Note: For a complete picture of the U.S. office market, this report tracks metrics for both traditionally leased office space (asking rents per square foot, vacancy rate) and the serviced/flex office industry (serviced office inventory, per-desk asking price). See the methodology section at the bottom for more information.
Key Takeaways
Shared Offices:
- National coworking inventory grew by a net 2 million square feet (1.2%) in Q3 to reach 168.4 million square feet, with the location count rising by 228 to 9,612.
- Growth was concentrated on the West Coast: the San Francisco Bay Area added 248,000 square feet and 25 net new locations, while Greater Los Angeles gained 207,000 square feet.
- Coworking’s percentage share of total U.S. office stock rose to 2.5% at the end of September, up from 2.3% in June.
- Brooklyn is the densest coworking market in the study, with 5.4% of local office inventory being in coworking and shared offices.
- Manhattan is the country’s most expensive coworking market with asking prices at $891 per desk per month, followed by Austin ($740), Brooklyn ($718) and Boston ($695). The national average stood at $651 per desk.
Traditional Leases:
- National average asking rents for traditional office leases slipped 1.5% Q-o-Q to $33.18 per square foot per year.
- Philadelphia (+1.9%), the Bay Area (+1.3%) and Washington, D.C. (+1.0%) bucked the trend, while Dallas-Fort Worth (-2.1%) saw the steepest decrease.
- The national office vacancy rate was largely unchanged Q-o-Q at 17.8%.
- Manhattan (10.2%) and Brooklyn (10.3%) are the tightest markets covered after several quarters in a row of declining vacancies.
With the flight to quality continuing in today’s office market, property owners are increasingly offloading low-performing properties which are either being decommissioned, demolished or converted into multifamily units. This phenomenon in conjunction with enduring demand for premium space is contributing to gradually decreasing vacancies while driving moderate rent growth in some markets.
At the same time, coworking inventory continues to grow at a steady pace nationally, with some variation across markets. As more office space gets picked up by flex operators and older office stock declines, coworking’s share of the U.S. office market continues to tick up.
Coworking Office Inventory: California Markets Drive Growth as Coworking Share of U.S. Office Market Rises
In Q3 2026, coworking space inventory across the U.S. expanded by a net 2 million square feet to reach 168.4 million square feet, a 1.2% increase over the quarter. The national coworking location count grew by 228 to 9,612, a 2.4% increase, indicating that new openings skew toward lower footprints.
Most coworking growth was centered on California. The San Francisco Bay Area recorded the quarter’s strongest expansion, adding roughly 248,000 square feet (3.4%) and 25 net new locations to bring its inventory to 7.5 million square feet. Growth was split evenly between San Francisco proper (+130,000 square feet, 11 locations) and the wider Bay Area (+118,000 square feet, 14 locations).
The next fastest-growing coworking market was Greater Los Angeles, growing by 207,000 square feet (2.0%) to 10.8 million square feet, which keeps it the country’s second-largest coworking market behind Manhattan. Raw square footage gain was stronger in Los Angeles proper (147,000 square feet versus Orange County’s 59,000), but in percentage terms, both submarkets grew by approximately 2%.
Dallas-Fort Worth also posted coworking inventory gains of close to 86,000 square feet, while Boston expanded by 80,000 square feet and Chicago by 41,000.
At the same time, national gains were softened by several markets shedding inventory, particularly on the East Coast and in Texas. Washington, D.C. saw the largest pullback of any market covered at 438,000 square feet, with the trend also being toward smaller locations. However, the possibility remains open for these locations to return to the market in the coming quarters under a different form, making the contraction potentially temporary. Manhattan also lost 317,000 square feet of coworking inventory for the second-largest loss this quarter.
Read a deeper dive into New York and Manhattan’s office markets in our separate New York City quarterly office report.
Houston’s inventory contracted by 118,000 square feet despite a net gain of four locations, echoing the switch to smaller coworking office footprints, while Brooklyn and Philadelphia were essentially flat Q-o-Q. Austin’s coworking square footage was nearly unchanged, but the market added nine net locations.
Notably, several markets that recorded coworking inventory losses saw the share represented by coworking in the overall office market keep steady or even increase. This is due to a general pullback in office inventories nationwide as functionally obsolete properties with flagging occupancy are being offloaded, either by decommissioning or office-to-multifamily conversions.
Examples of markets with increasing coworking space shares even as raw coworking square footage decreases include Manhattan (-2.5% coworking square footage, +20 basis points coworking share), Brooklyn (-0.2%, +70 bps) and Philadelphia (-0.1%, +10 bps). Nationally, the ratio climbed from 2.3% in June to 2.5% in September, as total U.S. office inventory fell amid inventory rebalancing.
Brooklyn continues to be the densest coworking market in our study, with flex space now accounting for 5.4% of the borough’s office stock compared with the national benchmark of 2.5%. Chicago follows at 2.9%, with Los Angeles and Manhattan both at 2.7% and Dallas-Fort Worth at 2.5%. Austin recorded the largest jump in share after Brooklyn, rising from 2.1% to 2.4% as the market’s total office inventory contracted over the third quarter. At the other end, Washington, D.C. (1.8%), New Jersey (1.9%), Houston (1.9%) and the Bay Area (2.0%) have lower coworking penetration.
Private Office Pricing Stats: Manhattan, Austin and Brooklyn Top National Per-Desk Asking Prices
The average asking price for a private office desk across major U.S. markets in our study stood at $651 per month at the end of September. Pricing is sharply tiered by market, with asking prices varying by close to $500 per desk per month between the most affordable and most expensive market.
Manhattan remains the country’s most expensive coworking market at $891 per desk per month, roughly 37% above the national average. Austin comes in second at $740, ahead of Brooklyn ($718) and Boston ($695). The San Francisco Bay Area ($621) and Greater Los Angeles ($591) make up a mid-priced tier, sitting slightly below the national average despite being some of the country’s largest flex office markets.
Meanwhile, the most affordable private office asking prices were in Philadelphia ($414 per desk), Houston ($434), Chicago ($449) and Washington, D.C. ($485), with Dallas-Fort Worth ($519) and New Jersey ($528) rounding out the lower tier.
Pricing by office size follows the expected pattern at the national level, with per-desk rates falling as offices get larger: $688 for offices with one to five desks, $687 for six to 10 desks, $638 for 11 to 20 desks and $597 for 20 or more desks.
However, the discount for larger teams is not uniform across markets. Chicago features the highest discount between the smallest office size and those for 20+ desks at 44%, while Manhattan’s premium prices hold across all sizes, with even its largest offices priced at $841, higher on a per-desk basis than the smallest office category in every other market.
Traditional Office Pricing: Philadelphia and Bay Area Lead Rent Growth Amid National Contraction
The national average asking rent for traditional office leases came in at $33.18 per square foot per year in Q3, a 1.5% decline from the $33.67 recorded in Q2. Declines were recorded in nine of the 14 markets covered.
Meanwhile, a handful of markets offered bright spots in terms of asking rent appreciation. Philadelphia led the pack with 1.9% growth over the quarter, bringing the market’s average asking rate to $32.40 per square foot and hovering close to the national average.
Manhattan is the country’s most expensive traditional office market by a wide margin, with asking rents more than double the national average. San Francisco proper is next at $64.92 per square foot, followed by the wider Bay Area at $56.99 and Los Angeles at $47.79.
Meanwhile, Texas and the Midwest stand out at the more affordable end, with Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago all priced below the national average in asking office rents.
Vacancy Rates: National Rate Holds Steady as Markets See Diverging Vacancy Trends
The national office vacancy rate stood at 17.8% at the end of Q3, essentially unchanged from Q2 after five consecutive quarters of decline from the 19.9% peak recorded in Q1 2025. Beneath the flat headline figure, however, individual markets moved in markedly different directions.
New York’s boroughs recorded the sharpest improvements. Manhattan’s overall vacancy rate dropped a further 60 bps to 10.2%, the lowest of any market covered, while Brooklyn fell by more than four percentage points to 10.3%. Both are now well below the national average and reflect the ongoing repositioning towards quality as properties with softer occupancy are gradually struck off the market.
Dallas-Fort Worth (-50 bps to 18.6%) and Washington, D.C. (-40 bps to 18.9%) also tightened, with Dallas-Fort Worth now more than 500 bps below its early-2025 peak.
Meanwhile, New Jersey recorded the steepest vacancy increase in our study, with the rate at the end of Q3 standing at 18.3%, 90 bps higher than three months prior.
On the West Coast, vacancies generally trended higher. The wider Bay Area edged up to 22.9%, marking one of the highest vacancy rates in the country, while Orange County climbed to 12.5%. Chicago (+50 bps to 18.3%) and Houston (+30 bps to 23.6%) also saw vacancies rise, while Austin (24.5%), Boston (17.6%), Philadelphia (18.4%) and Los Angeles (14.5%) were essentially flat Q-o-Q.
Methodology
This quarterly report covers shared office space inventory, pricing and traditional office market context across the largest U.S. office markets.
Shared space inventory, asking rents and vacancy data were sourced from Yardi Research. Serviced office desk pricing was sourced from Hubble listing data.
Coworking (or flexible) space inventory refers to office inventory operated by coworking, serviced office and managed office providers. Quarter-over-quarter changes in shared inventory were reported in both absolute and percentage terms. The ratio of shared space out of total inventory is calculated as shared space inventory divided by total office inventory.
National figures reflect the full set of markets tracked by Yardi Research and Hubble, including smaller markets that are not discussed individually in this report due to insufficient listing volume.
Average desk prices represent the average monthly listing price for a private office desk based on active Hubble listings during the reporting period.
To ensure statistical reliability, headline Desk Price figures are reported only for markets with at least 10 listings with pricing included. Desk Price by Office Size segments average monthly desk pricing by the size of the private office using a lower threshold of at least 5 listings with pricing per market. Markets and size segments that fall below these thresholds are omitted from the corresponding tables.
Asking Rent refers to the average full-service (or “full-service equivalent”) asking rent per square foot per year for traditional office space that was available as of the report period.
Vacancy rates do not include owner-occupied properties.
Reporting periods are defined as follows:
- Q2 2026 — Data as of the end of June 2026.
- Q3 2026 — Data as of the end of September 2026.
