Houston companies are renewing office leases, as opposed to finding new digs

More companies in Houston and nationally are staying put, as opposed to moving to new spaces.

The big picture: Most of the biggest U.S. office leases got renewed last year, as companies continue to adjust to a workweek that's part remote and part in office , Sami Sparber reports based on a report first shared with Axios .

By the numbers: 58 of the 100 largest office leases by square footage nationally in 2023 were renewals, per a report from CBRE , a commercial real estate firm.

• That's a big shift from 2019, when 68% of the top 100 were new leases and 32% were renewals.
• In Houston, 66 office leases greater than 10,000 square feet were renewals, according to CBRE. Those renewals account for more than 2 million square feet of office space.

The intrigue: At 22.2%, the share of available rental space in Houston last year was among the highest in the country .

The fine print: Employers around the country are shrinking their office footprints and looking to rein in costs, Axios' Emily Peck reports .

State of play: Job growth is expected to slow in Houston this year, per the Greater Houston Partnership.

• "The Houston region has been running at a sprint ever since emerging from the pandemic," the partnership's chief economist Patrick Jankowski told Axios in December . "So, while growth will slow down [in 2024], Houston's economy remains resilient."

Context: While companies are leasing less space, they're betting higher-quality space in prime locations will get workers to come into the office more often, according to CBRE.

• Three-quarters of the top 100 leases by square footage were in top-rated buildings, per the report.

Between the lines: Newer buildings have seen more move-ins than move-outs since before the pandemic, Jessica Morin, CBRE's director of U.S. office research, tells Axios.

• Companies "are striving for the most efficient use of their space as they adapt to hybrid work, and they're often choosing to do so in the best-quality space," Mike Watts, a president at CBRE, said in a press release.

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