It's a renter's market in office real estate

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. office vacancy rate hit a 15-year high in the fourth quarter and landlords slashed rent last year by the largest amount since at least 1980, real estate research firm Reis Inc said on Friday.

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"This period marks the eighth consecutive quarter since the beginning of 2008 that office properties registered deterioration in occupied space," Victor Calanog, Reis director of research, said in a statement. "We should not understate the amount of pressure that office properties endured since the recession began."

During the fourth quarter the national office vacancy rate climbed 0.40 percentage point from the third quarter to 17 percent, the highest level since 1994.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the U.S. economy has shed 7.2 million jobs, drastically reducing demand for office space and flooding the market with sublease space. To lure or retain tenants, landlords have offered months of free rent and have kicked in for the cost of converting a raw space onto offices.