Calabasas passes. (Real Estate).

Los Angeles County's best performing office market could be getting another boost.

Countrywide Credit Industries Inc. is shopping for 150,000 square feet in the San Gabriel Valley, according to local real estate sources. The Calabasas-based mortgage lender, which has more than doubled

Potential sites include the 200,000-squarefoot Rosemead building Chicago Title Co. vacated after merging with Fidelity National Title, and a building at Flair Business Park in El Monte. Officials at Countrywide declined comment on the site search.

A deal of the size Countrywide is considering would further bolster a submarket that has defied the region's softening office sector over the past year. The San Gabriel Valley, which absorbed 222,000 square feet in the fourth quarter of 2001, was the only submarket in the county whose vacancy rate dropped between the third and fourth quarters of last year, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.