Southwest Florida was ranked fifth among the country’s mid-sized markets in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to commercial real estate data provider Commercial Cafe. The site evaluated how the 100 largest office markets in the country fared through the final quarter of 2024 and then compared their performances in terms of fundamentals — including asking rent, vacancy, market expansion and loan maturities — to score how each of them stepped into the new year. Office vacancy in Southwest Florida reached the second lowest rate among markets with less than 100 million square feet of office space at 9.8%, compared to 10.2% in the third quarter. The region scored among the 20 best entries for expansion of the office market compared to the third quarter in terms of both space added in the fourth quarter and the percentage of office stock it represented. Miami was the top-ranked mid-size office market, followed by the Inland Empire region in California, Richmond, Virginia; and the Central Valley region of California.