Surrey office vacancies (17.3%), are the highest since mid-year 2005. Add in the greatest negative annual absorption since 1997. But is it really that bad? (You can send your responses to the panic room we're vacationing in.)

Put it in perspective, says Avison Young's Darrell Hurst, who plucked the numbers from AY's recently released metro Vancouver office report. New office space was added to the city’s inventory (like the Centre of Newton, Phase II). And three large relocations drove the market: the RCMP vacated three private sector buildings (150k SF total) for new government-owned digs; Coast Mountain Bus Co relocated out of Station Tower (80k SF) to its new tower in New Westminster; and Westland Insurance also moved.

Then there’s an overall softness in the economy, which led companies to "delay new hirings and put off expansions,” Darrell says. Still, AY sees it as part of a cycle, and Darrell says the firm is seeing tremendous interest in the new City Centre. All the infrastructure and amenities that will come with that development will bode well for future office space demand in Surrey. Pictured: the new Gateway Place project, set to start in 2014.