Five Brokerages, Five Different Vacancy Rates: What the Northern Virginia Office Reports Are Not Telling You

If you are a Northern Virginia office tenant with a lease rolling in the next twenty-four months, you have probably had a landlord or a listing broker hand you a market report. It likely contained a vacancy rate, a direction of travel, and an implied message: the market is tightening, so sign now.

Here is the problem. Pull the Q1 and Q2 2026 Northern Virginia office reports from five major brokerages and you get five different answers about the same market in the same year.

• Newmark reported 120,338 square feet of positive net absorption in the second quarter of 2026, closing the first half at roughly 425,000 square feet positive, with vacancy declining to 20.8 percent and average asking rents at $38.27 per square foot.

• Cushman and Wakefield reported that Northern Virginia office net absorption totaled negative 73,000 square feet in the second quarter, bringing year to date absorption to negative 46,000 square feet.

• CBRE put first quarter vacancy at 21.8 percent, down 30 basis points quarter over quarter, with average asking rates at $37.49 per square foot.

• Avison Young reported office availability at 22.9 percent, marking eight consecutive quarters of decline, with premium asking rents holding around $37.75 per square foot.

• NAI KLNB reported first quarter vacancy at approximately 18.75 percent.

The spread between the highest and lowest of those figures is more than four hundred basis points. Two of the five reports cannot even agree on whether the market absorbed space or gave it back.

Why the numbers diverge

None of these firms is wrong. They are measuring different things and saying so in the footnotes almost nobody reads.

Vacancy is not availability. Vacancy counts space that is physically empty. Availability counts space that is being marketed, including occupied space a tenant is trying to sublease and space where the current tenant has already given notice. Availability is almost always the higher number, and it is usually the more honest picture of what you are actually competing against when you tour.

Inventory thresholds differ. Transwestern, for example, states plainly that its Northern Virginia report covers office properties 15,000 square feet and larger and excludes government-owned properties and medical outpatient product. Raise or lower that threshold and the denominator moves. Move the denominator and the vacancy rate moves with it, without a single lease being signed.

The construction pipeline is measured differently too. CBRE counted only 35,000 square feet under construction in Northern Virginia in the first quarter of 2026. Transwestern counted 314,606 square feet over the same period, a figure that includes the 270,000 square foot HITT Contracting headquarters at 7125 West Falls Station Boulevard in Merrifield and 44,606 square feet at 1 Exchange Street. Both counts are defensible. A build to suit headquarters that is fully committed at delivery adds nothing to the pool of space you can lease, which is why some firms exclude it. But the two numbers tell very different stories about supply.

Submarket weighting changes everything. Avison Young noted that 77 percent of Northern Virginia office submarkets recorded year over year decreases in availability, with Vienna, Clarendon and Courthouse, Carlyle, and the Toll Road corridor each falling by more than 100 basis points. A report weighted toward tightening submarkets reads very differently from one weighted toward Route 28 or the older Fairfax Center inventory.

What every report actually agrees on

Strip away the methodology and one conclusion survives across all five: the improvement in Northern Virginia office fundamentals is coming from removing supply, not from adding tenants.

NAI KLNB was the most direct about it, attributing the first quarter vacancy improvement to more than 1.75 million square feet removed from inventory through demolition and conversion, which outweighed the quarter's leasing losses. The demolition at 3033 Wilson Boulevard alone took more than 170,000 square feet out of the Rosslyn to Ballston corridor. Lincoln Property Company reported approximately 3.7 million square feet removed from the broader Washington region office inventory in the first quarter of 2026.

Fairfax County's own FY2027 advertised budget documents state that more than 900,000 square feet of office space was demolished in the county across six buildings during 2025, with two adaptive reuse projects underway that will convert more than 300,000 square feet of office into housing and senior living.

Newmark characterized the demand side accurately: leasing was driven by select, requirement-based transactions rather than broad-based expansion. NAI KLNB found that demand in early 2026 was led by requirements in the 10,000 to 50,000 square foot range, with more users beginning to evaluate 50,000 to 100,000 square feet.

That is a market where a smaller number of tenants with real requirements are transacting into a shrinking pool of viable buildings. It is not a market where demand has broadly returned.

Why this matters at the negotiating table

The headline vacancy rate is the least useful number in your negotiation, and it is the one landlords quote most.

Two things determine what you can actually extract, and neither appears in any of the reports above.

First, the concession package, not the face rent. Avison Young's work on Northern Virginia tenant improvement allowances found that TIs have risen roughly 9 percent since 2020 across all classes, with a five year average of $48.03 per square foot. Trophy and Class A product averaged $69.18 per square foot over that period. Class B allowances rose 28 percent since 2020 but from a much lower base. Avison Young also flagged that two outlier transactions, Deloitte at 1919 North Lynn Street at over $200 per square foot and Virginia Hospital Center at 5911 Kingstowne Village Parkway at over $190 per square foot, distorted the Trophy and Class A average upward by roughly 12 percent on their own.

Two deals moved the published average for an entire building class. If you walk into a negotiation citing that average, you are citing Deloitte's leverage, not yours.

Second, the specific submarket and size band you are in. A 6,000 square foot requirement in Tysons and a 40,000 square foot requirement in Reston are not in the same market, do not draw from the same competitive set, and do not command the same free rent or TI. The published averages blend them. Your landlord knows exactly where your deal sits in that distribution. You should too.

Three situations where this changes your decision

Your lease expires in 2027 or 2028. You are in the window where you have real optionality and the market has not yet decided what it is. Start canvassing eighteen to twenty-four months out, not twelve. The best leverage you will have is a credible alternative, and credible alternatives take time to develop when the viable inventory is thinning.

You have a growing requirement in the 10,000 to 50,000 square foot range. This is the most competitive band in the market right now, per NAI KLNB's read. Quality Class A blocks in Tysons, Reston, and the Rosslyn to Ballston corridor are getting absorbed. BXP announced in January 2026 that all 1.1 million square feet at RTC Next in Reston is fully leased, to tenants including Fannie Mae, Volkswagen, Noblis, Palo Alto Networks, and Ofinno. Comstock announced in November 2025 that Booz Allen Hamilton signed for more than 310,000 square feet at Reston Row, relocating its global headquarters out of Tysons. Trophy blocks are not sitting.

You occupy a building that is a conversion or demolition candidate. Given the volume of Northern Virginia inventory being removed, this is a live risk, not a theoretical one. If your building was built in the 1980s, has deep floorplates, sits on land worth more than the improvements, or has an owner who has stopped investing in it, you need to know that before you negotiate a renewal. Ownership's plans for the asset are the single most important input into what they will give you, and it is not in any market report.

The point

Market reports are written to describe a market. They are not written to be used as evidence in your negotiation, and when you use them that way you are usually arguing against your own interest, because the number you cite is an average that includes deals nothing like yours.

What matters is what landlords in your submarket, at your size, with your credit and your term, actually agreed to in the last six to twelve months. That data exists. It is just not published, because the parties who have it are the ones sitting across the table from you.

That is the gap this practice was built to close.

Brian Perry, CCIM, is Vice President at eXp Commercial and advises office, retail, and medical tenants and buyers across Tysons, Fairfax, Arlington, and the greater Washington region. He represents tenants and buyers exclusively and does not represent landlords.

Sources: Newmark Q2 2026 Northern Virginia Office Market Report; Cushman and Wakefield Washington DC MarketBeat Q2 2026; CBRE Northern Virginia Office Figures Q1 2026; Avison Young Northern Virginia Office Market Report and Northern Virginia TI allowance analysis; NAI KLNB Northern Virginia Office Q1 2026; Transwestern Northern Virginia Office Market Q1 2026; Lincoln Property Company Northern Virginia Office Market Report Q1 2026; Fairfax County FY2027 Advertised Budget; BXP press release, January 12, 2026; Comstock Holding Companies press release, November 17, 2025.