Relocation & advice on renting a premises

[chickenlady]

Good Morning. I am relocating from the sunny northwest to Buckinghamshire. I've run my little ecommerce business from an old barn on my residential premises but as we are moving into a rental, this is not possible so I am looking for premises. I need somewhere dry and vermin-free but only about 500sqft. I have - briefly - considered B&M but I don't know the area so it would just be a guess that I can't risk.

I have looked daily on :
Rightmove, Zoopla, Propertylinkestatesgazette, boxpod, novaloca, primelocation, gumtree, onthemarket, various local commercial property agents websites - have I missed anywhere? Commercial estate agents really do not do useful brochures.

What kind of price should I be looking at? I know it is not easy to say exactly, but the prices they are suggesting on these sites seem very high - one bloke wanted £1250pcm for a double garage. Is that reasonable? It seemed very unreasonable to me but he said it had 'everything' included. Prices seem to range from about £8/sqft for a hovel to £28/sqft for a 'serviced office'. I just want a space!

Is the quoted price the price I should pay? I've read through relevant threads and I think the answer to this is no but how much should I reasonably be expecting to lower this by?

Apart from the rental cost, I have to factor in a 'service charge' which may or may not include buildings insurance; electricity; rates (I think this should be covered by Rates Relief); phone; gas if laid on; water/sewerage; alarm. Then apparently there is a roughly £350 charge for references and then I have to pay the lessors legal fees (as well as my own) too.
Have I missed anything?

I don't really want anything long term - no more than a year really - so I am wondering whether I should be looking at a month-by-month thing? I think there is a premium on that but it seems to avoid potential repairs/dilapidation costs - is that correct?

Sorry - this is really long - but I know there are experts out there who can point me in the right directions.

 

[WaveJumper]

Well I wish you good luck with this quest if Buckinghamshire is anything like here in Essex trying to find good premises is like trying to find a needle in a haystack and when you do its not cheap. One suggestion would be to have a walk (or drive) round your local area are their any empty retail units that would suffice all be it on a temp basis or larger units where you think people might have extra space / floors they not using in which case they maybe happy for a little extra income. Please what ever you do just make sure you take proper advice before signing any form of lease. best of luck with your search

 

[Mark T Jones]

I may have missed somethig, but what precisely will the premises be used for?

my initial thought is that there will be a lot of shared space becoming available, if sharing will work?

 

[chickenlady]

I may have missed somethig, but what precisely will the premises be used for?

my initial thought is that there will be a lot of shared space becoming available, if sharing will work?

I need space for stock, picking and packing, a cutting table, office type stuff. I've been offered a shared space but it was with a call centre-type environment and I just could not see how it would work for either of us. The premises were a bit big for me but the location was ideal and in time would have allowed customers to visit. Unfortunately the price matched the size.

I could see how shared space could work for a similar sort of pick and pack business but that wasn't it.

I've not moved yet - that's supposed to happen next week. It took a couple of months to find residential premises. I'm finding that almost everything I could be interested in commercially on the property websites has already gone when I've enquired. Which is frustrating to say the least.

 

[Mark T Jones]

A little more complex then!

Sometimes tere are council enterprise units.

 

[chickenlady]

I used to work for a Council - debt collecting for their Estates dept - so I thought of council premises but if they've got any, they are sure good at hiding them - absolutely nothing on any of the websites I've looked at. I'll keep trying.
Thank you for your help.

 

[WaveJumper]

Interesting can't believe I am going to suggest this but do a search on FB market place I just did and throw up quite a lot of results

 

[chickenlady]

Interesting can't believe I am going to suggest this but do a search on FB market place I just did and throw up quite a lot of results

What search terms did you use? I'm not having much luck and wonder if I'm asking the right question.

 

[WaveJumper]

What search terms did you use? I'm not having much luck and wonder if I'm asking the right question.

I tried:
Commercial space to rent
Storage space to rent

 

[WaveJumper]

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-to-let/property-40500612.html
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-to-let/property-73790933.html
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-to-let/property-88416397.html

Might be worth checking this website out:
https://propertylink.estatesgazette.com/retail-for-rent/buckinghamshire

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Gumtree can be good for finding the odd gem but you do have to keep looking as they don't come up that often and do get snapped up fairly quickly. Talking to other business owners in the area can also lead to a few discoveries that have not been advertised.

My tips would be:
Avoid shared spaces like the plague, especially shared toilet facilities.

Check the lease before agreeing to anything as they can range from complex to over simple.

Get in writing (via email is easiest) any pertinent information you can. For instance, after I moved into my latest office I found a week later the lady living upstairs has a dog which has been turned a blind eye to by the landlord. I also found out one of my other neighbours is a drug dealer and a well-know nuisance tenant. Both these facts were known but undisclosed at the time.

Take photos when you move in too. Landlords tend to have sketchy memories.

Talk to the previous tenant if you can, he/she moved out for a reason and it may differ from the official story.

 

[ethical PR]

I need space for stock, picking and packing, a cutting table, office type stuff. I've been offered a shared space but it was with a call centre-type environment and I just could not see how it would work for either of us. The premises were a bit big for me but the location was ideal and in time would have allowed customers to visit. Unfortunately the price matched the size.

I could see how shared space could work for a similar sort of pick and pack business but that wasn't it.

I've not moved yet - that's supposed to happen next week. It took a couple of months to find residential premises. I'm finding that almost everything I could be interested in commercially on the property websites has already gone when I've enquired. Which is frustrating to say the least.

Just get a bigger flat