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It’s been two years and counting.

Office vacancy rates in metropolitan Sacramento rose for the eighth-straight quarter and stood near 20 percent by the end of March, offering no relief for beleaguered landlords. The region’s top brokerages reported a rise of as much as a full percentage point in the first three months of the year. Discounts on rent and tenant improvements aren’t enticing hordes of office users to sign long-term deals because the uncertain economy has them worried, brokers say.

But despite all that, some say the market is starting to show signs of bottoming out.

“My take is that it’s getting worse at a slower pace,” said John Frisch, managing partner at Cornish & Carey Commercial, characterizing the market’s trend toward vacancy and “negative net absorption,” a situation where office users vacate more space than they lease. The brokerage reported the office vacancy rate increased about half a percentage point to 19.3 percent in the first quarter and users vacating about 19,000 square feet regionwide.

The numbers don’t look promising, but Frisch said tenants who seemed “paralyzed” by the economy six months or a year ago are starting to get off the fence and plan to renew their leases or move into new space.

“We’re past denial and were about in the fourth stage of grief,” Frisch said, referring to psychology’s standard model of grieving, where the fourth stage is, incidentally, depression. “We’re at the stage of saying, ‘let’s get on with our lives.’ ”

Tenants might be talking more about making moves, but they’re not necessarily jumping into the market, tenant representatives say.

“People are not prepared to make long-term financial commitments, period,” said Chris Strain, managing broker at Cushman & Wakefield’s Sacramento office, adding that business-owner confidence is shaky. “It’s not a function of price.”

CB Richard Ellis, which tracks the office market for buildings larger than 10,000 square feet, reported vacancy rates at 19.7 percent when available sublease space is considered alongside directly available space.

Garrick Brown, who tracks the market at Colliers International, said the second quarter will likely see the vacancy numbers jump as financial-services company USAA vacates its campus near Business 80 and Arden Way.

“We are enthused by the signs of life on the stock market and we do think the worst of the job losses are behind us,” Brown said. Even so, he says commercial real estate tends to be a lagging indicator, as January layoffs are just starting to materialize as vacant space in the market.

“We have yet to feel the full pain in the commercial real estate sector,” he said. “I expect contraction to be with us through the end of the year with next quarter likely seeing a significant jump in vacancy.”

Landlords are dropping prices in response or offering more hidden deals, such as free rent or other concessions.

“In some submarkets I have seen asking rents decrease by as much as 5 percent in the last three months,” Brown said.