CBRE report says office vacancy rate in Q2 rose to highest level since 1994

The firm said Tuesday that the national office vacancy rate rose to 18.1 per cent in the second quarter, up from 17.8 per cent in the first quarter.

It was the highest level since the first quarter of 1994 when it was 18.6 per cent.

"Canadian office markets are grappling with a perfect storm of a recession threat, interest rate hikes, tech sector weakness, tenants rightsizing and new supply of office space," CBRE said in a news release. 

"All of this is compounded by the continued uncertainty around remote work."

he increase in the overall rate came as the downtown office vacancy rate in the second quarter rose to 18.9 per cent compared with 18.5 per cent in the first quarter. The suburban office vacancy rate was 17.1 per cent, up from 16.9 per cent.

CBRE said downtown vacancies in the second quarter inched higher in all major centres across the country except for Calgary and the Waterloo region in Ontario.

The downtown vacancy rate in Vancouver was 11.5 per cent in the second quarter, up from 10.4 per cent, while the rate in Toronto was 15.8 per cent, up from 15.3 per cent in the first quarter. Montreal saw its downtown rate rise to 17.0 per cent from 16.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the downtown vacancy rate in Calgary was 31.5 per cent, down from 32.0 per cent in the first quarter. Waterloo Region's downtown rate was 21.5 per cent compared with 22.0 per cent in the first three months of the year.

CBRE said Calgary has benefited from the expansion of the engineering, construction and education sectors. 

"Calgary is also working its way through several office building conversion projects, which will reduce inventory," the firm said.

CBRE said that before the pandemic, Canada claimed the two lowest-vacancy office markets in North America in Toronto and Vancouver, where downtown vacancy hovered around two per cent for several years.

The company said there is 11.5 million square feet of office space under construction including 6.2 million in Toronto, 2.7 million in Vancouver and 1.9 million in Montreal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2023.

This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly stated the national overall, downtown and suburban office vacancy figures for the first quarter.