce consolidations and outright relocations from other states has helped Dallas become a national leader in some key back-to-work metrics. According to research from security firm Kastle Systems, which monitors keycard, fob and app usage within thousands of office buildings across the country, the average occupancy rate in December across 10 of the country’s biggest markets was 40.6 percent. Dallas was one of the 10 markets tracked in the report, posting an above-average occupancy rate of 52.3 percent. The basic business-friendly climate and healthy pace of job and population growth, along with evidence that users are making stronger pushes to return to their workspaces, have accelerated the market’s office investment sales recovery for value-add, core-plus and stabilized product. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, such as a prolonged spike in cases from the Omicron variant, we expect this trend to continue through 2022. Dallas recorded several notable sales of iconic office assets in 2021, plus numerous deals for suburban …
