Most small shops and businesses would love to spend their time focusing on doing what they love. But unfortunately if not working from home, most are spending their time trying to get out of very long leases and spending an absolute fortune on propery lease rentals, often to big businesses. There are far better ways to lease shops and offices if you don’t work from home. Here are a few ideas.
Co-sharing is where several sole traders or small companies pay a little each, to share a beautifully designed workspace, usually with desks to share along with office services (fax, photocopier) etc. All have super-fast wi-fi and most have communal kitchens, telephone answerphones and meeting rooms.
As spaces are shared, know how to make offices safe for visiting dogs (includes indoor plants to avoid). Avoid facing indoor foliage to gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
There are dozens of co-sharing companies now across England, from small indie versions to national companies. You usually just pay one simple monthly fee with no set-up costs or ongoing lease contracts, and are free to leave anytime. You can go for the full works (using the office most of the time) or just pop in for a couple of hours each week to use the office facilities (note that most libraries let you do this too if you sign up – you can then just work from home and go to the library to use their printers as and when you need them, for just a few pound a week).
Let’s take a look at an example in London (remember rents here will be way more expensive than other co-working spaces), but they are good examples, to compare normal office rents in the capital:
In Camden, one company offers a private lockable office with erganomic chairs for just over £500 a month. For this you receive 24/7 access to a kitchen and relaxation space, phone booths and meeting rooms. Fully-furnished, these spaces are within walking distance of 2 tube stations and include cleaning and business rates, and no more than 3 months contract. Printing is included, under a fair use policy. If you wish to co-share, the price dives to £350 a month (or £6 per hour on a pay-as-you-go basis).
A quick look on Right Move for commercial rental property in Camden brings up 94 properties. The ‘lowest prices’ are around the same at £500-ish a month but that’s simply for some storage space. There is one small office but it’s a blank canvas so you’d have to buy all the furniture and other stuff yourself. The next property jumps to around £830 which again is unfurnished.
To get anything close to a co-sharing space is going to set you back around £1000 a month (almost double) and likely have no included services like printing, nor being able to brainstorm with like-minded colleagues. These properties all tend to be measured in square feet (but of course your happiness and success is likely to do more with the ambience, location and facilities, rather than how big the office is).
Ethical Property is a unique company that uses investments to buy and refurbish beautiful buildings, then rents them out at affordable rent on flexible leases to ethical businesses and charities. It only has around 10 buildings nationwide, but there’s nothing to stop similar investment companies starting up, as food for thought.
Every building is powered by clean energy and uses low-energy lightbulbs (with photocopiers switched off at the end of each day). There are buildings from Bath to Bristol, Mancester to Sheffield and Oxford to London. The properties include a beautiful old Georgian building (which houses indie shops and market stalls), a stunning art deco building, a Grade iI listed building, an award-winning eco workspace and a London workspace mix of serviced shared space with private offices (a short hop from two tube stations). There are even buildings refurbished from an old music hall, and shoe polish and cutlery factories!
Co-Living Spaces takes co-sharing of workspaces to the next level, by blending living and working space together. This is a hybrid idea (this example is in East Sussex) that offers flexible live/work space for working professionals. You then combine nice living and working space, all beautifully designed in one rent.
All bedrooms have private bathrooms and properties have bespoke kitchen diners with private landscape gardens.
But rather than just ‘sit on your bed’ to do your work, you can then go to the communal office, which is more like a high-spec communal workspace with all mod cons and support for each other to bounce ideas off, or work in peace.
rent out unused parking spaces
If you have any outdoor space (or garages) on your rented (or owned) business premises, check the lease and then consider renting out the space when unused via JustPark. This means that rather than people paying big companie to park their cars on visits (or if leaving cars say if they go away) they can park them in your unused space. This is a great way for small companies that only work Monday to Friday to make passive income at weekends, and a good way for small hotels with car parks to earn extra income in low season. If you have that empty space doing nothing, why not earn some money, give others a more budget-friendly option to park their vehicles and keep money circulating within the community.
Local councils can also make use of the app (there are often hundreds of empty spaces at weekeneds). Some parking space owners earn up to £4K passive income per year. Just think how much money councils could earn if they rented out unused spaces, for money to invest in walkable communities and litter clean-ups. Renters save around 30% on average and some also rent out EV charging spaces.
