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Seattle is leading the nation in tech job growth, adding 26% more jobs in the sector over the last two years. The surge pushed Seattle past the San Francisco Bay Area's tech job growth for the first time in seven years, according to a CBRE report.
The city’s asking office rent increased by 14% between Q2 2016 and Q2 2018. In contrast, it increased only 6.4% between the same quarters between 2014 and 2016.
A number of Seattle-based tech companies have expanded office space in the city by 9M SF over the last five years. In addition, the Puget Sound area has benefited from Bay Area tech firms increasing local office space by 3.5M SF over the same period.
In Q2, Seattle's asking office rent was $34.97 and the vacancy rate was 10.4%. Seattle’s top submarket was Lake Union, where the rents were $41.50 with a 3.6% vacancy rate.
In Seattle, the number of high-tech software/service jobs surpassed the non-tech office jobs in 2017.
The report said the downtown Seattle and Eastside office markets are tight due to limited supply over the last decade. Tenant improvement costs have grown tremendously over the last three years, rising as much as 40% and causing tenants to re-engineer plans to find savings.
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