TheCountOfNowhere Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Does anyone have any knowledge of renting a serviced office ? Any hints/tips or pitfalls to avoid ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Bowman Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Does anyone have any knowledge of renting a serviced office ? Any hints/tips or pitfalls to avoid ? From personal experience a bit of a rip off on ancillaries so be careful re phone costs etc. Access to the building can be a problem so check opening hours. A more amiable solution I have used is to see if there are any of your local contacts have a desk or two, you get all the advantages often at a minimal cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankside Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 The company I worked for rented a serviced office in London. We only used it a few times a month so it really didn't justify it's cost. Some service providers such as Regus have business lounges around the country which have work areas, kitchens etc which you can use (any location) for a monthly fee and also offices you can hire by the hour (Ooh err We found that we could get some Gold cards that would usually be £35 per month per person for free whihc gave us entry to the lounges and if we needed private space we could rent the rooms with a small discount. I have also noticed some community and other not for profit organisations rent rooms out to local business at a decent rate. That seems to have worked for us (although I do appear to be storing lots of stuff in my house these days!) Hope that helps Bankside Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gigantic Purple Slug Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Does anyone have any knowledge of renting a serviced office ? Any hints/tips or pitfalls to avoid ? They do tend to be quite expensive. You need to think about what you want the space for. Let's say you want to start a business and want to present a more formal environment to your customers than inviting people into your kitchen. You could do a virtual office to give the impression of a business, then simply hire out a room in your local business centre for meetings with clients when required. This would be much less costly than hiring out a room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Bunny Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Work from home and use a Virtual office, if you can. Dirt cheap but gets you the s*****y address. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Bunny Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 HAHA the word I write, that was blocked, was sw4nky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 (edited) Work from home and use a Virtual office, if you can. Dirt cheap but gets you the s*****y address. Which is what I do, but I guess if you have employee's you might not want them working at your home Edited July 28, 2014 by aSecureTenant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedro2706 Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Avoid if at all possible as they are generally very expensive on all fronts. See if you can locate a localbusiness with spare offices they will licence to you-I've done both & its much more effecient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyres Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 I was going to suggest work from home and conduct all your meetings from a hotel, but just saw this http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/businessman-charged-75-for-three-small-bottles-of-water-in-london-hotel-9633762.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
200p Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Is it feasible to live in an office? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonguest Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 (edited) Is it feasible to live in an office? YES! I know someone who, short of funds and on low income, did exactly that for just over a year! Had to 'lie low' and be very discreet....but no one suspected anything and he got away with it and saved a fortune on regular rent/council tax/greatly reduced 'deposit'/etc. By about half way through the year in this makeshift 'studio flat' he had made it quite cosy/comfy. Off the top of my head, from what I recall, he ended up paying only about 40% of what regular residential rents in the same area were. Edited July 28, 2014 by anonguest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeepLurker Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Work from home and use a Virtual office, if you can. Dirt cheap but gets you the s*****y address. "If you can"... that should be in bold, and underlined From personal experience: I worked for a couple of years on and off from home, no problems with motivation, cabin fever, etc... However, it fell to pieces when my wife took a year off for maternity leave Constant interruptions, "can you hold junior for just a second", etc... Working from home is not for everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 "If you can"... that should be in bold, and underlined From personal experience: I worked for a couple of years on and off from home, no problems with motivation, cabin fever, etc... However, it fell to pieces when my wife took a year off for maternity leave Constant interruptions, "can you hold junior for just a second", etc... Working from home is not for everyone! Thanks for all the post...just need somewhere out the house, for the wife/kid reason, for 2 months think grabbing a desk at a friends company might be the way ahead. Saw £100 a month advertised for local office space but not sure how genuine it would be. Would save more than that not commuting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AteMoose Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 (edited) YES! I know someone who, short of funds and on low income, did exactly that for just over a year! Had to 'lie low' and be very discreet....but no one suspected anything and he got away with it and saved a fortune on regular rent/council tax/greatly reduced 'deposit'/etc. By about half way through the year in this makeshift 'studio flat' he had made it quite cosy/comfy. Off the top of my head, from what I recall, he ended up paying only about 40% of what regular residential rents in the same area were. reminds me of the bloke who build an apartment inside a wall/void inside a shopping centre and lived in it for 4 years... http://www.trummerkind.com/theone/Residences.html http://consumerist.com/2007/10/03/man-builds-secret-apartment-at-mall-gets-away-with-it-for-four-years/ Edited July 28, 2014 by AteMoose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Why not ask local companies? We have lots of spare offices sitting empty... but our landlord (the council) will not allow us to sublet. If it was a one man band, I would just arrange it with all services included! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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