If You Rent Office Space...
 

I am considering moving from home office to renting actual office space somewhere else. I was wondering, for those who've already made this move, if you found yourself more productive? What are other pros and cons you found by making the switch?

I am considering it for a number of reasons, one being splitting up work and non-work time.

:helpme

Easy, renting from anyone is the worst investment anywhere. The cost different of a rental (assuming 500+) is the difference between a 400,000k home and a $750,000 one :) not many can say they have a 350k office and im sure it would look glorious while keeping your eggs at home just in case.

For the kind of work you do I would say why waste your money on an office space, especially if you live alone and can minimize distractions? Making yourself more productive in your own home office is something entirely under your control. Also then you have to travel and waste time and you have to move all your computers, hard drives etc to the office meaning you won't have them at home anymore. Or you have to split them up.

get a home office man, easier

my condo here in san diego has 2 bedrooms, i live alone, i turned one room into an office

its great.. have a nice desk, couch, tv, computer.. i lock myself in here all day while working.. no distractions.. no need to pay for an office.. you can isolate yourself in a room in ur house

Normally I would agree with you wholeheartedly.

However, I am now venturing outside of just porn and into some other businesses (online and off) where I simply need to have an easy place to keep all documents, train people, and so forth. Where it would simply be easier and more productive to have it housed all under one roof, instead of everyone working remotely. Especially in regards to securing work product.

I did convert one of my 4 BR into a 2nd/assistant home office for them to use. However, it just has always felt uncomfortable having these people in my house.

That has worked lovely for the better part of 10 years.

....until you have to start training people, or having multiple people all under one roof to deal with projects and tasks. Then it gets to be uncomfortable for me personally, and I simply need to bring on more people to accomplish what is needed.

As many well know, not everyone can work unsupervised and is a self starter.

I did years ago and found it pretty helpful at first, but after a while, I would stay at home. Found myself sleeping in 30 minutes extra and figured ill just work from home today.

After about 3 months, I was working maybe 2 days a week in my office and the rest at home. Thing that I didnt like was, while with my ex, when it came time to end the day, it was a lot harder to say "i need 10 more minutes" then when I was just in a home office down the hall.

Offices are nice if you want to completely separate home and work, plus have the will power to get up, shower and drive somewhere everyday. Unless you work with people or have employees, id say stay at home. For me, I'd rather just rent office space from my mortgage

That is the point I am at right now, having to train people to do work. Which gets to be chaotic when they work remotely, and I can't say I like having them in my house every day. However, I need to be able to secure work product, and make sure they stay on task. As well as keep all docs and such in a central place.

As for the GF, yeah, that is an issue. When I work from home, I am ALWAYS working. Literally. So I have to listen to that grief. However, I also think I need to structure things out a bit more in regards to time management, and being more productive. Not just myself, but others when they do their work.

I would bet for all the lost hours of efficiency or productivity that it could easily pay for it's self. I still enjoy the freedom of working from my own home office. However, when you start bringing on staff for tasks, it gets to be crazy.

some times you can find condo office spots. small HOA fee and interest rates are so low it might make sense to buy something these days things are super cheap. probably could get a small condo office 75k and payments are going to be 450 month plus maintenance. at least your building an asset.

Hmmmm.... I had never thought of that one. Interesting idea.

There was a point where I thought it'd be best to get myself onto a schedule, and separate personal & business life, so off I went and rented some office space.

For me personally, it turned out to be a waste of money. Even though I had a nice fancy office, I'd still wake up and think to myself, "Why the fuck would I go over to the office? My laptop is 10 feet away!".

Just didn't work out for me, but maybe you're different. I never bothered using the office too much though, and just continued working at home.

Well, having that hard separation of work and pleasure would be nice I suppose. However, you need to keep in mind we are talking about considerations being more than just 'me'. I already have to get dressed most days as it is. I am thinking of the advantages for running multiple businesses.

One centralized place for:
* Keeping track of all businesses, and their accounting.
* Interviewing models.
* Ease of training people I need for random tasks.
* Centralized, secure, network for work product.
* Managing employees and tasks, versus them being remote.

So my personal lifestyle choices are secondary to some of those other considerations. I need to grow on some of the things, which requires bringing on more staff, and to make them the most productive, it seems like this is the best option.

I did it about 8 months ago and it's the best thing I ever did. the split from work/home is great. the only draw back that I have with it is that i have to travel to work. It only takes about 20 minutes each way so it's not too bad. However, to work from home is very convenient. from a productivity point of view, i get more done at the office than I used to at home. too many interruptions both real and imagined.

Best move I've ever made. No distractions and family/friends tend to take your job more serious when you have a office outside your house. They stopped calling me to hang out or run errands or other shit.

I noticed my productivity up 30% when I am at the office.

My thoughts exactly.

People just stopping by my house, including family, and expecting me to just drop everything. The cats, among other things that come up through a business day. I think it would help to eliminate that shit. Plus would help me stay focused. Plus I could do everything from one place. So I do not have to go here to interview some model, then go here to train some part timer, and then here for this and so on. It would all be centralized.

If I wanted to take off early, work from home some day, or whatever I would still have that freedom as business owner. But for all the things I both need, and do, in an average day I think it would simply make it a better choice.

I was curious what others have found moving into office space from the home office. It sounds like for some, it worked out well. Especially if you have more than you to worry about and deal with.

It depends. Will you be alone in the new office? If so, stay at home.

However, if you will be working with a team of people, the creative and fun atmosphere is worth it.

i like rent

I like having a workplace to go to, and since my workplace doubles as a studio, not only can I use it to shoot whenever I wish, I can rent it out to others when I am not shooting, or offer photography/video/lighting classes there as well, so it is a revenue generator.

The only negative part is that I usually have to wear clothes when I'm there... :(

http://www.aussielicious.com.au/imag.../WORK-NUDE.jpg

ADG

pros:
it's your own space, nobody distracts you (e.g. your family)

cons:
you waste time driving to and back :)
it costs money

if you feel the need to move to normal office - go for it with no doubts

I had an office for a while a few years ago, but cause I live in Europe and was working mainly US hours, it was just me and the cleaners at 10 pm at night, so I got rid of it.

If you can swing it so that your office is VERY near your home you get the best of both worlds.

I once had a team of 15 people working on the ground floor of a building while I lived in an apartment above. This worked very well but I finally grew too big and moved my work operation to a strip mall 3 blocks away, I could still walk home for lunch and that was good too.

Nope. I would not be alone.

Once I had the space and network set up, everyone who now is working remotely would be required to be in the office for their hours. They could still have some flexibility in the schedule, but I would have all work being done from central point, and network where it can be easily saved, accessed and monitored.

I was thinking of doing this. Main reason for me was a better work space and higher speed internet connection.

But I've decided to stay put.

So wrong.

With today's still declining real estate values NOW is the the time to rent. Every month you pay your rent, the place you are staying in is losing equity and its your landlords loss.

Commercial real estate will take longer to recover than residential.

Don't try to time buying at the bottom. Buy during the upswing.

BTW for 2257 purposes it is a great idea to rent. Ask any lawyer.

..want to be raided/inspected at your HOME?

I rented office space and it was great. Just knowing I was spending money renting the office made me work longer, smarter and more productive. I ended up making my money back and much more.

Just try to get the shortest lease term possible just in case shit changes unexpectedly for whatever reason. :2 cents:

if you have an employees who work for you, i dont see any reason why you kept them in your house. get an office somewhere and get these lazy guys lost there.

but if you work alone, no need to get an office, better in home

Are they REALLY employees though and not independent contractors? The reason I ask is because if they are ICs and you open up an office and require them to come in there is a good chance of them being reclassified as employees by the IRS.

They are contracted 1099 currently. As for the IRS,... my CPA already checked into that 'employee' status and technicalities, so I defer to his expertise. I do not care either way on their classification, that's what a bookkeeper is for. I simply need a better, centralized, system for training and securing work product.

i loved having a real office, and yes, it has everything to do with working with employees. otherwise, not worth it.

Have you looked into buying a second house? Use it as office space, build an asset and be able to rent it out if the need for an office goes away down the road. Pay attention to zoning issues but that shouldn't be a problem in some areas.

Agreed.

When it's just myself, I prefer to work at home. But there are some real limits when you bring in more people, and have to train them. However, there are those other concerns as well that I previously mentioned with security.

You're really asking about two different things. Having an outside office for yourself can improve your productivity. Or it make you very lonely. Or it can split up your work between home and office so that you'll always be going back to the other to get something you forgot!

All these happened to me when I had an outside office for a year. I've been working for myself since the mid 70s.

But what you're talking about here is setting up a business, with employees where you now have to come up with money for liability insurance, workers comp, and all the rest. If you *require* those workers to come in they become employees (not independent contractors), especially if you keep them for any length of time and "manage" their workflow in any significant way, and that's a lot more than just looking at being more productive in a separate office. More $$$ out of your pocket.

I'd say if your biz is going well enough for you to convert to being an employer with a place of business, go for it.

Consider the additional overhead....

We learned this through trial n error...

Out here in NY (long island area) for example we got a 15,000 sq ft warehouse with offices and the utilies for commerical space were a shocker after we got the inital bills 2 years ago.

I can give you specifics on ICQ if you want

When we had the office, studio and employees it was essential to get it to rented premises.

If you can't get up and go to work like a normal person, good luck finding and keeping a normal job in the future.

working at home office feels much comfortable

Other things to consider in home vs. office
with people coming to your home to work...think about your insurance. If an employee gets hurt in your office, they can sue the "company" but if they get hurt in your home, they can sue you personally. I would consult with your attorney about that as well. The more people you having coming to your house, the more chances of an accident. In this down economy, people are more eager to sue someone they think has money.

Renting is wasting money. With that in mind. Find a older house that can use some repairs in a good neighborhood. Make sure you can run a Home office from it. and Rebuild it to make a nice Home Office. Nice living room. Functional kitchen and even a bedroom. The rest of the rooms are office space.

Yep. My insurance agent went over all this with me a month or so ago at our last 'review'.

A lot of people seem to go this route. The old house that has been converted into office space dealio. You just have to be mindful of the zoning laws, and decide if you want to invest in the remodeling piece.