What To Inspect Before You Sign An Office Lease
Office leases vary from city to city, and the laws regarding them do also. Getting yourself an office for your business is a big step, and thus requires a lot of consideration. First of all, you’ll need to know whether you can expand, and secondly, what expansion is going to take out of you. Below are a few of those important considerations that absolutely need to be thought out at length, usually with the entire company in mind.
Whether the Space is Big Enough
This is the main concern for obvious reasons, yet there’s a great amount of variance in why. For example, if you need to hold a meeting and your table isn’t big enough to fit everyone who needs to be there, can an event furniture rental fit in more items for you?
Of course, this is a small consideration compared to the other elements: the rentable space inside your office may come to a lot more than you originally thought, as each square foot is taxed by the landlord.
Also be sure to consider where in a building you want to be. The ground floor has walk in privileges, and the top floor has the view. Usually, the ground floor will have a higher taxable rate, so weigh up whether or not that will be a good investment.
Whether You Can Keep Up with the Costs
This isn’t only the rent each month, but the maintenance and utility bills that you’re going to incur. Knowing who has to pay for what is integral to bypassing any extraneous costs that you did not know you agreed upon when signing the lease. If the lease lasts longer than the usual year, you may be in for a downfall if you find yourself in a situation like this.
To make sure you aren’t accosted by extra expenses, have an agreement set out with a landlord from the beginning, of everything you would have to pay for. Anything that they can claim back when it comes to garnering money out of you should be defined by the law and not whimsical means. It means you won’t have random bills slipped through your door when the landlord needs the money, and you won’t be down in your profit due to this kind of manipulation.
When it comes to the rent cost, this can go up and down depending on how long you plan to stay, and where you are situated. Knowing why your rent may go up is a good preliminary step to take, and therefore calculating your taxes and expenses in advance will give you a good baseline on how much is needed to set aside.
Commercial real estate has both benefits and drawbacks to it, and with the rising inflation across the world, you can never be sure if the rent prices will be up or down. Do your research, get the lease length you know you can keep up with, and let your business growth soar as a result.