Step 1. Look at apartments
Step 2. Decide which one you like best
Step 3. Write a deposit check and sign the 2 page lease

I wish it was that easy! Here are some of the ways leasing an office space is different:

1. Your office lease is often 40+ pages long and needs to be negotiated and changed to be fair.
2. It takes 1-6 months of work to find and negotiate an office lease.
3. Your office lease can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars… definitely something worth giving serious attention.
4. You may completely renovate your office to your exact specifications which can be a lot of work and money.
5. You will be making a 3-5 year commitment to pay rent.
6. If you spend all your time managing the office location & negotiation process yourself you are loosing time you could be earning money focusing on your business

The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 4.5 percent in
February 2007 to 4.1 percent in February 2008.

Higher oil prices continue to help the state’s oil and natural gas industry.
The state’s mining industry ranked first in job creation, followed by the
leisure and hospitality industry, construction, professional and business
services, and education and health services industry.

All Texas metro areas except Beaumont-Port Arthur experienced positive
February-to-February employment growth rates. Odessa ranked first in job
creation followed by Midland, Waco, Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, and
Longview. Midland had the lowest unemployment rate February 2008 followed by
Odessa, Amarillo, Lubbock, and College Station-Bryan.

Click here to view the report. <http://recenter.tamu.edu/econ/>

AUSTIN (Austin American-Statesman) - Vacancies are rising in the Austin
office market and are expected to continue ticking up amid a glut of new
space and heightened caution among tenants who are wary of the national and
local economies, experts say.

Citywide vacancy rates increased to 16 percent compared with 11.8 in the
first quarter 2007. Rents went up to $26.43 per sf, up from $23.28 a year
ago.

Class-A vacancy rates climbed to 15.9 percent, up from 9.4 percent last
year. Rents rose to $29.90, up from $26.19 a year ago.

Of the 651,791 sf of newly built, available space in the first quarter, only
a little over 100,000 sf is leased.

Charlie Hill, a senior vice president with Oxford Commercial, expects
vacancies to slowly continue to rise as more than 2 million sf of new office
space gets added this year amid slower leasing activity.

The average B Class suburban office building in NW Austin is running about $24.00 with all bills paid. Could you justify paying almost double the amount of rent?

Location pertains more to retail space than office space but location does matter a lot. It drives me nuts when a manager from out of town makes decisions about what is the ‘right’ location for their Austin team based on price. They end up leasing in a location where EVERYONE has to commute and NOBODY likes it…except for the smart manager of course.

Things to consider about the location/price/quality decision with your next office space.

1. Commute Times: More often than not, the office ends up closest to the decision makers home. While being the boss should have it’s perks, it should not be the biggest criteria in determining your location. Keep in mind where your employees live and where they want to be. Long commutes to and undesirable part of town will reduce the number of hours worked, efficiency and moral– all of which have a direct effect on your bottom line.
2. Image: The quality and location of your office may be more important to your customers and employees than you think. Last thing you want is to save $5,000 a year in rent and lose a $60,000 a year client.
3. Employee Retention: If you move your company too far away from your current location you will probably loose a certain percentage of your workforce. This is more likely in lower income workers but hiring and retraining is very expensive.
4. Recruiting: In Austin’s competitive market place, many skilled workers have many choices of who to work for. We have many clients (especially high tech and gaming companies) who see their office space as a recruiting tool. When all things are relatively equal, they want the recruit to feel that they are going to work for the best company. Class A office space is not cheap but might just make the difference in staffing up for important projects and meeting deadlines.

Our Austin vacancy rate city wide is still healthy but in order to fill up a brand new project you need 5-10 year leases with tenants who want to take whole floors or buildings. Rumor has it, there are not a lot of those type of tenants looking around the market right now.

We think the existing Class A and B market should remain fairly stable because 2nd generation spaces can be carved into much smaller chunks and can be easily occupied by a wide range of companies for shorter terms.

An experienced office tenant rep. broker knows the market rates, trends, landlords and can guide you to the best deal.

2. Experience

Knowing how the lease process works can save a lot of time and headaches. A good office broker will know what deals can be made and how to avoid potential pitfalls during the leasing process.

3. Relationships

Your office broker can use his ongoing relationship with the landlord’s broker to smooth over difficult situations that may arise. The landlord may be more flexible when he is dealing with a broker that he/she will be working with next week, month and year. A single tenant only represents one transaction to the landlord where a office tenant rep. broker will bring a lot of tenants to their building over time.

4. Expert Knowledge

When you don’t know the rules, terminology or current market rates you can get taken advantage of. When a landlord is dealing with an experience office tenant rep. broker, they know that they need to play fair or loose the deal to another building.

5. Competition

Our broker only represent tenants. What that means is that we have no loyalty to any building or landlord. When we represent you out in the market, landlord know that we will be showing you ALL the other options. This increased competition and knowledge that we bring to the table means that the landlord has to be aggressive and fair to win your business.

January 27-February 2, 2008

• This week there are 10,185 active residential listings compared to 7,640 in the same week a year ago. (33% increase)
• New listings up 57%
• Pending sales down 51%
• Solds are down 24%
• New listing average price increased 5.08%
• Sold average sale price increased 11.61% $252.207

This info was provided by Roxanne Watson with Alamo Title (roxanne.watson@alamotitle.com)

http://www.urbanaustin.org

Do we growth rate to absorb all of these? How many projects will actually get built?

KXAN NEWS

Updated 8:30 p.m. CT, Fri., Nov. 30, 2007

As real estate markets across the country report record numbers of foreclosures, national real estate experts said there’s still money to be made in Austin.

Now may be the time to look towards up-and-coming neighborhoods, such as South Congress. Friday on The Today Show, a national real estate expert said Austin was the number one up-and-coming place to purchase real estate and specifically SoCo.

One sign of an up-and-coming neighborhood is the conversion of an old warehouse to lofts, and one part of SoCo is certainly seeing that housing development happen.

Real estate expert Barbara Corcoran highlighted SoCo, because it’s just across the river from downtown, and with an eclectic mix of people, it fulfills the slogan “Keep Austin Weird.”

She said the combination of quirky and trendy shops make it a great place for nightlife. Corcoran admitted that SoCo might not be the ideal spot for families, but she said it is a good place to make money.

“Old ladies on park benches are a good sign? I’ve seen it over and over again. You have a ghetto area, where no one sits on a park bench. Suddenly, old ladies are there, so if it’s safe enough for them, then it’s safe enough for you to put your money into,” said Corcoran.

KXAN Austin News spoke to people who live in the SoCo area who said they feel like the up-and-coming aspect of SoCo has already passed.

Besides new housing, what makes a neighborhood an up-and-coming spot? A neighborhood has to re-invent itself and folks moving in will be younger than people moving out. If you buy early, then when you sell a few years later, you should make a significant amount of money. Corcoran also said a way to spot an up-and-coming neighborhood early is to watch coffee prices. If a price for a cup goes from $1 to $1.50, then you know real estate prices are going up as well.