LA Commercial Real Estate / Submarket Guide
Los Angeles · Submarket Guide · Q2 2026
Every Los Angeles commercial submarket.
Office vacancy across LA ranges from 5.6% in Southeast Los Angeles to 28.6% in Miracle Mile. Industrial runs from 0.0% in Lakewood to 14.7% in Whittier, and asking rents from $0.75 to $3.00 PSF. Below is every submarket, with the actual numbers, sorted however you need them.
Get help choosing a submarketLos Angeles is not one commercial real estate market. It is roughly eighty distinct submarkets that share a county, a freeway system and a name. A tenant comparing “the LA market” is comparing an average of places that have almost nothing to do with each other — Miracle Mile office at 28.6% vacancy and Southeast LA at 5.6% are not the same market experiencing different conditions. They are different markets.
This page publishes the full submarket dataset rather than a curated selection, because the useful submarket is frequently not one of the famous ones. Then it profiles each region: who leases there, what the product is like, and what the numbers are actually telling you.
How submarkets are defined — and why sources disagree
Read this before comparing any two reports
Submarket boundaries are not official. Every research house draws its own, and they do not match. This is the single biggest source of confusion when comparing market reports, and it produces apparent contradictions that are really just definitional differences.
Three things to know:
Famous neighborhoods are often not submarkets. Century City, Santa Monica and Culver City are among the most-searched office locations in Los Angeles, but in the Kidder Mathews dataset used throughout this page, all three sit inside a single West Los Angeles submarket covering 74.5M SF. If you see a precise vacancy figure quoted for “Century City,” ask which house produced it and how they drew the line — it is frequently a building-level or Class A-only sample presented as a submarket rate.
Office and industrial submarkets are drawn differently. “Mid-Cities” means one thing in the office dataset (8.5M SF around the southeast county line) and something else in industrial (118M SF including Santa Fe Springs, Cerritos and La Mirada). Same name, different geography, different report.
Mid-Cities industrial, in practice. Cerritos is the part of that submarket where zoning does the most work: the M zone permits no use by right, so every tenant clears a conditional use permit before opening. We set out what the Cerritos M zone allows and the conditional use permit path against the section text.
Direct versus total vacancy. Direct excludes sublease space; total includes it. Across LA office that gap is currently about 140 basis points, and in individual submarkets it is much wider — Burbank runs 21.3% direct against 24.0% total. Both figures appear in the tables below.
A note on our sourcing
All figures on this page come from a single research house — Kidder Mathews, Q2 2026 — deliberately. Mixing sources between quarters or between submarkets invents movement that did not happen. If you are building a trend line, pick one house and stay with it. The commentary and profiles are ours.
For asking-rate strategy on a property you own, see our LA commercial property pricing guide, which also reports the CBRE-basis submarket figures for Century City, Beverly Hills and East Downtown.
Office: every submarket
31 submarkets · 377.8M SF · Q2 2026
Sort by any column. Filter by region, or search for a submarket by name. Rents are average direct asking, full-service gross, per square foot per month.
Office Submarket Explorer
| Submarket | Region | Inventory | Direct vac. | Total vac. | Net abs. Q2 | Rent PSF/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burbank | Tri-Cities | 13.9M SF | 21.3% | 24.0% | −28,221 | $4.27 |
| Glendale | Tri-Cities | 11.9M SF | 17.2% | 18.1% | +92,897 | $3.21 |
| Pasadena | Tri-Cities | 16.8M SF | 13.8% | 15.0% | −6,572 | $3.57 |
| Downtown Los Angeles | Downtown | 68.6M SF | 23.7% | 24.8% | −726,198 | $2.97 |
| Mid-Cities | Mid-Cities | 8.5M SF | 6.2% | 6.2% | −28,632 | $2.92 |
| East Hollywood / Silver Lake | Mid-Wilshire | 4.4M SF | 7.4% | 7.7% | −121,150 | $4.11 |
| Hollywood | Mid-Wilshire | 8.6M SF | 22.2% | 23.2% | +15,050 | $4.09 |
| Mid-Wilshire | Mid-Wilshire | 15.1M SF | 18.3% | 18.5% | −213,897 | $2.78 |
| Miracle Mile | Mid-Wilshire | 6.0M SF | 28.6% | 30.0% | −155,458 | $4.03 |
| Park Mile | Mid-Wilshire | 1.7M SF | 27.5% | 28.1% | −31,844 | $3.08 |
| West Hollywood | Mid-Wilshire | 7.7M SF | 11.0% | 12.8% | −15,072 | $4.82 |
| Calabasas / Westlake Village | SFV | 6.9M SF | 17.2% | 19.9% | −32,027 | $2.77 |
| Eastern SFV | SFV | 5.5M SF | 5.6% | 5.9% | −967 | $2.48 |
| Encino | SFV | 4.9M SF | 12.8% | 13.3% | +21,181 | $2.71 |
| North Hollywood | SFV | 2.5M SF | 14.6% | 19.9% | +13,042 | $3.30 |
| Sherman Oaks | SFV | 3.4M SF | 13.6% | 15.1% | −31,427 | $2.69 |
| Studio / Universal Cities | SFV | 3.8M SF | 12.0% | 12.0% | +60,715 | $3.22 |
| Tarzana | SFV | 1.7M SF | 9.6% | 9.9% | +105,438 | $2.86 |
| Western SFV | SFV | 8.1M SF | 7.5% | 8.3% | +5,385 | $2.69 |
| Woodland Hills / Warner Center | SFV | 9.4M SF | 17.9% | 23.0% | +9,958 | $2.44 |
| San Gabriel Valley | SGV | 29.6M SF | 6.9% | 7.0% | −19,426 | $2.80 |
| 190th Street Corridor | South Bay | 3.4M SF | 12.3% | 12.6% | −15,016 | $2.94 |
| Beach Cities / Palos Verdes | South Bay | 4.5M SF | 10.1% | 10.1% | +62,731 | $3.19 |
| El Segundo | South Bay | 18.3M SF | 15.2% | 16.9% | −66,250 | $4.20 |
| Hawthorne / Gardena | South Bay | 2.0M SF | 6.8% | 6.8% | −54,431 | $2.35 |
| LAX | South Bay | 4.6M SF | 27.2% | 27.2% | −49,387 | $2.29 |
| Downtown Long Beach | South Bay | 7.7M SF | 18.1% | 21.4% | −41,496 | $2.79 |
| Suburban Long Beach | South Bay | 8.8M SF | 11.7% | 12.0% | −178,154 | $2.96 |
| Torrance | South Bay | 7.3M SF | 9.3% | 11.6% | +4,390 | $3.15 |
| Southeast Los Angeles | Southeast | 7.8M SF | 5.6% | 5.7% | +44,622 | $2.70 |
| West Los Angeles | West LA | 74.5M SF | 18.2% | 20.4% | −159,128 | $5.05 |
The vacancy spread
Why the citywide average is the least useful number you have
Ranked lowest to highest. The red line is the market-wide direct vacancy rate of 16.4%. Note how few submarkets actually sit near it — the average describes almost nowhere.
Office Vacancy, Ranked
Fifteen submarkets sit below the market average and sixteen above it, but the distribution is not symmetric. The tight end clusters between 5% and 10% — genuinely landlord-favorable markets with limited, mostly older inventory. The loose end runs from 22% to nearly 29%, and those submarkets contain a disproportionate share of the county’s Class A tower space. In practice this means the average is pulled upward by a small number of very large, very empty submarkets.
Industrial: every submarket
49 submarkets · 755.5M SF · Q2 2026
Industrial is where the submarket detail matters most, because the product is far less substitutable than office. A 24-foot-clear building in Santa Fe Springs and a 16-foot-clear building in Huntington Park are different assets serving different users, and the rent gap reflects that as much as location does.
Industrial Submarket Explorer
| Submarket | Region | Inventory | Direct vac. | Total vac. | Net abs. Q2 | Rent PSF/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bell / Bell Gardens / Maywood | Central | 7.7M SF | 2.9% | 2.9% | +9,936 | $1.24 |
| Commerce | Central | 45.5M SF | 6.6% | 7.5% | +108,759 | $1.29 |
| Huntington Park / Cudahy | Central | 4.7M SF | 5.6% | 5.8% | −46,910 | $1.00 |
| Los Angeles (city core) | Central | 127.8M SF | 6.7% | 7.0% | −45,419 | $1.52 |
| Montebello / Monterey Park | Central | 11.9M SF | 4.9% | 5.4% | −223,732 | $1.35 |
| Pico Rivera | Central | 10.3M SF | 7.0% | 7.4% | −102,682 | $1.37 |
| South Gate | Central | 10.1M SF | 1.5% | 1.5% | +5,594 | $1.08 |
| Vernon | Central | 45.0M SF | 6.3% | 7.0% | −260,651 | $1.23 |
| Artesia / Cerritos | Mid-Cities | 13.1M SF | 5.7% | 6.7% | −22,734 | $1.08 |
| Bellflower / Downey | Mid-Cities | 5.7M SF | 1.9% | 2.8% | +9,049 | $1.78 |
| Buena Park / La Palma | Mid-Cities | 14.9M SF | 10.9% | 18.5% | +26,520 | $1.27 |
| La Mirada | Mid-Cities | 13.2M SF | 12.3% | 14.1% | −478,538 | $1.23 |
| Norwalk | Mid-Cities | 2.9M SF | 2.1% | 2.5% | +8,003 | — |
| Paramount | Mid-Cities | 9.5M SF | 4.1% | 4.1% | −3,919 | $1.10 |
| Santa Fe Springs | Mid-Cities | 54.5M SF | 4.5% | 5.0% | +68,139 | $1.40 |
| Whittier | Mid-Cities | 4.0M SF | 14.7% | 14.9% | −4,747 | $1.19 |
| Alhambra | SGV | 2.3M SF | 1.4% | 2.3% | +3,243 | $1.40 |
| Arcadia / Temple City | SGV | 3.1M SF | 5.8% | 5.8% | −7,233 | $3.00 |
| Azusa | SGV | 6.8M SF | 8.7% | 11.8% | +183,918 | $1.12 |
| Baldwin Park | SGV | 5.3M SF | 1.7% | 1.7% | +22,310 | $1.25 |
| City of Industry / DB / HH / RH | SGV | 77.7M SF | 3.9% | 5.1% | +570,110 | $1.37 |
| Covina / West Covina | SGV | 3.6M SF | 3.8% | 4.2% | −6,234 | $2.02 |
| Duarte | SGV | 1.7M SF | 9.6% | 9.6% | −50,286 | $1.22 |
| El Monte | SGV | 8.9M SF | 5.8% | 5.9% | +22,703 | $0.98 |
| Irwindale | SGV | 13.5M SF | 6.9% | 7.0% | −55,346 | $1.21 |
| La Puente | SGV | 2.2M SF | 7.3% | 7.3% | +46,113 | $1.24 |
| Glendora / La Verne / San Dimas | SGV | 6.7M SF | 8.9% | 8.9% | −47,644 | $1.45 |
| Monrovia | SGV | 3.3M SF | 3.3% | 3.3% | +258 | $1.70 |
| Pomona / Claremont | SGV | 20.2M SF | 3.2% | 4.5% | −26,251 | $1.12 |
| Rosemead / San Gabriel | SGV | 2.2M SF | 2.3% | 2.3% | +4,780 | $1.21 |
| South El Monte | SGV | 11.4M SF | 2.8% | 3.3% | +98,178 | $1.50 |
| Walnut | SGV | 7.2M SF | 4.3% | 4.4% | −36,661 | $1.27 |
| Carson | South Bay | 36.0M SF | 6.4% | 6.6% | −8,713 | $1.50 |
| Compton | South Bay | 25.4M SF | 10.0% | 11.5% | −537,350 | $1.28 |
| El Segundo | South Bay | 8.1M SF | 3.9% | 4.1% | −14,741 | $2.18 |
| Gardena | South Bay | 29.0M SF | 7.3% | 7.3% | −187,612 | $1.35 |
| Harbor City | South Bay | 1.8M SF | 6.2% | 6.2% | +90 | — |
| Hawthorne | South Bay | 8.7M SF | 1.9% | 2.2% | +12,785 | $1.76 |
| Inglewood | South Bay | 4.8M SF | 1.9% | 4.5% | −4,819 | $1.86 |
| Lakewood / Hawaiian Gardens | South Bay | 509K SF | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0 | $0.75 |
| Lawndale | South Bay | 280K SF | 4.6% | 4.6% | +1,050 | — |
| Long Beach / Terminal Island | South Bay | 25.0M SF | 9.8% | 11.2% | −50,488 | $1.47 |
| Lynwood | South Bay | 4.1M SF | 2.1% | 2.1% | −27,804 | $1.15 |
| Rancho Dominguez | South Bay | 13.7M SF | 6.4% | 8.1% | +19,385 | $1.26 |
| Redondo / Hermosa Beach | South Bay | 1.8M SF | 3.1% | 3.1% | −51,229 | — |
| San Pedro | South Bay | 2.8M SF | 13.2% | 13.2% | −1,455 | $1.97 |
| Signal Hill | South Bay | 3.0M SF | 3.6% | 5.1% | +18,828 | $1.37 |
| Torrance | South Bay | 29.4M SF | 6.4% | 7.8% | +357,261 | $1.69 |
| Wilmington | South Bay | 4.1M SF | 5.8% | 6.9% | −157,289 | $1.27 |
Find your submarket
Filter the dataset by what you actually care about
Most submarket selection starts with a commute radius, which is the wrong input. Start with what your business needs from the location, then see which submarkets satisfy it.
Submarket Matcher
This ranks the dataset, it does not replace a search. Inventory depth matters more than most tenants expect — a submarket with a low vacancy rate but only 2M SF of inventory may have fewer genuinely available options than a larger submarket with a tighter percentage. Set the minimum inventory filter to reflect how much choice you actually need.
West Los Angeles
74.5M SF · 18.2% direct vacancy · $5.05 PSF
The largest and most expensive office submarket in the county, and the one that contains most of what people mean when they say “the Westside” — Century City, Santa Monica, Culver City, Brentwood, Westwood, Playa Vista and Venice all sit inside it.
Asking rents of $5.05 PSF are more than double the cheapest submarkets and 44% above the market average. Vacancy at 18.2% direct is above the LA average, but that number conceals enormous internal dispersion: trophy Class A towers in Century City and repriced Class B product in Sawtelle are in the same statistic.
West LA also carries the most leasing activity of any submarket by a wide margin — 975,279 SF in Q2 and 2.23M SF year to date, roughly 27% of all LA office leasing. The market is not dead; it is expensive and selective.
It is also where the county’s meaningful office construction is happening. Century City Center delivered 825,000 SF in June 2026, and Apple’s 536,000 SF LA campus is due June 2027.
Who leases here: law, finance, entertainment, talent agencies, technology, private equity, and the entertainment-adjacent professional services that follow them. Apple renewed 76,892 SF at the Hayden Tract in April 2026.
The read: if your business needs the Westside address for recruiting or client credibility, you pay for it and there is no discount version. If it does not, you are paying a very large premium for geography.
Downtown Los Angeles
68.6M SF · 23.7% direct vacancy · $2.97 PSF
The most distressed major office submarket in the county, and consequently the one with the deepest tenant leverage. Vacancy is 23.7% direct and 24.8% total. Q2 direct net absorption was −726,198 SF, the worst of any LA submarket by a factor of three.
Asking rents of $2.97 PSF are 15% below the market average, in a submarket containing the county’s largest concentration of Class A tower space. That combination does not exist anywhere else in Los Angeles.
The sales data tells the story more starkly than the leasing data. In Q2 2026, Bank of America Plaza traded at $147.71 PSF and Wells Fargo Center at $107.09 PSF — against the Bedford Collection in West LA at $1,085.25 PSF the same quarter. That is a ten-to-one spread in the same county.
Owner-users are taking advantage. The Capital Group bought Bank of America Plaza; LADWP bought 865 S Figueroa for $92.5M. When institutions buy their own buildings at these bases, it signals a floor being tested.
Who leases here: law, government, financial services, non-profits, and increasingly owner-occupiers who have concluded that buying at $130 PSF beats leasing anywhere else.
The read: for a tenant with flexibility on address, this is the best value in Los Angeles office and it is not close. For an investor, the question is whether a specific building is a conversion candidate or a stranded asset — and that is floor-plate, window-line and parking specific, not submarket-wide.
Tri-Cities: Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena
42.5M SF · 17.2% direct vacancy · $3.80 PSF
Three adjacent submarkets with genuinely different characters, which is why the combined figure is misleading.
| Submarket | Inventory | Direct vac. | Rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burbank | 13.9M SF | 21.3% | $4.27 |
| Glendale | 11.9M SF | 17.2% | $3.21 |
| Pasadena | 16.8M SF | 13.8% | $3.57 |
Burbank is the media production center and carries both the highest rent and the highest vacancy of the three — 21.3% direct, 24.0% total. That gap between direct and total is the widest in the region and reflects studio and production tenants putting space on the sublease market. It is also where the quarter’s largest LA office lease was signed: 78,064 SF at Media Studios Phase IV. Sony Entertainment and Insomniac Games both renewed at 2255 N Ontario. Content production is consolidating, not leaving.
Glendale is the value play of the three at $3.21 PSF, and the only Tri-Cities submarket with meaningfully positive absorption in Q2 (+92,897 SF). Back-office, healthcare administration and financial services.
Pasadena is the tightest at 13.8%, with professional services, healthcare and an institutional tenant base anchored by Caltech and the JPL orbit.
The read: Burbank if you need to be in the production ecosystem. Glendale if you want Tri-Cities access at a discount. Pasadena if you want stability and a professional-services address.
Mid-Wilshire and Hollywood
43.4M SF · 18.5% direct vacancy · $3.41 PSF
The most internally divergent region in Los Angeles office. It contains both the highest-vacancy submarket in the county and one of the tightest.
| Submarket | Inventory | Direct vac. | Rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| East Hollywood / Silver Lake | 4.4M SF | 7.4% | $4.11 |
| West Hollywood | 7.7M SF | 11.0% | $4.82 |
| Mid-Wilshire | 15.1M SF | 18.3% | $2.78 |
| Hollywood | 8.6M SF | 22.2% | $4.09 |
| Park Mile | 1.7M SF | 27.5% | $3.08 |
| Miracle Mile | 6.0M SF | 28.6% | $4.03 |
Miracle Mile at 28.6% direct and 30.0% total is the emptiest office submarket in Los Angeles, and it is still asking $4.03 PSF — above the market average. That is a market where face rate has decoupled from reality and the entire negotiation happens in concessions.
West Hollywood is the opposite: 11.0% vacancy at $4.82 PSF, the second-highest rent in the county. Design, entertainment, media and creative agencies, in a small and tightly held inventory.
Hollywood at 22.2% is where the streaming contraction shows up most clearly, though it posted modestly positive absorption in Q2. Bardas Investment Group’s Echelon Studios (606,740 SF) delivers October 2026, which will add supply to an already loose submarket.
The read: Miracle Mile and Park Mile are where the deepest office concessions in Los Angeles are available right now. West Hollywood and East Hollywood/Silver Lake are genuinely tight and priced accordingly.
San Fernando Valley
46.3M SF · 12.7% direct vacancy · $2.75 PSF
The Valley is the quiet outperformer of the LA office market: vacancy nearly four points below the county average, the region’s only meaningfully positive Q2 absorption (+151,298 SF), and rents 21% below market.
The tight end is very tight. Eastern SFV runs 5.6% direct at $2.48 PSF — tied for the lowest vacancy in the county at one of the lowest rents. Western SFV is 7.5% at $2.69. Tarzana posted +105,438 SF of absorption in a 1.7M SF submarket, which is a large move in a small market.
The loose end is Woodland Hills/Warner Center at 17.9% direct but 23.0% total — a 510 basis point sublease gap, the widest proportional gap in the region — and Calabasas/Westlake Village at 17.2%.
Who leases here: healthcare, financial services, back-office operations, post-production, and businesses whose staff live in the Valley and whose clients do not require a Westside address.
The read: the best value-per-dollar in LA office for a business that does not need a prestige address. Studio/Universal Cities at 12.0% and $3.22 is the natural landing spot for entertainment-adjacent tenants priced out of Burbank.
San Gabriel Valley
Office: 29.6M SF · 6.9% vacancy · $2.80 | Industrial: 176.1M SF · 4.5% · $1.41 NNN
The SGV is the tightest large market in Los Angeles on both product types, and it is consistently overlooked because it lacks a marquee address.
Office vacancy of 6.9% across 29.6M SF is remarkable — less than half the county rate, in a submarket larger than Burbank and Glendale combined. Rents are $2.80 PSF.
Industrial is where the SGV really matters. At 4.5% direct vacancy across 176.1M SF, it is the second-largest industrial region in the county and the tightest. It also posted the strongest Q2 absorption of any industrial region at +721,958 SF, driven almost entirely by City of Industry.
City of Industry alone is 77.7M SF at 3.9% vacancy and $1.37 NNN — larger than the entire Mid-Cities office market, and the single most important logistics submarket in the county after the South Bay. It absorbed +570,110 SF in Q2.
The rent dispersion within the SGV is the widest of any region: from $0.98 in El Monte to $3.00 in Arcadia/Temple City. Arcadia at three dollars is an outlier driven by very small, high-finish inventory — 3.1M SF total — and should not be read as an SGV benchmark.
The read: if you are a logistics, distribution or light manufacturing user and you do not specifically need port adjacency, the SGV is where the functional product is. Expect competition and little leverage.
South Bay
Office: 56.5M SF · 14.4% · $3.19 | Industrial: 198.4M SF · 6.9% · $1.47 NNN
The largest industrial region in the county and the center of the aerospace, defense and advanced manufacturing cluster that is currently the most active demand source in Los Angeles.
Q2 2026 industrial leasing in the South Bay was 2.26M SF — more than any other region — despite negative net absorption of −632,101 SF. That combination means large move-outs and large new commitments happening simultaneously, which is what a market in transition looks like.
The quarter’s marquee deals were all here: Valar Atomics leased 512,490 SF at Bridge Point South Bay from Morgan Stanley, and Divergent Technologies took 415,312 SF at Bridge Point Long Beach. Karman Space & Defense signed 150,000 SF in Torrance at $2.50 NNN — well above the regional average, which tells you what functional new product commands.
Torrance is the region’s center of gravity: 29.4M SF, 6.4% vacancy, $1.69 NNN, and +357,261 SF of Q2 absorption — the strongest in the South Bay. New construction there is commanding some of the highest industrial rents in the region.
The soft spots are Compton at 10.0% direct vacancy with −537,350 SF of Q2 absorption, and Long Beach/Terminal Island at 9.8%. Both are port-oriented and have repriced hardest. San Pedro at 13.2% is the loosest in the region.
On the office side, El Segundo (15.2%, $4.20) is the aerospace and tech office center, while LAX at 27.2% vacancy and $2.29 PSF is the cheapest office submarket in Los Angeles — and the second-emptiest.
The read: if you are in aerospace, defense, satellite or advanced manufacturing, this is the cluster and you should expect to compete for functional product. If you are a traditional warehouse or 3PL user, the port-adjacent submarkets have the leverage right now.
Central industrial: Vernon, Commerce and the infill core
263.1M SF · 6.2% direct vacancy · $1.34 NNN
The largest industrial region in Los Angeles by inventory and the definition of infill — there is essentially no developable land, and what exists is expensive.
The headline submarkets:
| Submarket | Inventory | Direct vac. | Rent NNN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles (city core) | 127.8M SF | 6.7% | $1.52 |
| Commerce | 45.5M SF | 6.6% | $1.29 |
| Vernon | 45.0M SF | 6.3% | $1.23 |
| Montebello / Monterey Park | 11.9M SF | 4.9% | $1.35 |
| South Gate | 10.1M SF | 1.5% | $1.08 |
| Bell / Bell Gardens / Maywood | 7.7M SF | 2.9% | $1.24 |
South Gate at 1.5% vacancy is effectively full, and at $1.08 NNN it is among the cheapest industrial in the county. That combination — very tight and very cheap — means older, smaller, functionally limited product that nonetheless never sits empty because there is no alternative at that price point.
Vernon posted the region’s largest negative absorption at −260,651 SF in Q2 and −572,616 SF year to date, but this is a 45M SF submarket — that is roughly 1.3% of inventory, not a collapse. Goodman’s 263,409 SF LAX01 Vernon project delivered June 2026.
The quarter’s largest industrial sale was here: Golden West Food in Vernon, 238,457 SF at $365.44 PSF.
The read: this is last-mile distribution and food processing territory, and it trades on location rather than building quality. Expect older product, tight columns, limited clear height and constrained truck access. If your operation needs modern specifications, look to Santa Fe Springs, City of Industry or Torrance instead.
Where industries actually cluster
| Industry | Primary submarkets |
|---|---|
| Entertainment & production | Burbank, Hollywood, Culver City (West LA), Studio/Universal Cities |
| Law & finance | West LA (Century City), Downtown LA, Pasadena |
| Technology & creative | West LA (Santa Monica, Playa Vista, Venice), West Hollywood |
| Aerospace, defense & satellite | South Bay — El Segundo, Torrance, Hawthorne |
| Last-mile logistics | Vernon, Commerce, Central LA, Rancho Dominguez |
| Regional distribution & 3PL | City of Industry, Santa Fe Springs, Carson |
| Port & import logistics | Long Beach/Terminal Island, Wilmington, Carson |
| Healthcare & medical office | Pasadena, Glendale, Encino, Torrance |
| Food processing | Vernon, Commerce, South Gate |
| Back office & shared services | Glendale, Woodland Hills, Suburban Long Beach |
Clustering is not sentimental. Being in the right cluster affects hiring, vendor access, client proximity and — through lease comparables — what you pay. It also affects your exit: a building that suits a cluster tenant has a deeper buyer and tenant pool than one that does not.
RelatedCommercial leasing in Los Angeles: the complete guide RelatedBuying commercial property in Los Angeles Back to the hubLos Angeles commercial real estate: 2026 market guideFrequently asked questions
Which LA office submarket has the lowest vacancy?
Southeast Los Angeles and Eastern San Fernando Valley are tied at 5.6% direct vacancy as of Q2 2026, followed by Mid-Cities at 6.2% and Hawthorne/Gardena at 6.8%. San Gabriel Valley is the tightest large submarket at 6.9% across 29.6M SF.
The highest are Miracle Mile at 28.6%, Park Mile at 27.5%, and LAX at 27.2%. The market-wide direct rate is 16.4%.
What is the cheapest office submarket in Los Angeles?
LAX at $2.29 PSF per month full-service, followed by Hawthorne/Gardena at $2.35 and Woodland Hills/Warner Center at $2.44. The most expensive is West Los Angeles at $5.05, then West Hollywood at $4.82 and Burbank at $4.27.
Note that LAX is cheap because it is 27.2% empty, while Hawthorne/Gardena is cheap at 6.8% vacancy — a very different situation. Low rent and high leverage are not the same thing.
Where can commercial tenants get the best deal in LA right now?
For office, Downtown Los Angeles offers the strongest combination of scale and softness — 23.7% direct vacancy across 68.6M SF at $2.97 PSF, which is 15% below the market average in the county’s largest concentration of Class A tower space. Miracle Mile and Park Mile have higher vacancy but much less inventory and higher asking rates.
For industrial, the port-adjacent submarkets have repriced hardest: Compton at 10.0% vacancy, Long Beach/Terminal Island at 9.8%, and San Pedro at 13.2%.
Is Century City a separate submarket?
Not in most research datasets. In the Kidder Mathews data used on this page, Century City sits inside the West Los Angeles submarket along with Santa Monica, Culver City, Brentwood, Westwood, Playa Vista and Venice — 74.5M SF at 18.2% direct vacancy and $5.05 PSF.
Some houses do break out Century City separately, and building-level data certainly exists. But a precise “Century City vacancy rate” quoted without a stated source and methodology should be treated carefully — it is often a Class A-only or building-level sample presented as a submarket rate.
Why do different reports give different vacancy rates for the same submarket?
Four reasons. Geographic boundaries are drawn differently by each research house. Inventory floors differ — some datasets include buildings under 20,000 SF, some do not. Direct vacancy excludes sublease space while total vacancy includes it, and that gap is currently about 140 basis points market-wide. And some datasets remove buildings undergoing conversion from the competitive set while others do not.
For a lease negotiation, use your specific submarket’s rate. For a trend line, pick one research house and stay with it across quarters.
Which LA industrial submarket is tightest?
Lakewood/Hawaiian Gardens shows 0.0% direct vacancy, though it is a tiny 509,173 SF submarket. Among meaningful inventory: Alhambra at 1.4%, South Gate at 1.5%, Baldwin Park at 1.7%, and Bellflower/Downey, Hawthorne and Inglewood all at 1.9%.
The tightest large submarket is City of Industry at 3.9% across 77.7M SF. Region-wide, San Gabriel Valley is tightest at 4.5%, against a market-wide direct rate of 6.0%.
What does industrial space cost by submarket?
Average direct asking rents range from $0.75 PSF per month NNN in Lakewood/Hawaiian Gardens to $3.00 in Arcadia/Temple City, with the market average at $1.37. Most core industrial submarkets cluster between roughly $1.20 and $1.70.
Remember these are NNN — add pass-throughs of roughly $0.15 to $0.30 PSF per month to compare against a gross quote. And the extremes are usually small submarkets with unusual inventory rather than genuine market signals.
Which submarket should my entertainment company be in?
Burbank remains the production center — it carries the highest Tri-Cities rent at $4.27 and saw both the quarter’s largest LA office lease and renewals from Sony Entertainment and Insomniac Games. But it also has 21.3% direct and 24.0% total vacancy, so there is real leverage available.
Hollywood at 22.2% is the alternative with more space and comparable rent at $4.09. Studio/Universal Cities in the Valley at 12.0% and $3.22 is the value option for entertainment-adjacent businesses that do not need a studio-lot address. Culver City sits inside West Los Angeles and prices accordingly.
Is Downtown LA office a good investment right now?
It depends entirely on the specific building, which is the honest answer. Q2 2026 saw Bank of America Plaza trade at $147.71 PSF and Wells Fargo Center at $107.09 PSF, against $1,085.25 PSF for a West LA asset the same quarter. Owner-users including The Capital Group and LADWP have been buying.
The question on any Downtown asset is whether it is a conversion candidate, a repositioning candidate, or a stranded asset — and that turns on floor plate, window line, parking ratio and structural system, not on the submarket average. Underwrite rollover with real downtime, real TI and effective rather than face rents.
How much office space is actually being leased in LA?
Total leasing activity was 3,389,791 SF in Q2 2026, with year-to-date volume of roughly 8.2M SF — down 56.8% from the same period in 2025. Direct net absorption was negative 1,539,344 SF for the quarter.
West Los Angeles accounted for 975,279 SF of Q2 leasing, roughly 29% of the market total, followed by Downtown LA at 544,993 SF and Tri-Cities at 538,391 SF. Note that other research houses report different leasing and absorption figures for the same quarter due to differing methodologies.
What is driving industrial demand in Los Angeles?
Advanced manufacturing, aerospace and defense, satellite and space companies — concentrated heavily in the South Bay. Traditional warehouse and 3PL users remain active for functional, well-located product.
Q2 2026 leasing totalled 6.2M SF. The largest deals were Valar Atomics at 512,490 SF and Divergent Technologies at 415,312 SF, both in the South Bay. Class A product sees the strongest demand, though Class B has been gaining momentum, while less functional Class B space continues to face leasing headwinds.
Should I choose a submarket based on commute?
Commute matters, but it is the wrong starting point. Start with what the business needs from the location: proximity to your customers, your cluster, your talent pool, your suppliers, or your logistics network. Then apply commute as a filter within that set.
Inventory depth also matters more than most tenants expect. A submarket with low vacancy but small total inventory may offer fewer genuinely suitable options than a larger submarket with a higher vacancy percentage.
Local Market Expertise
Active in every submarket we serve.
Submarket data narrows the field. Choosing the building takes comparable transactions, off-market availability and knowing which landlords actually trade. Tell us the requirement and we will tell you where it belongs.