Whether you’ve been working remotely for a while or only recently started, you might be wondering what options there are for renting an office in your area. Working from home has its advantages, especially if you’re in an area that sees plenty of snow, but it’s hard not feeling a bit stir-crazy after a while.
Having a place to work that gets you out of the house has all sorts of benefits worth considering. On top of that, choosing where to rent an office is a big decision. You could always search for the nearest office complex, but there are a lot of disadvantages to that option compared to something like coworking.
In the end, you want an office that allows you to stay motivated, focused, and productive while working. Ideally, your place of work should also empower your work in some way while also not winding up as a source of stress. If you haven’t rented your own office already, you may not know that one of the largest forms of stress is dealing with difficult property managers who lock you into long term office leases.
Risks of Long Term Leases
One of the main advantages coworking has over renting your own office is that they tend to offer membership options that are shorter than your average office lease. Instead of needing to commit to a full 12 months, many coworking spaces offer 6 month memberships, 3 month memberships, or even month-to-month options.
This flexibility lets you explore coworking without taking on a risk as large as a 12-month commitment. A lot can change in one year. If you’re looking for office space for a small team of people, that team might outgrow the office you’re locked in with for 12 months. If you work alone, you may wind up at a different company with different office needs within that period of time.
Contracts That Are Hard to Break
If you do wind up needing to break or change your office lease in some way, you might wind up with a stingy property manager that will charge you a fee for changing or breaking your lease. Even if you’re in an unfortunate situation, like losing a job, many office complexes will not give you any wiggle room on the cost of breaking a leasing contract.
Options like coworking mitigate these risks by providing shorter membership options so you don’t need to start a long term commitment just to start working, and ending that membership is often as easy as giving them a one month notice. An agreement like that is much easier to handle compared to potentially paying for another 6+ months on an office you suddenly don’t need anymore.
Property Managers Know You’re Locked In With Them
On top of the legal side to long term office contracts, you might wind up dealing with challenging property managers who will take advantage of the fact that you’re locked in a long term contract with them. Assuming nothing goes wrong with your work situation, this might be a non-issue, but you may also find yourself seeing the ugly side of property management if you need to change or end your contract early.
Even if you can refer someone to take your place in an office so that the property manager experiences no financial disruption on their end, they may still see your contract change as an opportunity for more income.
Large Price Jumps When Renewing a Lease
In today’s inflated world, you may have noticed increasing rental rates both at home and for commercial properties. These changes can seem sudden, and some areas have seen astronomical rent increases that make it impossible for people to stay in a place they’ve been working in for years.
Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to see these jumps in rent ahead of time. You’ll usually get at least a month’s notice, but if your property manager hikes up prices enough to force you to move, a month can easily feel like too little time to find, secure, and move into a new office. Hopefully your property manager is more considerate than this and can at least give you a few months of notice on changes in rental prices.
With coworking, you’re less likely to run into these sudden jumps in price. Coworking spaces want to stay competitive, especially compared to renting your own office, so they will likely offer options that have a lower monthly cost per square foot of space. We want to keep our coworking members while continuing to attract new ones.
