The 10 Most Expensive U.S. Markets for Office Space

South Florida

With a rapidly growing population and strategic location as the gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Florida industrial market has emerged as a powerhouse fueled by a shift in consumer spending to online retailers and international trade, which has led to heavy investment in infrastructure improvements. These economic drivers, along with high barriers to entry and dwindling land supply, have kept the region’s industrial vacancy low and pushed asking rents to $9.40 per sq. ft., making it a popular market among institutional investors.

1. Miami

Building cranes still tower over downtown Miami—the busiest market in the U.S. for the planned development of multifamily housing. Immigration has kept the population of Miami growing, and that has kept developers busy planning new projects.

Miami is number one on CoStar’s list of markets with more than 50,000 units with the highest share of apartments under construction as a percentage of existing inventory.

Developers had 16,777 new units of multifamily housing in some phase of the development process in Miami in the third quarter of 2018, according to CoStar. That works out to 11.4 percent of the current inventory.

Research firm MPF counts 9,656 new rental apartments under construction in the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendell, Fla. metro area. (MPF only counts apartments that are physically under construction, instead of counting projects that have been announced, but may still be arranging their financing or building permits.) That’s equal to 3.3 percent of the inventory across the broader metro area.

7. Washington, D.C.

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Coming into the seventh position nationally and 19th globally, Washington offers tenants workstations at an average cost of $9,446.

6. Orange County, Calif.

Office space in Orange County costs on average $9,951 per workstation. The market is the 16th most expensive in the world, placing it ahead of the nation’s capital.

5. Boston

A workstation in Boston costs $10,995 per year, with the city coming in as the fifth most expensive in the U.S. and 15th most expensive globally.

David McNew/Getty Images

3. New York

New York made it into the top three most expensive cities in the U.S., with an average cost per station of $15,931. It placed as the sixth most expensive city globally.

2. San Francisco

With the average cost per workstation of $16,205, San Francisco took the second spot nationally and fifth globally.

1. Fairfield County, Conn.

The most expensive market in U.S. based on cost per workstation turned out to be Fairfield County, Conn., with an average of $17,414. The market is the fourth most expensive globally, according to Cushman & Wakefield.