3 simple steps to help save you money when renting office space.
1. Make sure you search the whole market
There are currently over 600 office suites available to rent in Manchester City Centre. Most are offered to let by the landlords through their appointed letting agents. These are the firms whose logos you see on ‘To Let’ boards which are often attached to office buildings.
However, around 80 of the 600 suites that are currently available are not being marketed by landlords. Instead, these suites are available through the existing tenant who for whatever reason needs to get rid of its lease liability before its natural expiry date or break option date. They would normally seek to do this by securing a sub-tenant or assigning the existing lease to a third party.
The distinction between “landlord space” and “tenant space” is important because the terms that can be secured on “tenant space” are usually far more attractive than those available on “landlord space”.
The challenge for tenants looking for new space is that landlords and their agents don’t usually want you to be made aware of “tenant space” as it competes with their own offerings and results in them achieving lower rents. From a tenant’s perspective however, “tenant space” can represent outstanding value for money as it is often already fitted out and available on highly flexible terms. In some extreme cases, fully fitted “tenant space” can still be secured rent free for the duration of the sub-lease.
Remember, most lease agreements prevent tenants from advertising the availability of their space so you are unlikely to physically see it or find it listed on Rightmove or a similar website. The only way to ensure you get to see everything that is currently available including “tenant space” is to employ a specialist to conduct a property search on your behalf. This might cost a few hundred pounds but it will save you far more in the long run in terms of your own time and the additional options it will reveal to you.
2. Stay calm and carry on
In spite of the hype about Manchester’s office market, there are still plenty of opportunities available. So do not panic and make sure you go through a methodical selection and shortlisting process. This way, you will encourage competition between vendors seeking your business as a tenant, not the other way round. This should pay dividend when it comes to the incentives and the lease terms you are able to negotiate. Once again, employing a specialist adviser will help you to save time and money as they know what represents good value and what lease terms ought to be achievable.
3. Measure the floor area
You would be amazed how often the floor area that is quoted by a landlord is an over-estimate. In my experience, it always pays to have this fundamental detail checked by a surveyor before you agree the annual rental figure.
Also, in any terms that are agreed, make sure the floor area is calculated on a Net Internal Area (‘NIA’) basis in accordance with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Code of Measurement Practice (2007) 6th edition. Avoid at all cost any reference to the International Property Measurement Standards or ‘IPMS 3 – Office’ as these always result in a higher measurement which would of course, favor the landlord not you!