14 Ways You Can Save Money When Renting An Office Space
Funding is one of the significant limitations most entrepreneurs face when they want to venture into renting an office space. Getting an office space is a huge responsibility, and most business owners wish to have a stylish office equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, but this is hard to get, especially for startups and small businesses.
With the burden of paying the upfront cost and the monthly rents, the journey becomes hard. However, there are methods that businesses can adopt to cut costs. While trying to reduce costs, you should not forego quality. As a business owner, there is a need to find a way to reduce costs while renting a new office space. Whatever opportunity you have to save money, we recommend that you exploit it, and this article will show you some ways to save costs.
Read below… …
1. Choose the Right Layout
Having the perfect office layout will help you eliminate space wastage, which results in unnecessary expenses. Modifying your office layout is all about utilizing your workspace efficiently. When renting an office space, getting the right layout is as important as getting the right amount of space.
An office space of 3000 square feet may not be the same as another office space of 3000 square feet. Having a good layout helps you maximize every space you have, and every smart entrepreneur puts in enough effort into planning the layout of his office. If possible, hire the services of a space planner before starting your search; this will help you identify the perfect size and layout that suits your business needs.
2. Find A Fully Fitted Rental Office Space
It is quite tasking to bear the fitting out cost of an office space in Singapore because it is expensive. Though most office space landlords rent out their offices in bare condition, proper planning and hiring of a commercial property agent will help you find an office space with an outgoing tenant agreeing to leave behind the fit-out upon vacating. With this, you stand a better chance of getting a basic fitted out office, which in turn saves you a great deal of money.
However, you must bear in mind that flexibility in selecting floor levels, locations, buildings, and furniture quality is imperative. This is because fitted out offices are always in limited stock and in high demand
3. Find Out If the Floor Area Includes Sharing Of Corridor Space
Some office buildings in Singapore require tenants to share the corridor space, and some rental spaces are 100% usable. In consequence, it is important to ask the agent if the office space you are inspecting requires you to share the corridor space with the neighboring tenants. Assuming tenant is required to share corridor space on the same level, you will pay more because the usable space you own will reduce after excluding the corridor space.
For instance, if a tenant rents an office space with 2500 square feet floor area, and the landlord’s policy demands that corridor space will be shared, the 2500 square feet will be inclusive of corridor space. This is usually 10% to 15% of the total floor area quoted in the contract.
To this effect, the tenant will be getting about 85% to 90% of the floor area he is renting. Therefore, tenants should consider the landlord policy while searching for an office space. In the event the rental rate similar to the comparable buildings that do not require corridor space sharing, then you could be overpaying.
4. Engage The Service Of A Tenant’s Rep
A tenant representative helps you find office spaces that meet most or all your requirements. Apart from recommending the best office space that meets your specifications, an experienced office rental tenant representative is meant to help you negotiate the best deals and terms. In return, you get to save some amount on the rental cost.
Moreover, you do not bear the cost of having a tenant representative; the landlord or the landlord’s broker upsets the bill. This is a win-win situation for you because you increase your chances of renting an office space that is ideal and, at the same time, saving cost.
5. Integrate Hot-Desking Concept To Your Office Design
Let’s say you are renting an office space in bare condition with plans of renovating it to suit your business needs. To save cost, we recommend that you add a hot-desking zone for your marketers whose jobs are in the field.
Also, you can utilize hot-desking if some employees have flexible working arrangements, which involves working from home on certain days of the week. This can help you save money because the number of needed work stations will be reduced.
6. Sublet Unused Space Or Desk
Most times, this strategy works like magic because there are a lot of individuals in need of temporary office space for their business operations. With this, you can cover some rental costs. As a business owner with growth plans, you may rent an office space that is larger than required, and you may need a year or two before filling up that space. Subletting the extra space generates additional income for you. With the money, you can take care of certain business expenses.
7. Adopt Open Plan Layout
Another effective means of saving costs in office space rental is by adopting an open plan layout. open plan layouts are designed without partitions, which means that everyone works in a large room with different rows of workstation. When there is a meeting or a group discussion, the manager may decide to sit with his team mates or in a small cubicle. With this, you spend less in the fitting out while having enough space to accommodate more workstations.
8. Reduce Furniture Dimension
Rather than adopting the typical large work station, purchasing work desks that are in sync with your employees’ needs helps you save space and costs. With the existence of the Internet and technological advancements, most companies do not need work stations with large storage drawers. Files and documents can be converted to a digital format and uploaded to cloud storage. Therefore, if you have been planning to buy those big cabinets, we advise that you go for modern options.
9. Look Out For Shared Facilities In The Building
At some point, you may need to host a training or increase manpower for a few months project. Renting an office space with a serviced office in the same building will help to save costs rather than creating extra work area for ad hoc projects team. If shared facilities like function rooms or training rooms exist in the building, it helps you strike off the cost of renting extra space for your manpower development or in-house trainings.
10. Start The Search Early
The time you should spend in search for an office space is largely dependent on the size of your business. If you run a small business, you should take at least three months to source for a new office space. Medium-scale businesses should dedicate about 6 to 9 months for their search, and large-scale businesses should take proper time (about a year) to the search for the office space and evaluate every step before moving. Adopting this strategy gives you enough time to select the ideal office space at the best rental rate.
11. Consider Business Park Office Space
Business Park spaces in Singapore are created specifically for high technology, research, and development (R&D) business as well as high value-added and knowledge-intensive activities. Therefore, the park is suitable for companies involved in data science, information technology, electronics, telecommunications, development and testing, product design, health care device production, back-end operation, technical support helpdesk, and service centers.
So, if your business is within any of these sectors, moving to any of the business parks will be helpful towards saving costs. You will be saving around 50% of the rent compared to renting an office space in CBD, Singapore.
12. Consider Renting Two Offices
Assuming you own a business in any of the sectors in the aforementioned point and you wish to maintain your CBD office space because of the prestigious business address, you can move that business to the park while maintaining your corporate office in the CBD. This would help you save rental costs. Also, you can sublet a part of the corporate office since you won’t be carrying out most of your business activities in that location.
Another option to explore is situating your corporate office in a premium building and housing the subsidiaries in an older office building nearby. The rent difference between the two buildings can be as much as 50%.
13. Test Fit The Space Before Signing The Lease Contract
We recommend that you work with an experienced commercial renovation contractor. Hiring his services will help you test fit the space to ensure that the office will be suitable for your business activities. Getting a CAD drawing from the property owner will help him perform his job better. Adopting this strategy eliminates the costly mistake of renting an office space with the wrong size for your business.
14. Consider Serviced Offices
Most startups face a lot of uncertainties, and one of the ways to kickstart your business on the right footing is by renting a serviced office space. Although there are plenty of unfurnished and furnished office spaces on the market, you might feel attracted to rent an office in bare condition because of its seemingly low cost.
However, when you start renovating and furnishing, you will find out that the initial investment is enormous. Serviced office spaces offer you everything such as furnishings, administrative supports, and infrastructure. All you need to do is negotiate a good deal, and you can begin your business operations. This is a significant way of saving money.
We are convinced that our guide above has equipped you with the right knowledge of saving costs when renting an office space. You can engage the services of office real estate experts within our network and this will help you find the best affordable options that suit your needs.
About Office Finder Singapore
Office Finder Singapore is the trusted resource by businesses when finding commercial real estate in Singapore. We offer comprehensive and up-to-date office space listings together with the information needed and professional expertise that help businesses move confidently throughout their business journey in Singapore.
If you’ve needed to find an office space for your new business, check out our list of office spaces for rent in Singapore or let us recommend an office real estate agent to assist you.
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