Starting out on the road to self employment can be as terrifying as it is gratifying, particularly when trying to choose an office. There will be many factors to consider when it comes to deciding which office space you want, some of which may be contractual; You may find the perfect office on to have a the landlord make unrealistic or unreasonable demands. So it’s important to not decide on the office you want just because it is in a great location and has great facilities – keep an open mind and decide only when you have sat down with the landlord or agent and gone through the finer details.

Fees

Very often these days you’ll find a lot of add on fees that seem add up, so that monthly fee you had budgeted for your workspace isn’t going to give you the corporate look you had hoped for.  The good news is a lot of these fees can be negotiated down or even negated completely provided your not afraid to make a few demands.

Office Service Fees To Look Out For

With serviced offices cleaning fees are generally included in the rent but did you know that many office hire companies such as Regus charge a cleaning fee after you vacate the office you were renting from them. This fee may be justified by repainting the office for the new tenant but if you have rented for a a short time  maybe three months it may not be necessary and therefore you shouldn’t have to pay for work done. Try discussing this with the agent to see if they will reduce this fee perhaps by agreeing to inspect the office after you have vacated and to see if repainting is necessary.

Another fee that can be negotiated are connection fees.  Telephone connection and broadband connection are both chargeable one off fees that you can get reduced or wiped with some careful negotiation: ‘Everyone has phones in their workplace, that’s a given and I will pay rental fees and call charges every month, so why should I pay for the connection’. Broadband connection fees in serviced office are also open to discussion:”You press a couple of buttons to connect my computer to your network and I have to pay how much?!”.

Go Direct

Going directly to a serviced office company often will cut out the middle man – agents and affiliates, that is, that get a cut of your rent or a one off payment. If you can factor that cost reduction into your bargaining you can save yourself some money.

These tips will hopefully help you on your endeavour to find low cost office space and secure a perfect functioning working environment no matter what size office you are hiring, so good luck and go get ‘em!

When you are choosing your cheap office space there are of course a few things you should consider carefully. While price will of course be a very important factor, there is no point selling yourself and your business short for the sake of the cheapest office space going.

Make sure that there will be capacity for you to take further office space should you need to as your business grows, finding that you have to uproot your entire company because you need an extra office or two is not a position you want to find yourself in. Most good quality office rental companies will always have some spare space should you need it.

Take into consideration the location of the building. If you are going to have customers coming to visit, you don’t want them to have to walk through an industrial estate, or down an alley to reach your offices, likewise you don’t want your staff to feel like they are working in the back end of no-where, especially if you want to keep moral high, or ask people to work late to get things done.  This point goes hand in hand with the next really – the appearance of the reception area. First impressions count, and if you have clients walking into a dark, dingy unkempt reception area it isn’t going to give them a good impression of your business, even if they are aware that you are operating out of rented office space. It will give the impression that you are not particularly fussy about the standard of your surroundings and this could easily be translated into not being fussy about the standard of work you carry out.

Be sure that your staff have enough space. Of course keeping costs to a minimum is important, but squashing four people into a two person office is going to do nothing for moral and work rates except send them plummeting through the floor. This also goes with making sure you have enough room, and adequate facilities for any storage you might need, every business has files and papers that need to be kept but you don’t want them around on a daily basis,  so you will need some kind of separate storage to be provided.

To find cheap office space in London is getting easier and easier due to the economic slowdown that seems to be occurring at the moment. Empty offices are building up all over the capital as firms cease to trade or downsize their office space as they downsize their workforce. This has an impact throughout the office supply chain, not only the commercial real estate landlords but the specialised office letting agents also. If you take on the services of a office finder letting agent, it is with all likelihood that you will be able to negotiate very favourable terms, as without placing tenants these agencies cannot bring in the revenue. The first step to finding cheap office space is to decide which area you are interested. Carry out a search on a reputable search engine and select a page or advert to click on. In all likelihood you will go straight through to an office broker who acts as the middleman or agent between you the potential office you will hire. They get a commission for each office they let. It is rare for the person or company who hires the office to pay any commission or charges to the office broker, as usualy it’s the company that owns the office who will pay the broker. Anyway, the office broker generally will provide you with the list of offices they have available to rent to you, within the set amount you require. Here’s where it can get tricky, due to hidden costs. Some big office space chains will try and charge you a moving in fee, usually about the price of one month’s rent. This can usually be negotiated away, sespecially in the current economic climate, so don’t pay it. They are there to service you afterall. You must also enquire as to the other hiden charges that can pile up, telephone connection fees are one example, where the office provider charges you to hire a phone line from them, they try to charge you an admin fee just for them pressing a few buttons to connect you. Other fes to be wary of are cleaning fees. Generally they’re included, but make sure.