Affordable Office Space

[adesigner]

Hi all,

New to the forum. I am in the process of looking into the costs of a start-up business.
Unfortunately (and rather annoyingly) the terms of my shared-ownership home prevent me from running a business from home, I don't particularly want to move because I am happy with my appartment and have only been in it a couple of years.

Therefore my only option seems to be renting some kind of office space. I have looked locally and the cheapest I have found is around £150/month incl. rates , electricity etc.
I do have personal savings which I could use to pay for the 1st year or so but I still feel it seems like alot of expenditure for a sole-trader start-up.

Are there any grants available to start-ups relating to office space?

Any other options or advice would be much appreciated.

tia,

A

 

[jacobc]

Hi A,

Not sure about grants etc but Regus (and a few others) do what is called "Campus Office space" whereby you can rent a desk and depending on the location and contract length you may be able to get something within / close to your budget.

Cheers,

Jacob

 

[adesigner]

Hi A,

Not sure about grants etc but Regus (and a few others) do what is called "Campus Office space" whereby you can rent a desk and depending on the location and contract length you may be able to get something within / close to your budget.

Cheers,

Jacob

Thanks for the advice Jacob. I have looked into Regus, they do"Day" and "part-time" desk space which would be absolutely perfect and affordable but unfortunately they dont have any offices particularly local to me.

Any other feedback appreciated.

 

[Josh_Farmer]

Thanks for the advice Jacob. I have looked into Regus, they do"Day" and "part-time" desk space which would be absolutely perfect and affordable but unfortunately they dont have any offices particularly local to me.

Any other feedback appreciated.

evans easy space do this im sure

 

[BrimstoneConstruction]

Hi A,

We have desk space available in Kennington SE11 4QE, from £200/month which includes broadband, WC and Kitchen facilities ect.

Cheers,
Dave.

 

[businessfunding]

Beware of 'add ons', particularly with the big boys like Regus.

I woud suggest, with caution, that you consider starting from home (perhaps with an external mailing address,. The covenants are really intended to cover those types of business which attract delivery vehicles or visitors (particularly night time visitors)

At the end of the day, its a thin line between working from home and running a business.

 

[easiprint]

Rent an address and use that as your business address and have mail forwarded to you. So long as you have no visitors coming to your home, then you will just be working from home, not using it as a business address. £150 per month including rates and electricity for an office space is quite a good price actually, so I don't think you will be able to beat that for an actual office. Renting an address on the other hand will be much cheaper. Just be careful working from home, can be too easy to get distracted and also too separate your work/home life.

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

We provide a virtual office address service if this is something you could consider?

That way you can physically work from your home, but any correspondence relating to the business goes to our address and we forward it on to you (which can be in your own name so we can avoid putting the busiiness name on your mail if you wish).

You can use our virtual office address as your trading address, registered address (if Ltd Co) and on your website, etc. Obviously if you need it to be local then you should be able to find a local virtual office service. Where do you live?

 

[TODonnell]

Suggestions:

1. Your lease may simply prevent you running a business which is likely to cause nuisance to your neighbours and/or cause the council to want to change its registration of the premises to business use e.g. one with a lot of foot traffic, smells, noise etc.

I don't think it stops people running a 'quiet' business like a one-man ecommerce one from the spare room.

2. Search on "desk space yourhometown" on sites like http://www.gumtree.com That's if you need physical space outside the home, for your business.

3. A virtual office with mail forwarding.

This is an address that you can put on your stationery and website.
You can also get virtual telephone numbers that forward to your mobile or home number. We offer them, in London.

 

[Stevelyons]

few months ago my friend was facing a same problem, he had his own home office and he need a big space, he stikk using some services from some comany , dont know the details about it but i can share you link, have a look if you are interested. www[dot]msospace[dot]com.
thanks

 

[B&H Digital]

Gumtree have some good office spaces for rent, not the most professional of directories I know, but you may find something interesting

 

[Jet Virtual]

Have you thought of going Virtual? You can use a virtual office, telephone answering service and other virtual services which will cost you a fraction of what it would cost to rent a physical office and pay for phone lines etc.

Best of Luck!

Daniel

 

[TurricanII]

£150 per month sounds very cheap! You could approach complimentary small businesses about renting a room from them, e.g. if you are a web developer speak to IT support companies. You can pick up lots of business this way too.

 

[Talay]

Running the administration side of a business from home is unlikely to be any problem whatsoever whereas dealing in oily spare car parts with multiple deliveries is going to annoy the neighbours.

If you need an office rather than a workshop, I think you will be fine at home.

 

[Talay]

You could use a virtual office but you don't need it unless you need to mask your address, which may be no bad thing. If you do use a VO, look carefully at the add on charges. At mine for instance, (one I use, not sell), there are no forwarding postal add on charges. If you get stung with 50p or £1 a letter, or today with high first class postage charges in any case, even a reasonable volume of post will soon have you racking up charges. A cheaper alternative, if you have one near you is to pick up your post. I cut my postal charges by having them forward post only once a week on a Friday but I get the vast majority of "paperwork" through the web with little physical paper compared to decades ago.