Downward pressure on office rents is easing, a sign that the U.S. commercial real estate market may be poised for recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Effective rents on approximately 4 billion square feet of office space tracked by Reis Inc. fell only 1 cent in the third quarter, the smallest quarterly decline since 2008.

Taking into account concessions such as a few months of free rent, Reis said effective rents were $22.05 per square foot per year in the most recent quarter, which was 12 percent below the 2008 high of $25.07.

And though the commercial real estate industry’s rebound is expected to take some time, some cities are already beginning to see a turnaround.

In New York, rents were up 0.2 percent to $43.75 in the third quarter, following a 19 percent drop in 2009. And in Washington, D.C., which has a healthy 90.2 percent office occupancy rate, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently paid $44.80 per square foot to lease 900,000 square feet of office space near the National Mall.

Nationwide, vacancy rates in the second and third quarters of 2010 also experienced smaller changes than throughout 2009, another sign of that the market is bottoming out.

“If we’re not at the stabilization point, we’re getting close,” said Ryan Severino, an economist with Reis.

In the third quarter, 1.9 million square feet of office space was vacated in the 79 metro areas tracked by Reis, pushing the national office vacancy rate to 17.5 percent, the highest level since 1993.

But the research firm doesn’t expect the vacancy rate to reach the high of 18.7 percent set in 1992, when the commercial real estate industry was saddled with too much space as a result of overbuilding.

Rents continue to fall in cities hit hard by the housing bust, such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Diego.